Little Footsteps

The basement incident:

The days passed very quickly and everything in the great old house of the Parker family continued as usual. Paula saw nothing weird again and, a week after the last incident, she was almost not afraid. Her days were spent in an overwhelming routine because Mrs. Parker didn't let her rest for a minute; she always had some work to give to the girl. It was an endless list of duties.

Paula sometimes used to think that her aunt was determined not to leave her free time, and lately Mrs. Parker was determined to order Paula to create a garden in the front of the house. Paula didn't agree with her because in that desert area nothing grew except spiny bushes and cactus.

"It is in vain," Paula said, "that day I planted these flowers last week and the sun burned them. It is very hot here and there is no shade."

"You didn't put enough water on them. If you don't learn to take care of a plant, then how will you take care of yourself?" answered her aunt rudely, almost without thinking.

Paula frowned. It was an unpleasant and hard-to-digest comment. Mrs. Parker always said those things as if Paula was a teenage girl, but her aunt saw her that way and unfortunately her husband too. Paula's relationship with Mr. Parker remained as unpleasant as ever. Despite the poor communication between the two, the man always made a gesture of bad mood that made her angry and sometimes left a hurtful word floating in the air. The Parkers never missed the opportunity to remind Paula that she was there on the instructions of her psychiatrist and also that they disliked her «careless habits». Paula was shocked when she heard them talk about her. She was not a careless girl! I worked all day like a donkey! She said to herself.

They did not understand her and neither her reasons, that was clear.

"Well, I'm done!" Paula said with her hands full of dirt.

She wiped them on the white apron she was wearing and removed a strand of hair that had slipped to her cheek.

"Did you see that it was easy?" scoffed the woman who was watching her while her niece worked under the intense sun.

Paula looked at her with a frown but noticing that the woman was smiling, so she also smiled. Her aunt had a strange personality that

Paula didn't quite understand.

"I repeat that this work is in vain. Plants simply refuse to grow. It's not my fault," the girl said without giving up as she walked into the shade to shelter from the sun.

The heat was intense despite the fact that it was early that morning and apparently it would be hotter than the previous days where, at lunchtime, only the bugs dared to leave.

Mrs. Parker patted her affectionately on the back.

"You have to be patient, honey. When you insist on achieving something and you do everything possible to achieve it, things end up being as you wish".

Paula smiled, had the impression that her aunt was thinking about other things. That was the first advice she had received from the woman since she lived in that house. The girl hugged her, causing her aunt's affection. When they were alone, they got along. Aunt Parker was warm, understanding, kind and caring, but everything changed when she was in front of her husband, so her character was numbed somewhere in her interior where no one could access.

"I am going to enter the house, I need to take a bath," the girl murmured and shortly after she entered the house through the back door. She walked down the long corridor that led to the lobby, but in the middle of the road she stopped in surprise. The basement door was open.

Since her uncle had discovered her trying to enter the basement, he had placed a lock on the door and since that day, he had the key in his pocket.

Paula advanced to the door with intentions of closing it but suddenly she heard noises.