When Becky bitches about how kids have everything handed to them these days, I really want to punch her in the face. Aren’t you lucky, Becky, you out-of-touch cow, that your grandparents bought your family home a hundred years ago, back when a brand-new car cost three weeks’ pay, and your three-story Grecian house with the football field for a backyard was paid off in ten years? How lucky that you and the other Beacon grandchildren have no mortgage, no debt, and no fucking clue how the rest of the world works.
Some of us fought hard to get here, Becky. Some of us fought dirty.
I exhale slowly, pulling into our moonlight-soaked street. Life in Beacon was sheltered and safe for years. People attended the bi-weekly town meetings, chatted over the fence, and watched their spoiled children play cricket on the eucalyptus-scented streets.
So the murder at Black Wood House must have come as one big,goddamn shock. Something about that makes me smile. Makes me glad I’m its new owner even for a little while.
Before we moved here, Joe and I lived in Mitchell, North Melbourne, for two years. What can I say about Mitchell, except it smelled like petrol and despair, the streets were bleached of color, and the whole town just seemedpissed off? Mitchell. God, I hated that town. Took me an hour to drive here to work every day. Sometimes I’d park in the main street of Beacon, breathe in the clean air, and just watch how the other half lived. I’d always wanted to worm my way into an upper-class town like this. I jumped at the chance to buy Black Wood when I saw it on PeakeProbate.com:
BLACK WOOD MURDER HOUSE FOR SALE
I’d watched every episode ofMurder House Flip. I knew I could document all the renovations and make a shitload. It felt like the perfect way to grow my brand:I’m Sarah Slade! I fix people—now watch me fix this godforsaken murder house!
Plus, it was the only chance I had to get into the Beacon market. Yes, it was an impulse buy but a clever one. I was packing my bags before I even looked through the due diligence checklist. And now I’m here, infiltrating the peculiar blood bond of this town like a sickness. Becky visibly grimaced when I announced I’d bought it, and I bit back a gleeful smile.
“Oh…” she stammered. “Well…welcome to the neighborhood, I guess.”
But her eyes said,You’re not one of us. And you never will be.
I drive slowly down the dark street, breathing in the clean night air. Beacon has that aromatic damp-forest smell of the Australian bush. There’s nothing like it. When you wind down the window and gulp it in, you’re breathing in the bright, chiming calls of the bellbirds. The chuckle of the kookaburras on the fiery branches of the bottlebrushtrees. The smooth white trunks of theEucalyptus viminalis,shedding their bark in long ribbons under the summer sun.
I peer down the empty street as the white trunks of the ribbon gums glow in the moonlight. I haven’t seen any neighborhood kids, dog walkers, or even a damn car pull out of a driveway since we moved in last week. Joe keeps saying we should introduce ourselves, but I think the neighbors stay away on purpose. The realtor suggested as much. He’d cleared his throat and said too casually, “Black Wood House is a bit of a sore point in Beacon.” We’d already signed the deed by then. “It’s a fussy old neighborhood, not much new blood.” He winced at the word and blurted out, “You shouldn’t have any real issues with the neighbors, but if you do…”
Joe stared in alarm at the realtor and gave me a pointed look. My husband lives in fear of two things: people finding out about our sordid history and not being liked. I was worried he’d back out now that we were clearly about to be the pariahs of the neighborhood. The realtor must have seen the look on Joe’s face, because he flashed a slimy smile and said, “Well, if the neighbors have a problem, there’s not much they can do about it now, is there?”
I drive past a three-story Spanish revival house where the Whitmans live. Red-clay roof, ice-pink tulips, bubbling angel fountains. This is the pretty house Janet Campbell fled to after the attempted murder at my house.
Don’t kill me. Don’t kill me. Don’t kill me.
She collapsed at their terra-cotta door, and the horrified Whitmans rushed her to the hospital. Forty years later, and the Whitmans are still there. I drive past, tree shadows falling over the car, leaving me in ghostly darkness.
Black Wood House is at the very end of the street. It must have taken Janet two or three minutes, at least, to flee down this road to the safety of the Whitmans’. Longer maybe, since she was barefoot…and her head was smashed in.
Don’t kill me.
I come to the end of the road and take my foot off the accelerator. In front of me, lit up by the headlights, is Black Wood Forest.
I was excited about the idea of living right next door to it. I’d spend Saturday mornings jogging there, I decided. Maybe even the occasional picnic with Joe if we were having a good day. But that was before I saw it for myself. Black Wood Forest is an impenetrable mess of swampy woodlands, charred black pine trees, and carnivorous plants. I parked there after work last week, locked the car, and climbed over the waist-high gate. Immediately the blackwood trees swallowed the remaining light, and the air was so cold, it left me shaking.
Determinedly, I kept walking down that black path, trying not to notice how the hairs on my forearms stood up in clear warning. Somewhere overhead a cockatoo cried out, sounding like a wounded child. I felt like I was walking down the dark throat of some feral animal. I turned around, colliding hard with a mountain gray gum that I was certain wasn’t there a moment ago. Its blackened branches clawed at my face while the bird screamed and screamed, and I had the strangest feeling the forest was trying to grab me and keep me from leaving.
I ran then. Ran all the way back to my car, stumbling over fallen branches and rocks bigger than my fist. By the time I stumbled to my car, it was totally dark, though I’m sure I’d been in there only a few minutes.
Now every time I drive past, it gives me an uneasy feeling.
I stare out the windshield at the forest, and the headlights catch a pair of yellow eyes high up in the trees. Possum, probably. Slowly, I press down on the accelerator and pull the steering wheel to the right where a rusty gate, swallowed by ivy, issues a weak warning:KEEP OUT. Ours is a damn long driveway. When I’m hungover and late for work, it takes twenty seconds to drive the length of it.
I drive slowly, high beams on, scanning for potholes. Rabbits scurry across the front yard, running from the light.
Black Wood House is as still as a painting.
I turn the engine off and stare at it through my grimy windshield.We’ve been here four days, and each day has been harder than the last. Joe and I are struggling to hang on to the excitement of owning our first house now that the grim reality of the renovations has settled over us. Joe thinks the roof is rotting. We weren’t anticipating a total repair, and our bank account sure as hell won’t be happy about it.
I eye the stark land with growing anxiety, gripping the steering wheel tight enough to strangle it. The Whitmans’ is worth $1.5million, I remind myself. Once the renovations are complete,someoneis going to buy this house. Plenty of murder houses have sold without a problem. We’ll double our money. Triple it, even. We’ll fix it all up, and I’ll plant a rose garden out front for a bit of color. Little bursts of coral red and pale peach. Anything to combat the starkness of this dead and grieving land.
I step out into the dark morning, and God, it’s cold. Quickly, I loop my bag over my shoulder, tuck my key under my elbow, and wrap my arms around my waist. I keep my eyes on the shadowy ground, careful not to fall into one of the echidna holes and break my neck. What a way to die.
I unlock the front door and step into the dark. It’s just as cold in here, and I’m not surprised. There’s an icy dampness to this place that not even a roaring fire seems to fix. I hesitate at the fireplace, wondering if I should light it. The fireplace is one of my favorite things about the house. It’s an original Victorian, cast iron, horseshoe shaped, with an art nouveau pattern. I’ve gotten into the routine of lighting a fire when I get home from work. But I’m too cold to bother right now. I walk past, shivering, breathing in the stale air. We can’t get any of the damn windows open, and for such a huge house, there’s a surprising lack of them. There’s only one in the lounge room, north facing and smelling of rot. After years of weathering, the wood’s warped so badly it’ll have to be replaced. For now, we’re stuck in a house that smells like it hasn’t been aired since the murder. There’s a staleness to it like old water.
