She felt a wave of vertigo pass through her and she momentarily forgot what she had been doing. The world around her spun, a mess of colour that she couldn’t piece together. Something white and red, then something that glinted. She’d been standing at the entrance to her bedroom; now she stumbled away to find a place where she could sit down. The hallway was long, and by the time she made her way to the kitchen the dizziness had gotten worse. She practically fell into the chair and then sat as still as she could, closing her eyes against the spinning world, trying to will her mind to stop. She was beginning to feel sick.
After a while, the whirling in her head began to slow, eventually coming to a complete stop. She kept her eyes closed for a little while longer, not wanting to tempt fate in case it started up again. When a few minutes passed without the sensations coming back, she opened her eyes. Late morning sunlight streamed in from the wide kitchen windows, one of which was open. A soft summer breeze flowed lazily through it, and the sounds of birds in the trees that dotted their property came to her from a distance.
It was so peaceful here. She wondered why it had taken them so long to start a life out here in the country, away from the cities they had lived in all their lives; cities which had been dirty, smelly, and cramped. Here, there was space to breathe. The closest neighbour was about ten minutes’ walk, so she no longer had to worry about keeping her voice down for fear of annoying the people next door. Nor did she have them banging on her door to complain about the noise Frank used to make in their basement some nights. Moving here had been such a good decision. It was bliss unlike anything she’d ever known before.
It wasn’t all perfect, though. Almost immediately after they’d settled in, Frank had started spending more and more time in the old shed out back. She’d hoped that the new surroundings would make him want to spend more time with her, that they could spend the evenings on the porch overlooking the wide-open space at the front of the house. But he’d traded a basement for a shed, and then had progressively begun spending all his spare time locked away there.
She sighed, wondering whether he was in there right now, and whether she should go and see him. As she thought this, a strange feeling came over her, as though she had lived this moment before and thought these very thoughts. She knew there was a name for this kind of feeling—something French, perhaps. But she was still feeling sick from her dizzy spell, and so trying to think clearly was like trying to run through waist-high mud. It was odd that the vertigo had struck her now, though. She hadn’t experienced it in years, not since she had been a child, when she’d stumbled on the eviscerated remains of her cat. It seemed it had gotten into a fight with something larger and stronger. Her mother had found her an hour later slumped against a tree, confused and sick.
She shook her head and stood up to move to the sink, hoping that a glass of water would help clear her mind. Something cold and wet touched her leg, and she looked down. Her dressing gown was slightly damp, as were her slippers, and both had bits of grass on them. Odd, she thought. She didn’t remember going outside this morning. As she stood at the sink and filled the glass, she looked out from the window for something to distract her. Her eyes roamed over the garden she had been working on since they’d moved in. So far, she had managed to pull up all the old water-hungry flowers and had then begun planting a range of native plants. It was slow work, and hurt her back if she did it for too long, but she loved seeing it change day by day. Frank hadn’t wanted her to touch any of the area surrounding his shed, and she’d put this down to him becoming a crotchety old man as he aged. She drank the glass of water and began rinsing it out.
Her eyes followed the curve of one of the garden beds, across the space of lawn, and then finally came to rest on the shed. It was an ugly, run-down thing that she had wanted to get rid of as soon as they moved in, but Frank had seemed oddly attached to it and refused to tear it down. She’d given up trying to convince him to do it. He was a stubborn man. As she stared at the shed, she noticed that the door was wide open, and that strange sensation came over her once again. Déjà vu! she thought, her tired mind finally finding the word for it. Then her skin broke out in goosebumps, and an inexplicable fear slithered around inside her chest. She had no idea what was going on.
Suddenly, she remembered going down to the shed earlier that morning. She’d been up all-night stewing about Frank because he’d once again come to bed at close to four in the morning. She remembered being furious and, unable to sleep, had gotten out of bed the moment the sun had peeked over the horizon. She had put on her slippers and dressing gown and marched out into the garden. The dew from the cold night had clung to her robe and slippers as she walked through the grass.
She remembered flinging open the shed door, surprised because Frank usually locked it. She remembered seeing…
‘Oh god,’ she whispered. The water in the sink was still running, but she had forgotten the glass she had been rinsing. All that filled her mind now was what she had seen in the shed. That awful sight, revealed in the amber glow of the dawn.
Like a burst dam, the memories kept flooding over her.
She remembered screaming, then vomiting. She remembered turning back to the house and tripping over the door frame as she came back inside. Hot tears had streamed down her face. She remembered the salty taste of them as they ran over her lips. Her mind had snapped; the sight of what had awaited her in the dilapidated shed had been seared into her mind like the afterimage following a flash of lightning. She remembered passing through the kitchen, her hands finding a knife. She remembered not understanding why it was there in her hands. She remembered walking up to the bedroom and pushing open the door, moving slowly up to the sleeping Frank and—
She shook her head. It was impossible. She was tired, that’s all. Tired. Maybe she had developed an overactive imagination because there was too much peace and quiet here. All she needed to do was go and see Frank right now, and she’d see it was all in her head. Later, they’d laugh about it.
She turned around and moved quickly up the hallway. The door to the bedroom was open and as she moved closer she saw something on the floor, glinting in the morning sunlight as it splashed across the room. She moved closer and felt the dizziness begin to return. Then she saw their white bedsheets stained with something dark.
The horrific realisation finally bloomed in her mind, and she felt a wave of vertigo pass through her. Her mind jammed, and she momentarily forgot what she had been doing. The world spun around her, a mess of colour that she couldn’t piece together, and she stumbled from the room.
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