CHAPTER ONE
Not again. Three nights in one week is too much for any normal person, never mind someone diagnosed with retrograde amnesia, and paradoxical sleep exasperated memory problems. I will have a non-alcoholic-related hangover in the morning, difficulty concentrating and headaches galore because of that evil goddess and her thirst for rampant fear-mongering.
I have done this nightmarish dance too many times for it to be considered normal. Yet, with each painstaking step along the cobblestone pavement toward the magnificent gothic revival mansion, with arched windows and stone clock tower, situated on the edge of sculpted cliffs and dense vegetation, I knew, hiding from my innermost fears and craven apprehensions, is not an option.
A full moon, the only source of light, is barely visible through the thick layer of mist. I crept past the old, rusty arbour of gnarled branches and ominous shadows and teetered into the low-walled garden, where long, unkempt grass and dry, wilted flowers snaked through the fine cracks of frost-covered pavers.
The wind howled hauntingly as my body approached the beautifully handcrafted church-style door, the ornate brass handle falling into my fingers. I almost knocked and interrupted the clandestine meeting, but my gut told me to cease fire, to not make it easier for them by giving myself away too easily or too hastily.
Why should I facilitate the root cause of disloyalty and betrayal amongst everyone involved in this quagmire of unrepentant wrongdoers? I do not owe them anything, least of all patience and understanding.
They started it.
They provoked me.
The dramatic blend of Renaissance architecture, coastal picturesqueness and eerie familiarity, which quite literally belonged in the mediaeval times of young noblemen and local dignitaries, is restricted to the public. But the prohibition of unlawful entry will not prevent intrusion. To hell with steel mesh fences, boundary signs and restricted zones. I had to see, for myself, if there was any truth behind the crescendo of vicious rumours that townsfolk whispered under the table when they thought I was out of earshot.
Is it wrong that I pretended to look distracted and feigned obliviousness when pestiferous scandalmongers silently passed judgement when I showed my face in the village? That’s what busybodies and troublemakers are good at, talking shit behind my back as if they know me, which they do not.
My social circle is small. The only women that talked to me around here were the wives of my husband’s golf buddies. My best friends, apparently. Three amazing women with impeccable taste in fashion and a devilish palette for fruity wine and traditional charcuterie.
I never said boo-ba-shit to anyone else.
Not anymore.
I somehow managed to upset the locals when, on the rare occasion, my head was not in the gutter, and I graced them with my appearance, a random shopping trip to the town centre or a flying visit to the supermarket. That’s when people watched fixedly, almost fascinatedly, and resembled volatile ventriloquists as I drifted through aisles.
Of course, I never left the house by myself. Daniel had to accompany me on the terrifying trek from the clifftop to the strip of attractions: bars, clubs and restaurants.
A sky of lights.
If, by car, we travelled further afield, to The Big Smoke, for example, Daniel had to drive. I did not trust myself behind the steering wheel, not after I lost control of the last vehicle and toppled through the air, plummeting downwards to the densely forested ditch of thick smoke and hungry flames.
I was unconscious.
I almost died.
Ishouldhave died.
But someone was watching over me that night, a guardian angel by the name of Jack Ross and his wife, Sabina, both of whom, by all accounts, lived along the lively tourist strip and owned a quirky little apothecary near the back-alley tavern.
I have not officially met Jack and Sabina or had the privilege of extending sincere gratitude to them. If it were not for them, driving past that catastrophic night and noticing the upturned vehicle, I would be dead. They saved my life. They got me out of the burning car before it exploded, dragged my lifeless body to the side of the road and called the emergency services. I was airlifted to the nearest hospital seventeen minutes later.
Unfortunately, I have no recollection of the events prior to the accident or even the wreckage itself. All I know is I woke up in a hospital bed surrounded by medical equipment, bright lights and concerned-looking loved ones.
And what did I do when the stern-faced doctor walked in and explained the severity of my situation?
I freaked out.
Irrespective of how atrocious I looked, with deep cuts, raw bruises and swollen limbs, I was in complete denial about the car accident and harped on about finalising the Halloween party instead. It was my turn to host, decorate the entryway, prepare a spread of simplistic food and arrange wine bottles on the kitchen island.
Daniel was horrified and never spoke for a solid two minutes. He broke down, bless his heart, into a sobbing mess and collapsed in the visitors’ chair, his shoulders hunched forward and his head buried in his hands.
A blubber of medical terminology followed, to which I gawked, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, without the faintest idea of what Daniel and the doctor were trying to tell me.
Never in a million years did I think my husband’s obtuse conversation and the doctor’s clinical evaluation would lead to a neuropsychological assessment and an MRI scan of the brain. In one breath, I am discharging myself from the hospital to go and buy giant pumpkins and carving tools. In the next breath, I am wheeled down the corridor toward the radiology department.
Retrograde amnesia.
A serious blow to the head damaged the memory-storing area of the brain. The last thing I remembered before the hoarse cries of devastation ricocheted through the hospital was ordering glow-in-the-dark spiders and a bottle of fake vampire blood on the internet—an event that took place almost two years ago.
That’s right.
I had losttwo yearsof my life.
Obviously, in spite of amnesia, I know what happened to me the night I drove the car off the road because Daniel explained in detail how the police brought an accident reconstructionist to the crime scene to measure the length of skid marks on the road and determine the vehicle’s velocity at the time of the collision.
I committed two motoring offences.
I drove more than a hundred miles per hour down a dark country lane whilst under the influence of alcohol.
Apparently, I used to be a reckless soul.
As you can imagine, I was shell-shocked by this information. I thought I had the qualities of a sensible driver. I would never get behind the wheel with alcohol in my system or get caught speeding. However, for whatever reason, I acted out of character. Iseeminglytried to be a badass racing driver and almost killed myself in the process.
I should have received an instant disqualification on my licence and got banned from driving, but Daniel, who has an inordinately high level of influence in our community, is a connected individual blessed with the gift of the gab. He is also exceptionally wealthy and can afford the best legal talent. Put a smooth-talking solicitor and bribe money in the same room as bent coppers, and you got yourself a non-existent case file and a get-out-of-jail-free card for the wife.
You could say I escaped punishment, but I would have to disagree. The only person I hurt that night was myself, and as a result, I live with the consequences every day when I stare out my bedroom window, a shell of the person I used to be, wondering why I felt trapped inside another woman’s body.
And thus, here I am, four months after the near-death experience, stressed and traumatised, living my worst life in the dimension of otherworldliness.
I deserved an Oscar for outsmarting the perpetual bullshit that predictably unfolded whenever my head hit the godforsaken pillow.
A gut-wrenching scream brought me back to reality.
There is a spare key under the coir entrance mat. If I surrendered to the nightmare of secrets and lies, pain and love, the key would be inserted in the lock, whether I wanted the door unlocked or not, as the repetition of unanchored uneasiness and mental torture never moved in a different direction. And, like the irresponsible person that I am, I always, without fail, even when in doubt, abandoned the rules of safety standards and common sense because I had this undesired eagerness for knowledge.
And bullshit.
Once I have imposed on the grand residence of cast iron candelabras, bronze sconces, stone slabs, stale gossamer and musty old cellars, I would pause by the entryway of the ancient multifunctional room to admire the carved wooden furniture, wondering about the life and times of privileged nobility whilst improvised peasants and emancipated serfs sequestered themselves in the squalid dwellings of rurality, begging and borrowing, struggling to make ends meet.
Raised voices, denied accusations, and bellicose threats would soon restore silent confidence and beckon fearlessness. If I took another step closer to the slightly ajar door at the end of the majestic hallway, where a faint light illuminated the geometric motif encaustic floor, I would be forced upon the threshold of unforgivable sins and horrific images that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
Foreknowledge is the downside of recurring dreams. You know what to expect before it happens. And that’s why I walked away, with my breath choked in my throat and flutters of nervousness, bordering unconquerable fear, in my stomach, the door shrinking into solidarity blackness.
I was wrong to think ofthemby day andhimby night. I made the decision to trust the man with a jar of stars with my shattered heart long before I acknowledged the signs of deception and betrayal that led to the irretrievability of broken memories.
No good will come from knowing the truth. Ignorance is the greatest gift, the best choice, and saying goodbye to the incurable heartache of yesteryear is the opportunity for the fresh start that I needed to survive, to live life to the fullest, freely and happily, and to the beat of my own drum. I had to get out of here whilst I still had the chance and salvage whatever hope I had left.
The unpredictable chime of the clock tower, with its technological prowess and horological excellence, echoed into the frosty night with a dreadful air of finality. I stopped in my tracks, right by the storm-battered fence, weak-kneed, heavy-armed and dry-mouthed, waiting with bated breath for the personification of nature to appear like an apparition of the water nymph by the misty ruins of the coastal graveyard.
The cadaverous woman in dirty white and sticky red is coming. Not a succession of involuntary sensations goes by where she does not present herself in the impure form of irreversible death and savage vengeance.
But, in this present moment, unlike the other occasions when fight or flight kicked in, I chose mental acquisitiveness over the benefit of disinterestedness and ran away to avoid the premonition of ultimate terror and the burden of imminent death.
I cheated fate, tried to deceive it, so how did she find me? How did she know that I would dodge the pendulum of doom? And why is she determined to torment me? I do not know her or understand why she chose me. Until the diagnosis of parasomnia, I had never met her before in my life. Yet, in the wake of her silent whispers and her beguiling smile, I encountered sleep paralysis, perpetual environments, visual hallucinations, out-of-body experiences, or worse, dead people.
Turbulent waves crashed against the rocky cliffside as impossible dread concreted my feet to the floor. Unable to move a muscle, not even a slight tremor in my fingers, the type of akinesia that burrowed deep into your bones and took your body hostage, I stayed in the shadows of nightfall, with the disembodied voices of unrestrained disbelief and blood-curling incredulousness.
With the subtle scent of sea salt whispering through my hair like a purr of bewitchment, I held my breath and gazed at the cliff edge. In the juxtaposition of inconsolable fear and dissociative hysteria, the pale-skinned woman--her long, blonde hair blowing in the wind, her filthy, blood-stained clothes hanging in disarray, her dirty, mud-caked feet teetering precariously close to the crags of the south--vacillated between life and death as she stared down at the attacking waves.
My eyes squeezed shut.
I refuse to watch, nevermore guilty of observation. If this distraught woman is intent on committing suicide, I will not hang around to bear witness. Her self-destruction is not just unfairly burdensome for onlookers, like myself, but understandably traumatic for anyone ensnared by the grief of someone’s severe depression.
An odd silence settled over the escarpment of The Atlantic Highway, not a fish out of water or a ghoul on land.
Maybe I am safe now.
No, I cannot face the abandoned cemetery of foggy moonlight and eternal rest while she is on the hunt. If I let her find me, she will kill me. Again. For the fifth time this month.
My eyes peeled open.
Emptiness.
The water nymph is gone.
Ready for this nightmare to be over, to wake up and never return, I let out a sigh of relief when suddenly, the chill of someone’s foetid breath on the nape of my neck prickled every inch of my skin with razor-sharp goosebumps.
My heart stopped.
A horripilation of acute fear slithered down my spine.
Pleading with a higher power to intervene and restore the oxygen to my lungs, I turned around, slow and hesitant, and instantly staggered away from the breath-snatching stance of the naked nymph, with the shells of crustaceans coiled in her scraggly hair and a tangle of seaweed dangling from her pendulous breasts. Her wax-like corpse, with eyes the colour of coal tar and lips the texture of viscous liquid, stood still as globs of peeled flesh squelched between the skeletal crevices of her toes.
Panic rasped in my throat. I thought she took life for granted, jumped into the dark depths of the bottomless ocean and freed herself from the burden of life. I thought I had successfully outmanoeuvred the evil bitch.
Acutely aware of my surroundings, I exhaled a ragged breath.
A sharp hiss whistled through the air as she lunged toward me, her scaly fingers, tight to my skin, wrapped around my throat and crushed my windpipe. Her desperate cry reverberated simultaneously with the clock tower.
I felt something warm and wet in my palm.
A beating heart.
Here I stand, with blood on my hands, screaming into the murky regions of the shadowlands.
“Get her away from me!” My terrified voice resounded into the darkness as I fought valiantly with something suffocatingly heavy. “Daniel!”
In rapid motion, my husband, Daniel, is startled out of his sleep. He turned on the bedside lamp and, mechanically charged and systematically aggressive, ripped the duvet off my body. His arm came over my chest protectively, and he pinned me to the bed, forcing me to lay still, to calm down and concentrate on my breathing.
“It’s only a bad dream.” His big eyes, filled with worriment, flickered over my face. “You are safe with me. It’s not real, Olivia.”
Powerful aftershocks rippled across my sweat-soaked body. I glared at the ceiling, trying to get a handle on my rapid breaths, to inhale, exhale, and steady my erratic heartbeat.
How much more did I have to endure before this madness came to an end? Why, when I shut my eyes at night, do I see this woman in my nightmares? Moreover, why does she hate me so much?
A tear escaped the corner of my eye. “I am crazy.”
“No.” His soul-searching blue eyes sharpened. “You are not crazy. Do not talk about yourself like that. I will not stand for it.”
“You know, I am right,” I whimpered, turning my head so that he could not see the shame in my eyes. “I have been anything but myself since I woke up in that godforsaken hospital.”
Daniel recognised the signs of inconsolable overwhelmingness, having witnessed my late-night outbursts many times. His arm withdrew from my chest for me to climb out of bed. That’s where he stayed, mostly wordless, propped onto one elbow and sprawled along the mattress of our ridiculously huge bed. He watched me saunter to the U-shaped sofa by the window.
I loved this part of the bedroom, where the bespoke seating accommodation overlooked the beautiful coastline and the sandy beach laden with old, rustic beach houses.
The window seat has become my favourite part of the house since I got discharged from the hospital. If I am not gazing at the starry sky, at night, with a cup of steamy hot chocolate in my hands and a cosy throw blanket over my legs, I am fixating on the strip, where bright lights danced and tourists caroused.
“Olivia...” Daniel’s voice was a low growl. “You cannot opt out. I need you, remember?”
Grabbing the silk robe with appliquéd lace hem that I had haphazardly dumped on the cushioned sofa before bed, I thrust my arms through the sleeves and stepped into a pair of fluffy bedroom slippers.
“I need you more than you will ever need me,” I said, not having the strength or the courage to look at him. “If anything, I am holding you back. You have barely worked in three months. In regard to your social life? What social life? You have not seen your friends or your colleagues. You have been stuck indoors through no fault of your own.”
“You could not be further from the truth.” He is walking toward me now, his chequered pyjama bottoms hanging loosely by his hips. “Yes, I am on sabbatical, working from home, more or less, but I would rather be here, with you, than in the city, without you.”
We owned a four-story townhouse in Kingston upon Thames, just around the corner from the rise of the skyscraper, where Daniel worked five days a week. He earned more than six figures executing orders in the market (buying and selling stocks on behalf of institutional clients), but the job came with more cons than pros, as he practically lived in the city Monday to Friday to avoid the tiresome commute (Well, that’s how life once operated for him until I crashed the car and gave myself blunt force trauma to the head. I turned out to be a very inconsiderate wife).
Daniel’s typical day in the office lasted from seven in the morning to seven at night, sometimes later, and I would either wait for him at the townhouse, mostly bored, or head into town and waste money on needless purchases. He never came home later than eight, though. And if he did not arrive with a three-course meal in a takeaway bag, he escorted me to a nearby restaurant for exclusive dining.
Yes, I used to travel with him.
Now, I cannot think of anything worse.
“Olivia...” My husband approached me cautiously. “We should talk about this.”
“About what?” My backside perched on the edge of the sofa. “The nightmares? I agree. I should probably be on medication.”
He scrubbed a hand down his face. “Medication will not solve your problems.”
“That’s easy for you to say.” On the verge of a mental breakdown, I waved him off dismissively. “You are not the one being chased around by a vengeful ghost!”
“Olivia, I do not care about the nightmares,” he snapped, and I recoiled on the sofa, not recognising the overt anger in his bulbous eyes. “Shit. I am sorry.” His hands lifted in surrender. “I never meant to raise my voice at you, but Olivia, I am beyond frustrated.”
My throat worked on a tight swallow.
“Look, I can take you to a doctor about the nightmares if you think it will help. Just remember what she said the last time, though.” He crouched in front of me until our eyes were level. “Post-traumatic stress is common for patients with amnesia. Your brain is hypersensitive when you sleep.” When I never replied, he gingerly placed his hands on my knees. “It’s unhealthy to stay indoors for days or weeks on end.”
Yes, I know. “I went to the supermarket with you last weekend.”
“It’s not enough. It would be best if you had some semblance of normalcy again,” he stressed, and I broke eye contact. I am so sick and tired of the back and forth between us. “What about the girls, huh? I know you miss them, especially Hannah.”
Rochelle, Jacqueline and Hannah are the wives of my husband’s golf buddies. And yes, I did miss them. I could not tell you the last time I saw them. Still, they texted in our group chat every day, sending sweet messages, funny gifs and bizarre voice notes. I had yet to respond, though. Maybe I should reach out to them in the morning.
“I am in no rush to get back to the office,” Daniel said, but I could tell by the sad glint in his eyes that the everyday stressors of life were starting to beat him down. “But maybe it could be good for the two of us to relocate for a while. The Royal Borough is our second home. You like it there, at the townhouse. A trip to the city will give you the chance to relax and forget about the accident. I mean, staying here, just down the road from where you nearly died, is taking its toll on you.” He blew out a regretful sight. “Perhaps I never realised how triggering it must be for you, living so closely to the crime scene.”
I could not care less about the scene of the accident. My concern is the water nymph who is hellbent on killing me every time I shut my eyes.
“Olivia.” His lips warmed my cheek as his hands coasted my arms and shoulders. “I can hear your heart beating out of your chest.”
“I am fine,” I lied, ignoring the bead of sweat trickling down my spine. “No, I am not. I am losing it, and lying to you is not going to help either of us.”
Daniel stared intently at me.
“You are right.” My heart swelled as I silently inventoried the man’s striking facial features. “I do need to get back to normal, somehow. I am not ready for the townhouse or the city, but I am willing to start with the girls.”
A smile brightened his countenance.
“Maybe I can host a couples night tomorrow.” It used to be mandatory, where the wives would take turns to host dinner and wine and the husbands would show up, drain the mini-bar and smoke cigars on the balcony. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s a great idea.” His thumb circled my cheek lovingly. “Do you want me to make the call? I can do it first thing in the morning.”
I nodded, grateful for his input.
“Come on.” Interlacing our fingers, Daniel rose to his feet and tried to coax me toward the bed. “Let’s get some sleep. You have a big day ahead of you.”
My stare went to the window as I climbed into bed and got comfortable. Even when Daniel turned off the lamp and slipped under the duvet behind me, his arm curling around my waist, his legs tangling through mine, I could not steer my gaze. I was fixated on the twinkling lights below, pondering whether I would ever be brave enough to face the unknown again.
