Something Inside

Something Inside

just Deirdre.

Something Inside

COPYRIGHT

Copyright© 2019 by just Deirdre.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Printed in the United States of America First Printing, 2019

ISBN 13: 978-1-7339521-1-8 Paperback

ISBN 13: 978-1-7339521-7-0 eBook

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019904115

Published by Deirdre Braud Something Inside

By just Deirdre. www.petitebreaux.com

Cover design by Sam Johnson (Illustrational Pal)

DEDICATION

To my Lord and Savior, I thank you for everything. To my mother, my children, my grandchildren (Nariyah, DJ, Deven, and Shuni) and my significant other: you give me purpose.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One The Furball

The Unknown

The Furball

Chapter Two The Rat

The Furball

The Unknown

Chapter Three The Furball

The Unknown

The Rat

Chapter Four The Furball

The Rat

The Furball

Chapter Five The Poltergeist

Chapter Six The Unknown

The FurBall

Chapter Seven The Rat.

The Unknown

The FurBall

The Rat

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About The Author

Other Books By The Author

Prologue

Fear.

It was the only word he could use to explain the cold feeling traversing his body. He felt it sink into his heart – as a dead weight as the derailed train now careening off the tracks and into the depths of the valley down below. Tamir savored the bitter taste of regret in his mouth and felt tears streaming down both his cheeks. Had he heeded Perciple’s warning not to take the train that evening, he wouldn’t be there. Notwithstanding the fears and regrets that had engrossed his senses, he could not help wondering…

How did Perciple know something like this would happen?

There was no answer for him, nor was there anyone to provide the answers he needed. Tamir’s last living thought before the train exploded was to muse on who Perciple was.

When death came for him, it was fast and painless. One moment, he was there, and the next, gone, enveloped in the heat until there was nothing left but bone and ash.

Chapter One

The Furball

The houses aligned beautifully, with each residence sitting beside its neighbor, balanced at both ends. The houses were everything a middle-class suburban environment should be dignified and not at all nouveau riche. Amid these adjoining townhomes, one stood out – and was at the end of the neighborhood. The residence was donned in deep plum, the picture of gentility.

The garden was a huge one. Some neighbors would call it humongous, which was fitting because of its size and the many unique flowers that Kamille had planted there. Before his death, her husband remarked to her it looked more like an antique flower museum than an actual home garden. Kamille scoffed at this statement – even if the neighbors could not acknowledge the garden’s beauty, she could, and that was enough for her.

Whenever the lights on the sides of the outdoor brick bordering the garden came on at night, it made the most beautiful sight. Kamille reckoned the borders looked eccentric, but eccentricity could be beautiful too. The landscape of bricks sloped downhill, and the two younger children would often race down the path to the road whenever their mother was not looking.

Despite the recent tragedy the inhabitants had suffered, they still maintained their smiles and happiness. Besides the tendrils of mourning, which were still palpable around the house, one could make out traces of the joy of the returning normalcy of day- to-day activities. There was gratefulness for the gift of life.

Such was the state of the house – one side unfinished and vacant, and the other, completed and occupied. Before his death, Tamir had started renovations of the unfinished side, but now they would never be completed. It was on the finished side that the family lived. Lydia was the oldest among her siblings, and she resented it whenever referred to as a kid. It did not matter she was fourteen and a half years old; she believed she had earned the prestige of being considered an adult.

Downstairs in the basement on the finished side, furnished with a pink metal framed daybed and a wooden reading table on the opposite wall, Lydia gleamed with excitement when she saw it. At least, I get to have privacy now, she said to herself. But Lydia didn’t make her contentment known. Instead, she grumbled about preferring a cheery color paint job for her room. The brown was too drab for her.

White would have given the room character, she mumbled to her mum as she tried to hide the bravado, she was more than ecstatic to have a room to herself.

Kamille smiled. White would make your room look like a hospital room, her mum joked.

Lydia disagreed but remained quiet. She didn’t need to tell her mum that the dreariness in hospital rooms painted white came more from the sufferings in hospitals, not the white color of their walls.

Although the townhouse was three levels tall and narrow in width, its windows provided an excellent view of the paved road that ran through the Nottingham suburb. Kamille had planted a small garden next to the pathway beside the house. The roses always struggled in summer, but the most beautiful flowers in the garden were the hyacinths, whose sweet scents would sometimes waft into Lydia’s room – it made her smile in fondness of nature’s beauty.

Lydia’s younger sister, Misty, was a happy ten- year-old. She was full of infectious energy, and unlike her big sister’s room, her bedroom was upstairs. It was the first room to the right corner, neighboring the landing, so anyone walking up the stairs would come right in front of it.

With her thick black hair and bright hazel-colored eyes, Misty was a lovely young girl. She could be reserved when in no mood to talk to anyone, which was more often than the times she was outspoken and a thorn in Lydia’s side.

That morning, Misty was in one of her more spirited moods as she grabbed her school bag and ran out of her room. A moment before shutting the door behind her, Misty paused as she spotted her diary, which she had just started to keep, lying on her pink and white twin bed. She had reservations about keeping one because she had already chronicled a lot of her secrets inside. Misty sighed, then she returned to her bed to pick it up – she thought it best not to leave it out in the open where anyone could easily lay their hands on it.

Misty’s room was a delight: her bed faced the large bay window at the front of the townhouse, through which she could see cars come and go. She loved to listen to the soothing sound of car engines rumbling down the road as she lay on the bed staring at the ceiling and thinking of the many ways, she could escape into one of her dream worlds, like Alice in Wonderland.

She took considerable pride in keeping her room neat; it was her private space, and she loved it when the floors were uncluttered. Kamille found that trait endearing, but Lionel, the youngest child, considered it annoying.

Such a show-off! he would say every time their mother patted Misty on the head for being such a neat little girl.

She let out a gleeful sigh as she scanned the room for the last time. Her glasses, which she always wore, were perched on the bridge of her nose, so she pushed them to a more comfortable position and hurried out to answer her mother’s call.

Come on, Misty, we’re running late! her mother shouted from the parlor, downstairs.

Yes, Misty, what are you doing? Lionel added with a sneer as he carried his bag and dashed out of his room, which was on the same floor as Misty’s room but on the other side of the hallway, with their mother’s bedroom between them. It was the perfect arrangement: it gave Lydia some much-needed privacy downstairs in the basement and kept Lionel and Misty out of each other’s hair.

Lionel was six years old and a handsome boy. He had intelligent eyes, which looked like they could see right into the depth of one’s soul. Lionel had little interest in anything other than making fun of Lydia and playing with his train set, an antique set his dad bought for him a long time ago, and it delighted him. He never tired of rearranging the tracks to suit whatever his imagination concocted.

Lionel! Get down here right this instant! Kamille bellowed. She was amazed by the silly rivalry between her son and her youngest daughter, although she’d appreciated that it was based on nothing but love. She saw it in the way Lionel protected Misty against bullies the last time they were at the park along with the spontaneous protective gestures he showed toward her when he thought no one was watching.

Upstairs, Lionel grimaced on realizing he was wearing the wrong shoe on his left foot. They were running late, and he did not want to push his mum’s patience any further than it had already been.

Coming, Mum! he answered, running back into his room to wear the right shoe. At the other end of the corridor, Lionel heard Misty chuckling. He gritted his teeth and plopped on his red bed shaped like a car to pull the wrong shoe off. He was facing the back of the townhouse