Chapter One
July Fifteenth, 1926
I'd never layed awake in the vicious yet lonely hours of the night, running over thoughts that made my feet ache and mind rheel. I'd never thought of things like these, not since I heard the news of my uncle's death. Tragic as it was I hadn't shed a tear, you see as unprepared as I was for the news I understood that death happened to even the best of us.
Yet at times like these when I thought about the emptiness that occurs when death claims you, I couldn't help but tremble with fear and the cursid power of knowing. Death turns you into nothing, a true impression of a forgotten life. It was scary, I'll admit that.
My attention had been abruptly brought back to reality as my mother set a glass plate on the table, my ears ringing from the sudden noise. She rested a hand on her hip and raised an eyebrow eyeing me curiously.
"What has gotten into you, Penelope Withers?" Her voice was strict and demanding just as a mother's should be, but she couldn't mask the concern hiding beneath her gentle words.
"Nothing, I am fine mother." I promised with as much sincerity I could muster, my words were tight and rigid. However it wasn't necesarrily a lie. I was sort of fine, you see I wasn't sad or anything, everything lately has just had more meaning than it should, especially our neighbor. One of which my mother swore if she caught me talking to him she would skin me alive.
A promise I really didn't want to see if she'd keep, so I kept my distance yet he was always at the back of my mind. Especially at school when I heard the mean and selfish words leave the other kids mouth, the tourment was relentless but it was as if he didn't care.
Ever since his father pulled him out of school I have been thinking about him more lately, my mother told me I wasn't allowed to talk to him but seeing him was inevitable considering we lived right next to each other.
"I was just thinking," I started off, drawing out the 'g' in thinking as I thought up an excuse. "about the future." I let the words roll of my tongue easily, she raised an eyebrow clearly not buying my little act. If she wanted to say something about it she showed no sign of it, for she shut her mouth and continued laying out plates.
"Go get you father, and sister, make sure you both wash up. Dinner's done." I bit my lip knowing I'd chosen the wrong words, my mother didn't sound mad nor did she give away any signs of being upset but she guilting me almost as if she wanted to spill the contents of my brain and use the thoughts littering the area for her novel.
My mother had been extra strict on me, especially in school. We were known for our families brains and looks, therefore I had to look poise and ready for anything but I'd also have to keep up with my grades. My mother had been exceptionally beautiful when she was my age, and she swore that every lick of her good looks were passed onto me, for I was a spitting image of her.
My sister and I shared the same light blue eyes and fair skin. The similarites stopped there, my hair fell in short ringlets at my shoulders, the darkest shade of black you could find, whereas her hair fell into long tresses down her back. She had freckles linning her cheeks and instead of matching jet black hair she had dark brown hair.
She was almost like a doll in her porcelain beauty, yet not quite as beautiful as my mother, perhaps her beauty shone through in a different way. I was the eldest, at sixteen, she being not far behind me at fourteen. My parent's never wanted a large family, my father spent most of his time at work and writing had occupied my mother's time therefore it seemed unfair to bare children you wouldn't have time to love.
Two however was seemingly the perfect number, for we knew we were loved even if they didn't shower us in hugs and kisses we knew the love was there. Their love was a different kind, one they couldn't show through words or actions ones that could only be inferred by the stern glares reprimanding words bouncing off their tongues, to the tight liped smiles offering their pride.
I did as my mother asked and I stumbled out of the room in search for my father's studies where he would undoubtedly be. I knocked on the door first, knowing my father liked his privacy. His formal words reached my ears and I pulled open the large oak door.
"Mother says dinner is ready." I announced nodding curtly, I was greeted by a mop of brown hair. My father was tall and slender, stuble lingering on his almost always cleanly shaven jaw, his hair a bob of curls unlike the usual sleak backed style he usually sported. It was often I found him in this state, when he had nothing but his privacy and I barged in, almost as if I was interrupting something.
He was constantly worrying over his company and the bills, which he really shouldn't because we were one of the wealthiest families in town, my father owned many companies and my mother had been known for her meandering words shit he'd together effortlessly crafted, woven into the ashen sheets of paper lingering in her typewriter.
The stress left his eyes momentarily as his smile widened, crinkles were formed at the edge of his eyes betraying his age. I let out a soft sigh before exiting swiftly. I knew my father loved me yet I found our conversation's painfully awkward. We rarely knew each other and he'd almost always asked the wrong thing.
I trapised up the steps my forehead wrinkled in concentration.
"Don't do that, you'll get wrinkles." Mary my younger sister chastied. Don't get me wrong I loved her for all she was and we were somewhat close, but she was constantly reprimanding me and tattling on me whenever I'd done anything bad. I suspected it was because she thought I was the favorite and if she sucked up it would switch, yet she should know that there were no favorites.
Not in my parent's books at least, even if you were the favored child they'd never show it, you weren't their main priority, you were merrily a background noise interrupting their plans. Alas that hadn't been entirely fair. I knew that. Perhaps Mary thought being favored by our parents would be the stepping stone to the world she dreamed of claiming, yet she should know, on top of the world was a lonely place.
Mary was beautiful, gorgeous even yet she was obsessed with the way she looked, she was almost always telling me how lucky I was to be naturally beautiful when she needed to spend hours on end getting ready.
I was in no way shape or form lucky, to be honest I'd never really cared about my apperance and I'd always found it curious as to why mother and Mary spent almost every second looking in the mirror as if they blinked too quickly they'd somehow loose some of the beauty linning their prominent features.
I rolled my eyes, Mary pushed past me knowingly. I followed behind her my feet landing on the wooden stairs harder than I'd meant causing them to let out a squeak and Mary rolled her eyes probably making a sarcastic comment in her head.
I loved my family, more than anything. To be fair however, I don't really know what love is, the nicest my sister had ever been was offering a kind smile and telling me I looked pretty. The closest thing to affection my mother showed me was the soft smile that would etch iteself into her pristine features was when I got good grades. It never lasted forever, therefore I didn't really know what love was, but I would die for them, and that was the only way I could explain it. If that wasn't love, then I really didn't know what it was.
My family was far from perfect, and we were filled with flaws and kinks but for as long as I could remember we'd had each other and that was all that I really cared about. Because we may not have been perfect but we were content.
Hello, I have decided to start writting a haunting in connecticut fanfiction. I recently watched the movie - I'd seen it a while ago when I was like eleven, but I rewatched it and the moment I seen Jonah's face I knew I'd be writing a fanfiction about him. You see this movie is kind of old, like six years old therefore, there isn't that many fanfictions out there. Well there is but all of them are like six billion years old and incomplete so I thought I might attempt to bring the life back to Jonah and his fanfiction. If you liked this, please let me know what you think and I'll update soon, whether anyone's actually reading or not.
P.S. I know nothing of the 1920''s therefore I am in no shape to be writing this, but some of the information in this is very fictional and loosely based.
