After Sundown
Автор
Laura Venus
Прочтений
84.9K
Глав
34
After a painful breakup, Alice escapes the chaos of city life to flip a rundown cottage in a sleepy countryside village. The project is supposed to be her fresh start—but between peeling paint and tangled weeds, she finds herself more lost than ever. Then she meets the man she hires to restore the garden: gruff, quiet, and far too good at keeping his distance. He’s the kind of mystery that tempts her to dig deeper. As the days pass and the garden slowly blooms, so does something between them—gentle, unexpected, and healing in ways neither imagined. Because sometimes, the most beautiful things take root when you stop running.
Chapter 1: Sundown Manor
ALICE
The old, creaking taxicab rolled up to the entrance of a large, run-down house overlooking the valley below. The chauffeur got out of the driver’s seat and opened the door for Alice. She sighed as she stepped on the crunching pebbles on the driveway, looking over the hill, the valley, and finally, the house.
Sundown Manor. It looked just like she remembered from the viewing, maybe a little more gloomy now that the sun had already set.
“So, you think you’ll fit in here?” the chauffeur asked her, his voice sounding just a little too concerned.
“I think so, and it’s only for a year, until the house is done,” Alice replied tentatively, wondering if he was making a point or not.
“Will you be putting it back on the market shortly?” the man asked her, observing her two briefcases and the sour look on her face.
“As soon as possible,” she said with a joyless chuckle.
“Well, I’ve been driving folks around here for over forty years now. Most seem very happy to be here. Perhaps you can be too.” He raised his eyebrows at her in a fatherly way that gave her hope for a second or two before that hope disappeared again.
“I hope so,” she replied, trying not to sound too pessimistic.
Her eyes flitted past the driver, over to the town at the foot of the hill, Badger’s Rest. Sure, it was a beautiful place. It fit right in with the cheesy paintings on her grandmother’s wall. But Alice was born and raised in the city and had spent most of her life in the fast lane.
The thought of living in a place like this seemed fine for a short time. But no way she’d stay here any longer than needed. “I guess we’ll see,” she added dismissively, as she took out her wallet to pay.
“I only take cash, miss!” the driver said with a grin. “Ain’t too many places that take credit down here.”
After she promised the driver she’d pay him if he could point her to an ATM, the chauffeur told her he’d swing by tomorrow so she could settle down for the night first.
She rolled her luggage inside with a pit in her stomach. The old place smelled like mildew and earth, and paint flaked from the door casing.
So…this will be where I’m staying for the next few months…, she thought, looking out of the window at the withered garden. In the dark, it was hardly visible. She looked away quickly, trying not to think about how pathetic it would look in full daylight.
She shuffled up the stairs, finding her way into the master bedroom. She took no time to absorb her surroundings and put fresh linen on the bed, drifting off quickly.
Suddenly, she awoke with a start. It took her a second to register anything in the dark. By now, it had started raining terribly, pounding the windows and roof so hard she feared it might collapse.
There’s no thunder, is there? Downstairs, she heard a noise. It couldn’t be rain, could it?
The sound was faint but clearly there. Some sort of—screeching? She fumbled for the light on her nightstand. What is that? Would there be rats in a place like this? Probably, she thought, her heart dropping.
She took her phone, turned on the flashlight, and made her way down the stairs. If I do find a gang of rats dancing in my kitchen, what would I do?
She peeked around the corner at the kitchen area. Nothing seemed amiss, except for the complete lack of style and cleanliness. Her flashlight reflected in the window, and the harsh light made her squint her eyes.
If nothing’s amiss, then what did I hear just now? Just as she gave the living room a final sweep, illuminating the corners and the spaces behind the furniture, she passed the double back doors.
Their wooden frames held tall panes of glass, black now with night and rain, the darkness beyond reflecting her own light back at her. She raised her phone, and in the sudden glare, a figure stood framed against the glass.
Tall, dark, something moving and screeching in his outstretched hand. Alice screamed. She stepped backward, toppling over a large floor lamp.
The figure behind the window moved toward her, closer to the window, something in his hand still flapping and wailing in the dark. “No!”
She stumbled backward, blindly, her heel catching on the edge of the rug. Her hand instinctively grabbed the curtain, and she tried to catch herself.
The rail tore loose from the wall. Screws and rust particles fell down, and it swung down with her full weight behind it, striking the glass doors at an angle. The window shattered.
The sound was deafening. Wood splintered. Glass burst outward in a spray of jagged fragments, rain and night rushing in behind it. Alice screamed again, throwing her arms over her head as shards skidded across the floor.
She scrambled away, sliding on broken glass and fabric, until she hit the corner of the room. She pressed herself into it, knees drawn up, hands locked over her head, breath coming in short, panicked gasps.
“Hello—?”
A shape lunged through the ruined doorway. Too fast. Too close. She shrieked, kicking out wildly, certain now that she had been right, that she had been too slow, too stupid, that this serial killer would slaughter her right there and then.
“Calm down a bit, will you?”
The flapping, screeching thing burst into the room after him, feathers exploding into the light. It skidded across the tiles, wings beating furiously, indignant and furious and very much alive. A rooster.
Alice hardly noticed. Her heart kept hammering, hands raised, bracing herself for what might come next.
“It got loose,” the man said quickly. “I heard it in the yard and went after it—I didn’t think—Jesus, will you calm down?”
It took a second. Maybe two. The man turned away from her for a moment and turned on the kitchen lights.
Alice peered out from under her hands. The rooster was now quiet and out of sight. The man was in front of her, crouched down, hands held up in innocence. He was dressed in a soaked flannel and faded jeans, and his brown hair was messy, dripping water onto her floor.
He stared at her. “It’s just a chicken.”
Indignation rose in Alice’s chest. “It was not the chicken that scared me.” It was half a lie.
“You were at the window,” she continued, shaking now, anger bleeding into the fear. “You were screeching and waving something in your hand—what did you think I would think?”
He exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair. “Well, I was not expecting you to body slam the window in your hysteria.”
That did it. Alice laughed once: short, sharp, hysterical. “You were trying to break in. Now would you kindly get the hell out of my house?”
“I wasn’t—”
“Get. Out.”
The man straightened, irritation visible in his gaze. “I didn’t mean to scare you. You could have just turned on the lights. No need to go all Scooby-Doo with your flashlight.”
The audacity of this man to try and tell HER how to act. “Maybe the women around here are accustomed to strangers peeping into their window at night. But I am not. Why are you still here?”
She rose, dusting off her knees with trembling fingers. “Get out before I call the cops on you and have you thrown in jail.”
The stranger’s face twitched for a second. Does he think this is funny, or is he insulted?
“You’d call the cops on me?”
“Would I call the cops on a stranger who broke my window at midnight and tried to intimidate me with a bird?”
“I did not break your—”
“Get. Out. Now.”
“I can help you with cleaning the—”
“Are you deaf? GET. OUT!”
She started waving him away, shooing him out of her house. He once again showed the palms of his hands in a sign of resignation.
“All right, all right, I wasn’t planning on staying for breakfast.”
