The final chapter of The Girl in the Wall & A Moveable Feast

Over the weekend I finished reading A Moveable Feast. It is the memoir Ernest Hemingway put together before he died but it was not published until after his tragic suicide. It is essentially his love letter to Paris. It is easy to see why he was a great American author! He is fluid and true to his words. He weaves stories like no one else has. He tells enough but does not give everything away and I feel like I am a better writer for having read this incredible book. I think everyone should read it, especially if you're a writer. I read the most recent version which was edited by his grandson with a foreword by one of his sons.

I hope everyone had a great week! See you next week!

Week 9 (2-8 March 2015)

The Girl in the Wall Part 3

He could hear Anna crying in the basement but every time he thought he was near, her cries would fade and reappear elsewhere. The dark and the maddening silence began to eat away at him. This is all Terra's fault... a voice in his head said. She wanted this house, she wanted to live here, Anna is missing because of her! Terra took her. Terra killed her! The voice was becoming more malicious and violent the longer he stayed in the basement. Punish her. Teach Terra a lesson!

“NO! Stop!” Morgan shook his head to free himself of the voices. Of course this wasn't Terra's fault. She was a caring mother, she would never hurt Anna and she certainly wouldn't murder her. Wicked thoughts filled his head full of rage and anger for Terra but he wasn't completely gone for rational thought. Suddenly he heard a shrill scream coming from the corner. The scream was little Anna's. The sound of Anna being hurt was like a kick to the gut. He lurched forward towards the corner when he heard a low rumbling growl. As he started towards the growl to save his daughter he heard Terra.

“Morgan! No!” from over his shoulder came his wife with a knife just as a black dog lunged at him. She stabbed the dog in the throat. It went flying into the wall with a whimper. Terra and Morgan went to the dog's body to investigate, “Oh my god! No! Anna! ANNA!”

There, along the wall lay a motionless, bloody Anna wrapped in an old shirt. Terra had stabbed their daughter and Morgan could feel his blood boiling. Raging madness filled him to the brim. He could feel hot tears streaming down his face; he could taste iron in his mouth from biting his lip in anger. He charged forward towards Terra. Grabbing her collar, he shook her with all the force he could muster.

“What did you do? What did you do!” he screamed as he went blind with rage. Suddenly Terra's body went limp.

“Morgan... what have you done to me?” she touched his face with a bloody hand. Her throat was gushing from the wound where the knife had struck her in the side of her neck. What had he done! He didn't remember holding a knife. He didn't even bring anything with him in to the basement.

“Oh Terra! I am so sorry! Please! Hold on I will go get help,” he gently laid his fading wife on the floor and turned to grab his daughter but she wasn't there. Frantic, he swatted the ground around him looking for her but she was gone, “Terra, Anna is gone! Where is Anna?” he turned to his wife as he asked but she too was gone. He was alone in the basement again and the faint metallic smell of blood had disappeared as well. He was imagining it all. The house was filling his mind with horrors and he couldn't differentiate what was real and what was fake. Suddenly he heard Terra scream upstairs. It was a blood curdling scream that filled his ears with dread. He sprinted up the stairs toward her screams. They seemed to be fluttering from room to room. He ran into each room only to hear the screams in another room. Finally he opened the door to his study and there was Anna. She was laying on the floor wrapped in her little pink blanket cooing by herself.

“Anna!” Morgan sprinted to his baby and picked her up. As he went in to snuggle her face she melted into a squirming pile of hissing cockroaches and beetles. He shook his hands free of the bugs and screamed for his wife and daughter at the top of his lungs while stomping the bugs that imitated his daughter.

“Hahaha!” Morgan snapped his neck in the direction of the nursery where the maniacal laugh came from. He charged into the room and could hear Anna crying in the wall. With brute force, Morgan tore through the wall until he reached his daughter. She was sound asleep without a care in the world and had not a scratch on her. She was real. He could see her. He could feel her. She hadn't turned into anything else. He held her close and ran down to the last place he knew his wife was. He ran down their grand staircase and into the kitchen where his wife was passed out propped against the wall.

“ I told you to leave but she didn't listen to me. Priests can't get rid of the evil in this house. It has permeated the walls. Mr. Noble seeps through every floor. He has become the house. You have to leave!” plead a voice behind him.

“What is going on in this house! What is happening!” He screamed as he pounded his fist in the wall. Terra... it's all Terra's fault. She wanted to move here. She wanted to have the baby here. She did this. She chose this! Not you! Kill her. Kill Terra. The voice was back, “No! Stop! FUCKING STOP!”

“Morgan, we have to go,” Terra had roused. For a moment he wanted to punch her. He could feel the blackness in his eyes but as soon as he made eye contact with Terra, he knew the voices in his head were Mr. Noble. The house was trying to make them kill each other or make him kill them all at least. He nodded his head to his wife and they got up. The house began to shake violently. Doors throughout the house were slamming open and closed.

“Go now!” yelled Marie who was standing in front of them, “I will hold him off. Hire someone tomorrow to pack your stuff. If you leave anything here he can follow you. He will know where you are. You must leave and take everything. Never come back here. Go!” Marie burst into a ball of bright, white light and encompassed the kitchen. Morgan grabbed his keys and wallet from the counter and they all escaped the home. They got in the car and went to a hotel that night. The next morning, after getting very little sleep, they called a moving company with explicit directions to pack up everything that was not glued or nailed down to the ground. They asked the company to take pictures of every room they came into before they packed it up so they could see how the house looked after they made their escape.

Their house looked like it had never been touched. Everything was perfectly arranged and looked tidy as if no one had ever spent a day inside. It was mind boggling. Morgan swore the house was in tatters after last night but the movers insisted it was in pristine condition. They rented a home that day with the help of Marie's brother who just happened to be a Realtor. He helped them find their rental until they could find a home to buy. This time they took no chances. Morgan and Terra did extensive research on their new home and made sure it didn't have a bloody history. They even checked the land. They would not be surprised by evil again. One day Morgan was driving home when he saw their old house had a SOLD sign on top of the for sale sign. He rushed home as fast as he could to tell Terra.

“We need to warn them or do something. No one can live in that house again,” he announced.

“Let's burn it down,” Morgan thought about it for a minute and agreed. Marie had been laid to rest and it was the only way to rid the world of Mr. Noble's evil spirit. If Marie had not come back to save them they would have added to the bloody story of that house. It was time the blood shed ended.

Morgan and Terra, with Anna in tow strapped to Terra's chest, put on shoes two sizes too big and took gasoline they siphoned from their cars. They wanted to make sure they didn't get caught. They walked up to the house, poured gasoline all over the outside walls of the house and lit a match. They watched the house burn to the ground. They could hear howls and screeches coming from the flames. Once they were sure the house was lost forever they went home. Mr. Noble was gone, never to hurt a soul again, Marie was at peace next to her mother and father and the Lewis family lived in relative peace in their smaller but quieter new home.