Fred and Heather Phillips are beings permanently etched into the history of this house, like a chapter being written into an ancient decaying book. Fred, his mouth a victim to the more primitive forms of dentistry, his face kind and his hairless scalp as shiny as his single tooth. Heather, with her twelve ‘children’ that turned out to be of the feline species, was as hospitable as she was humbly insane. Inside their home it smelled of time. That is as much a description as I can give, because the air was filled with some four dimensional blanket of the 1900’s. I was told soon after this visit that this was owing to the fact that Heather and Fred used only the kitchen, one bathroom and one of the eight bedrooms. Every single other door was locked, sealed away not only by a key but by the superstition that harrowed the old couple. The air of an age gone by leaked out through the cracks under these locked doors and the minute holes in the walls.

We entered their kitchen, ate their food, I answered their questions politely, found out they were the daughter and son-in-law of the man who employed my great grandfather, spilt my drink and proceeded to wash my hands in yellowed, mosquito-infested water from the tap. This was all fine and I thought that this will be as normal as it gets and I accepted that. Yet the whole time little visual images of what would be behind those doors in such a dark and mysterious house plagued my mind. They were a virus, uncontrollable and multiplying until I was consumed by them. Ghosts, monsters, villains, just the simple childish thoughts that cause no harm. At no time however, did I think of murder.

One hundred and ten years ago a family not unlike my own lived there. They were wealthy for their time and well respected. Apparently though, not by all. Their son, a few years older than I am at present, was found dead in his bed with a single cut to his throat. Was his bed ever removed? Was his bedroom locked and sealed, still waiting to this day for someone to open it and like Pandora’s Box release the evils within? The house contains not only this secret but another that is far closer to my family. It seems as though in 1915 my great grandfather was slowly driven insane whilst living with his family in this house. An embarrassment to his name, his family kept him hidden away within a single room until one day his pleas for peace came to a halt. His death was self-inflicted. Two of eight rooms have witnessed the evidence of human mortality. What else will time reveal?

Heather and Fred Phillips thanked us for our company and I took the time to wave goodbye in between my frantic attempts to clean my hands of the insect-ridden filth. Night was falling and the details of what happened next assume quite a stereotypical form, involving the toasting of marshmallows and looking up at the stars around our hand crafted fire. We slept, improved the lives of many a mosquito, woke, packed up and left. It was our car that my father conveyed the perturbing details of the history of the house. It was also in the car, a few moments after that, that I conveyed my immense distaste for his timing and politely told him that if I were ever to return, one more room of that old house would bear witness to death.