Chapter 4

The front lawn was massive, or it looked massive until Brian tried to mow it. He kept hearing scraping noises, and every time he glanced back over his shoulder he saw stone set in concrete. There were parts that he could mow but after the fifth scrape, he decided against the lawn mower and signaled James to shut his machine down.

The two boys had split the front lawn in half, Brian was to do the part closest to the house, whereas  James was to do the area closest to the fence. Brian had thought he was getting the best deal since the area he had given James had a lot more obstacles, a lot more trees, and bushes.

The two met in the center of the lawn.                                          

“What’s the matter?” James asked his brother.

“I keep hitting concrete,” Brian complained.

“I have a lot of boulders out there, and rocks. It’s tricky.” James admitted.

“Maybe we should use the weed whackers first, get the grass shorter before we ruin the mowers, and have to do the whole yard with the whackers,” Brian said and looked over the front garden.

James followed his brother’s gaze. Most of the property was obscured by bushes and trees, but there was definitely a lot more grass that had to be cut, so he reluctantly agreed with his brother’s decision.

From inside the kitchen, Joe could see his sons take the mowers back to the container. He had been watching them for a while, knowing how the duo liked to compete with each other, he had guessed that neither one would admit defeat. But their next course of action took him completely by surprise.

The two boys went back to the front lawn with the whackers, and he saw Brian signal something to James, who just nodded and took four steps to the right. Brian touched the edge of the lawn with his whacker and swung the whacker towards his brother.

“What’s the matter?” Cynthia had been watching Joe too, something in the way he stared out of the window bothered her.

“Brian and James. They were using the ride-on mowers, now they have changed to the whackers.” He told her with a frown.

Cynthia stepped up to the window and looked down at her boys.

“Oh, they’re doing that side-by-side thing,” Cynthia said as the whackers started in unison and the boys started working again.

“Question is, why are they using the whackers instead of the lawnmowers?” he asked her.

“Only they will know my love. You know they like taking shortcuts unless they can’t. You know Brian my darling. It is either a shortcut or they are having issues. Come on, I think there is something you would like to see.”

Nadine and Luke were sitting on the back porch, both of them had been instructed to sit at the door, just in case one of the cleaners needed to walk through the door. They found it incredulous that the cleaners were so superstitious.

Nadine wanted to help clear the rooms, but Luke had begged her to stay with him. Nadine tried talking to him, but he was staring off into the distance. The trees obscured their view, but Nadine felt almost sure there was something there that wanted to be found.

“Hey guys, can I ask a favor of you two please?” Sky approached the door but she was too scared to take a step out of the door.

“Yeah?” Nadine’s head perked up.

“Can one of you run out to my van and get me the big carpet cleaner? I can’t get any of my people out there to go get it.”

Luke stood up immediately.

“I’ll go get it. It’s not this house that is the problem you know? It’s the other four.” He said as if detached and walked down the porch to where the vans were parked.

“The other four?” Nadine frowned confused.

“I don’t suppose you’ve heard? There are five houses on this property. But all of them are cursed.” Sky said and watched the teenage boy open the van.

“Why would you say that?” Nadine asked curiously.

“You should ask your grandmother or uncles about that. It is not my place.” Sky replied and stepped out onto the porch.

“I’ll ask Dad to call Grandma. Maybe she knows more. Uncle Samuel won’t tell us a thing.” Nadine replied thoughtfully.

“If you are referring to Samuel Thomas, born in the late sixties somewhere, then you should know that he was the one that had closed this place down and vowed never to return, or let any of the generations after him, returned. Not his, or his sisters. So you can imagine our surprise when we heard the Thomases were back.” Sky told her simply and looked at the boy again.

“But weren’t there other prospective buyers looking at the place? I heard my grandmother mention it to my father once.” Nadine asked quickly.

Sky giggled and then said

“The place was in the market for almost ten years, people were interested but they never spent more than two nights in the house and then they disappeared. I was a teenager when my mother opened the cleaning services in the nineties, we always came into dust and clean the place up for the new owners, but August is a bad time for this house. There is movement around this place when there shouldn’t be.”

Nadine listened to Sky’s tales, not that she dared believe any of them. Luke came back with the machine and said to Sky,

“I see you have a pressure washer in there. It’s really nice looking.”

“We use it for moveable carpets mostly, but all of the carpets in there are glued in, so there is no way we can use that machine in there.” Sky smiled her thanks and took off.

“What did the two of you talk about?” Luke asked his sister curiously.

“She gave me some details about the house. Not much, only that no one wanted to spend more than two nights in this place and August is apparently a bad time around here. What are Brain and James up to?” Nadine replied.

“They got the whackers running out front. Brian looks like a kid that found his mom’s hidden chocolate stash.” Luke replied and shook his head.

“Let’s go see what they’re up to,” Nadine said and stood up from the floor.

“Mom said we should stay here,” Luke replied quickly.

“We’ll be quick,” Nadine said and grabbed her brother’s hand.

“No. I’m going to ask mom first.” He replied and stormed into the house.

Nadine waited impatiently, she was curious to see what Brian had found. Luke came back with his mother behind him.

“I know the two of you are bored and it looks like your brothers are having all the fun, but I can promise you they are not. It seems that the stone patio extends a lot further than expected. You can go and have a quick look, but I expect at least one of you back soon.” Cynthia told her kids.

“All right mom,” Nadine said and took off down the stone steps and ran around the house towards Brian, who was frowning and kicking at a grass mound that had grown into the concrete.

“What did you find?” Nadine asked him curiously.

“I’m so glad to see you two! Quick get the leaf blowers and blow everything away from where we had been. We found some paths and a massive stone patio, but get this, it’s not like the stone patios we’re used to. This looks like a single slab stone. It’s amazing! And you see over there in the very center? That’s actually a small water feature, but it has a massive base.” Brian said to her, and he sounded very excited.

“Sky just told me there are four more houses on this property. I think we have a lot of mowing to do.” Nadine told her brother.

“I would think so. Get the leaf blowers, so we can see what we’ve got.” Brain replied as he kicked another mound of grass.

Luke nodded and walked off to the containers. He kept his eyes on the ground in front of him, refusing to look at the woman and a teenage boy who was watching his brothers’ work with curiosity.

Luke finally got the leaf blower out of the container and headed back to the front lawn.

“Luke!” his mother called out to him.

Luke stopped and watched his mother approach. A strange-looking woman was behind her and trying to reach out to her.

“Mom look out!” Luke yelled as the teenage boy suddenly threw a rock at his mother.

Cynthia saw the fear and concern in her son’s eyes, then heard the hard thud behind her. She turned and saw a fist-size rock roll as if on its own accord into the grass. Only Luke had seen the woman behind his mother put up a force field that had blocked the rock from hitting his mother and then kick the rock into the grass.

Cynthia stared confused at her youngest son.

“What was that?” she asked him as she approached him carefully.

“There are ghosts around this place Mum. There is a woman following you, and she is very protective over you. There is a kid here too, he has dark hair, dark circles around his eyes, and he looks angry Mom. He threw the rock. That woman protected you. There are good and bad people moving around. I know of two old men who are walking around the garden, admiring things that are not there. I just think we should be careful here Mom.” Luke muttered softly to his mother so that his brothers would not hear him.

“Are you sure that you are not imagining things?” Cynthia asked her son and placed a tender hand on his cheek.

“I am,” Luke replied then carried on walking to his waiting siblings.

“What did mom want?” Nadine asked her pale brother as he got within hearing range.

“She just asked about the lawn and so on.” He replied vaguely and turned back to look at his mother.

Cynthia stood rooted on the spot. She had just felt a soft dainty hand on her back, but when she looked over her shoulder there was no one. She looked over to Luke who was staring at her, his eyes were alarmed and his body was tense.

Brian watched the strange interaction between Luke and their mother, and he could tell something was off.

“Mom?” he called out to her.

Cynthia approached her children and tried to calm her tone.

“Your father said to pack up for now, you can carry on with the lawn as soon as we have moved in. He needs you boys to move some furniture in the house so that the cleaners can do a thorough job.” She said to her children.

The disappointment was evident on the two boys’ faces but then Brian looked up and saw his father scowling on the porch.

“All right, we’ll be in as soon as we get these things packed away.” He replied quickly.

“Good,” Cynthia said and took hold of Luke’s shoulder. “Walk with me.” She smiled at him.

Luke nodded, handed the leaf blower over to his sister, and took his mother’s hand.

Joe stared at his wife and youngest son. He had felt that something had been amiss with the boy since they first arrived the previous day. It was as if the boy knew something that the rest of them did not, but he was sure of one thing, his wife will get it out of him. The two had an amazing bond, something he wished he could have with Luke. But it was Brian that was his partner. Brian would do anything to please his father. Joe knew something that he did not tell his family, if they were going to survive the house, they would have to start growing as a family, not just partners.