Arching her back, Cassandra raised her arms over her head stretching her lean frame as she stepped outside. Today was going to be excellent! She had graduated from college last week and was finally going home. Her gaze trailed across the parking lot to her car and the nearby apartments. Home was nothing like this place. Misty-eyed, she thought of the old farm she had grown up on. Fond memories floated through her mind. The smell of fertilizer and dirt, the swing on the porch, and their maid Helen's blueberry pies.
Helen had all but raised Cassie, even though she was only paid to be a maid. She was a short, stubborn Haitian that her parents had hired, since they never liked to stay at home. Cassie hadn't seen her parents in five years, since she left her boarding school to go directly to college. They hadn't even come to see her walk on graduation day. Thinking hard, it came to her that the last time she had seen them was when she had packed for college. They had stopped by to give her some money and help her load the luggage into the car.
Money is all that they were ever good for.
Cassie glanced down and noticed her knuckles had started to turn white from her clenching them. Relaxing her hands, she went back to loading up the car.
The one odd thing that Cassie couldn't forget about was that her parents never seemed to age. Cassie figured it was just because she never saw them enough to notice those differences. Cassie's mother looked more like her sister, and it was even worse with her father who had the appearance of a boyfriend when standing next to Cassie. Both of them were art dealers and had their own company. They traveled around the world finding the latest artists and setting up galleries for them. They must have been good, because Cassie was what most people would call extremely wealthy.
She didn't realize it at first until she went to college and heard complaints from students about how had to work to pay off their tuitions. Meanwhile, she had hundreds of dollars for spending money alone. Helen used to always say that she had no idea why such wealthy people had a need for a farm, especially one which sported over two hundred acres. Her parents were never at the farm. They hired people to work the land and just reaped the profits from the crops.
Cassie never really had an answer for her. Her parent's finances were a mystery to her, although she had tried to figure them out. They were so secretive and cold when they were around her. Gradually, she had found she just didn't care anymore about being close to them. She loved the freedom of being independent and doing things alone. When she did need company, Helen was always there for her, cooking in the kitchen or folding laundry.
"Mimsy! Come get food girl!" Cassie yelled over to her new puppy, a Pembroke corgi.
From around the corner of the building, a fluffy ball of golden fur on short stumpy legs came pouncing over to the bowl that was laid on the pavement.
Cassie had purchased Mimsy for herself as a present and companion for graduating. While other graduates went to dinner with their parent's or received gifts, Cassie had made a new best friend. She loved Mimsy, more than she wanted to recognize. Love was such a foreign thing to her.
She had always wanted a dog, but her parent's despised animals or rather, animals despised her parents. Once, Cassie had found a tomcat outside that wasn't too feral and tried to keep it indoors. She smiled as she thought at how she had a made a little fort for the cat using some blankets and chairs. She kept the tomcat, which she had named Larry, for one whole week before her parents noticed.
The exact story wasn't too clear, but according to Helen, when her parents walked in to the house, Larry flipped out. Hissing and scratching, he pounced on her father's neck and ended up being thrown out of the house. Helen remarked that she had never seen such a vicious attack from a cat before, it was as if the devil had approached for its soul. Larry the tomcat was never seen again.
Sighing, she reached her hand down and tussled the soft fur on the pup's head. Mimsy ate the food cautiously tilting her head as it chewed as though questioning Cassie's current actions.
Mimsy must know we have a trip ahead of us.
She couldn't wait to see Helen. Things were going to be great. She didn't have a job lined up, but she was going to start applying. It wouldn't be hard, since she had a degree as a dental technician. The town of Ashridge was a very unique and pretty town for being in the middle of nowhere; the heart of the town had plenty of businesses and even a movie theater. Getting a job at one of the three dentist's office would not be very hard at all, especially because most people had known her since she was a little girl.
When Cassie had spoken with her parents about moving back to the town, they had practically begged her to stay at the house at least until after her twenty fifth birthday, which was tomorrow. It wasn't a hard feat considering Cassie loved the place and Helen would be there. Although, she did want a place of her own sometime soon.
College had been a lot of fun but she never really clicked with anyone. She was a shy person, and not living in the dorms for her first year, meant she didn't really have any connections. She had tried dating a few guys, but that didn't always go well. They usually got clingy and Cassie didn't have much a desire for a relationship with them. Overall, she couldn't wait to leave college.
~~
Feeling tired, Cassie glanced at her phone. It was almost 6pm. Most of the day had been spent driving for Cassie. As she pulled up to her house, she squinted against the sunlight and gazed over the large columns of the expansive home. It looked like an old colonial home from a plantation farm in the south. Far behind it, there was a small patch of woods and then massive amounts of rows of corn. As her eyes grazed over the land, she remembered doing anything possible to avoid those woods as a child. Those woods had given Cassie nightmares. Strange noises and whispers seemed to echo from the woods when she had gone near them.
She had told her parents about her feelings and had laughed at her. They went into those woods often, sometimes not returning until dawn. She knew that they waited for her to go to sleep before they strolled back there hand in hand because her mother would come into her room late at night and check. Sometimes, they would bring their friends. She had no idea what they did back there, but the thought of sex always came to her mind and made her shudder with disgust.
Parking the car, Mimsy immediately barked to be let free to go to the bathroom. Her hand opened the car door, allowing Mimsy jump to the ground.
How odd? Usually Helen greets me before I even walk in the door.
Plucking open the trunk and clutching her two bags, she started heading up the stairs of the old home. She noticed the porch swing moving, grabbed by the wind. Struggling to hang on to her bags, she turned the handle to the door and walked inside.
"Helen! I'm back." she yelled.
Everything was immaculately clean for it being a Friday, the sound of whirring blades came from the kitchen. She dropped her bags and raced around the corner to greet Helen, but was surprised at what she saw. At the far end of the dining room table sat her father reading the Ashridge times, one of his rough hands gripping a coffee mug that read
#1 Dad
. The mug was a present she had given him when she was child. Funny, she had never seen him use it until today.
Standing beside the counter top operating the blender, stood her mother in what could only be described as a Stepford Wives outfit. She was in the process of making a margarita; and some of it coated a red apron that she had tied around the waist of her yellow, cotton summer dress.
Umm..Did someone die? What are they doing here?
Questions raced through her mind at their appearance. Rarely were they home on a weekend, and when they were, they often kept to themselves unless they had friends over.
"Hello, darling! It's so great to see you." Her mother smiled as she spoke to her as if they had just seen each other yesterday. Her father nodded a greeting and continued to read the newspaper.
They both still had that ageless appearance of their twenties. Her father looked like he was a champion rower from college; his tan body muscular and lean, with huge arms that could easily lift her off from the floor. Her mother appeared soft and whimsical at the same time. She was what Helen called, "a perpetual smiler ." Always grinning like a Cheshire cat with devious, blue eyes. Her hair was a fabricated blonde, obviously treated at a beauty salon, and set in curls along her slim, pale shoulders.
"Hello, mother. Where is Helen? She didn't greet me like usually does." Cassie said while keeping her distance from them and the obviously weird scene before her.
"Who? Oh... You mean the maid? We got rid of her a couple of years ago. We found it was cheaper to just have the house cleaned once a month by a company. Besides she asked way too many questions. An annoyance was what she was."
