Short Story - Christmas Manor

‘Damn!’ Tara said as the car sputtered again. ‘Damn, damn!’

She pulled to the side of the road just as the car gave a final sputter. Tara turned the key in the ignition but nothing happened.

‘Damn!’ she said again.

She switched the lights off and reached over to get her phone out of her bag. Swiping at the screen she cursed her rotten luck. No signal.

‘Damn,’ she said again looking out the windscreen at the dark and very empty road. It was late on Christmas Eve and her family was expecting her.

Tara climbed out of the car looking up and down the secluded country road. She heard faint strains of music coming from somewhere off to her left, behind a stand of trees. She walked around the car trying to gauge where it was coming from. She noticed an ornate gateway overhung by a large weeping willow tree. The gate stood open like a welcoming gesture and the sign on it said “Christmas Manor”.

‘Well, that’s fitting,’ she said to herself.

The willow’s leaves swayed in the gentle breeze, enticing her to enter.

Soon she saw a large, old house up ahead. The windows blazed and the front door stood open. Tara could see people inside, laughing and dancing.

‘Hello?’ she called as she stepped up to the door.

A woman in a silver fringed dress holding a champagne coupe waved her inside.

‘Hi, babe, welcome to Christmas Manor. Come in and join the party!’ she said leading Tara into a room with a real Christmas tree that reached at least twelve feet, all the way to the ceiling. It was topped with a beautiful angel. The tree was lit with real candles and Tara couldn’t help but feel nervous with all the tipsy people dancing around the room.

‘Who’s the dame?’ a man in a suit, smoking a cigarette asked. ‘She’s a looker.’

‘Oh Edward, you’re such a cad.’

‘Is this a fancy dress party?’ Tara asked looking around at all the men and women dressed like characters from The Great Gatsby.

‘The fanciest, doll-face,’ the woman said, handing Tara a glass and filling it with champagne from the side board.

‘Look this way,’ said another man.

Tara turned to look as a brilliant light flashed, blinding her temporarily.

‘Hey, my name’s Minnie. What’s yours?’

‘I’m Tara.’

‘Well Tara, welcome to the party,’ Minnie said, waving her hand to take in the entire room, from the tree to the dancers, and the woman playing the piano in the corner.

‘Thanks,’ Tara said. ‘It seems like everyone’s having a great time.’

‘Yeah, it’s the cat’s meow. We pull out the glad rags every Christmas Eve,’ said Minnie. ‘So, what brings you to our door tonight?’

‘My car broke down, just out the front.’

‘Oh boy. Edward, Tara here’s in a jam.’

Edward turned from his conversation with another young couple.

‘So, your jalopy broke down hey? That’s too bad,’ he said with a wink. ‘Well, hey, you can just stay here with us.’ With that he grabbed Minnie and swung her into his arms, dancing her away as she giggled. Her laugh reminded Tara of tinkling bells, punctuated by an unexpected snort.

‘Ah Minnie! Do you have a phone I can use?’ Tara called after the twirling couple.

Minnie waved her arm, pointing Tara out the door and back to the hallway with another giggle as Edward leaned in to kiss her neck.

Tara made her way down the hall past other couples.

‘The blower’s upstairs Miss,’ slurred a man as he tipped his black fedora.

Tara thanked him and headed up the stairs.

She stepped into a wide hallway with four doors opening onto it. She walked the length slowly, stopping at each door to peer inside. When she got to the room at the front of the house she walked in with a gasp. The room was lit by a beautiful chandelier that hung over a large bed with a tall post at each corner. The posts had been carved with delicate ivy leaves and were polished to a high shine. On the bed there was a pile of fur coats. Tara spotted glittering clutches in amongst the pile.

‘Wow, they really take the dress code seriously,’ she said to herself.

Tara had reached her hand out to touch the soft white collar of the nearest coat when her phone buzzed in her pocket.

She fumbled it out, almost dropping it as she answered.

‘Tara, oh my god! Where are you? Why haven’t you been answering your phone? I thought you were lying dead somewhere! We were about to start calling hospitals.’

‘Carrie, I’m ok,’ said Tara, interrupting her sister’s anxious stream of words. ‘My car broke down about half an hour before the turnoff to town.’

Tara explained that she had found a house of friendly people and that her phone had been out of range until she’d gone upstairs.

‘I was looking for a landline when you called.’

‘Nate and I will be there in an hour,’ said Carrie.

‘Thanks Carrie, see you soon.’

Tara disconnected the call and read the time. It was just past eleven. She went back downstairs. Minnie, Edward and the others were still dancing and drinking.

‘Come on Tara,’ called Minnie breathlessly. ‘Come dance!’

‘Oh no, I don’t know how,’ she responded.

‘Nonsense, it’s easy and you sure got the stilts for it’ said a young man, eyeing Tara’s legs as he dropped his cigarette into a half empty glass. ‘You gone AWOL or something?’

‘Pardon?’ Tara asked.

‘The army boots,’ he said pointing at her shoes. ‘I never seen ‘em in tartan before though.’

‘Oh no,’ said Tara. ‘They’re Docs.’

‘Well, you can get them back to Doc tomorrow, tonight we dance!’ he said, grabbing her hand and twirling her onto the dancefloor. Tara couldn’t help but feel swept up by the party vibe.

‘Betty, play us the Charleston,’ Tara’s dance partner called to the pianist.

‘Sure thing, Charlie,’ she responded and launched into a lively tune. It was the first familiar song Tara had heard since she arrived.

Tara and Charlie danced and laughed along with Minnie, Edward and the other party guests until Tara thought she would collapse. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had this much fun.

During a lull in the music, Tara heard a clock chiming twelve. Realising that her sister would be at the car soon she said goodbye to everyone and thanked them for their hospitality before heading back outside to her car.

The wind was starting to pick up so she climbed into the driver’s seat to keep warm.

Almost as soon as she got comfortable, a car pulled across the road and stopped in front of her, headlights shining through the windscreen.

Carrie and Nate climbed out and Tara went to meet them.

‘Tara, thank god you’re ok,’ said Carrie, as Nate walked straight to the car.

‘I told you I was fine,’ Tara said. ‘In fact, I had a great time. Come on I want you to meet Minnie while Nate fixes this.’

Tara half dragged Carrie through the gate and along the drive to Christmas Manor.

‘Wait this isn’t right,’ she said. ‘We should be able to see the lights by now.’

‘Maybe they all went to bed,’ said Carrie. ‘Which is where I should be.’

Tara kept walking towards the now dark house. As she got closer, she realised that the door was hanging off its hinges and the windows were all smashed.

‘Tara, let’s go. I don’t like this place.’

Tara took out her phone and switched on the torch. She walked cautiously up the creaking steps.

‘Tara, no one’s lived here in a hundred years. Come on I want to go home.’

Tara ignored Carrie and stepped into the hallway. The stairs up ahead seemed to have collapsed in on themselves and the walls were dirty, with patches of plaster missing.

‘Minnie?’ called Tara, turning into the room where they had all been dancing not ten minutes earlier.

The piano was gone and so was the tree. There was a mouldering pile in the corner that could have been the settee, but she wasn’t sure.

She turned to the sideboard that had held the champagne. It was still there, but it looked like the slightest breeze could turn it to dust at any minute. The room smelled like sheep and rot, and Tara had to agree with Carrie’s assessment, it was like no one had been there for a hundred years.

A tarnished silver picture frame hung on the wall above the sideboard. Tara reached up and gently took it down. It was an old black and white photo of Minnie and Edward in their party clothes. There was a third person in the photo, but they were obscured by water damage, the only part Tara could make out was the shoes.

‘Oh my god,’ she said as she studied the tartan Doc Marten boots in the photo.

Her boots.

‘That’s impossible,’ she whispered.

‘Tara, come on, we’re leaving.’ Carrie called from the front yard. ‘Nate’s fixed your car.”

Tara held onto the photo and ran back down to the road. As she walked through the gate and passed beneath the willow tree, she turned back for one last look at Christmas Manor. As she did, she swore she heard a voice, carried on the wind.

‘Merry Christmas Tara!’

Followed by a laugh like tinkling bells, punctuated by an unexpected snort.

The End.