Descent

The sound of the party below grates on my nerves the moment I’m in the hallway. 

I walk down the stairs, ignoring the curious glances. I’m no stranger here. And I’m sure before I’ve even walked out the door, the gossips will begin spreading their poison. 

Good. Let them. Let my family learn from them that I’m back. 

I glance into the various rooms I pass on my way to the front door noting the furniture still inside the house. How opposite the bare rooms upstairs. 

She’s desperate. 

And I won’t let the opportunity pass me by.

Because it’s high time the Abbots pay for what they did. Persephone will be sacrificed, but that can’t be helped. It’s fitting, actually. Almost poetic. 

An eye for an eye. 

A girl for a girl. 

I pull the front door open, the gust of icy wind sobering as I step outside. 

I climb down the stone stairs passing the handful of idiots freezing their asses off for a few puffs on a cigarette. I bypass the cars along the circular drive, bypass the paved walkway to the street. Instead, I make my way over damp grass to where our property lines meet. I stop there, glancing at the ruin of the chapel in the distance remembering the last time I saw Persephone Abbot. 

She was sixteen.

Vodka was her drink then, too. 

I remember carrying her home that night. Bringing her into her bedroom before all hell broke loose over our houses. 

I shake my head, crossing the property line. I look up at what was once the Montgomery estate. Dark vines like long fingers claw almost every inch of what’s left of the once beautiful stone walls as if taking it back into the earth. 

I wish it would take the past with it. Take the ghosts that still haunt the condemned place.

I turn to look back at the Abbot house. 

My house now. 

It will rot, too, the earth swallowing up our sins along with our homes. But not before I’ve had my fill of Persephone Abbot.