The Woman in the Attic

By Emily Hepditch

On the coast of rural Newfoundland, Hannah Fitzgerald's mother has lived her life in near total isolation. When Hannah returns to the lonely saltbox house to prepare her mother for the transition into assisted living, her childhood home is anything but welcoming. Dilapidated from years of hoarding and neglect, the walls are crumbling, leaving Hannah’s wellness crumbling along with them.

While packing her mother's things, Hannah discovers a trap door to the house’s attic, the one she believed for most of her life had been permanently sealed shut. Blinded by curiosity, Hannah enters the attic and finds a mysterious bedroom riddled with dark secrets. Desperate to know more, Hannah begins to scramble for answers, combing the house for clues that may lead her to the truth.

Hannah must navigate through the violent outbursts of her senile mother, the prying questions of a nosy hospice nurse, and the rage of the coastal wind that threatens the structure of the house. Piece by piece, she assembles a picture of her mother’s not-so-distant past—a twisted tangle of infatuation, lies, and maybe even murder.

The Woman in the Attic is a claustrophobic psychological thriller wrought with suspense. This novel will put you on the edge of your seat . . . and make you wary of the unused spaces collecting dust in your home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Flanker Press
• Release date: Apr 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781771177986

Emily Hepditch

Emily Hepditch is an award-winning author from Mount Pearl, Newfoundland. In 2020, her debut novel, The Woman in the Attic, was published by Flanker Press and quickly became the #1 bestselling book in Newfoundland and Labrador. The book has remained on the Atlantic Books Today top five bestsellers list since its release. Emily's second thriller, Alone on the Trail, is also an ABT top-five bestseller. Sweater is her first children's illustrated book. Emily is a graduate of Memorial University of Newfoundland, where she studied linguistics, psychology, and criminology. When she is not writing novels, she is studying law, working on an illustration, or hiking the East Coast Trails. The Woman in the Attic has won the following awards and honours: Winner: Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize—Mystery Winner: NL Reads 2021—Margaret Duley Award Gold Medal Winner: Independent Publisher Awards—Canada, East, Regional Fiction Finalist: Crime Writers of Canada Awards—Best First Novel Long-listed: BMO Winterset Awards

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Flanker Press Limited

St. John’s

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: The woman in the attic : a novel / Emily Hepditch.

Names: Hepditch, Emily, 1997- author.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200193856 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200193872 | ISBN

9781771177979 (softcover) | ISBN 9781771177986 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781771177993 (Kindle) | ISBN 9781771178006 (PDF)

Classification: LCC PS8615.E73 W675 2020 | DDC C813/.6—dc23

—————————————————————————————— ————————————————————

© 2020 by Emily Hepditch

all rights reserved.

No part of the work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without the written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed to Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5. This applies to classroom use as well. For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll-free to 1-800-893-5777.

Printed in Canada

Cover Design by Graham Blair

Flanker Press Ltd.

PO Box 2522, Station C

St. John’s, NL

Canada

Telephone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Toll-free: 1-866-739-4420

www.flankerpress.com

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

We acknowledge the [financial] support of the Government of Canada. Nous reconnaissons l’appui [financier] du gouvernement du Canada. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for our publishing activities.

To Mama, I love you.

prologue

I didn’t want to do it, the woman tells the baby as she throws another shovelful of dirt into the air and out of her way. The hole in the ground is deeper than yesterday, but the soil after rain is wetter, heavier, sloppier. She’s fallen into the mud a couple of times now, much to her dismay. She supposes that she is probably not in the position to complain about her working conditions.

The woman throws another small pile of dirt and then collapses onto the ground next to the baby. She pulls her knapsack onto her lap, opens the flap on the top, and digs around inside. She pulls out a banana, peels the fruit, and passes it to the baby.

The baby swats at the banana, knocking it into the dirt. She lets out another earth-shattering cry that wails out into the coast like a siren.

"Would you knock it off?" the woman snaps, desperate for the baby to stop making noise, just for a few minutes. For a moment the baby stares at the woman in surprise, startled by her outburst, and proceeds to cry harder.

The woman wonders briefly if she should throw the baby into the hole she’s digging. Then she regrets wondering such a thing and pulls the small girl onto her lap. But as usual, the girl refuses to settle, twisting fervently in the woman’s arms. She stands up, stalks across the grass, bangs her little hands against the metal box, and cries some more.

You’re going to have to get over it, kid, says the woman, standing back up again. She brushes the dirt off her pants, picks up her shovel again, and digs it into the ground. Because she’s not coming back.

The baby looks at the woman, who tosses another pile of dirt over the cliff. The baby puts her fingers in her mouth and leans her head against the box.

Stop touching that thing, will you? snaps the woman. Last thing you need now is blood on your hands.

one

Somewhere, lost in the middle of nowhere, my mother lives perched on the edge of a cliff.

Her house is a lonely jab of white along an endless mountain of grey; a broken tooth in the rock, the remains of a crooked smile. She lives in the inhospitable, hours from anyone, the empty belly of barren terrain, a tired roof berated by storms. My mother. Perhaps she is the rock.

I wake as the sun rises and open my eyes to the golden brightness of my bedroom. Five thirty. I must leave within the hour if I want to make it to my mother’s house before noon. I can feel the stubborn apathy of dread and indulge my head with one final nuzzle into the linen of the pillowcase. I pull the blankets over my face and tell my feet that this is just another morning, that there is no impending doom, that I am not dragging them barefoot into a garden of thorns.

To reach my mother’s property from my apartment in town takes a minimum drive of five hours. Most days, however, the excursion will take longer than five; you rely on the skeleton of a poorly maintained highway, must wind along the curlicue coast, and cut through the forest and the rivers that stand in your way of the journey ahead.

This is the final time I’ll have to do this miserable drive. It shouldn’t be this hard, knowing today is the final hurrah, an end to my life’s biggest background monster. I shut my eyes, pull myself out of bed, and put my feet on the floor. Go time.

I brush my teeth, shower, and make a Thermos full of hazelnut coffee. I run through my list of necessities and check for the fifth time that all my essentials have made it into my suitcase and will not spill out of place from their abusive journey.

Outside, the air is warm and quiet as I load the car with my luggage. Six thirty, the sky is liquid fire. August burns hot in St. John’s, the only month we have all year warm enough to surpass the bite of the ocean wind. You can feel the humidity already in the air, rising in waves from the concrete. Dew twinkles on the blades of grass in my building’s petunia-filled flower bed. The parked cars in the lot are peacefully unmoving, still asleep, have nowhere to hurry on this beautiful Sunday morning.

I look up to the window of my little apartment building and wish it goodbye. Promise it that I will return, in four short days, and that once I come back, I will never leave it again. Then I climb into my car, pull out of the parking lot, and drive in the direction of the highway without looking back. Lot’s wife style.

To get to my mother’s house, you must spend the first few hours of the drive on the Trans-Canada Highway, which (if the surrounding drivers are favourable) is a pleasant, relatively boring drive. I cruise along the double lanes, relatively undisturbed at my pace of 110, open the windows, and try to enjoy the sweet morning wind on my face. A doughnut shop blurs past me, inviting me inside for a tempting box of honey crullers, but I ignore it and keep driving with military discipline. I intend to embrace this hell-ride as just that; no motivational doughnuts or unnecessary stops that’ll drag out the process longer than it has to be. I sip from my Thermos and stare bitterly at the road ahead. A blue Mazda passes me, and I fight an urge to race him.

Two hours pass by, and the morning melts away with the speed of the car. Eventually, I’m approaching the exit that leads to the South Coast Highway and pull into the deceleration lane, trickle off the side of the TCH, and disappear from the highway, from the last shreds of civilization.

The road on the provincial highway is immediately worse; the pavement is bumpy and poorly maintained. My car bounces with the sudden impact of potholes and roadkill as I bumble along. The car is essentially carried by the ruts in the pavement, my life clasped in my steering hands. The drive becomes more labour-intensive, and I can no longer cruise, even a little. I lean forward in my seat and clutch the wheel a little tighter.

I have made this trip by now all but one hundred times. The entire route from here to the other side of the island is a stretch of near nothingness: a long, winding line of road that runs through dozens of tiny communities, beaches, campgrounds, and occasionally a lookout point. I don’t stop in the communities or visit the lookout points for a picture. I’m too bitter. My scenery is an endless expanse of trees and rock and more road and, sometimes, when the lane bends, a shy glimpse of the sea. Dirt paths run on either side of the highway, and every few kilometres the car vibrates with the roar of an approaching ATV. On certain patches, pines grow crooked out of the ground and stick out onto the highway like giant hay brooms. The trees shelter the wildlife, giving camouflage to clueless moose that wander into the road to lick the salty pavement.

Arriving safely at my mother’s is a pure game of experience. I think I could find my way along this road in a blindfold, but still, I am white-knuckled, scooting along at sixty, breath suspended in my throat. I try and relax, try and take the dangers as they come with grace, but my efforts are futile.

At some point, about halfway through my journey, I make a broad turn and then pull to the side of the road. I can see from here the ocean, a magnificent sapphire blue in the clear morning sunshine. The waves this morning are tall and strong, crests rising, roaring, finally sweeping in a violent crescendo at the cliffs submerged in its belly. I watch the foaming whitewash and imagine the power, the strength of the ocean, the way it engulfs everything in its path in wide, tireless swallows. I watch a white gull disappear from where it bobs in the water, the poor creature a victim caught in the thralls of an angry ocean arm.

I wait here for just a little while and watch the sea. I align my breath to the rhythm of the waves, an attempt to compose myself, to feel ready for my arrival. It’s going to be hard. You’re going to wish you hadn’t come. Then more breathing, attempts to replace my negative thoughts with hopeful ones. You need a chance to say goodbye.

I climb back into my Subaru and pull back onto the highway. My car revs forward in the direction of my mother’s place. My eyes fill with tears.

My mother’s house is barely a house at all. it stands

crooked, worn from the elements and the neglect. The ancient saltbox home is the only remaining structure of what once was a community, long ago. It was paid for and restored thirty years ago by a wealthy seaside dreamer, who subsequently got sick of the fog and the wind of the southern coast and decided to move to Florida instead. He put the house on the market, realized no one else wanted it either, and ultimately reduced it for quick sale. My mother was the one who found the ad in the paper and decided that it would make the most perfect home for a writer like she—a quaint little shoebox on the edge of the coast, free from people and distractions. I’m certain the realtor had not been prepared for a sale, which was how she got the place so cheap. I’m also certain that the realtor did not believe my lonely mother would be moving into the property permanently. Not five hours from civilization, kilometres from anyone else. Those conditions are not ideal for anyone, especially not for a petite single mother and her toddler daughter. But alas, she did. And my mother is still there, twenty-two years later, a permanent barnacle to that house and that cliff.

My car pulls up and over the final hill, and at last I reach the private stretch of unpaved road that leads to my destination. The gravel trail, essentially her driveway, has three sharp turns and then a long, straight path. Once you get through (if you haven’t lost the bottom of your car), you can finally find the house. When you get there, the view is postcard-worthy, almost as if the ray of a lighthouse shines its bright beam on your destination like a nautical spotlight. I spot the house as my car rounds the final corner and wonder if it is worth pulling over for a photo. I have seen this view so many dozens of times before, but this, now, will be my last. I hesitate for one more moment and then keep driving up the driveway.

The saltbox house is iconic in photographs for its squareness, its simplicity in design, its ease on the eyes. They are beautiful little homes, the keystone of rural Newfoundland architecture. My mother’s house, a bright white box, is no exception. Six windows on the front, two rows and two colours, a black rectangular door. In the middle of the roof is a small triangular notch with a circular window. The house could have been drawn by a child.

My stomach turns as my car approaches, slowly, pulling into view. There is no turning back now, no reversing direction and calling off the visit. I can already smell the inside of the house from the car, feel the sandy texture of the carpet between my bare toes. I do not want to be here today, trifling through the contents of the house I spent my life in, preparing to say goodbye to the sallow structure forever. Preparing to tell my mother that this will be goodbye forever, from both of us, because I do not intend to keep the property after she leaves.

I park at the end of the driveway, which is nothing more than a shallower gravel pit than the road. My mother has owned only one car in her entire life, a tiny, ketchup-red Ford Focus, which sits rotting at the top of the drive. The car has not started for years, has not moved since the first trills of dementia showed in my mother’s behaviours. (Ominously good timing—the car refused to start when my mother became a danger to herself.) I stare sadly at the car for a few moments, then again at the house, mapping out its shapes in my mind so I won’t forget. Maybe I’ll draw it someday, for my children. At one time I figured I’d keep the house as a summer home for my kids, but those days are gone and will never return. The house is in no condition now for vacationing; its wide rectangular body is starting to swell and slump, the windows rotting away. The black shingles of the roof are crumbling and the paint is flaking off the surface of the door. The property is grimy from years of neglect. I believe, to the disagreement of my stubborn mother, that the house is far beyond repair now. No one is going to buy something as dilapidated as this. No one wants to buy a fixer-upper five hours from the nearest hardware store.

I get out of the car and breathe in the scent of home. The sulphurous stink of sea air and salt water. I take a small moment of Zen—isn’t the sea supposed to be a calming force?—and push my way up the driveway toward my mother’s front door. You can do this, Hannah. You can survive four more days.

The latch of the door handle hitches, as always, so I have to thrust my weight against the hard panel of wood to open the door. It sticks, sticks, and then swings open, spilling me suddenly into the porch. A graceful entrance for a graceful day. I sigh at the irony of my entrance, composed of a fall from a rotten door. My stomach hurts and rolls. I shove the door shut again behind me, listening to the suction of the swollen wood.

There’s a sudden noise in the house beyond. I peer through the cluttered porch, into the hall, into the doorway of the kitchen. I see a glimpse of movement, and then my mother’s face leans in, her body appearing in the hall. Her low voice garbles a sudden Hannah! and there is a frenzy of hurried footsteps toward me where I stand in the porch.

She is wearing a purple apron, her blue eyes shining with joy. She thrusts herself to me and into a squishy hug. It’s Hannah! she tells me. Hannah is here! Her warm head worms into my neck, nuzzling closer. I feel the sharp poke of her keys, the set she wears around her neck for safekeeping, digging into my side.

And then she pulls away, releases me as quickly as she approached. Hannah is coming here, she tells me, as if I don’t already know, as if we haven’t had this exchange.

I pull on the tongue of my sneakers, have to pry them off from the sweat and the suction of wearing them driving all day. I lean against the wall and notice that in the porch’s corner, where the walls meet the floor, is a budding grey cobweb, a growing blanket of dust. Dirt coats my fingertips from the surface of the wall, and once my shoes are off, I wipe my hands in the fabric of my jeans. I can tell merely by the mess in the porch what the condition of the house is going to be. Filthy. I regret not sending in a housekeeper when the hospital prompted me to the service. I’d viewed it then as a gross waste of money. Hospice care was enough, wasn’t it? My mother was semi-functional, after all, and she wasn’t going to be out there much longer. All I needed was someone who could keep her from losing a limb or something in the time before I could get there.

My mother’s diagnosis of early-onset dementia was sudden, unexpected, and took us both completely off guard. She is only fifty-two and has not had any health complications known to date besides this condition. I first noticed the symptoms when I visited home for Christmas in my third year of undergrad—she was forgetful, whimsical, spoke sometimes like a Wernicke’s aphasic: with passion, fluency, but of nonsense. Of garbled, meaningless chaos.

During spring semester, when I returned for the summer, I noticed that she had started to vary in routine—something she has never done for as long as I have known her. She woke up at 3:00 a.m., brushed her teeth seven times in the span of a day, and once cleaned the piano twice in an hour, with no memory of the first time. I prepared myself to let it go, blame it on the excitement of having me back home, until I noticed one evening that she’d seasoned an entire chicken with a can of Comet and didn’t recognize the problem in her mistake.

So I packed her into the car, took her to the doctor in the nearest small town, a tiny community called Loostab, where in the medical clinic she suffered an agoraphobia-induced panic attack so intense that I had to take her back home. A (very expensive) visiting doctor had to come to administer the tests. A young-looking medical resident was the one who made the diagnosis. My mother, a stubborn, righteous, and objectively clueless tyrant—had accused her of lying and spent two months post-diagnosis trying to prove to me that the young student didn’t know anything, that medical residents weren’t real doctors, that she certainly, positively was not, to quote, losing her mind, and that I ought to get someone who knew what they were talking about in this house right away to retest her.

Naturally, I did nothing to enable my mother’s behaviour and spent the rest of the summer monitoring her phone calls and locking the cleaning chemicals in unsuspecting cupboards so that she would not kill the both of us in the wake of her denial. One day I woke up to find her on the footpath, crying into her knees. She told me that she had woken up there with no memory of how she’d arrived. And finally, she accepted that something was going wrong in her brain, like it or not.

* * * * *

I step into the main hallway that leads to the rest of

the house: the kitchen, the sitting room, the bathroom, and the staircase that leads upstairs. This house, I believe, is the opposite of open concept; walls divide every room from one another, the only connections from room to room are narrow, empty doorways. The rooms lead into one another like a twisty rat maze, certain rooms lead to dead ends, others have three exits. Wherever you stand, you feel forcibly confined and constantly separate from everyone else. It is a new kind of claustrophobia, the fear of getting lost in a shoebox. I have since become accustomed to my open-concept apartment back home in St. John’s. I must reacclimatize to the confinement.

My stomach turns at the condition of the house as I pass through the hallway, peering into each room as I go. The level of grime is much worse than I expected—dirt, garbage, and clutter are everywhere. The wallpaper is browning, peeling at the corners, patches splotched with grey spores of mildew. The carpet has doubled in volume from lint, crumbs, dirt, and stains. I regret removing my shoes, afraid of what I could step on, repulsed by the sticky objects that adhere to my feet.

My mother has been hoarding, clearly, given away by the clutter stacked on every surface of the house. On a table that stands at the end of the hallway, a stack of garbage leans, hook-like, the shape of a Dr. Seuss tree. And the odour is vile. What once was wood and sea breeze is now that thick scent of dust and old food. I enter the

Reviews for The Woman in the Attic

[Deb Carmichael · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Awesome book,loved it all definitely a page turner. can't wait to read more by this author.