Beloved Heart's Beat

Chapter Two

 Leaving the train station, she trudged in the direction of her late gran's home; the home she had once lived in.

It had only been half an hour since Daisy had arrived in Milbury, and she already wanted to be back in the city; the town was still as beautiful as she remembered, with its wonderful greenery and the glorious smell of the bakery's freshly baked pies, but she couldn't enjoy any of it knowing that she was the only living member of her family left in the town. She wished her parents were here with her, but she knew they couldn't be. She'd insisted on them going away after grandma died as they weren't coping very well, in which they left, albeit reluctantly. She didn't want to bother them into coming back with the effort it took to get them to leave.

After walking for another 10 minutes she crossed an old, wooden bridge and looked forward as her grandmother's beautiful home came into view. The house was old, Daisy knew that, but she had no idea when the house was actually built. Grandma used to tell her stories of how her one of her ancestors had built the house for himself and his family to live in but had never mentioned when the house was made.

The house itself was breathtaking, but Daisy couldn't bring herself to look at it closely for more than a few minutes. Memories unravelled in her mind like old tapes and studying the house only made it worse, she almost couldn't stand it.

Walking closer, she could see the garden more clearly and she noticed how unkempt the grass was and how the vines that had once regally circled the bannister now looked wild and unruly. No one must have bothered to come over after her grandmother had passed.

But that wasn't really anyone's fault when she and her parents had left nobody had really visited her grandmother at all. Perhaps it was to do with her grandmother living alone, or just because she was old, but nobody wanted to come near her aside from the times that Daisy herself would travel to visit overnight.

Daisy knew the talk of the people of Milbury, she'd been through it since she was in primary school. For some reason, people just assumed that their family was different from anyone else's- but of course, they weren't. Daisy and her family had moved in with her gran after losing her home to a wildfire, it only really ruined one room of their house but her mum had decided that it was an omen and sought out Gran as soon as possible.

Her earliest memory of being treated differently was all the way back in primary school- that made her about ten- and she remembered being questioned about her 'witchy' gran during play time.

'I heard your granny casts spells on kids that don't eat their veggies!' One kid, Greg Davies, had said to her; clearly missing the actually malevolent intent witches are supposed to have.

Rolling her eyes, as if to dispel her turning thoughts, she knew that Greg's mum had probably only told him that so she could get the little shit to eat his veg. She knew her gran wasn't anything of the sort, so ignoring the nosy kids had been easy.

Daisy rummaged around her pocket and gripped her train ticket, rubbing it in her hands and climbing the stairs of the porch.

Walking up to the door, she had to resist turning and riding back home but made it to the doorbell eventually. She eyed the button warily.

After a few minutes of just staring, she closed her eyes and let her fingers push the worn doorbell that had been pushed so many times before and heard the familiar chiming inside, then waited for someone to answer the door.

With a quick jolt, the heavy door was pulled open and a tall, stick thin, rake looking man was smiling down at her.

"You must be Daisy! How lovely it is to meet you! Come in, come in, we must discuss important matters!" He didn't stop smiling at all during his greeting and his scraping, strangely high pitched voice unnerved Daisy to no end. Calm down, Daisy thought to herself, He's probably just trying to lighten a dark experience.