Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse Duet) The Manipulator¹

𝙿𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚘𝚖

Let's start.

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐈

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐩𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫

Sometimes I have very dark thoughts about my mother—thoughts no sane daughter should ever have.

Sometimes, I’m not always sane.

𝙰𝙳𝙳𝙸𝙴'𝚂 𝙼𝙾𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚁

📲 Addie, you’re being ridiculous.

Mom says through the speaker on my phone. I glare at it in response, refusing to argue with her. When I have nothing to say, she sighs loudly. I wrinkle my nose. It blows my mind that this woman always called Nana dramatic yet can’t see her own flair for the dramatics.

𝙰𝙳𝙳𝙸𝙴'𝚂 𝙼𝙾𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚁

📲 Just because your grandparents gave you the house doesn’t mean you have to actually live in it.

𝙰𝙳𝙳𝙸𝙴'𝚂 𝙼𝙾𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚁

📲 It’s old and would be doing everyone in that city a favor of it were torn down.

I thumped my head against the headrest, rolling my eyes upward and trying to find patience weaved into the stained roof of my car.

How did I manage to get ketchup up there?

𝙰𝙳𝙴𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙴 𝚁𝙴𝙸𝙻𝙻𝚈

📲 And just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean I can’t live in it.

I retort dryly.

My mother is a bít¢h. Plain and simple. She’s always had a chip on her shoulder, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.

𝙰𝙳𝙳𝙸𝙴'𝚂 𝙼𝙾𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚁

📲 You’ll be living an hour from us! That will be incredibly inconvenient for you to come visit us, won’t it?

Oh, how will I ever survive?

Pretty sure my gynecologist is an hour away, too, but I still make an effort to see her once a year. And those visits are far more painful.

𝙰𝙳𝙴𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙴 𝚁𝙴𝙸𝙻𝙻𝚈

📲 Nope.

I reply, popping the P. I’m over this conversation. My patience only lasts an entire sixty seconds talking to my mother. After that, I’m running on fumes and have no desire to put in any more effort to keep the conversation moving along.

If it’s not one thing, it’s the other. She always manages to find something to complain about. This time, it’s my choice to live in the house my grandparents gave to me. I grew up in Parsons Manor, running alongside the ghosts in the halls and baking cookies with Nana. I have fond memories here—memories I refuse to let go of just because Mom didn’t get along with Nana.

I never understood the tension between them, but as I got older and started to comprehend Mom’s sneakiness and underhanded insults for what they were, it made sense.

Nana always had a positive, sunny outlook on life, viewing the world through rose-coloured glasses. She was always smiling and humming, while Mom is cursed with a perpetual scowl on her face and looking at life like her glasses got smashed when she was plunged out of Nana’s vàgínå. I don’t know why her personality never developed past that of a porcupine—she was never raised to be a prickly bít¢h.

Growing up, my mom and dad had a house only a mile away from Parsons Manor. She could barely tolerate me, so I spent most of my childhood in this house. It wasn’t until I left for college that Mom moved out of town an hour away. When I quit college, I moved in with her until I got back on my feet and my writing career took off.

And when it did, I decided to travel around the country, never really settling in one place.

Nana died about a year ago, gifting me the house in her will, but my grief hindered me from moving into Parsons Manor. Until now.

Mom sighs again through the phone.

𝙰𝙳𝙳𝙸𝙴'𝚂 𝙼𝙾𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚁

📲 I just wish you had more ambition in life, instead of staying in the town you grew up in, sweetie.

𝙰𝙳𝙳𝙸𝙴'𝚂 𝙼𝙾𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚁

📲 Do something more with your life than waste away in that house like your grandmother did. I don’t want you to become worthless like her.

A snarl overtakes my face, fury tearing throughout my chest.

𝙰𝙳𝙴𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙴 𝚁𝙴𝙸𝙻𝙻𝚈

📲 Hey, Mom?

𝙰𝙳𝙳𝙸𝙴'𝚂 𝙼𝙾𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚁

📲 Yes?

𝙰𝙳𝙴𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙴 𝚁𝙴𝙸𝙻𝙻𝚈

📲 Fuck off.

I hang up the phone, angrily smashing my finger into the screen until I hear the telltale chime that the call has ended.

How dare she speak of her own mother that way when she was nothing but loved and cherished? Nana certainly didn’t treat her the way she treats me, that’s for dàmn sure.

I rip a page from Mom’s book and let loose a melodramatic sigh, turning to look out my side window. Said house stands tall, the tip of the black roof spearing through the gloomy clouds and looming over the vastly wooded area as if to say you shall fear me. Peering over my shoulder, the dense thicket of trees are no more inviting—their shadows crawling from the overgrowth with outstretched claws.

I shiver, delighting in the ominous feeling radiating from this small portion of the cliff. It looks exactly as it did from my childhood, and it gives me no less of a thrill to peer into the infinite blackness.

Parsons Manor is stationed on a cliffside overlooking the Bay with a mile-long driveway stretching through a heavily wooded area.

The congregation of trees separates this house from the rest of the world, making you feel like you’re well and truly alone.

Sometimes, it feels like you’re on an entirely different planet, ostracized from civilization. The whole area has a menacing, sorrowful aura.

And I fucking love it.

𝙿𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚘𝚖

Well, I don't know if the characters really match with the story line I actually selected or not but, I will change it if it does not match with the time passes.

𝙿𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚘𝚖

For now let's just go with flow as I'm also reading it for the first time while writing.