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The day he got married, Phil Coulson swore to love his wife for all of eternity. Audrey had promised the same.
He never thought that ten years on, those promises would mean nothing.
They had a house, a daughter, and a life together, but the increasing arguments meant that after almost a decade, they decided it was no longer working.
After he and Audrey had split up, they took shared custody of Skye.
But the school they both wanted for her was in a village several miles away, and after a lot of negotiating, they decided that Phil would move there, bringing Skye with him during the week. She would then stay with Audrey at weekends and holidays.
Being a writer left Phil with the flexibility to change his location at a far greater ease than Audrey could do; her job in a high rise music production company meant she needed to remain in the city.
So, Phil, Skye, and her pet dog Fury - named due to his deceptive appearance (he was really a great big softie, despite only having one eye) - upped sticks and moved to the tiny village none of them had heard of before researching schools for their daughter.
The house they moved into was old, and needed a lot of work doing to it, but for the first time in several years, when Phil stood in the front room, listening to the peace and quiet around him, he realised that this had been the right decision.
They were situated at the end of a long winding road, which contained only a few other dwellings, and each one they passed, the residents came out to greet their new neighbours.
All told them of the shops they would find in the local village, of the fountains in the square that Skye might like to see, of the bookshop in the centre that an aspiring writer like Phil would probably love.
And all spoke of the house at the end of the road, where nobody came and went.
It was supposedly abandoned, haunted by screams and shadows, but Phil just brushed the tales off with a shrug; they were here for a new life, not to be filled with tales of ghosts and madness. And he didn’t want Skye to fear their new lives in any way.
They were walking past said house at the end of the street, when Skye first brought it up herself.
They’d lived in the neighbourhood for three days, and it was the first time they had really been out to explore. Fury tugged on his lead, and Phil paused whilst the dog sniffed around a patch of flowers on the sidewalk.
“One of the boys in my class said it’s haunted” Skye murmured quietly, indicating towards the residence.
Phil glanced towards the building, taking in the wild, unkempt gardens around the front, and the large dark front to the house itself. The iron gates at the end of the drive only helped add to the stereotype that it was an old haunted mansion.
“Haunted?” he asked sceptically, raising an eyebrow at his daughter's words.
“Yeah, apparently there’s a ghost there and it screams at night and stuff.”
“Really.”
Skye nodded enthusiastically, gripping his hand slightly tighter as they passed. “Yeah! How cool is that?!”
“Very cool” he replied smoothly, before continuing past the building and pulling the dog along with them.
Haunted, really.
Phil Coulson could say he believed in a lot of things, but ghosts and spirits lurking in old abandoned buildings, was not one of them.
Four nights later, as he took Fury on his evening walk, having left Skye getting herself ready for bed - she was nine, and he was only going to be out for fifteen minutes, if that - Phil found himself back in front of the mystery dwelling.
Over the past few days, he had been into town and converged with many of the locals, and when he revealed where he and Skye had moved into, all but one had mentioned the “haunted house at the end of the street”.
It would appear that the villagers all believed wholeheartedly that there was something supernatural going on, and nobody had gone near it in years.
Phil brushed off their comments time and time again, convincing himself there was nothing to worry about.
Only, he was admittedly a little surprised to discover as he passed, that there was a light on inside.
It was the first sign of life he had encountered around the place, but nothing more or less suggested there was somebody living there. Clearly the rumours had been wrong; it wasn’t haunted, there was simply a person there who maybe didn’t enjoy company, liked to be alone…
Although he wasn’t sure where the rumours of screaming came from.
They had been living in the house for five weeks exactly, the first time Phil heard it.
He had been tossing and turning all night, the sounds of the storm outside lashing against the windows keeping him from drifting into a peaceful slumber. Skye on the other hand was completely unconscious, and Phil was once more slightly envious of his daughter’s ability to sleep through pretty much anything.
Fury was anxiously padding around the house, the thunder above making him uncomfortable, and as Phil pulled himself out of bed, and absently scratched the dogs ears in what he hoped was comfort, he froze.
In the distance, travelling through the wind, was the sound of a woman, screaming.
He swallowed hard, and pricked his ears up, hunting for another trace of the sound.
But nothing more came.
It couldn’t have been his imagination… could it?
She had sounded terrified, whoever she was, and Phil looked down to see if Fury had noticed the sound.
But the dog was currently trying to hide under Phil’s bed, his tail between his legs and his ears down, desperate to escape the low rumbles of thunder, so he guessed not.
After checking on Skye once more, Phil returned to bed, where he lay awake for several hours, wondering who, or what, had screamed in the night like that.
Maybe the rumours Skye had heard weren’t so much of a lie after all…
The shiver that took over his body momentarily, was definitely involuntary.
Whilst walking Skye to school the following morning, Phil was surprised to find a crowd of people, gathered around the gates at the house they feared to be haunted.
He frowned as they neared, wondering what on earth everyone was doing; besides anything else, it was a slight intrusion on the residents life, to have so many people - that they apparently did not know, if it was true nobody had been there - standing looking at their property.
When they reached the crowd of villagers however, the reason for their apparent interest became clear.
The house was as it had always been; imposing and unkempt and a little foreboding. But there was something new.
It appeared that the storm the previous night, had uprooted one of the large trees from the garden, sending it crashing through the side of the building, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the property.
“Daddy,” Skye whispered, staring at the tree and the leaves that were strewn across the property. “Do you think the ghost is okay?”
At his daughter’s words, something in Phil’s mind clicked.
The screams he had heard last night, plus the tree smashing through the house.
It wasn’t haunted, no matter how superstitious the villagers were.
“Skye, can you walk the rest of the way to school yourself?” he asked urgently, looking back at the building with a rising sense of fear.
She nodded. It was less than 30 seconds away.
He watched as she skipped down the street, and the moment she crossed the threshold inside the school gates, he opened the one in front of him, and jogged up the path.
The residents around him watched in surprise, but none made the effort to join him.
The anger he felt at their stupidity grew with each footstep pounding up the drive.
He rounded the side of the house, seeing close up how bad the damage to the property had been.
“Hello?” he called out, stepping over a large branch that was sprawled across the pathway. “Is there somebody there? Are you okay?”
Wrapping his coat around him to keep out the cold of the wind that was still whipping it’s way through the garden, and taking another step forwards, Phil paused as he heard the sounds of sweeping coming from somewhere inside the property.
At least whoever was inside was okay.
For some reason, Phil felt slightly nervous about actually going inside. He cursed the tales the villagers had drilled into his mind.
He took one final step around the property, coming to a stop at the window frame that was smashed beyond repair, and stared.
There in front of him, was definitely no ghost.
“Hi,” he said timidly, raising a hand in a feeble attempt at a wave. “I live down the street… do you need a hand with something?”
The question was an understatement in honesty; the right side of the house was practically decimated, and there was glass and rubble everywhere. He glanced around with a grimace.
The dark haired woman in front of him blinked several times at his appearance, and she seemed just as shocked as he was that somebody else was there.
“I mean…” he continued, when she didn’t reply. “Can I help with clearing some of this for you?”
She continued to stare for a few moments, and Phil was beginning to question whether he was actually seeing things, before she nodded slightly, handing him the brush she’d previously been using.
“Thank you,” she murmured quietly, turning away and proceeding to start piling up sections of wood that Phil could only guess used to be part of the wall structure.
They cleared in silence, and Phil became more and more intrigued by the woman in front of him, apparently living alone in a house feared by the village.
“So,” he asked, when he felt the need to converse with her overwhelming him. “Do you… live here alone?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you for helping.”
Her tone was genuine and warm, and for a moment, Phil saw a flicker of a smile across her face, before it was gone once more.
“It’s okay. Do you have somewhere to stay whilst this-” he gestured around them “-gets fixed?”
“I’ll stay here.”
He raised an eyebrow, but the look she shot him told him that was the end of the conversation.
At some point, she wandered off, leaving him sweeping shattered glass from the floor of what he had worked out to be some kind of fitness room, or gymnasium within the house; there was a punchbag in the corner, accompanied by a treadmill and several weights of varying kilograms.
When she returned several minutes later, it was with two mugs of a steaming liquid, that he took gratefully. It turned out to be some kind of fruit tea, and despite it being a slightly acquired taste he had never really taken too, he found himself quite enjoying it.
As time ticked on, Phil realised he would need to collect Skye from school, so he apologised to the woman, telling her he had to leave.
“I’ll come back tomorrow, to help, if that’s okay?”
She looked at him once more, before nodding.
“Okay,” he smiled, leaning the brush against a nearby wall, and dragging his hand through his hair. It had been sweaty work, and he wondered just what a state he must look; he certainly felt like one, but she looked like she’d just gotten ready for a night out.
“I never… what’s your name?” he asked, turning back slightly before he exited the house.
“Melinda.”
“Goodbye Melinda.”
He promised to return to her the next day.
And he kept his promise.
He went back the day after too.
“You know, my daughter - Skye - she was at school a few weeks ago, and someone told her this house was haunted.”
It was the fourth time Phil had come round to help Melinda sorting out the mess her house was in. Over that time, they had gradually formed some kind of unspoken agreement; he didn’t pry into her life, and she wouldn’t throw him out.
It worked.
“I’ve heard that” she replied, not exactly denying his comments.
“You got a ghost here with you?” he asked jokingly, but she simply looked away from him, and continued to sweep up fragments of glass.
Phil watched her for a moment, trying to work out what was going on. It took him a few seconds to realise she was not only hiding something, but she was afraid.
“Are you okay?” he asked genuinely, frowning slightly as she continued to avoid all eye contact with him.
Melinda nodded.
“So… the screaming that people in the village talk about…”
She met his eyes momentarily, and in them Phil was shocked to see not only pain, but also fear and shame too. He took a step forwards, unconsciously reaching out until his fingertips just gently touched the bare skin of her wrist.
“Melinda?”
She shrugged away, and he watched her recoil, trying to hide herself away from the conversation where she was stood. She crossed her arms and looked to the floor, her eyes glazing over as she lost herself within her mind for a moment.
Screw not asking about her life; Phil suddenly knew what it was she was hiding from the world, and why she had locked herself away in a mansion on her own.
“Is it you?” he asked softly, all trace of amusement over ghosts and hauntings gone completely. This woman was no beast. She was in pain, and a lot of it.
She met his gaze finally, before simply nodding once, and leaving him in the room alone, walking away and through the double doors at the end.
Phil followed her out after a moment, catching the door just before it closed, and stepping into what was apparently the kitchen area. she was facing the window across the room, and with a glance Phil was surprised to find that it overlooked a beautifully kept garden, filled with roses and trailing flowers and trees of lush green leaves.
He took a step towards her before halting, waiting in the silence for the words he knew she would speak once she was ready.
“You’re the first person to come here, you know?”
“Ever?”
“In a few years. The first person to talk to me, even. Ever since…”
“What happened?”
She turned to face him, and Phil had the strangest desire to reach out to her once more, and take her hand. he restrained himself however, and let her keep her space; if she was alone most of the time, she probably wouldn’t appreciate the sudden intrusion into her life.
“I was away on assignment for work, in Bahrain.”
He had no idea what she used to do for a living, but he’d wondered if it related to her secretive nature.
“I saw things out there that I can’t get out of my head.”
“Like… memories?”
“Nightmares. Terrors. Things that no person should ever have to witness.”
She swallowed hard, and looked away once more.
“I know a guy,” he murmured softly. “Back in Portland, he works with soldiers who’ve suffered from… similar things. Helps them. Would you… can I give you his number?”
She looked up at him then with a flash of anger, and he worried if he had offended her by mistake.
“I’ve had therapy.”
“It didn’t help?”
“Sort of. It reduced the darkness -” her emphasis on darkness made Phil immediately jump to the idea of depression. “- but not the nightmares.”
“The screaming?” he asked softly, aware this was probably the first time she had spoken to anybody about her life in a long time. “The sounds people in the village talk about, it’s you waking from nightmares.”
Melinda nodded, and he watched her visibly shut down again in front of him.
“Sometimes I forget to close the windows, so those are nights people can hear.”
Phil was torn between going to down the village and dragging the residents up to the house, and wiping their tales of mystery and spirits away, and reaching out to the woman in front of him and pulling her into a hug.
After a moment of hesitation, and at risk of being strapped with a restraining order of some kind, he opted for the latter.
Despite her original hesitation, and shock at his actions, Phil couldn’t help but smile slightly as she relaxed into his embrace.
Phil was sat on his daughter’s bed, reading through the notes of a new children’s story he had been planning out, when she brought up the house again.
She’d obviously noticed her dad’s interest in the house had grown since they had arrived - only more so since the day of the storm - and clearly realised he had been back inside more than once.
“You went there today again didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Billy told me that the ghost is a kind of haunted beast.”
“Don’t call her that” Phil muttered absently, staring out of the window and into the night, the distant lights from Melinda’s house turning off gradually. She was probably going to bed, and it was all Phil could do to pray she managed to get some peaceful sleep.
“So is it true? There is somebody there?”
Skye looked up at her dad with an expression of mixed confusion and sorrow, and he stroked through her hair gently, closing the book and putting it back onto the bedside table.
“Yes. There is. But she’s not a ghost or a beast or a spirit, she’s just… hurt. So we’re going to make sure she’s never alone again, okay?”
Skye nodded fervently.
“Okay.”