My Perfect Home By The Sea, Chosen by Destiny

CW: violence, sexual abuse

My Perfect Home by the Sea, Chosen by Destiny 

I always thought I would love living by the sea. I love the houses with all of the glass, the porches, the boats, the waves, and the animals. It seemed like the perfect place for me to relocate when my husband and daughter died. After two years of mourning with the comfort and support of my friends and parents, I had to do something. Thanks to the love, support, and anti-depressants, I was feeling some better. I needed to get on with my life, or so they all said. Although they were supportive, I felt smothered. I couldn’t breathe; every inch of the house seemed to hold memories of the life I had and the life I would never have again. I just had to get away.

I had gone to my parents immediately after I lost Gracie and Chad. They lived in NYC, and it had been difficult for me to adjust to their fast-paced life. We had been living on a quiet street in Connecticut. When I went away to college, my parents had moved to the middle of the city. They were successful business owners and wanted to be near the properties they sold. They had very active social lives and were constantly coming and going. I couldn’t handle NYC, the noise, the hustle, and bustle, or the people. I had become accustomed to quiet suburban life, and this was adding to my stress. My parents were wonderful, supportive, caring, and giving. They were also old school. They were judgemental about my sorrow and did not understand my pain. They felt I should go back to my advertising career and get on with my life. I was only 30 years old, could start over, fall in love again, have more children. I felt like I was in their way and limiting their ability to entertain. My father kept saying I needed to get out of bed and go back to work. He was adamant that doing that would make me feel better. I knew I couldn’t do that. I tried freelancing and had lost my passion for advertising. The creative ideas I had been known for wouldn’t come. I missed deadlines, failed at assignments. I just couldn’t get it together.

I moved back home, but that was no better. The old house haunted me. Chad and I had purchased an older home near his family in Connecticut and were renovating it. I had learned how to grout, paint, and do all kinds of repairs with him. I really enjoyed doing that, so I thought it would be therapeutic to do in my own home. That was another reason I needed to move. Every piece of that house that we had worked on spoke to me. Chad’s voice came to me in the walls, at night, all of the time. Tormenting me, accosting me for living on without them. I heard Gracie each time I walked by her room. I couldn’t even go into her room. The door had been open when she left, and I could never close it. It made me cry. I couldn’t keep crying every single day. No one wanted me to move, but I needed me to move.

Thanks to Chad’s life insurance payout and the value of the family house that I sold. I was able to find a beautiful old home on a quiet stretch of beach in Bradenton, Florida, and fell in love with it. It needed a lot of work. I felt the best I had in two years just being in that house. I sold the house in Connecticut, packed up everything I owned that I could still stand to look at, and moved across the country. 

The house was a beautiful 200-year-old wooden mansion. It was two floors on stilts as was common architectural design then. I pulled the dark, gloomy, old paneling down throughout the house to reveal the beautiful original shiplap. Reconditioning and repairing it was a huge job, but well worth the effort. I was looking forward to making the house beautiful again. It was the first thing I had looked forward to in a long time.

I started with the master bedroom. I slept on an old, ugly formal living room couch that my parents had given me until I could complete my bedroom. I painted it a beautiful sea blue. There was an inset bookcase that I loved. I trimmed it in a darker blue. I found an antique white four-poster bed and draped it with thin silk. Paintings from local artists of the beautiful ocean view and surroundings filled the walls. I painted the bathroom a darker blue with white trim. I found a gorgeous old white porcelain clawfoot tub and two matching pedestal sinks. There were candelabras set within the walls to create recessed lighting. Chad would have loved it. These rooms made me feel like Chad was with me. I could sit in the tub for hours, sipping wine, bubbles floating around me, lights flickering, candles burning on the counters, soft music playing on the house-wide music system. Alexa and I chose music from an old playlist belonging to Chad. 

The next room on my schedule was the living room. The entire front wall consisted of glass overlooking the local Point and Bradenton Historical Lighthouse. Many visitors commented that it was the most beautiful view in Bradenton, Fl. The colors for this room were the colors of the sunset. The base was a pale yellow with trim from a deep melon yellow to a vibrant glowing red. The walls were full of pictures of sunsets on glass. The stairway to the second floor rose from the corner of the room. I painted it a pale champagne shade. The railing was a slightly lighter color and was barely visible. I placed eight rocking chairs on the porch across the front. Each was a color of sunset.

The work on the first two areas went along fine. When I started in the kitchen, strange things began to happen. I was doing that entire room in white. White swirled marble counters, white mosaic marble floors, white cabinets with glass fronts to view the colorful dishes. The refrigerator, stove, microwave, oven, dishwasher, and other appliances were a pale orange. All metallic surfaces were bronze. When the installers put in the marble counters, they told me not to touch the tops for 48 hours so the epoxy could dry clear. They came back two days after the install to do any touch-ups, and the supervisor came to find me. I was hanging the images in the living room. His face was red, his breathing rapid, and his voice was raised. I was caught off guard. That was not his normal demeanor. He accused me of putting my handprint on the counter. That idea was ludicrous. Why in the world would I put my handprint on my beautiful new counter? I followed him as he stomped back to the kitchen to show me the damage. Sure enough, there was a clear handprint on the counter. One clear left handprint. How odd. I anxiously placed my hand over the print to show that it was not my hand. The handprint was smaller than mine. It seemed more delicate. And why a left hand? I’m left-handed; if I had put my hand on the counter to reach something in a cabinet or whatever reason, it would have been my right hand. I had no explanation. The installers recoated the surface and taped off the room so no one would enter.

The next thing happened 2 days later. The counters were dry, and I started installing the cabinet doors. I had already painted them and inserted the glass fronts. I put 4 up and then left to attend a training at Lowes on How to punch tin doors for a bathroom cabinet. When I returned, one of the glass doors was broken. I couldn’t understand how this had happened. It seemed so odd that everything I had done before had gone fine, but the kitchen was a problem area. The kitchen was slightly detached, as it had been centuries before because the slaves worked in the kitchen. I didn’t know if this made the area less stable; which certainly did not explain the handprint, but maybe the broken glass. I replaced the glass and installed the other doors. I had to wait for the delivery of the special order appliances, so I moved on to the formal dining room.

The dining room was located directly in front of the kitchen. I was feeling an unusual lack of creativity and inspiration in this room. I decided to continue with the white theme from the kitchen in the area. I pulled up the horrible red carpeting in that room and refinished the oak hardwood floors. There was a horrendous, huge, black stain on the left side of the room, deep in the wood. I ended up replacing those boards because I couldn’t sand the stain out. It must be some old staining product or something, I decided. There were two built-in china cabinets in the room which were outstanding. They had ornate woodwork around the sides and on top. Oddly, there were no windows in this room, although one wall was an outside facing wall. I selected gold for the trim. I painted the entire room white, except the china cabinets. I stained those with natural oak stain. Then I used medium gold for the trim and the shelves of the cabinets. I found a huge dining table that seated 10 without the leaf and 14 with it. It was Oak like the hardwood floor. The table and chairs were also hand-carved with swoops and curves. Images of families at meals in the 1900s to 1930s in gold frames were hung on the walls. I thought this room was spectacular until IT happened. The huge stain reappeared on my floor. It was unexplainable. No one had been in the house but me. How had this stain appeared in the exact place the previous one had been? Was there someone in town that wanted me out of the house? Why? The house had been available for years, unoccupied since the 50s. I had gotten the mansion for a steal because it was in horrible shape. There were no other bidders, and the original owners had no remaining relatives. So who would care? What the hell was going on?

The next day I was at the local ABC to get supplies and mentioned the incident to the one friend I had made in town. (I planned to have a big Open House when I finished the renovations to meet people.) Sylvia looked ashen, and her jaw dropped. She whispered, “Oh no, not again.” What the heck was she talking about? She proceeded, reluctantly, to tell me the story of the Bradentons. Yes, the family the town was named after. It was actually the son of the founder of the town that had previously owned this house. James apparently was a piece of shit. He lived off his father’s timber business. He was a gambler and a drunk. James and his poor wife, Evelyn, lived in the big house with their son, Jamison. They were served by 20 slaves. Sary was a kitchen server, 18 years old, and quite beautiful. Her mother had served for Mr. Bradenton Sr, and rumor was he was Sary’s father. She was passed down to Mr. James as a gift at 12. Her mother had taught her well, and at 17 she was running the other servers. Because she was the leader, she served Mr. James. People say he was always touching her in inappropriate ways and rumored to be raping her. This behavior was so distressing to Sary that she had sent a message to her mother to ask Mr. Bradenton Sr. to make him stop. But her mother knew how this worked, so she never mentioned it. One night at dinner, Mr. James was extremely obnoxious. There were no guests, and Mrs. Bradenton was sick in her room with a headache, as usual. Rumor is that Mr. James had designed the dining room for evenings exactly like this. No guests, no one in the house except slaves, no windows, no outside access, just Jamison, a slave, and him in the dining room. When Sary served the lambchops to Mr. James, he started his usual rubbing of her. He grabbed her, slammed her onto the table, and savagely started to tear her clothes off. She had tolerated Mr. James, but now Jamison’s induction was to be tonight. Sary could not let that happen. Sary was screaming hysterically, and the only people that could hear her were the other slaves. Cuffee loved Sary and ran into the dining room with the big butcher knife. He almost got to Mr. James but was grabbed from behind and drug backward by his friends. The knife flew into the air. This behavior was normal for a slave owner. Cuffee could not risk his life trying to stop it. Sary may be able to get through this. The silver of the blade turning as it dropped through the air caught Sary’s eye. She was entranced by the beauty of the reflection. When it hit the table beside her hand, Sary knew it was meant for her. Sary swung the knife and cut Mr. James’ arm off. His scream sounded like a wolf caught in a trap. He rolled off of Sary with the look of the devil in his eyes. She did not hesitate. She swung the knife again and cut his throat. There would be no more screaming now. Suddenly, Jamison burst at Sary with all of his 14-year-old might. She did not really want to kill him; she had tried to save him. But he would just grow up to be his father. She completely cut his head off. When the other slaves felt it was safe to come in, Sary was gone. From the blood trail. They knew she had gone through the house, exited the front door, and run down the beach. Cuffee ran down the beach, but couldn’t find Sary. Days later, her body washed up on the sand. Evelyn Bradenton immediately released the slaves and returned to her family in Virginia.

“Really Sylvia, that is quite a story”, I laughed, “what does that have to do with me?” “People have reported that Sary has come back, haunted them. The only other family that lived in the house after the Bradenton’s also had a double murder there.”Sylvia screamed. “Ah!”, I laughed., “The paneling people. They ruined the beauty of the house,” “Fine, don’t believe me. You’ll see. Tonight is the anniversary of all of the deaths. That is why she is getting active lately.” Sylvia stated angrily. “Well, there won’t be a double murder tonight. There’s no one to kill but me, and there’s no one who will care.”, I huffed as I stomped out.

I went home and had several drinks. I sat in my glorious tub, drank a bottle of wine, and watched the candles burn down until it was dark. I put on a long black dress. Then I went to the dining room. I had replaced the stained boards a second time, but the huge spot was back. Now there were also spots leading out of the room. I lit three candles on the table. I addressed Sary. “Sary, I know what happened in this room. I understand your pain. I am not afraid of you. I would like for us to live in this home together. I will fix it up and never sell it again. You will be safe here and never worry about other people coming to bother you. I also suffer from loss and pain and would welcome a companion. Can you please communicate with me?” 

Suddenly I heard the weather outside become violent. I didn’t remember storm warnings, but in Florida, you should expect that at any time. Pounding rain began to fall, and it was almost deafening on the tin roof. A huge lightning bolt and thunderclap occurred almost simultaneously, and the power went out in the hallway. The window blew open extinguishing the candles. I felt someone behind me and turned. When my eyes adjusted, I saw a beautiful young lady standing behind me. “Are you Sary?”, I asked. “Yes ma’am, I am Sary, a slave of the James Bradenton estate.”, she quietly replied. “ Sary, you do not have to identify yourself as a slave any longer. Those days are over. I want to help you move forward so you do not have to feel guilt and regret. I want to help you release yourself from your pain.” I whispered. I was actually scared to death, and guzzling Vodka like a fish, but I pretended to be brave. “I know you have had problems with previous guests, but I hope we have enough shared experiences that we can get along.”, I tried to smile. 

Suddenly, the apparition that had been the beautiful Sary became a horrifying hollow, waterlogged, floating image with huge teeth. It screeched, “ Of Course, we can get along. We are the same. WE ARE BOTH KILLERS!!” Together...again...soon... the wind seemed to howl. Then she vanished.

I was shaking like a leaf. How could she know? The police never charged me with driving drunk. No one else ever knew I was drunk and on drugs when I ran under that tractor-trailer and chopped Chad’s head off. Gracie’s death was accidental. Her car seat was not installed properly, and it flew out of the SUV when the windshield burst. But no one else knew that I had done that. No one knew about Chad’s abuse and my unbearable pain. No one before Sary.

I knew I was home.