Letters

The Past Cannot Stay Hidden

Trigger Warning at bottom of the page.

The next three days were quiet. I suspected that whoever was doing this to granddad was someone in his cul-de-sac, someone who had seen us put up the cameras. While we hadn’t hidden the cameras, they weren’t exactly obvious. Small black boxes dotted around the outside of the house. Someone knew they were there. 

But on the fourth day they showed that cameras or not, they would not stop harassing an old man. 

I got the alert at 2am, my phone beeped, the notification read “Motion Detected”. Then again, a few minutes later, another notification “Motion Detected” and another, and another. By the fourth notification, I was awake. 

I opened the app to see someone well covered in black clothing, hood pulled up over their head, scarf wrapped around their face. They were in the driveway, and they were hurling paint at the house, car and garden. 

The Past Cannot Stay Hidden

Trigger warnings at bottom of the page.

They say everyone who looks into their family history will find a secret, eventually. I had always thought that didn’t apply to my family. They were all far too dull, too prim and proper to have any interesting secrets. 

Then someone killed my granddad’s dog. 

We found Rufus in the garden, eyes wide, blood and foam running from his mouth. He was cold and hard to the touch. Granddad had lifted him up, cradling the small dog in his big-knuckled hands. Watching my grandfather like that reminded me of when grandma had been dying. She had been so frail towards the end, a collection of bird bones cradled by Granddad’s gentle, powerful hands. 

We buried Rufus behind the house, near the rosebushes. 

A few days passed, then someone started defacing his car. Great long scratches appeared down the side, more and more every day. Then the following week the tyres were cut, then a few days later the windscreen broken.

Someone was targeting granddad.