Free The Banishing by Fiona Dodwell Page B

grasped long ago, before she was old enough to understand anything. Open-minded? Yes. A believer? No.
    Unless she was going crazy, unless she was willing to accept that she could not trust her own eyes and ears, Melissa knew that something was happening to her. Something not normal. What it was, she had yet to find out, but she would. As she turned on the camcorder and watched it whir to life, she decided she would.
    * * * *
    She felt warm tears slide down her cheeks as she watched. It was like seeing a memory come alive, and it haunted her. At first she didn’t want to watch, because it almost felt like it was taunting her, but she could not bring herself to switch the camcorder off.
    The small screen attached to the recorder was playing the bright, vivid images of Melissa with Mark the day they were handed the keys to the house they now lived in. It was the day that the paperwork was finalized, signed, sealed, and paid for. The home she was in now, but it looked like another world.
    Melissa had been the one filming. She remembered it now with a clarity so sharp, it was as if it had happened yesterday. Unused to using the camcorder, the picture was blurry at times. The screen filled with shaky, unsteady images as she followed Mark around the home, enjoying the ecstasy of a life and a new beginning. The video was short—only eight minutes long—of Melissa and Mark exploring the empty house they had bought.
    There was a thrill between them—a spark of excitement that had been so strong that Melissa smiled as she watched the moment unfold before her on camera. That had been a happy time, a good time. She realized, watching it there with her head leaning back against her pillow, that it was probably amongst the last few days of normality. Before Mark had changed.
    Seeing him there before her, she realized how much he had changed. Following Mark on camera, Melissa had filmed him rummaging through empty drawers, running up the stairs, running his hand along surfaces and inspecting their new property. The thing that struck her more than anything was his happiness. How good he looked and how alive he seemed. The man she now shared a bed with felt more like a ghost than a man. Hollow, empty, and remote. It was as if he would melt and dissolve if she reached out to him.
    “It’s going to be great,” she heard him saying as the camera tilted and followed him up the carpeted stairs. “We’ll make this our little paradise. Our little slice of heaven!” She heard her own voice, giddy with an almost childish joy, as she laughed, saying, “You’ve got a cute behind, but I need to zoom out a lot to get it in view!” The camera zoomed to his behind as he mounted the staircase, and he turned, gave her the middle finger, and burst into laughter. His eyes. So warm. So in love with her.
    Melissa shifted herself on the bed, wiping at the tears falling steadily from her eyes. She sniffed, grabbed a tissue from the box at the bedside table, and dabbed under her eyes. Watching the footage felt like examining something in history, something of long ago. A life made extinct.
    She realized as she turned back to the video, the camcorder had obviously been placed on a surface. It was now zoomed in on her and Mark hugging by the bedroom window, and the two of them had become like spirits haunting a home. Their marriage, the way they were living, the way he had treated her...it all seemed unreal, almost impossible.
    Mark loved her, then. Part of her believed that he still loved her. They had enjoyed—until the last few months, at least—a very solid, good relationship. Mark wasn’t perfect—nobody was—but he was a good man, and he had treated her like a princess. Cooked her meals. Took her to the cinema. Rubbed her feet after a tiring shift on the ward. Who was this man he had become? Can people really change that swiftly?
    Melissa watched the small camera screen and smiled. Mark’s face was pressed up to the camera lens, and he was