Free The Evil Inside by Philip Taffs

building firm that had created the exclusive ten-title development in the late eighties. The properties were separated by lines of adolescent white oaks half a kilometre apart, while majestic frontages unfurled right down to the water’s edge of the Great Peconic Bay.
    ‘Shack’ didn’t really do it justice. Two storeys, six bedrooms, three bathrooms, an office, and a balcony that looked straight out onto the choppy grey waves and deep-blue sky. In fact, its only concession to ‘shackiness’ were the magnificent American oak beams – salvaged from old local barns – that had been used in its construction. Although the house was only about ten years old, the redwood had already weathered beautifully, giving the exterior a distressed frontier cabin look – classic Americana.
    Inside, the high ceilings and exposed beams and rafters created a cosy ski-lodge ambience. Susanna had decorated the walls with hand-made Navajo blankets and wall hangings, Mexican carnival masks (according to Esmeralda), and Civil War muskets, muzzle-loaders and cannon balls in wrought-iron brackets. Central to the expansive kitchen/living area was a huge old pot-bellied stove that Susanna had had shipped from her grandmother’s house in Tennessee.
    We’d brought Esmeralda with us. Looking back, it perhaps seems strange that we invited a relative stranger to come with us so soon after what had happened. But neither Mia nor I were thinking straight. So, from a purely practical point of view, Esmeralda’s presence made sense.
    Besides, Callum liked her. Perhaps she could cajole him out of his very un-Callum-like inertia.
    After we’d unpacked, Esmeralda checked out the well-stocked pantry and Mia went for a lie down upstairs while Callum and I did a quick, cold lap of the grounds before scurrying back to the crackling warmth of the stove.
    I challenged Callum to a race around the outside of the house, but he claimed he needed a ‘cowwidoor’ like we had at the Olcott.
    Esmeralda made us all some Mexican eggs for dinner while I chugged down one of the Budweisers Anthony had kindly left in the gleaming Miele fridge. I silently toasted my ever-thoughtful friend and boss as I reached for my second.
    *
    A strange new physical thing happened to me at Arcadia almost as soon as we arrived: I found that I couldn’t bear to look at the little white electrical sockets along the walls or in the bathrooms, or behind the toaster or the coffee maker in the long galley kitchen.
    Back in Australia, sockets featured three narrow slits to house their plugs. But here in America, the three socket holes were round, which made them look like two eyes and a mouth.
    So now I tried to avoid looking at them at every turn: because to me, every little white socket looked like a little white face screaming.
    I spoke to Esmeralda from behind the broad marble benchtop. ‘Mmm, that smells good.’
    Esmeralda had also cut her hair into a short round bob: she looked like Mia’s little sister. It was late on our second day at Arcadia and she was stirring up some magic in a big beige Le Creuset pot. The chopping boards were a delicious patchwork of white onions, bright-red chillies, taxi-yellow corncobs, limes, and blood-red pork skin.
    ‘Is called
pozole rojo
,’ Esmeralda replied. ‘My grandmuddah, Ana Claudia, used to make this when we was children. So my seesters and me call it “Ana-Claudia’s medicine”. Is very good for the cold wedder.’
    ‘Well, we certainly have that here,’ I said, nodding at the sheet of snow billowing towards us from across the bay. ‘You must really hate the cold, eh, coming from Mexico?’
    ‘Well, when next summer comes, Guy, you will soon see that New York City can get as hot as San Juan del Rio – where I come from. But the New York winters … ’ she gestured at the white world outside with her ladle ‘… brrrr – it’s crazy cold for me, man.’ She kept stirring. ‘This soup will be a leedle hot for Callum with the