Chapter 1

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New Year's Eve

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The old house stood above the bay like a stubborn survivor.

From the front veranda of Seaview House, you could watch the ferries crossing to Melbourne, the city skyline can be seen at the far edge of the water, clouded by the city's smog and scattered clouds

The house sat nestled behind an old fence, having seen four decades of family celebrations, arguments, reconciliations, weddings, and funerals. The walls show that it had survived economic recessions, teenage rebellions, migrant nostalgia, and several failed renovation projects.

Now its days were numbered, and everyone inside knew it because yellow planning notice had appeared on the front fence three months earlier: PROPOSED REDEVELOPMENT.

Most family members pretended not to notice it and others argued about it every chance they got.

Tonight, however, nobody could avoid talking about demolition It was New Year's Eve and as happen the final New Year's Eve for Seaview House.

The dining table stretched almost the entire length of the room. Trays of food covered every available surface. Romanian pastries sat beside Australian pavlova. Bottles of wine crowded shoulder to shoulder with homemade plum brandy. Somebody had already started arguing about football. Somebody else had begun telling the same family story for the tenth consecutive year.

Outside, children chased each other across the lawn and inside, old grievances quietly took their seats but ready to surface as soon the music stopped.

Vanessa Collins stood near the window holding a glass she had forgotten to drink from.

Across the room, Daniel Mason was checking his phone again, his jaw tight stopped for moment then check again.

The screen lit his face for only a second each time, but it was enough to show his unease.

Daniel was worried the sale was slipping away and Vanessa could feel the risk closing in.

After twenty years of watching people, she trusted that feeling and some times she didn’t wish to know.

She looked toward the bay at calm water and the clear sky and on that moment everything appeared perfect. This night It was the kind of evening people remembered for the rest of their lives though not always for the reasons they expected.

Vanessa Collins had always believed that houses remembered things-not in the supernatural sense. She had spent too many years teaching science to entertain ghosts and spirits.

But somehow, in the back of her mind, she just felt like sometimes walls remembered, floorboards remembered and they absorbed laughter, grief, arguments, and secrets until they became part of its structure.

Seaview House carried more memories than most. As the south began to take clearer shape in her mind, Vanessa took another gulp of the red wine.

She watched as Eleanor Hart settled herself at the old baby grand piano in the corner of the lounge room.

The piano had arrived from Europe in a shipping container in 1984, along with three crates of books, a collection of crystal glasses, and enough family expectations to burden several generations.

Eleanor flexed her fingers dramatically.

"Oh no," muttered Jack Morgan.

Several people laughed.

"What?" Eleanor demanded.

"The last time you sat at that piano, we lost two wine glasses and nearly a chandelier."

"It was artistic expression."

"It was an assault on Mozart."

Eleanor ignored him and launched into a lively jazz version of Auld Lang Syne.

The younger guests applauded, but the older guests winced.

Tyler Parker immediately pulled out his phone and started filming.

"Don't put that online," Jack warned.

"Why?"

"Because future generations deserve better."

Tyler grinned.

At twenty-seven, he seemed incapable of taking anything seriously.

His mother, Georgia, emerged from the kitchen carrying a tray of pastries.

"Tyler, help me."

"I'm helping preserve family history."

"You're preserving laziness." She sighed, just half joking and handed him the tray anyway.

The room filled with the smell of cinnamon, vanilla and freshly baked pastry.

For a brief moment, Vanessa felt something close to happiness.

This was how she preferred to remember the house and smile at the wine glass. New sip to dissolve everything else that came after: the arguments, the disappointment, or years that had slipped away unnoticed.

Just this: music, food, the bay beyond the windows and the beautiful cacophonic noise of the family gathered together.

Then she noticed Daniel again, he had moved to the far end of the veranda. Alone he was looking at his phone with his shoulders were tense and absorbed by whatever the glowing screen was showing him.

A few seconds later, the screen lit up again, probably another message.

After he read it, his jaw tightened, and then he looked toward the water.

He didn’t see the city or the guests but just looked space out across toward the dark water as though he were expecting something or someone.

Vanessa felt a familiar unease because she knew well that Daniel Mason was not an emotional man.

In twenty years, she had seen him angry: impatient, sarcastic, occasionally amused. But never afraid.

Tonight, he looked afraid, and across the room, Claire had noticed it too.

Their eyes met briefly, but neither spoke. Neither needed  because the silence between them carried the weight of years.

Vanessa looked away first.

The relationship between Claire and Daniel had always puzzled her.

From the outside, they appeared devoted.

Inside the house, they often behaved like strangers sharing a hotel  with separate bedrooms, separate routines, separate lives.

Yet whenever one was absent, the other seemed incomplete and that made no sense then again, neither did most marriages.

A burst of laughter erupted near the dining table.

Michael Sheridan had become trapped in one of Jack Morgan's stories.

"...and then the electrician tells me the solar panels will save money," Jack was saying.

"They do save money."

"Not if you spend twenty thousand dollars installing them."

Michael nodded politely.

"You've calculated this?"

"I have spreadsheets."

"Of course you do."

"I update them weekly."

Michael glanced desperately around the room.

Vanessa almost laughed because by now she knew some things never changed.

The geologist had rented a room in Seaview House for nearly three years, originally, it had been temporary but like most of temporary decision some how transform impermanent as we start to feel more comfortable with the pattern of our life.

Everything in the house seemed temporary. People arrived, stayed for a while, and sometimes returned.

Michael was due to fly to Perth in two days for the new mining project, possibly a new beginning and he somehow looked relieved, and he thought of it as last-minute escape.

Vanessa understood the feeling.

Sometimes Seaview House felt less like a family home and more like a web, and the grandfather clock in the hallway that chimed nine like an arbiter that can’t interfere, just watch and count till the game expires.

The sound drifted through the house while outside, fireworks from an early celebration exploded somewhere across the bay.

Children cheered, but the adults barely noticed, busily finding glasses and other people to kiss.

Daniel suddenly stood.

His chair scraped loudly against the veranda floorboards.

Several heads turned for a fraction of a second and he appeared startled to find everyone looking at him.

Then he forced a smile."I'm just grabbing another drink."

Nobody questioned him, but Vanessa watched as he walked not toward the kitchen, but toward the study. The door closed behind him and then five minutes passed, then ten, then another fifteen.

Claire quietly set down her wine glass and, without saying a word, followed him as he opened his study door: it was closed.

The party continued with music, conversation, and laughter but for Vanessa Collins, the evening had changed.

A feeling had settled over the house like a different pressure in the air and she felt the same sensation she remembered from summer storms, when the birds slowly fell silent just before the wind changed.

Then came the lightning.

Vanessa looked through the window toward the darkening bay and far out on the water, a small boat moved slowly across the black surface.

Its navigation light flickered red and green against the darkness and for reasons she could not explain, the sight made her uneasy.

She glanced back toward the closed study door and just knew that something was wrong, but it didn’t seem dramatic or obvious, just somehow wrong, the kind of feeling sensible people ignored later returned to haunt them.