The Girl in the Scarlet Chair (Haunting Clarisse Series Book 1)

Chapter One

Clarisse Garcia was sitting in the garden on an old wooden bench at the back of her mother’s house where she had grown up. She was sipping iced tea—it was a humid day and typical for this time of year. She was enjoying the scent of the white flowers coming into bloom. Her mother, Marlita, lived in a town two hours’ drive from the sprawling city of Manila. Now she enjoyed spending her days off work there; it was her favourite place to reflect and calm down. The garden and the scent brought back a moment from her childhood when she was questioning her mother about something that she didn’t know back then would change her life.
“Mother, why is this room always locked?”
“It’s not a room for little girls, my dear. Best not go inside.”
“What’s in the room?” Clarisse asked.
“Just an old scarlet chair and a family altar … to remember your great-grandmother, Elena.”
“What about the smell that comes from the room?”
“Oh, that’s nothing … just rotting flowers.”
“But the smell is there for days …” She was an inquisitive little girl.
“It’s OK, I will clean the room today,” Marlita said.
“What about the noise, Mother? Is there someone in there?”
“There is no one in there, my dear … it’s the birds playing on the tin roof—nothing to worry about.”
Marlita looked Clarisse in the eye, holding her shoulders firmly, and said, “Promise me you will never go in that room … promise me!”

Clarisse had just heard that her fiancé of five years was playing around. He was seen at a bar not far from his place of work with the same girl on more than one occasion. The source of her information was reliable because they worked in the same company. Her partner made a habit of going missing every Monday night without fail. It was his work commitments, a catch-up day for essential deadlines on a project, that kept him away until late—that is what he made her believe until she wised up.
Clarisse was no stranger to his infidelity; it had happened before. But he was always able to come up with an alibi, accusing her that she was paranoid—too possessive and demanding. She was unlucky in love and desperate to keep her man and maintain the perfect relationship. But was having an ideal relationship expecting too much from her fiancé?
“The majority of relationships are not one hundred per cent perfect, and they have their tribulations,” a good friend once told her.
But Clarisse was not buying into this argument because she expected loyalty and trust. She gave all her heart and dedication to him, trying hard to make it work, expecting the same in return.
Angry in the heat of the moment, she decided to take a stand and not in the typical sense—it was more mysterious. She had a plan to break the rules that her family had lived by for one hundred years. Her friends described it as superstition that had grown out of proportion, become exaggerated over time—a frightening tale of consequences that started with her great grandmother, Elena Enrique, one hundred and fifty years ago. Her mother, Marlita Garcia, was born believing this superstition and nurtured it while she was growing up.
Many people described Clarisse as the embodiment of Elena. If there was any truth in the theory that genes can skip one or two generations, then one had to look no further than Clarisse. Elena was a beautiful woman with striking looks that drove men to extreme lengths to court her. She could have any man in the town, and they even came from neighbouring areas to try their luck. Back in her days, courting a woman required showering them with gifts and serenading them. Marlita often recalled tales of men singing outside Elena’s house with a trio of guitar players that went well into the night. Elena was always immaculately well presented and modelled the best clothes. Her black hair was perfectly tied back into a bun and accentuated with a white flower—like a Spanish dancer. She had brilliant white teeth and an infectious smile that lit up her face; you could see it from a mile away. When she walked down the street, an aura surrounded her, and people noticed her presence. Despite all her beauty, she was a humble and kind person—always helping others in need. The townspeople loved her more for her values and her care for others, rather than her looks.
Clarisse recalled growing up in a home that was loving, caring and full of warmth. Her mother was pedantic and always fussed over her every need. Being an only child meant she got all the attention she needed and the best of everything. There was nothing too much for Marlita when it came to making Clarisse happy. However, her mother would stop short of spoiling her altogether, and an imaginary line existed between having and having too much. Clarisse had to do her regular household chores and help out wherever she could. But living under the shadow of the family superstition had its challenges. Everyone in the street knew about it and so did her friends at school. Some took it seriously while others baulked at it. Every family in the Philippines had a superstition, or more than one—it was their culture to lay claim to something spiritual and mysterious.
As a child, she was not allowed to enter the room with the scarlet chair or meddle with the altar dedicated to their dead relatives. That was left for once a year, on the Day of the Dead, when they paid homage to those that had passed on to another life. Her mother had warned her not to sit in the scarlet chair and that a dark spirit circled it day and night, ready to capture your soul and whisk you away to a horrible, dark place. As a ten-year-old child, it was a scary and chilling rendition of a superstition that carried on to her late teens.
No one understood the power of the scarlet chair, other than it was shrouded in an old story that Marlita clung onto in memory of Elena’s tale. Was it a negative, unhappy chair that had embodied the energy in retribution for an unforgivable act a century ago? An object cannot hold the spirit of someone who has passed away, even though they may not have moved on to the other side. However, an object can keep the energy of that person for a long time—if that energy can be fed and nurtured with superstition carried by generations. The power can be positive, negative or in between, or evolve into something more sinister. Marlita never explained how bad the energy was, only that it had a negative side and was best left alone. She never wanted anyone to interfere with the scarlet chair for fear of raising its awareness or consciousness.