This month on Medium, I’m showcasing some of the opening chapters from my novels. These will be primarily from my gothic mysteries, though there may be one or two others. This week I feature the first part of gothic psychological thriller Phantom Audition, which begins like this:

What Mia noticed most was the silence.

She kept expecting to hear Steven’s voice, or the insistent thud of his feet, as he rehearsed his lines, pacing up and down. She expected to hear him on the phone to his agent, publicist, or to a director.

In the mornings, she no longer heard his absurd singing in the shower. His seat at the breakfast table stood empty. Mia would avert her eyes, unable to bear staring at the space he should occupy. He should be sipping his tea, scrolling through his phone, crunching his cereal… Silence chewed the room instead, like wind and rain gnawing an eroding landscape.

At nights, Mia would awaken and roll over, hoping to warm herself on his body. But Steven wasn’t there, and he wasn’t coming back. He had been replaced with the same terrible silence that screamed, clawed, and tore at her mind whenever she entered the rooms that still had his smell. The memory of her husband had stained the entire house.

Mia had always thought the mansion ludicrously big for the pair of them, but now more than ever she felt the size of the place. A curious unease lingered, as though the carpets, furniture, paintings, and ornaments had turned against her. She felt like a stranger in her own home, imagining everything around her glared in frowning disapproval. Perhaps her presence was a desecration.

One Monday morning a month after the funeral, the unpleasant sensation of feeling watched by the house became too much, and Mia yelled out into the silence.

‘It’s my bloody home too!’

The house responded without mercy, making every tiny tick of the clock an intolerable cacophony. Mia put her hands over her ears. She knew her behaviour was absurd, but the curious mixture of anger and fear that stirred within her had taken her by surprise. Sadness at Steven’s passing was to be expected, but she had not expected to feel so defensive or fearful. Perhaps bewilderment at the events leading up to his suicide by drug overdose still had her on edge.

From Phantom Audition by Simon Dillon.

You can read the whole of the chapter here, and read my companion piece article on this series here. Alternatively, to purchase a copy of Phantom Audition (ebook or paperback) click here (for the UK), here (for the US), or here, if you wish to purchase via Smashwords.