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An actor lives in the suite below me. I just saw her latest movie, and now I'm seriously concerned.
I’ve rented the top floor of a house for just over 10 years. The bottom suite is separately rented. Until last year, a lovely couple, Jude and Quennie, lived there, but when they decided to grow their family, they moved somewhere with more room. I really wish they hadn’t.
They were always quiet and respectful. There are two separate entrances for the different floors (my entrance at the front of the house, and other in the back), so I hardly saw them except for quick greetings in passing and the odd cocktail we would have together in our small backyard \*garden.
\*We called it our garden because there was some greenery out there, but none of us were gardeners, so it was never well kept and there were definitely never any flowers there. It was a nice place to hang out on a sunny day though. The neighbourhood cat (we called him Mr. Snooteroo, or Snoot, for short) would always come and visit us on those days, looking for snacks and snuggles. Those were good years.
One weekend, just before Jude and Quennie moved out, my landlord (Mr. Chin) had prospective tenants over to view the suite. I was very curious (and honestly a bit stressed) about who my new neighbour would be, so I had made a point of sticking around outside so I could to see who was coming and going. I pretended to read a book in the garden. Most people just ignored me and followed Mr. Chin into the suite while I tried to guess as much as I could about them. I suppose I could’ve introduced myself and learned more about my potential neighbours, but I’ve always been a pretty shy person. I mostly like to keep to myself (hence me living alone), so I felt more comfortable keeping the book as a buffer between me and the strangers.
Maria was the only one who came over to talk to me. She immediately exuded a bright and warm personality. She apologized for interrupting my reading, but she told me she wanted to make sure she introduced herself. She recognized it would probably be weird for me to have a total stranger move into the house, even if we were on separate floors. She presented me with homemade lavender shortbread cookies in a box tied with a pretty purple ribbon. I thought it was very kind of her; though I thought perhaps the cookies made it seem like she was trying a little too hard, I really did appreciate her trying to make a connection. She asked if I had any questions for her.
Although I previously had had many questions swirling in my head about my potential neighbours, being approached directly caused my brain to suddenly go blank (a symptom of my shyness). It took me a somewhat awkward length of time to come up with, “Are you a baker?”
She smiled and said, “No, no, I actually just started baking recently. I’m in a play and my character, Shirley Rose, owns a cute little bakery. Doing stuff like baking helps me connect to Shirley. I’m an actor. I’d invite you to see the show, but the last one is tonight and it’s sold out.”
“Ah,” I said. My shyness was still keeping my brain hostage and I couldn’t muster any follow up questions. That didn’t seem to bother Maria though. She asked about the book I was reading, and whether it was good because she was looking for something new to read. Having just randomly picked the book off my shelf and cracked it open midway for my charade, I hadn’t actually read it. I spun together a half-baked review based on what I felt about the cover art. Mr. Snooteroo saved me from digging myself deeper into that hole when he came sauntering over and leaped into my lap.
“And who’s this?” Maria asked. I explained to her that Mr. Snooteroo wasn’t my cat and that no one in the neighbourhood seemed to know who the cat belonged to or what his real name was. I told her that I had started calling him Mr. Snooteroo because of his cute little upturned nose that he used to search out treats with or nudge into people for cuddles.
“He’s adorable,” Maria said, stroking him. Then she excused herself as Mr. Chin was waiting to show her the suite. Overall, Maria gave a wonderful first impression. I found myself hoping that she would get the suite. I even told Mr. Chin that.
That’s a memory that I’ve been replaying in my mind recently. What if I hadn’t said anything? What if I hadn’t snooped with my book outside the suite showing? Would’ve Mr. Chin chose someone else to live below me?
But at the time, when Mr. Chin told me that Maria was going to move in, I felt relief. I was happy that I’d have a good new neighbour. It made seeing Jude and Quennie pack up and leave a little easier.
When I saw Maria bringing her boxes in, I thought I’d go say hi to her and maybe see if she needed any help. But she didn’t seem at all like the same person I had met in the garden before. She wasn’t bubbly and warm; she was surly and abrupt.
I told myself that moving is always stressful and that she was probably having a bad day. I retreated back into the comfort of my own home and let her get settled on her own.
I didn’t actually see Maria until a week later. I was just coming back from work and Maria was also just getting home. She smiled and waved and then ran up to me. She apologized for her attitude when she was moving in. She explained that she had been getting into character for an audition and that she was working at pushing people away and being abrupt.
I wasn’t quite sure I understood, so I just replied, “Oh, don’t worry. I hardly noticed, really.”
I saw a flicker of disappointment in her expression. “Oh…” she said, “Well, good! I just wanted to make sure I didn’t offend you. I didn’t get the part anyway, so I can leave behind that energy. Thank goodness!” She said with a laugh and a smile.
Maria invited me to dinner in the garden. “I just went shopping,” she said. “I was going to make lobster risotto with butternut squash. I would love to share it with you!”
That sounded much better than the dinner I had been planning (canned soup). I said I’d love to join and I said I’d bring wine.
We met in the garden. It was a beautiful evening and Maria had strung up little white lights that made the backyard look much lovelier. Mr. Snooteroo was quick to join us, as if he knew lobster was on the menu (he was thrilled for the little bits we would pass his way throughout dinner).
Even though I was shy, Maria made conversation easy. She asked a lot of questions and seemed genuinely interested in hearing about what I did for work, what shows I liked watching, and what I liked to do on the weekends etc. I usually feel like quite a boring person, but she made me feel like I was interesting.
She told me about herself as well. She used to be an elite skier. She almost went to the Olympics, but then she was in a terrible car accident. She said her injuries put an end to her ski career immediately. She was left devastated. She said she most of her life had been entirely focused on getting that gold medal. “I knew I could’ve won it,” she told me. And by the way she said it, I believed her.
After the accident, Maria said she had to come to terms with the fact she’d never get a chance to step up on that podium. She fell into a deep depression. Her family tried their best to help her. They suggested other things that she could find interest in: painting classes, pottery making, cooking… (I got the sense that Maria’s family was quite well off and that the cost of things really wasn’t an issue). Eventually, “Just to get them off my back,” she said, Maria signed up to audition for a play at the community theatre.
She auditioned, but didn’t get the part. Maria told me her family were so worried that losing out on the part would sink her further into depression. But it didn’t. “It actually pulled me out of it,” she told me. “Because I had a new focus.”
Maria told me that, “just like with skiing, at first you’re going to fall a lot, but you’re never going to get better unless you pick yourself back up and work harder.” She said she went on five more auditions before she got her first role: Mustardseed, a fairy, in *a Midsummer Night’s Dream*.
Maria told me that she was going to continue to work at being an actor until she was the best. She seemed a little intense about it, but at the time, I admired her dedication and passion.
I asked her what other type of projects she had worked on. She said she had done a handful of plays as well as a few commercials, but that she hadn’t booked any film work yet. She *really* wanted to book a film because “the very best actors are in films”, she told me.
Maria said she was working with an acting Teacher who was doing an amazing job of pushing her to be her best. It was from her Teacher that she learned about Method Acting. Maria never told me her Teacher’s name; she only referred to him as “my Teacher” (for some reason, the way she said it sounded like a capital T; it was clear she held him in great regard.)
Maria told me that her Teacher’s school was focused on “training actors to emphasize emotional authenticity and psychological realism in their performances”. She was being taught techniques like “sense memory” and “emotional recall” to help her connect with her characters on a deep emotional level. I didn’t really understand what she was talking about, but gathered that her baking those shortbread cookies while playing a baker was part of this process. She seemed really serious about it though.
She told me that some of the very best actors trained at her Teacher’s school. She named some names, but I can’t remember them because I’m terrible at knowing who actors are and had no idea who she was name-dropping. I didn’t want to appear ignorant though, so just nodded along like I knew who they were. (I think she mentioned that one of them was in that dragon film that came out last year - again, I’m terrible at remembering movie stuff, so I can’t even remember the title).
It was interesting hearing her talk about the acting world. I really had no idea about any of it. I wondered if most actors were as dedicated to their craft as Maria was. Or if she was unique in some way? I told her I wished her the best in her career, and, that night, I really meant it. I really wanted to see her succeed because clearly she was working so hard.
I didn’t see Maria much over the next few weeks because I was so busy at work. But one night I was awoken at around 2am by the sound of a loud clatter from the basement. I wasn’t sure what exactly I had heard, but my heart was pounding in my chest and I couldn’t get back to sleep. Then I heard loud knocks. Again and again and again. I had no idea what it was.
I reached over for my phone. I thought about calling Maria about the noise, but then I worried that I may come across like an annoying uptight neighbour. She was probably just putting together a shelf or from IKEA, I told myself. It was annoying that it was so loud so late at night, but maybe she didn’t realize how much sound carries in this house? I put my phone down and just pressed a pillow over my ears. The sound of knocking and banging continued through the night until about 6am.
I managed to catch Maria outside the next day. I asked her if she was building something. “Oh, my goodness!” She said. “I didn’t keep you up last night, did I!?”
“Oh, no.” I said. “I mean, I heard a bit of knocking, but then I went back to sleep,” I lied. (I really don’t know why I have the tendency to lie to make other people feel better.)
Maria told me that she was prepping for an auditioning for character who is a carpenter, so she was making a chair. She brought me down to the basement to show it to me.
The chair really did look nice. I asked her as gently as I could if she could perhaps, "keep the loud work to the daytime?" She said she’d definitely do that.
We had several other garden dinners together over the next couple months. Our \*garden became more of a real garden when Maria had to prep for an audition for a film about a group of community gardeners (she didn’t get that role, but the garden sure looked better after that!)
During our dinners, Maria would always update me on what she was working on in acting class and which roles she was auditioning for. During that time, she also booked some sort of drink commercial and a role on a TV show playing a kindergarten teacher (she was pretty excited about that one because she got to be in three episodes - she said she was the teacher to the kid of one of the main characters, so there was a slight chance she’d be asked back for future episodes).
Maria would talk a lot about her Teacher as well. She told me that he had started to coach her privately on top of regular classes. Apparently her Teacher only does private coaching with the very best actors in his school. Maria beamed when she told me that. She said she’d been working so hard in class that she’d regularly come back home feeling physically destroyed and emotionally wrecked. I was shocked, but she told me the feeling was amazing. That confused me, but I figured it was some sort of actor thing. She said the very best actors can tune into all the levels of humanity and ranges of emotion, whether it be positive or negative.
Maria said her Teacher was confident that she had what it took to be a star.
I was happy for her that she seemed to be progressing, but something about about the way she talked about her training left me unsettled.
The last garden dinner we had was at the end of summer. I remember it vividly. Maria made Niçoise salad. I had never heard of this type of salad before Maria offered it to me, but it was very good. It was made with tuna, boiled potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, green beans, tomatoes, olives, and anchovies; served on a bed of lettuce and dressed with a light vinaigrette. Mr. Snooteroo was very pleased to join us and nibble on whatever fish we were willing to share.
That night was the last time I saw Mr. Snooteroo. Well, the last night I saw him alive.
That night Maria told me she had a really big audition coming up. It was for a film and she was reading for one of the leads. She was clearly really excited about the opportunity but she also seemed a bit nervous about it. She said the film about a physiological thriller about a young woman who is captured and tortured and eventually killed. I thought it sounded like a dreadful movie, but I didn't tell her that.
Maria told me her Teacher said her performance wasn’t reading as genuine yet so she had a lot more work to do. She apologized in advance if I heard any screaming from her suite over the next couple days. She said that she was going to work mostly at her Teacher’s private studio, but that she may do some work on her own. I thanked her for the heads up.
It was getting late by then, so I excused myself for bed. Maria said she was going to stay in the garden a bit longer, so I transferred Mr. Snooteroo off my lap and over to hers and said goodnight.
The next day was a Saturday. I was home all through the day, but I didn’t hear any screaming. I was relieved because I thought that maybe Maria had just kept her prep work to her Teacher’s studio. I really wasn’t looking forward to hearing any screams coming from the basement.
That night, I took my dinner to the garden because I had made salmon and I knew that Mr. Snooteroo would definitely want to share it with me. (The lights were off at Maria’s suite, so I assumed she was gone, otherwise I would've invited her for some salmon as well).
I ate my dinner, but Mr. Snooteroo never joined me. I even left a bit of salmon on my plate just in case he was late coming (maybe someone else in the neighbourhood had a better dinner that he had joined in on). I sat in the garden for a while, waiting to see if he’d turn up. While I waited, I admired the flowers in the garden that Maria had planted. She really had made the place look so much better. A small patch of freshly dug dirt caught my eye. I wondered if she had planted something new.
Eventually, I decided that Mr. Snooteroo had definitely found a better dinner option that night. I went back inside, but left the bit of salmon on the garden table in case he showed up later.
I read a book and went to bed. It was a quiet night and I slept deeply. But then- a blood curdling scream pierced the silence! The punch of my adrenaline had me up and out of my bed in a second flat. It sounded like someone was being murdered!
Then I remembered Maria’s audition prep. My heart pounded and I tried to catch my breath as I listened to more screaming coming from the basement. It sounded absolutely horrible. I picked up my phone to see the time. It was just past 3 in the morning. I was absolutely livid. Maria had told me she would keep her loud work to the daytime. And that screaming was not even close to the sound of making a chair!
I didn’t want to be an annoying neighbour, and I didn’t want to sour the relationship that we had built, but I had to draw a line somewhere. So I texted her:
“Maria, can you please try to be a bit more quiet? Screaming kinda intense for the middle of the night. Thx so much! Much appreciated!”
I waited. The screaming went on… My message still showed as unread.
I was getting ready to write another text when the screaming stopped abruptly. I heard a dull thud. Then silence. “She must be done”, I thought as I breathed a sigh of relief.
I got back into bed. BING! A text. It was Maria: “I’m so sorry!! I didn’t expect it would be that loud. There won’t be any more screaming, I promise!”
“Ok, thanks!” I texted her back.
“Have a good sleep!” She replied.
It took me a while to fall back to sleep, but eventually I did.
The next week, Maria caught me at my door. She was so excited. She told me that she had booked the part in the film! I gave her a big hug and congratulated her. “So waking me up in the middle of the night was worth it, then?” I joked.
I asked if she wanted to have dinner in the garden to celebrate. She said she would love to and that she’d make us Spaghetti Carbonara. I said I’d bring wine.
I got to the garden before her. I realized I hadn’t been there since my salmon dinner the week earlier. I noticed the piece of fish that I had left for Mr. Snooteroo was still there, but it was dried and crusty now. I swiped it off the table and poured two glasses of wine.
When Maria came out with the pasta, I asked her if she had seen Mr. Snooteroo recently. She said she hadn’t. She started telling me about her film job. She said that she would start shooting in a month and that they’d be on location in Croatia. It all sounded very exciting.
I don’t remember exactly when I noticed the larger mound of newly dug dirt on the edge of the garden. But I remember asking Maria if she was planting something new. She told me she had been thinking that rhododendrons would look nice in the garden, “but now with the film coming up”, she said, “I probably won’t have time to plant anything new."
Maria said that she would just seed the patches with grass before she left for filming. I thanked her for keeping such good care of the garden. “I have the opposite of a green thumb,” I told her. “It’s better for the plants if I stay far, far, away from them.” I laughed and Maria laughed along with me.
Maria left for her shoot, and I still hadn’t seen Mr. Snooteroo. I asked around the neighbourhood, and no one had seen him either. He hadn’t seemed especially old, but no one had known how old he actually was… Maybe his time had come. My heart grew heavy as I began to realize I may never see him again. I hoped that if he had passed away, it was from old age and not something terrible like being hit by a car.
The time flew, and before I knew, Maria was back from her shoot. She said it went very well and the director and producers were extremely happy with her work. She said there was even talk about campaigning during award season. (Did you know people campaigned for awards? Seems a little odd.)
Though Maria’s award hopes were dashed when it came out that her co-star was involved in a violent drunken incident at a club. The negative press around the incident turned around any previous excitement about the future of the film. Maria was heartbroken that her co-star’s behaviour had tarnished everything. Though she didn’t let herself mourn long. She looked ahead to future possibilities. She told me that at least the film was an amazing learning experience for her. And she said she was sure her Teacher would be very proud of the work she did.
Eventually, the film was released quietly on a streamer. Maria had told me when the release date was, so I made sure to make a note to watch it when it came out. To be honest, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to watching it as I hate scary movies! But I really wanted to support Maria; she had worked so hard on her performance.
So I watched her movie.
I was immediately thrown when I realized that Maria was not playing the young woman who was held captive (as I had always assumed for some reason); Maria was playing the murderer!
My heart felt like a rock in my chest the entire time I was watching the movie. At first I told myself the feeling was probably due to the fact the story was so dark. The scenes were very intense and extremely well acted. Maria’s character was chilling.
But there was one speech Maria had that really made my blood run cold. Her character was explaining her obsession with murder. She said she started killing stray cats first, but that after her obsession turned towards humans. The film ended with Maria’s character giving into her obsession despite knowing how dreadfully wrong it was. She murdered the young woman.
The credits rolled, and I was frozen to my couch. All I could think about was Mr. Snooteroo and why he was missing. And those screams that came from the basement... Maria’s character didn’t scream once in the movie.
“She must’ve auditioned for the victim and they ended up casting her as the murder,” I told myself.
But my mind went to those patches of newly dug dirt in the garden. The small one, and the larger one. I found my feet taking me away from my living room, outside my door, down the front steps, and around the house to the garden.
It was the middle of the night. Maria’s lights were all off. I went to where the small dirt patch was first. The new grass had grown over it nicely in the time that Maria had been gone. I didn’t even try to find a spade, I dug right into the dirt with my hands.
I didn’t get far down before I felt plastic. And something underneath. I ripped the plastic - and I felt fur! That’s when the light flicked on in Maria’s suite. I frantically pushed the dirt back over where I had dug. I heard the slide of the dead-bolt on Maria’s door as she unlocked it.
I ran!
I don’t think she saw me. I ran into my house and locked the door. I pushed a chair against the door as well.
I’m almost positive that was Mr. Snooteroo’s body I found in the garden. Did Maria kill him to feel closer to her character? Was that part of her preparation for the role?
That character didn’t only kill cats…
Please tell me I’m not going crazy!? Though I actually hope I’m going crazy…
Because if I’m not….
*I think I know what else is buried in our garden.*
I’ve rented the top floor of a house for just over 10 years. The bottom suite is separately rented. Until last year, a lovely couple, Jude and Quennie, lived there, but when they decided to grow their family, they moved somewhere with more room. I really wish they hadn’t.
They were always quiet and respectful. There are two separate entrances for the different floors (my entrance at the front of the house, and other in the back), so I hardly saw them except for quick greetings in passing and the odd cocktail we would have together in our small backyard \*garden.
\*We called it our garden because there was some greenery out there, but none of us were gardeners, so it was never well kept and there were definitely never any flowers there. It was a nice place to hang out on a sunny day though. The neighbourhood cat (we called him Mr. Snooteroo, or Snoot, for short) would always come and visit us on those days, looking for snacks and snuggles. Those were good years.
One weekend, just before Jude and Quennie moved out, my landlord (Mr. Chin) had prospective tenants over to view the suite. I was very curious (and honestly a bit stressed) about who my new neighbour would be, so I had made a point of sticking around outside so I could to see who was coming and going. I pretended to read a book in the garden. Most people just ignored me and followed Mr. Chin into the suite while I tried to guess as much as I could about them. I suppose I could’ve introduced myself and learned more about my potential neighbours, but I’ve always been a pretty shy person. I mostly like to keep to myself (hence me living alone), so I felt more comfortable keeping the book as a buffer between me and the strangers.
Maria was the only one who came over to talk to me. She immediately exuded a bright and warm personality. She apologized for interrupting my reading, but she told me she wanted to make sure she introduced herself. She recognized it would probably be weird for me to have a total stranger move into the house, even if we were on separate floors. She presented me with homemade lavender shortbread cookies in a box tied with a pretty purple ribbon. I thought it was very kind of her; though I thought perhaps the cookies made it seem like she was trying a little too hard, I really did appreciate her trying to make a connection. She asked if I had any questions for her.
Although I previously had had many questions swirling in my head about my potential neighbours, being approached directly caused my brain to suddenly go blank (a symptom of my shyness). It took me a somewhat awkward length of time to come up with, “Are you a baker?”
She smiled and said, “No, no, I actually just started baking recently. I’m in a play and my character, Shirley Rose, owns a cute little bakery. Doing stuff like baking helps me connect to Shirley. I’m an actor. I’d invite you to see the show, but the last one is tonight and it’s sold out.”
“Ah,” I said. My shyness was still keeping my brain hostage and I couldn’t muster any follow up questions. That didn’t seem to bother Maria though. She asked about the book I was reading, and whether it was good because she was looking for something new to read. Having just randomly picked the book off my shelf and cracked it open midway for my charade, I hadn’t actually read it. I spun together a half-baked review based on what I felt about the cover art. Mr. Snooteroo saved me from digging myself deeper into that hole when he came sauntering over and leaped into my lap.
“And who’s this?” Maria asked. I explained to her that Mr. Snooteroo wasn’t my cat and that no one in the neighbourhood seemed to know who the cat belonged to or what his real name was. I told her that I had started calling him Mr. Snooteroo because of his cute little upturned nose that he used to search out treats with or nudge into people for cuddles.
“He’s adorable,” Maria said, stroking him. Then she excused herself as Mr. Chin was waiting to show her the suite. Overall, Maria gave a wonderful first impression. I found myself hoping that she would get the suite. I even told Mr. Chin that.
That’s a memory that I’ve been replaying in my mind recently. What if I hadn’t said anything? What if I hadn’t snooped with my book outside the suite showing? Would’ve Mr. Chin chose someone else to live below me?
But at the time, when Mr. Chin told me that Maria was going to move in, I felt relief. I was happy that I’d have a good new neighbour. It made seeing Jude and Quennie pack up and leave a little easier.
When I saw Maria bringing her boxes in, I thought I’d go say hi to her and maybe see if she needed any help. But she didn’t seem at all like the same person I had met in the garden before. She wasn’t bubbly and warm; she was surly and abrupt.
I told myself that moving is always stressful and that she was probably having a bad day. I retreated back into the comfort of my own home and let her get settled on her own.
I didn’t actually see Maria until a week later. I was just coming back from work and Maria was also just getting home. She smiled and waved and then ran up to me. She apologized for her attitude when she was moving in. She explained that she had been getting into character for an audition and that she was working at pushing people away and being abrupt.
I wasn’t quite sure I understood, so I just replied, “Oh, don’t worry. I hardly noticed, really.”
I saw a flicker of disappointment in her expression. “Oh…” she said, “Well, good! I just wanted to make sure I didn’t offend you. I didn’t get the part anyway, so I can leave behind that energy. Thank goodness!” She said with a laugh and a smile.
Maria invited me to dinner in the garden. “I just went shopping,” she said. “I was going to make lobster risotto with butternut squash. I would love to share it with you!”
That sounded much better than the dinner I had been planning (canned soup). I said I’d love to join and I said I’d bring wine.
We met in the garden. It was a beautiful evening and Maria had strung up little white lights that made the backyard look much lovelier. Mr. Snooteroo was quick to join us, as if he knew lobster was on the menu (he was thrilled for the little bits we would pass his way throughout dinner).
Even though I was shy, Maria made conversation easy. She asked a lot of questions and seemed genuinely interested in hearing about what I did for work, what shows I liked watching, and what I liked to do on the weekends etc. I usually feel like quite a boring person, but she made me feel like I was interesting.
She told me about herself as well. She used to be an elite skier. She almost went to the Olympics, but then she was in a terrible car accident. She said her injuries put an end to her ski career immediately. She was left devastated. She said she most of her life had been entirely focused on getting that gold medal. “I knew I could’ve won it,” she told me. And by the way she said it, I believed her.
After the accident, Maria said she had to come to terms with the fact she’d never get a chance to step up on that podium. She fell into a deep depression. Her family tried their best to help her. They suggested other things that she could find interest in: painting classes, pottery making, cooking… (I got the sense that Maria’s family was quite well off and that the cost of things really wasn’t an issue). Eventually, “Just to get them off my back,” she said, Maria signed up to audition for a play at the community theatre.
She auditioned, but didn’t get the part. Maria told me her family were so worried that losing out on the part would sink her further into depression. But it didn’t. “It actually pulled me out of it,” she told me. “Because I had a new focus.”
Maria told me that, “just like with skiing, at first you’re going to fall a lot, but you’re never going to get better unless you pick yourself back up and work harder.” She said she went on five more auditions before she got her first role: Mustardseed, a fairy, in *a Midsummer Night’s Dream*.
Maria told me that she was going to continue to work at being an actor until she was the best. She seemed a little intense about it, but at the time, I admired her dedication and passion.
I asked her what other type of projects she had worked on. She said she had done a handful of plays as well as a few commercials, but that she hadn’t booked any film work yet. She *really* wanted to book a film because “the very best actors are in films”, she told me.
Maria said she was working with an acting Teacher who was doing an amazing job of pushing her to be her best. It was from her Teacher that she learned about Method Acting. Maria never told me her Teacher’s name; she only referred to him as “my Teacher” (for some reason, the way she said it sounded like a capital T; it was clear she held him in great regard.)
Maria told me that her Teacher’s school was focused on “training actors to emphasize emotional authenticity and psychological realism in their performances”. She was being taught techniques like “sense memory” and “emotional recall” to help her connect with her characters on a deep emotional level. I didn’t really understand what she was talking about, but gathered that her baking those shortbread cookies while playing a baker was part of this process. She seemed really serious about it though.
She told me that some of the very best actors trained at her Teacher’s school. She named some names, but I can’t remember them because I’m terrible at knowing who actors are and had no idea who she was name-dropping. I didn’t want to appear ignorant though, so just nodded along like I knew who they were. (I think she mentioned that one of them was in that dragon film that came out last year - again, I’m terrible at remembering movie stuff, so I can’t even remember the title).
It was interesting hearing her talk about the acting world. I really had no idea about any of it. I wondered if most actors were as dedicated to their craft as Maria was. Or if she was unique in some way? I told her I wished her the best in her career, and, that night, I really meant it. I really wanted to see her succeed because clearly she was working so hard.
I didn’t see Maria much over the next few weeks because I was so busy at work. But one night I was awoken at around 2am by the sound of a loud clatter from the basement. I wasn’t sure what exactly I had heard, but my heart was pounding in my chest and I couldn’t get back to sleep. Then I heard loud knocks. Again and again and again. I had no idea what it was.
I reached over for my phone. I thought about calling Maria about the noise, but then I worried that I may come across like an annoying uptight neighbour. She was probably just putting together a shelf or from IKEA, I told myself. It was annoying that it was so loud so late at night, but maybe she didn’t realize how much sound carries in this house? I put my phone down and just pressed a pillow over my ears. The sound of knocking and banging continued through the night until about 6am.
I managed to catch Maria outside the next day. I asked her if she was building something. “Oh, my goodness!” She said. “I didn’t keep you up last night, did I!?”
“Oh, no.” I said. “I mean, I heard a bit of knocking, but then I went back to sleep,” I lied. (I really don’t know why I have the tendency to lie to make other people feel better.)
Maria told me that she was prepping for an auditioning for character who is a carpenter, so she was making a chair. She brought me down to the basement to show it to me.
The chair really did look nice. I asked her as gently as I could if she could perhaps, "keep the loud work to the daytime?" She said she’d definitely do that.
We had several other garden dinners together over the next couple months. Our \*garden became more of a real garden when Maria had to prep for an audition for a film about a group of community gardeners (she didn’t get that role, but the garden sure looked better after that!)
During our dinners, Maria would always update me on what she was working on in acting class and which roles she was auditioning for. During that time, she also booked some sort of drink commercial and a role on a TV show playing a kindergarten teacher (she was pretty excited about that one because she got to be in three episodes - she said she was the teacher to the kid of one of the main characters, so there was a slight chance she’d be asked back for future episodes).
Maria would talk a lot about her Teacher as well. She told me that he had started to coach her privately on top of regular classes. Apparently her Teacher only does private coaching with the very best actors in his school. Maria beamed when she told me that. She said she’d been working so hard in class that she’d regularly come back home feeling physically destroyed and emotionally wrecked. I was shocked, but she told me the feeling was amazing. That confused me, but I figured it was some sort of actor thing. She said the very best actors can tune into all the levels of humanity and ranges of emotion, whether it be positive or negative.
Maria said her Teacher was confident that she had what it took to be a star.
I was happy for her that she seemed to be progressing, but something about about the way she talked about her training left me unsettled.
The last garden dinner we had was at the end of summer. I remember it vividly. Maria made Niçoise salad. I had never heard of this type of salad before Maria offered it to me, but it was very good. It was made with tuna, boiled potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, green beans, tomatoes, olives, and anchovies; served on a bed of lettuce and dressed with a light vinaigrette. Mr. Snooteroo was very pleased to join us and nibble on whatever fish we were willing to share.
That night was the last time I saw Mr. Snooteroo. Well, the last night I saw him alive.
That night Maria told me she had a really big audition coming up. It was for a film and she was reading for one of the leads. She was clearly really excited about the opportunity but she also seemed a bit nervous about it. She said the film about a physiological thriller about a young woman who is captured and tortured and eventually killed. I thought it sounded like a dreadful movie, but I didn't tell her that.
Maria told me her Teacher said her performance wasn’t reading as genuine yet so she had a lot more work to do. She apologized in advance if I heard any screaming from her suite over the next couple days. She said that she was going to work mostly at her Teacher’s private studio, but that she may do some work on her own. I thanked her for the heads up.
It was getting late by then, so I excused myself for bed. Maria said she was going to stay in the garden a bit longer, so I transferred Mr. Snooteroo off my lap and over to hers and said goodnight.
The next day was a Saturday. I was home all through the day, but I didn’t hear any screaming. I was relieved because I thought that maybe Maria had just kept her prep work to her Teacher’s studio. I really wasn’t looking forward to hearing any screams coming from the basement.
That night, I took my dinner to the garden because I had made salmon and I knew that Mr. Snooteroo would definitely want to share it with me. (The lights were off at Maria’s suite, so I assumed she was gone, otherwise I would've invited her for some salmon as well).
I ate my dinner, but Mr. Snooteroo never joined me. I even left a bit of salmon on my plate just in case he was late coming (maybe someone else in the neighbourhood had a better dinner that he had joined in on). I sat in the garden for a while, waiting to see if he’d turn up. While I waited, I admired the flowers in the garden that Maria had planted. She really had made the place look so much better. A small patch of freshly dug dirt caught my eye. I wondered if she had planted something new.
Eventually, I decided that Mr. Snooteroo had definitely found a better dinner option that night. I went back inside, but left the bit of salmon on the garden table in case he showed up later.
I read a book and went to bed. It was a quiet night and I slept deeply. But then- a blood curdling scream pierced the silence! The punch of my adrenaline had me up and out of my bed in a second flat. It sounded like someone was being murdered!
Then I remembered Maria’s audition prep. My heart pounded and I tried to catch my breath as I listened to more screaming coming from the basement. It sounded absolutely horrible. I picked up my phone to see the time. It was just past 3 in the morning. I was absolutely livid. Maria had told me she would keep her loud work to the daytime. And that screaming was not even close to the sound of making a chair!
I didn’t want to be an annoying neighbour, and I didn’t want to sour the relationship that we had built, but I had to draw a line somewhere. So I texted her:
“Maria, can you please try to be a bit more quiet? Screaming kinda intense for the middle of the night. Thx so much! Much appreciated!”
I waited. The screaming went on… My message still showed as unread.
I was getting ready to write another text when the screaming stopped abruptly. I heard a dull thud. Then silence. “She must be done”, I thought as I breathed a sigh of relief.
I got back into bed. BING! A text. It was Maria: “I’m so sorry!! I didn’t expect it would be that loud. There won’t be any more screaming, I promise!”
“Ok, thanks!” I texted her back.
“Have a good sleep!” She replied.
It took me a while to fall back to sleep, but eventually I did.
The next week, Maria caught me at my door. She was so excited. She told me that she had booked the part in the film! I gave her a big hug and congratulated her. “So waking me up in the middle of the night was worth it, then?” I joked.
I asked if she wanted to have dinner in the garden to celebrate. She said she would love to and that she’d make us Spaghetti Carbonara. I said I’d bring wine.
I got to the garden before her. I realized I hadn’t been there since my salmon dinner the week earlier. I noticed the piece of fish that I had left for Mr. Snooteroo was still there, but it was dried and crusty now. I swiped it off the table and poured two glasses of wine.
When Maria came out with the pasta, I asked her if she had seen Mr. Snooteroo recently. She said she hadn’t. She started telling me about her film job. She said that she would start shooting in a month and that they’d be on location in Croatia. It all sounded very exciting.
I don’t remember exactly when I noticed the larger mound of newly dug dirt on the edge of the garden. But I remember asking Maria if she was planting something new. She told me she had been thinking that rhododendrons would look nice in the garden, “but now with the film coming up”, she said, “I probably won’t have time to plant anything new."
Maria said that she would just seed the patches with grass before she left for filming. I thanked her for keeping such good care of the garden. “I have the opposite of a green thumb,” I told her. “It’s better for the plants if I stay far, far, away from them.” I laughed and Maria laughed along with me.
Maria left for her shoot, and I still hadn’t seen Mr. Snooteroo. I asked around the neighbourhood, and no one had seen him either. He hadn’t seemed especially old, but no one had known how old he actually was… Maybe his time had come. My heart grew heavy as I began to realize I may never see him again. I hoped that if he had passed away, it was from old age and not something terrible like being hit by a car.
The time flew, and before I knew, Maria was back from her shoot. She said it went very well and the director and producers were extremely happy with her work. She said there was even talk about campaigning during award season. (Did you know people campaigned for awards? Seems a little odd.)
Though Maria’s award hopes were dashed when it came out that her co-star was involved in a violent drunken incident at a club. The negative press around the incident turned around any previous excitement about the future of the film. Maria was heartbroken that her co-star’s behaviour had tarnished everything. Though she didn’t let herself mourn long. She looked ahead to future possibilities. She told me that at least the film was an amazing learning experience for her. And she said she was sure her Teacher would be very proud of the work she did.
Eventually, the film was released quietly on a streamer. Maria had told me when the release date was, so I made sure to make a note to watch it when it came out. To be honest, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to watching it as I hate scary movies! But I really wanted to support Maria; she had worked so hard on her performance.
So I watched her movie.
I was immediately thrown when I realized that Maria was not playing the young woman who was held captive (as I had always assumed for some reason); Maria was playing the murderer!
My heart felt like a rock in my chest the entire time I was watching the movie. At first I told myself the feeling was probably due to the fact the story was so dark. The scenes were very intense and extremely well acted. Maria’s character was chilling.
But there was one speech Maria had that really made my blood run cold. Her character was explaining her obsession with murder. She said she started killing stray cats first, but that after her obsession turned towards humans. The film ended with Maria’s character giving into her obsession despite knowing how dreadfully wrong it was. She murdered the young woman.
The credits rolled, and I was frozen to my couch. All I could think about was Mr. Snooteroo and why he was missing. And those screams that came from the basement... Maria’s character didn’t scream once in the movie.
“She must’ve auditioned for the victim and they ended up casting her as the murder,” I told myself.
But my mind went to those patches of newly dug dirt in the garden. The small one, and the larger one. I found my feet taking me away from my living room, outside my door, down the front steps, and around the house to the garden.
It was the middle of the night. Maria’s lights were all off. I went to where the small dirt patch was first. The new grass had grown over it nicely in the time that Maria had been gone. I didn’t even try to find a spade, I dug right into the dirt with my hands.
I didn’t get far down before I felt plastic. And something underneath. I ripped the plastic - and I felt fur! That’s when the light flicked on in Maria’s suite. I frantically pushed the dirt back over where I had dug. I heard the slide of the dead-bolt on Maria’s door as she unlocked it.
I ran!
I don’t think she saw me. I ran into my house and locked the door. I pushed a chair against the door as well.
I’m almost positive that was Mr. Snooteroo’s body I found in the garden. Did Maria kill him to feel closer to her character? Was that part of her preparation for the role?
That character didn’t only kill cats…
Please tell me I’m not going crazy!? Though I actually hope I’m going crazy…
Because if I’m not….
*I think I know what else is buried in our garden.*
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