Gone Home✔️

Chapter 01: Sam's Note

So this was home.

Letting myself in through the front door of the house led into a totally enclosed porch. I had to say, it was fancy, in a '50s or '60s kind of way. I had seen many different kinds of porches and this seemed like the real deal. It wasn't an 'enclosed' porch, nor was it a screened-in porch. It was an actual room that felt like it was supposed to be part of the house. I was reluctant to call it a porch, it was more like an entryway. Wasn't there a word for this kind of room, an old-timey word? Parlor? I looked around this room and set down my bags.

Most of the front wall, (behind me), was taken up by windows that were streaked with rain, not showing much besides trees and some branches pressing up against the glass in some areas. The floors looked old but well-maintained, they were beautiful hardwood. Although, I decided as I stared at the walls, maybe this did feel like a porch, if only because the walls were made of siding, the only hint that this room had been added on after the fact.

There was stuff in the porch that didn't look like anything we owned: some very low to the floor wooden sling-back chairs, the kind that made you sit way back if you sat down in them. They were ugly and, I realized, probably belonged to my mysterious great uncle Oscar. As I continued looking around, my eyes suddenly latched on to something that was very out of place. Directly ahead of me were a pair of doors and there was a note stuck to one of them.

Okay, maybe I'd get some answers after all.

I crossed the room and began reading the note, immediately recognizing Sam's handwriting. Though it was kind of messy, as if she'd written it in a hurry.

Katie,

I'm sorry I can't be there to
see you, but it is impossible.
Please, please don't go digging
around trying to find out
where I am. I don't want
Mom and Dad anyone to know.
We'll see each other again
some day. Don't be worried.
I love you.
-Sam

Oh crap...what the hell did that mean? Feeling worry begin to seriously gnaw at me, I grabbed the doorknob and tried to turn it, but it wouldn't budge. Locked. Sighing, I tried the next one. Same deal. Locked down tight. I resisted the urge to curse as I tried to look in through the stained glass windows built into each door, but they were too opaque to see literally anything, so I gave up the effort. I had to get inside.

If something had happened to Sam...

I turned around, looking around the room again. Of course I didn't have a key...so where would I find one? They had to leave a key for me, right? I didn't relish the idea of wandering around the exterior of the house in the rainy darkness, not even a flashlight to my name, trying to find an unlocked window or another open door.

Then I spied a squat cabinet that I did recognize from our old living room. It used to sit right next to the front door and mom or dad would always toss their keys and the mail onto it after they got in. Now, there was a little lamp and a potted plant that looked new atop it. There were two lights on already, built in lights meant to look like old lanterns on either side of the door, but it wasn't enough to make me comfortable.

Plus, one of them was flickering periodically.

I marched over to the cabinet, flicked on the lamp and crouched, pulling open the two doors and peering inside.

I couldn't help but smile as I saw what was within. Next to a tangle of Christmas lights atop some very cheesy, generic ornaments mom insisted on hanging around the house every year was none other than the Christmas Duck.

Seeing the old thing made me feel warm inside in a way I hadn't for what seemed like a long time now. It was a bit battered, a bit old. Hey, it had been in the family for ten years now. It was a simple, roughly life-size figurine of a duck with a green wreath with a red bow around its neck. I could still remember its inception into the family.