Bridgeland Manor
Keen eyes and a pointed ear turn up from the leather medicine bag. Medora stares at me for a moment, the end of her tail curling above the hand-holds, giving me a disapproving look.
"It's only a little creaking and a big house." I tell her, taking up my cup of tea, finding it warm against my fingers. Light floods the foyer of Bridgeland Manor, sliding up the walls inch by inch. The foyer blends seamlessly into a hallway wrapped with dark woods and delicate ceiling carved out of deep oaks. On either sides, just past the foyer, are great double archways.
Passing through one of them and into the study on the left, with it's doors propped open and pages scattered on the furniture, I pause in the hallway watching my cat paw at the floor.
Uncertain of her new home.
The wood groaned under my feet.
The sound is a reminder of how empty Bridgeland had been for the last eight months. Leaving the floors and the walls to creak and moan with the pressure of only my footsteps since Medora refuses to leave my medicine bag.
"It's only a big house," I tell myself, warming my socked feet in the sun. "A big house with burn marks in the wood and smoke damage in the ceiling."
I place my cup at the base of a statue leading into the study. The man looks discontent with his disembodiment, the tuft of his moustache is turned down along with a shining head and chipped nose.
Most of the rooms on the second floor were closed up. Which left any available ones on the first floor to serve as storage: rows of paintings titled upright on the floor, linens thrown over furniture, stacks of boxes full to the tops with plastic wrapped figurines and heirlooms. Years of collecting– music boxes and lockets, books and clocks, the precious and the old and the strange– all packed away or damaged.
The grandfather clock that always loomed over the staircase was now laying the length of the staircase landing, still ticking but eaten away by flame and smoke. The golden accents melted into a pool of metal.
Light floods the foyer, sliding up the walls inch by inch as the sun moves. The foyer blends seamlessly into each room with dark woods and delicate ceilings carved out of oak. Some touched by flame, some perfectly intact.
Medora pads into the room behind me, her tail high and curled at the end. She takes small uncertain steps, glancing at me over her shoulder, before continuing into the room.
"Agatha said you'd protect me from the house," I say to her, bending over and twirling her tail. "How do you feel about that?"
Medora simply sneezes in response.
The little orange cat stalks around the room, crouching under the armchairs and hoping onto the desk, the corner of the latter rests in direct evening sunlight. She wasn't the only one not entirely adjusted to the January winter, especially not days like this with it's never-ceasing snow.
I'd wrapped a blanket over my shoulders this morning after deciding on two pairs of socks and a cable-knit sweater. Despite the cold, I'd been instructed not to light the fuses in the any of the fireplaces but I had full use of the gas stove which was keeping me warm with cups of tea and hot chocolate that I sometimes spiked with bourbon.
There's one more week of January which meant it was still J-term when classes have not yet started but the students were welcomed back on campus, some already enrolled in pre-term lectures. Sometime since arriving at the house a week ago, I'd let my laptop die (and the warmth it provided) after opening it to a string of emails from the Head of my department at the University.
Even if I was on leave and the semesters all over were still in J-term, I was still responsible for check-ins and post-semester work. The last few days I spent most of my time at the library and lecture rooms, always stopping at the bakery across the street. But after my battery died that last time I just didn't have the energy to deal with anything else in my email if I charged it.
The end of my blanket cape drags along the floor behind me, catching on the carpet and side table. The cats ear flicks back catching the sound and only returning to match the other ear, when I settle into the chair tucked into the desk, letting my fingers absently scratch at her chin. I run my hands along her tail and over it onto the groves and rough edges of the desk, touching the cold typewriter, tracing the fountain pen and dried ink jar. Things left behind. Things like me.
The grandfather clock by the staircase (the only clock in the house) struck six and I pulled a trinket off the worn wood desk, holding the weight of it in my hand. The gold coin, roughly the size of my palm was engraved with simple numbers carved deeper after years of use.
"A simple puzzle." My grandfather would say, pressing the metal into my hands, closing my fist around it. "A game. Do you remember the story of the Acolyte and her silent vow?"
But Edmund had never been a child trying to decipher the inlaid puzzle. He'd never had to look up at a grandfather, mouth open in wonder, and watch him only smile, keeping his secrets. He'd never told me how to open it.
I flip it over in my hand, thumbing the dial, hopeless. More stupid stories with endings that weren't real. After all these years, I don't know why I'm even bothering anymore. But sitting here, in the house the weight of not knowing some answers was starting to wear thin.
Wondering it was all part of the story if my grandfather's desire for the perfect deception bound him to his fate and the stain on the family.
The stories had been the easy part. Wrapped around the house in mystery and imagination, and perfectly timed endings. The crouched bushes, in the far reach of the property, by the cliff's edge was where the caretaker had to tend to the dead, tasked with laying animated corpses back in their graves after a wizard had woken them up.
There were stories told about the fireplaces and the creatures that kept the fire warm (different from the oven creatures but just as important) or the small gnomes that live in the kitchen pantry. Those were the ones responsible for leaving small bites in the crackers.
I set the coin back where it was. The story hadn't ended well for the Acolyte.
Medora stretches and prowls around the edge of the desk, stepping over my lap to get to the carpet. She seeks out the sunspots on the carpet, nestling in some and passing through others. I ignore her for the most part, opening the desk drawers until she starts to whine, and when I look up she's backing out from one of the floors to ceiling bookcases. Her question mark tail low, ears flat.
Those keen green eyes track me from across the room. I leave the blanket over the back of the chair stepping over Medora, brushing my hands along her back a few times, trying to calm her down. There was nothing odd about the wood panelling, green and grey wallpaper, and ornate bookcases. Lines of dust on every-shelf was undisturbed the amount of it almost shining and thick on the end of my fingers. With just one swipe the dust was loose and floating and then stuck disappearing behind the bookcase.
The skin on my neck breaks into goosebumps.
There is a door papered over and obscured by the wallpaper– unusable and little more than outline and ridges. Bumps in the paper leave a shallow curve to peek out from underneath the green-grey walls and from about cat height is a ripple in the textured pattern.
Medora whines behind me, curling around my left foot as I pull the bookcase away from the wall as far as it's weight will let me; if it wasn't for the small ginger cat, I'd probably assume I'd lost my mind. Though if I'm wondering about losing my mind it must mean that I haven't.
Not yet anyway.
I crouch low, fingering the rip. The glue on the underside is yellow and matte, not sticky anymore and covered in its own layer of dust. The wall– door– behind it has a claw marking running straight through the exposed wood, the rest is smooth to the touch.
I knock against the wall, twice, hearing a hollow response.
I look at the floor, running my hands along with the interlocking board. The door is about the size of a regular one and it stands touching the floor. I can't see any light coming from underneath, there isn't even any space for my pinky to fit below it.
Which doesn't make sense? There should be– at least– scuff marks.
If someone had opened and close the door, and then decided to paper over it, they'd first need to have marked up the floor at least once.
I inspect the rip again, pulling at it gently and then harder in one complete motion. The textured green pattern now white along the sides and yellow in patches from the adhesive. I peel the rest of slowly, focused on where the paper would prevent the door from opening. Exposing rusted nails and broken hinges and a melted keyhole, warped and broken.
Melted.
I check the rest of the wall looking for signs of smoke damage or more of those black, vein cracks. There's nothing. If the fire had burned hot and stayed central in the house, then where did this door lead too?
I finger the last of the ripped paper (flakes of orange rust coat my fingertips and wrist, my sweater covered in paint dust and bits of glue) and pull tearing the green paper from shoulder height to the floor.