There had always been rumors about the house on the hill. It had loomed over town in everyone’s collective memory, unlit and uninhabited, its original owners long forgotten; a brooding guardian sitting in silent judgment. Though Elena had heard people talk about Halloween dares and possible ghost hunts, most people never believed the people who bragged about spending time on the property, and anyone who suggested they might have been brave enough to set foot in the house was openly scoffed at.
She had always felt a sad but irresistible pull towards the house, and sometimes she woke from dreams she couldn’t recall, breathless, with her heart racing. Elena would look out her bedroom window towards the hill in the darkness, searching for some whisper of life from the brooding hill in the distance. Though she couldn’t remember, she often wondered if she wandered the house in her dreams until something would call her back to her sleeping figure in her bedroom, clawing her back to reality and its pretended safeness. She was old enough now to know that life had its dangerous moments, and that sometimes our biggest fears were imagined and never came to fruition.
Elena remembered childhood dreams of the house even as her adult dreams eluded memory. She would walk up the steps of the porch. Since she had never been to the house in person, she imagined weathered, gray steps which had not seen paint in decades, and peeling posts that had flakes of paint still left clinging stubbornly, refusing to let go and leave the house to fall into complete ruin. She imagined upstairs window panes with holes in them, and maybe vines climbing along the porch, overgrown and verdant, the only life left on a decaying ruin.
In her dreams, the left-hand front door always drifted open silently, a welcoming invitation to the interior of the sagging dwelling. Furniture waited quietly, draped in sheets of white muslin, like the owners had left for a season with every intention to return. She would wander the rooms, from the old kitchen with its formica countertops and metal cabinetry through the obvious parlor, dining room and library, up its grand staircase to the bedrooms upstairs. Every room waited in silent expectation. She could almost hear the house holding its breath, awaiting her judgment and approval like a hopeful child. For some reason, her heart ached for the lonely house that everyone feared.
After more than a month of the phantom dream that disappeared the moment she opened her eyes, Elena decided enough was enough. She would go to the house on her day off, in daylight, when things would be more practical and less haunting. Maybe seeing the house in person would allow her to be rid of the dreams and their echoed whispers just at the edge of her hearing. Maybe, if she was lucky, reality would exorcise imagination, and she would be free.
It was late spring, and the leaves were still a bright, shiny green, but had grown enough that their shadows now dappled the earth. The smell of wildflowers perfumed the air. It was mid-morning, and birds were singing when she parked her car at the bottom of the lane that wandered more than a quarter mile to the house. There was no gate to the lane – not even a wire strung across with a no trespassing sign, but for some reason, she felt like walking the lane rather than driving it. She assured herself it was the warm spring weather, the sunlight, and the soft scents around her that made her yearn to walk the rest of the way. The lane was guarded by trees on either side, which arched to cover the small driveway with the grandeur of a natural cathedral.
“So pretty,” she remarked as she looked around. The lane curved up ahead, making it almost appear as though the lane came to a dead end long before it reached the house. Elena marveled at the optical illusion, certain it had to be wrong because the house loomed even still, farther up the hill and above the trees. With a shrug, she began her walk.
The optical illusion still played with her senses, the lane unfolding as she walked, always beckoning her onward even appearing almost like it always remained straight behind her. Bemused, she turned around. Behind her, the lane curved, and her car was out of sight. She smiled at how the mind can play tricks with your perception and continued up the hill.
She felt like she had been walking almost a half hour. Could the lane really be that long?
“It must curve more than I thought,” Elena assured herself.
The world grew increasingly quiet the longer she walked. She realized that the birds were now silent, and not even a breeze stirred, as though the whole world were wrapped in cotton and holding its breath. In a weird trick of her mind, things had faded, with the vivid riotous color of spring somehow taking on the appearance of a neglected old painting. Elena was convinced it was her imagination, and maybe the sun behind a cloud. She looked around again, and thought she saw the beginning of the clearing up ahead.
The lane opened up to a large lawn surrounding the old mansion. It stood there in all its gothic Victorian glory, complete with tower and widow’s walk. The steps going up to the wraparound porch were concrete, not the wood of her dreams. For some reason, this difference reassured her. Maybe her dreams were nothing more than that, and the house just no longer lived in because of some reasonable explanation like its owners now stayed in an elder care facility, or a bank had it and never managed to sell it. Old houses often required a lot of repair and updating to make them affordable living spaces, right?
She examined the house from a distance. To her surprise, there were no broken windows. She had been raised in the town below and assumed with all the whispers and rumors at least a few boys had wandered up here over the years to test their luck with rocks. The windows silently reflected the world beyond them. The lawn wasn’t terribly overgrown. She could almost believe the house was lived in at the moment. The wraparound porch even had two old rockers with a small table between them.
“Wow. Surprised those are there.” She jumped when she heard her own voice interrupt the silence, then shook her head at her own uneasiness. She took a breath and walked the lane until she came to a stone walk that led to the porch.
Her shoes made slightly scraping, crunching noises as she mounted the steps. The house was a faded gray, with turned porch posts holding up a deep wraparound porch. The door to the interior was only a single door with two sidelights and transom windows over the door. To her left, a large picture window flanked by two other windows suggested a living room or parlor would be off the entry hall. As she walked towards the front door, it gently opened to the house waiting behind it.
A frisson scampered down her spine and her breath caught.
“Hello?”
Only silence answered. Elena looked around hesitantly.
“Anyone there?”
No one answered. Elena assured herself the door must not have been latched, and her steps on the porch would have done the rest. Even if ghosts exist, don’t they hide during the day? She stepped towards the door, closed her eyes a moment to gather her courage, and entered the house.
Abandoned houses always felt a little creepy. She felt her heart flutter as she looked at the waiting space within. For a second, it felt as if the world shifted. She took a step and reached for an ornate banister to steady herself. Her eyes followed the staircase as it rose and turned towards the left. The hand rail and banister were carved and stained maple, with two white, painted ornate newel posts to every stair. Every wall and door seemed to be trimmed in beautiful, polished wood that gave everything a warm, pleasing glow. As she stood and admired the quality of the house, she felt a wave of sadness. Sorrow at how empty it was.
With a deep breath, she looked around. The entryway was a good size, with an ancient mirror over a hall table at the base of the stairs. Elena wasn’t sure how long the house had been empty, but was surprised that there didn’t seem to be a lot of dust on the hall table. She walked with careful, measured steps down the hallway, concerned about finding a weak spot in the floor. So far there had not even been a squeak from the floorboards. She found herself calming, her heartbeat slowing, becoming more steady.
At the end of the entry hall was a door with an old-fashioned crystal handle and the kind of assembly that required a skeleton key. It was there, sticking out of the door. A promise of entry no matter who the passerby might be. To her relief, though, the door was unlocked.
She stepped into a dining room. There, a table with six chairs, built in china cabinets, and a long side table waited for family to come for dinner again. She marveled that no one had stolen the place settings from the china cabinet yet. It looked almost like the owners had left the house only yesterday, and would return at any moment. Her sadness for the space grew. Houses are meant to be lived in.
The kitchen beckoned beyond. It reminded her of her great grandmother’s place years before, with an old gas stove, single door refrigerator freezer, metal cabinets and formica counter edged with stainless steel. For a moment, she felt the warmth of reminiscence of better times. She reached out and touched the old counter top, which was turquoise with flecks of gold, white and black in it. The lack of dust continued to surprise her. She rubbed her fingers together.
“Must be because it is so far from the road,” she mused.
There was a smaller, less ornate staircase off the kitchen.
“Servant’s stairs,” she remarked to no one in particular. Was the house listening?
This staircase was narrow, steeper, and between two walls, nowhere near as welcoming or ornate. When she reached the top hallway, she could see a narrow hallway going one direction, and a larger one the other. She guessed the servants rooms were down the narrow passageway, and turned to the larger one. Her footfalls were now quieted by a deep runner. Sunlight poured into the upper hallway from a door on her right. It was the first bright and colorful moment since she began the walk down the lane. Something like hope bloomed within her.
When she turned into the room, she was surprised to find an old-fashioned bathroom, complete with a clawfoot tub and halo-style shower curtain holder. She wondered for a moment when indoor baths became common. Early 20th century? The floor was ceramic tile placed close without grout, and it continued more than halfway up the wall. She walked quietly to the tub, and grabbed the shower curtain, closing her eyes and reminding herself that this was reality and not a horror movie.
She didn’t expect to find a body when she moved the shower curtain, but there she was. She felt a wave of nausea and dizziness as her face turned towards her and croaked, “welcome home.”