Tales of Interest!
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Cellar Door
It was a grand house, in the old style. Sure, it was a bit disheveled; a few shutters missing, some shoddy repairs on sections of the porch, paint peeling from the southern humidity, but the frame looked sound. "Gorgeous," Harold said, taking it all in.
"Glad you think so, some would just as soon tear it all down than put in the work to restore it. Seems the former owner wasn't too concerned with aesthetics." Norman, Harold's real estate agent whom he'd never met in person, walked briskly over to Harold and offered his hand. Harold gave it a firm shake. In Harold's opinion, Norman was understating it a bit. The house looked on the verge of being taken back by it's surroundings. Creeper vines, originally planted for controlled beauty, now grew wild and unchecked past the lattice that supported them, onto the columns and eves of he house. They looked like veins to Harold, or perhaps fingers of some underground force trying to drag the house down into subterrainia. The lawn was horribly overgrown, so thoroughly infiltrated by weeds, small poplar and willow that it could hardly be thought of as a lawn anymore, just a slightly lower wilderness than the acreage surrounding it. "Good to finally meet you in person, Harry." Norman said, smiling. "I think this is the house we've been looking for!"
"Could be," Harold replied, "If it's in the right range."
"I'm not gonna over-sell you, Harry," Norman returned. "Tell the truth, this one's on the low end of what we were talking about, if you can believe it. You can probably see why, given the average buyer of a home of this size." And Harold could. Only, the condition of the house's surroundings mattered very little to him. It was nothing that a little bit of elbow grease couldn't fix, and if that was going to scare away the rich wasps, that was fine by him.
"Tell you what," Norman opened his briefcase and pulled out an antique key ring, with a full compliment of slightly tarnished, yet beautiful, hand crafted keys. "Why don't we take a look around and see what we've got to work with." He tossed the keys to Harold, who caught them, smiling.
"Music to my ears!" Harold chimed, and the two men made their way up the overgrown path to the manor's entry.
The house was nothing short of perfection to Harold. The grand room, the dining room, and everything else inside was original and in perfect condition. All the custom wooden mouldings and the elaborate staircase belied their age, looking as if they had been finished just prior to his arrival, rather than over a hundred years ago. Christ there was a covered grand piano in what he could almost call a lobby. "Amazing," Harold commented, as they made their way through the dining room into the kitchen, an all tile number that looked as if it held a full crew. There was a pantry to the rear of the kitchen, and as he unlocked it and stepped inside, Harold marveled at the fact that it was almost larger than the apartment in which he had lived for close to ten years, in the time before his books had topped the best-seller lists. The shelves inside the pantry, long neglected, held tin cans and glass mason jars of various foodstuffs, all covered in a thick layer of dust.
"Hope you're not planning to eat anything out of here!" Norman quipped, smirking, "Some of this stuff is probably older than you!" Both men had a good chuckle at that, as Harold, who had wandered all the way into the back corner of the pantry checking labels, made his way back to the kitchen. Within a step or two, Harold caught his foot on something set into the floor. He stumbled slightly, quickly regaining his composure. "Woah there, watch your step Harry." Harold looked down to see what he had tripped on and spied a bit of metal, likely iron, in the footprint his shoe had made in the dust. Stooping over to get a closer look, Harold could make out the shape of a hinge. He reached out and brushed away the dust around the visible part, revealing the edge of a trap door set into the floor. Curious, Harold continued brushing away the years of accumulation that had obscured the door. When he had completely uncovered it, he took a step back to observe. It was about the size of a standard door, only mounted flush with the floor in the back of the pantry. "That would probably be your root cellar," Norman interjected, "before the refridgerator, the only way you could try to keep things from going bad was sticking them in a hole in the ground. Lots of old houses like this have them."
"I know what a root cellar is, Norman, I wasn't raised on MTV you know." Norman chuckled at Harold's comment. Harold, meanwhile, had approached the lock, set into the door to the root cellar, and was trying the keys one by one. "I can't find a fit."
"Well, that's all they gave me, Harry. I suppose you can get a smith out here to make a new one. Sure is a shame, though. Sorry about that."
"Not your fault, Norman." As Harold began to stand, he heard a faint sound, scratching, coming from underneath, and recoiled. "Jesus, what was that?"
"What about what?" Norman called from the kitchen, as he had already made his way away from the pantry.
"Scratching."
"What?" Norman made his way back.
"Scratching, from down there." Harold pointed.
"oh, you've probably got yourself a family of Possums down there, Harry. Maybe a rabbit warren, They're probably prolific in these parts."
"Prolific, eh?" Harold raised an eyebrow.
"Working on the vocabulary," Norman replied, "you like that? I got it from one of your books." Both men had a good laugh at the statement, as Harold made his way back out into the kitchen, closing the pantry door behind him. "Well, what do you think, Harold? Do we have a keeper, or should I get back on the search?"
"I think it's wonderful, Norman, just what I've been looking for. Do what you've got to do, I'm going to head back to New York and start packing."
Two weeks later, Harold had almost finished moving in. The first thing he packed and the first thing unloaded was his books. Truth was, nothing on earth could have kept him from buying this house after he had seen the library upstairs. Row after row of bookstacks, filled with classics, most first edition, draped with sheets covered in dust. It was a goldmine, worth millions more than he paid for the house, but Harold wouldn't sell. He couldn't wait to place his novels amongst the greats. Beside the books, he didn't have much to move, he had sold almost all his furnishings; preferring to refurbish, repair, and restore everything salvageable from the house in order to keep it as original as possible. It turned out there was a lot. in fact, Harold couldn't believe his eyes when he saw nearly the entire manor's contents had been packed neatly in it's spare rooms and draped for storage. He almost felt bad for closing on the house so quickly, snatching up a veritable fortune. Not so bad that he wouldn't spending all day categorizing and documenting all his new treasures. In fact, Harold was doing just that when he came upon a little black leatherbound book with no label. The placeholder ribbon was almost to the back of the volume, and when Harold flipped it open to the spot being held, all the pages afterward were blank. There was a skeleton key tied to the inside of the ribbon. When he flipped to the front of the book he found 'Diary of Seamus Grey, year of our lord 1850' penned in beautiful colonial script. He could almost hear the quill scratching across the paper. No, wait, he could hear scratching. It sounded like it was coming from inside the walls. Termites? Possums? Harold was going to call someone tomorrow to find out what the hell that noise was, but in the meantime he was just fine right here by the fire, reading. He Tried desperately to read Milton, but to no avail. He couldn't even get into Poe. That Diary kept scratching at the back of his brain. Scratching? It kept prodding into his mind, until he finally had to go back to the library to retrieve it. Thankfully the room was silent, but he could swear he heard something as he descended the stairs, only every time he stopped moving tp listen the sound stopped, so he couldn't tell. Seated back by the fire, diary in hand, Harold wondered what was so great about Seamus anyway. Diaries were generally boring as hell. Harold flipped to the last entry.
December,
I will surely burn in the fires of hell for all eternity for what I've done-
What the hell? Was this guy serious? What was with that scratching, was it really still going on? The Diary drew him back in.
-even christ our lord could not be forgiving for such as I have done. I wanted so desperately to save her life that I didn't even stop to consider the consequences. I deserve no better than the fate of those whose lives are forfeit on my conscience. I have instructed the servants to lock me in tonight, and that they are thenceforth free men. They would never have considered such a thing if they had not been in fear for their very lives. We all are. It seems even being close the men do terrible things in the kitchen, and say they have no power to do otherwise. I will instruct them to leave the key in this-
Harold ripped the key off of the placeholder ribbon and threw the book toward the fire, but it landed with a thump far closer than it should have. The diary scared the shit out of him, it was so hard to break away from it. What was going on? He looked at the key in his palm, it looked so close to the keys on his ring. This was all wrong. The house, the scratching, the Diary, the Key. The Cellar. Harold got up to leave. He didn't know where, but he was going to get the hell out of the house. He was having some kind of paranoid delusion, a panic attack or something, but he knew if he didn't get out in the open away from the house he could have a heart attack. When he reached the front door though, he hesitated, turning his head to listen to the scratching. It was louder and more furious than ever. Against his own better judgment, Harold turned his body toward the sound and started down the hall to the kitchen. He felt like he was drugged and being pulled along by a rope, unable to do otherwise. Harold wanted to scream and run but he couldn't do either, his heart was pounding so hard that he thought he would burst trough his chest. He continued on course through the kichen, into the pantry, never breaking stride. The scratching was loudest in here, and there was something else, like a whisper inside his head. Even though every part of him strained against it, he saw himself extend the arm that held the key from the book, and take a knee. As he turned the key in the lock there was a loud, audible click, and the noise stopped. In perfect silence the door swung wide, and Harold descended into the darkness. ¶ 5:48 PM 0 comments
"Glad you think so, some would just as soon tear it all down than put in the work to restore it. Seems the former owner wasn't too concerned with aesthetics." Norman, Harold's real estate agent whom he'd never met in person, walked briskly over to Harold and offered his hand. Harold gave it a firm shake. In Harold's opinion, Norman was understating it a bit. The house looked on the verge of being taken back by it's surroundings. Creeper vines, originally planted for controlled beauty, now grew wild and unchecked past the lattice that supported them, onto the columns and eves of he house. They looked like veins to Harold, or perhaps fingers of some underground force trying to drag the house down into subterrainia. The lawn was horribly overgrown, so thoroughly infiltrated by weeds, small poplar and willow that it could hardly be thought of as a lawn anymore, just a slightly lower wilderness than the acreage surrounding it. "Good to finally meet you in person, Harry." Norman said, smiling. "I think this is the house we've been looking for!"
"Could be," Harold replied, "If it's in the right range."
"I'm not gonna over-sell you, Harry," Norman returned. "Tell the truth, this one's on the low end of what we were talking about, if you can believe it. You can probably see why, given the average buyer of a home of this size." And Harold could. Only, the condition of the house's surroundings mattered very little to him. It was nothing that a little bit of elbow grease couldn't fix, and if that was going to scare away the rich wasps, that was fine by him.
"Tell you what," Norman opened his briefcase and pulled out an antique key ring, with a full compliment of slightly tarnished, yet beautiful, hand crafted keys. "Why don't we take a look around and see what we've got to work with." He tossed the keys to Harold, who caught them, smiling.
"Music to my ears!" Harold chimed, and the two men made their way up the overgrown path to the manor's entry.
The house was nothing short of perfection to Harold. The grand room, the dining room, and everything else inside was original and in perfect condition. All the custom wooden mouldings and the elaborate staircase belied their age, looking as if they had been finished just prior to his arrival, rather than over a hundred years ago. Christ there was a covered grand piano in what he could almost call a lobby. "Amazing," Harold commented, as they made their way through the dining room into the kitchen, an all tile number that looked as if it held a full crew. There was a pantry to the rear of the kitchen, and as he unlocked it and stepped inside, Harold marveled at the fact that it was almost larger than the apartment in which he had lived for close to ten years, in the time before his books had topped the best-seller lists. The shelves inside the pantry, long neglected, held tin cans and glass mason jars of various foodstuffs, all covered in a thick layer of dust.
"Hope you're not planning to eat anything out of here!" Norman quipped, smirking, "Some of this stuff is probably older than you!" Both men had a good chuckle at that, as Harold, who had wandered all the way into the back corner of the pantry checking labels, made his way back to the kitchen. Within a step or two, Harold caught his foot on something set into the floor. He stumbled slightly, quickly regaining his composure. "Woah there, watch your step Harry." Harold looked down to see what he had tripped on and spied a bit of metal, likely iron, in the footprint his shoe had made in the dust. Stooping over to get a closer look, Harold could make out the shape of a hinge. He reached out and brushed away the dust around the visible part, revealing the edge of a trap door set into the floor. Curious, Harold continued brushing away the years of accumulation that had obscured the door. When he had completely uncovered it, he took a step back to observe. It was about the size of a standard door, only mounted flush with the floor in the back of the pantry. "That would probably be your root cellar," Norman interjected, "before the refridgerator, the only way you could try to keep things from going bad was sticking them in a hole in the ground. Lots of old houses like this have them."
"I know what a root cellar is, Norman, I wasn't raised on MTV you know." Norman chuckled at Harold's comment. Harold, meanwhile, had approached the lock, set into the door to the root cellar, and was trying the keys one by one. "I can't find a fit."
"Well, that's all they gave me, Harry. I suppose you can get a smith out here to make a new one. Sure is a shame, though. Sorry about that."
"Not your fault, Norman." As Harold began to stand, he heard a faint sound, scratching, coming from underneath, and recoiled. "Jesus, what was that?"
"What about what?" Norman called from the kitchen, as he had already made his way away from the pantry.
"Scratching."
"What?" Norman made his way back.
"Scratching, from down there." Harold pointed.
"oh, you've probably got yourself a family of Possums down there, Harry. Maybe a rabbit warren, They're probably prolific in these parts."
"Prolific, eh?" Harold raised an eyebrow.
"Working on the vocabulary," Norman replied, "you like that? I got it from one of your books." Both men had a good laugh at the statement, as Harold made his way back out into the kitchen, closing the pantry door behind him. "Well, what do you think, Harold? Do we have a keeper, or should I get back on the search?"
"I think it's wonderful, Norman, just what I've been looking for. Do what you've got to do, I'm going to head back to New York and start packing."
Two weeks later, Harold had almost finished moving in. The first thing he packed and the first thing unloaded was his books. Truth was, nothing on earth could have kept him from buying this house after he had seen the library upstairs. Row after row of bookstacks, filled with classics, most first edition, draped with sheets covered in dust. It was a goldmine, worth millions more than he paid for the house, but Harold wouldn't sell. He couldn't wait to place his novels amongst the greats. Beside the books, he didn't have much to move, he had sold almost all his furnishings; preferring to refurbish, repair, and restore everything salvageable from the house in order to keep it as original as possible. It turned out there was a lot. in fact, Harold couldn't believe his eyes when he saw nearly the entire manor's contents had been packed neatly in it's spare rooms and draped for storage. He almost felt bad for closing on the house so quickly, snatching up a veritable fortune. Not so bad that he wouldn't spending all day categorizing and documenting all his new treasures. In fact, Harold was doing just that when he came upon a little black leatherbound book with no label. The placeholder ribbon was almost to the back of the volume, and when Harold flipped it open to the spot being held, all the pages afterward were blank. There was a skeleton key tied to the inside of the ribbon. When he flipped to the front of the book he found 'Diary of Seamus Grey, year of our lord 1850' penned in beautiful colonial script. He could almost hear the quill scratching across the paper. No, wait, he could hear scratching. It sounded like it was coming from inside the walls. Termites? Possums? Harold was going to call someone tomorrow to find out what the hell that noise was, but in the meantime he was just fine right here by the fire, reading. He Tried desperately to read Milton, but to no avail. He couldn't even get into Poe. That Diary kept scratching at the back of his brain. Scratching? It kept prodding into his mind, until he finally had to go back to the library to retrieve it. Thankfully the room was silent, but he could swear he heard something as he descended the stairs, only every time he stopped moving tp listen the sound stopped, so he couldn't tell. Seated back by the fire, diary in hand, Harold wondered what was so great about Seamus anyway. Diaries were generally boring as hell. Harold flipped to the last entry.
December,
I will surely burn in the fires of hell for all eternity for what I've done-
What the hell? Was this guy serious? What was with that scratching, was it really still going on? The Diary drew him back in.
-even christ our lord could not be forgiving for such as I have done. I wanted so desperately to save her life that I didn't even stop to consider the consequences. I deserve no better than the fate of those whose lives are forfeit on my conscience. I have instructed the servants to lock me in tonight, and that they are thenceforth free men. They would never have considered such a thing if they had not been in fear for their very lives. We all are. It seems even being close the men do terrible things in the kitchen, and say they have no power to do otherwise. I will instruct them to leave the key in this-
Harold ripped the key off of the placeholder ribbon and threw the book toward the fire, but it landed with a thump far closer than it should have. The diary scared the shit out of him, it was so hard to break away from it. What was going on? He looked at the key in his palm, it looked so close to the keys on his ring. This was all wrong. The house, the scratching, the Diary, the Key. The Cellar. Harold got up to leave. He didn't know where, but he was going to get the hell out of the house. He was having some kind of paranoid delusion, a panic attack or something, but he knew if he didn't get out in the open away from the house he could have a heart attack. When he reached the front door though, he hesitated, turning his head to listen to the scratching. It was louder and more furious than ever. Against his own better judgment, Harold turned his body toward the sound and started down the hall to the kitchen. He felt like he was drugged and being pulled along by a rope, unable to do otherwise. Harold wanted to scream and run but he couldn't do either, his heart was pounding so hard that he thought he would burst trough his chest. He continued on course through the kichen, into the pantry, never breaking stride. The scratching was loudest in here, and there was something else, like a whisper inside his head. Even though every part of him strained against it, he saw himself extend the arm that held the key from the book, and take a knee. As he turned the key in the lock there was a loud, audible click, and the noise stopped. In perfect silence the door swung wide, and Harold descended into the darkness. ¶ 5:48 PM 0 comments
