Writing in Public: Story 2, Scene 2
Writer’s note: Critical side kicked in with this scene and wanted to jump ahead and not let the story naturally develop. It tends to panic if it doesn’t know where the story is going and tries to rush ahead. I had to give it a Gibbs head slap to behave (it’s a video; might take a moment to load).
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I’m two blocks from my house when the rain stumbles in and bleeds all over me. Water runs cold under my collar. I have to pull off my glasses because I can’t see a damn thing. But I know where the house is, even if I can’t see. The house’s energy pulls at me as I get nearer, like a river current pulling along a log.
It makes me shiver. Today, the energy feels…hungry.
The house is up ahead, one of the original historical houses in the area, and the only one with the descendants of the family still in it. Georgian architecture, which Elias favored because it was about symmetry and math. Every room, measured, to be the perfect cube. Even the windows were calculated precisely. It used to be the rich section of the town. Now it just looks worn.
A man dressed in black waits on the steps, under the eaves.
For a moment, my brain goes, That’s not my house! There’s a man on the steps!
Even the newspaper carrier will not deliver to my doorstep. I haven’t had a visitor in years.
The man is hard-edged, like someone had gotten ink and drew him in a blocky style. A rack of muscles on his upper body. But the face, the hair…
I smooth down my wet hair. Not many people have the carrot hair of the Grahams.
He straightens up when he sees me. “You gonna get out of the rain?”
A tremor of fear spreads across my shoulder blades. If something happens, I doubt if the police will respond fast.
But I straighten up and try to look brave in my soppy dress. “Who are you? What do you want?”
He paces across the doorstep, jiggling with impatience. “Why haven’t you done anything?”
That’s enough to draw me to the steps. It’s a relief to have the rain let up, though I smell like a wet dog.
“About what?” I ask.
He spins, glaring, and he’s good at it with those hard eyes. He smells of sweat, and stinks of fear.
“The house.” Expectant.
“So?”
The thoughts chase across his face. He opens his mouth twice to say something, then another thought makes a trek, and he closes his mouth to listen to it.
Finally: “Who owned the house before you?”
“One of my cousins. Didn’t know him. Didn’t even know why I got the house until I saw the conditions of the trust.”
The lawyers had been impressed with the trust I’d inherited. It had be designed to keep the house within the family. No one could sell the house, or remodel it. And I had to live in it. Not that I’d complained about that. At least the trust paid for a place to live. Just not anything else.
He paces again, dragging a hand through his hair. Grumpiness rose from him like a storm cloud.
“No one told you anything about the house?”
The shiver is back. My mouth is dry. Just a letter. Written by Elias himself, two hundred years ago, dated this year, and addressed to me.
Filed under: Thoughts
