Tempted

The now vacant, but still towering mansion looked even more neglected today, than in years past.

My friends and I, we called ourselves “the boys”, were very familiar with the property. After all, we had walked past this stately old house many times over the years. It once had been a happy home filled with many children, and later, it had been converted to a parlor for those town people who had passed on, and still later, it had been renovated again. It was now a rooming house rented out as cheap housing for nomads and derelicts. He was the last lingering occupant.

The shortest walk from home to school took me down Jane Street. I met up with the other boys at Chatty. A path from the corner of Chatty Court to school took us past this castle of a house every day, twice each day, for many years. We had thought little of the changes that had taken place there, over time. Until today.

The old man had vanished.

People here still cared about other folks in town. They cared for their neighbors, and this old man, though he cared little for them. He seldom spoke to anyone except as necessary to obtain his provisions. He would not speak to us boys though we waved greetings to him often.

News of his disappearance sparked a concern, or at least a curiosity. The neighbors tried to be helpful in the search but had few suggestions as to what might have transpired.

The property quickly became an obsession. Towns people who had previously ignored the old house were walking by, gazing, and taking pictures. The elderly were describing it as an eerie old place that held secrets from years past. The old man was as mysterious as the house. His disappearance was surely puzzling.

We were studying in this, our senior year, Wuthering Heights, a marvelous story of Heathcliff, by Emily Bronte. These classic tales had a way of stimulating imagery in the boy's minds. This book certainly stirred our imagination and made it easy for us to believe the rumors we were now hearing of sinister events that had taken place at the old house.

Wuthering Heights would ensure that there would be few limits placed on the boys’ barbarous imagery. Who knew what events might have taken place over the years at this house.

Our fantasies were augmented by the season. Clouds hung low in the sky most days. Leaves fell from the trees, and the cold wintry wind blew debris about the grounds.

The old man was no longer on the porch when we passed. But there were still no answers to the how or the why of his disappearance. These were the questions that neighbors and police were attempting to answer. The boys decided that they would do their own investigation.

The townsfolk were repeating tired old movie expressions like "under mysterious circumstances" and "without a trace". Now, each day we passed the house we stopped to search each crevice, and the debris and the papers that whirled about the property in the incessant wind. We had not yet gathered the courage to enter the house.

We searched for evidence outside. Ominous articles of any nature were carefully scrutinized. Ominous articles were numerous. Imagine the excitement should us boys be the first to solve this mystery.

We discovered pages written in cursive. They appeared to have been torn from a diary, and discarded into the yard. They told a story of lives past, of a man's life in the coal mines, of children born deformed. The pages told of men fighting and women raped. They told of the brutal working conditions of the past, of injuries, death, and sickness. There was never a mention of joy in any one of those pages we examined.

Although Billy, one of the boys, found paragraphs embedded in the script that told a story unlike the rest. They hinted at a passionate love between the old man and the witch he believed lived in the small room high in the south turret, directly above him.

Other accounts described a passionate love he had for the witch he had never seen. He knew she lived in the room directly above his. After all, for years he had talked with her all through the night, through the vents they shared. The notes clearly expressed that at times the conversations became sensual, then sexual, then even explicit.

He told in his notes how she had betrayed him, leaving him and her room for another. She had explained before leaving, that she felt pain and guilt that she had teased and torchered him. But she couldn't stop, and it was intolerable to her mind. She had told him of her mental anguish, that she had to leave this place.

He wrote that he would be forgiving if she chose to return. He once again expressed his passionate love for her, in spite of the torment. He hoped that she would return to her rightful home, when she tired of her wandering. He promised he would set aside some money for her on her return, for her welfare. He would wait for her.

We became set on finding the money.

The boys now had gazed at the crumbling building each time they passed, morning and afternoon. They had no difficulty accepting that the place might have housed ghosts at one time, or an old man that craved a meal of raw human flesh. That the novels they were studying meant that there were few limits placed on the barbarous imagery occupying the boy's minds.

This house was not exactly a castle. More correctly it would be described as a decaying old house of the aristocracy of the past. It was adorned by turrets and columns like a castle. It's spires pointed to the sky. The old man was its only obvious resident of late.

It had been a couple of years now since he started regularly positioning himself on the front porch as a fixture in a rocking chair, morning and afternoon. As they walked the boys talked of the old codger. He was always there with a stubby sawed off carbine 'cross his lap, threatening anyone that passed onto his property with certain death.

Now he was gone, taken away perhaps by an ambulance or a hearse, but more likely whisked away by some evil, perhaps a witch. Today the boys had new things to talk about.

The note pages we found were sequenced and numbered. We collated them to discover that the odd one was missing but mostly that they were complete to page 20 of 44. We knew now that the story was abridged; that there was a missing conclusion. We now had to find the money, and the rest of the story. The writer of these notes had many times referred to his black diary.

Billy spoke up. He declared he was returning tonight at dusk with a lantern, and would enter the house. I volunteered to meet him there. We were looking for the money, and the notebook. They other boys declined.

At sunset we entered at the back. The entrance there was camouflaged by some shabby cherry shrubs. It was a pleasant surprise that the door was unlocked. We entered and quickly made our way up the wooden stairs to the top room of the south turret, trembling at every step, every creak. Might we encounter extraterrestrial beings?

The room was perfectly groomed. There was no sign of life or a recent occupancy, little furniture. Only a bed. We did not find money or a notebook or anything of interest. So we proceeded down a flight of stairs to the room we had determined to have been the old man's.

This room was quite a mess. Clothes littered the floor and the bed sheets were in disarray. It had a musty odour, and the bathroom was disgustingly sullied like one might expect of a toilet off an old man's room.

It took us only moments to find the black notebook in a drawer of a small stand beside his bed. We lifted the cover. Each missing page had been replaced by a one thousand dollar note. Billy and I were holding in our hands more money than we had ever seen, as well as the account of the extreme mental anguish the old man suffered after the loss of his treasured lover.

Billy and I looked at each other. What would we do now, with the book, and the money? It was not rightfully ours.