The Manor House

Here I sit, alone with you; in the attic. My uncle’s belongings scattered about, collected through time and waylaid in a bid to preserve memories. Sat within a hold to decaying realities and claims on fading photographs of days long, long gone. I will find it, I just have to keep looking.

It was my uncle’s house, you see.

Once he’d been an explorer, a man of adventure, a gentleman and a scholar. He’d collected such great troves of treasures on his journeys, and yet nothing that had ever had any value, other than that of a sentimental sort.

He’d died not long ago; leaving me this great monolith to his dreams in the hope it would inspire mine, for I had moved to this wretched town in the hope of writing in silence.

Blissful. Silence.

It would be perfect.

The attic had become my refuge of late. The closeness of the pitched roof, the lack of windows and the stark bulb that illuminated that sacred space, and somehow even the dust motes that floated about the confines seemed to somehow be charged. I remain convinced there is more within this particular space, and I intend to find it.

I’ve yet to scribe a word you see, and yet I somehow feel it pertinent to record for you that which I am noticing is somehow evoked within the confines of this monolith of time, decay and preservation, this fetid museum of pompous self worth, a man’s ode to himself. I feel the house infecting me with loathsome narcissism and yet I know it’s here. I just have to find it, and then it can change.

The world will awaken, the winds will change, the words will flow like spring melt over a frozen landscape and I will be released. Freed from the prison the kindhearted old fool set upon me. I will instead find myself released into the wilds of hopes and expectations, and dreams long since forgotten (or entombed in this house, this pillar of putrefaction).

I have to find it, I have to redeem myself, but I also needed to redeem my uncle and the house. Bare with me, it’s a tale worth retelling.

It began innocently enough with a knock at the door and a parcel requiring signature, not an uncommon occurrence at any point, and without thought I inked my name as was indicated I should do, and took the parcel inside. A day went by, and I was called out of town. A week went by and I returned to find that package upon the table waiting. If I’m being quite honest I’d fully forgotten about it, but the moment I saw it, I was called to drop everything in my hands, and rushing towards it, I had that sudden feeling, or innate knowledge that the world had changed.

Opening the envelope what I’d at first assumed as a group of papers held together with some sort of band, or perhaps rope, proved to instead be a small black notebook. Within it’s pages were my uncle’s will, deeds and documents for the house, and various other instructions and papers. In summary his estate was left to me, I simply had to ensure his final wishes were cared for.

As instructed I prepared his body as per his requests. Community announcements and arrangements were made as he had instructed. I ensured his body was interred as he’d desired, and it was only at the point of all of these wishes being met that the chauffeur arrived to escort me to the lovely old Victorian. The driver’s name was Edward, this amused me greatly as Edward I thought, should be working an Edwardian estate. Apparently my humor is not often appreciated, so I kept the irony to myself.

The notebook and the contents of authoritative documents were the only thing keeping me from screaming and leaping from the moving car. I couldn’t help feeling that I had no place here, this wasn’t my neighborhood, I felt like I was about to be called out as a complete fraud by someone, anyone. My anxiety rose and the only thing keeping me sane for that ride was that soft supple black leather.

The car ride and our destination, were another matter entirely.

Upon arriving at the house Edward exited the vehicle and opened my door. Standing aside he motioned to the book I now clung to, with both hands.

“Page 18, if you please.”

I opened the book and turned to page 18. On it was a table of sorts, and immediately I realized the nature of this particular page.

Days, locations, months. We were playing, “find the key.” Well at least he never changed his mannerisms.

It took me a bit, and Edward was no help at all, but I got the code sorted out. It helped when I realized I needed to know when the last day was he’d been here, not what day it was today.

By the car, I heard the trunk latch lift as Edward moved to bring my bags into the old house. I shivered at the thought of being in here, alone with but a single man servant, but I wasn’t to be alone with my thoughts for long. Edward was close on my heels into the foyer.

“Page 27, sir.”

I thumbed through the book, trying not to be distracted by the surroundings I found myself in. I’d barely found the page when Edward’s muffled voice floated to me from down a corridor.

“Page 33, if you’d please sir.”

We continued this game; he and I for an entire evening. Edward calling out numbers and myself flipping pages within the body of the small black book.

At some point I realized this was not merely puzzles and codes, and the eccentricities of a paranoid old man, but I came to understand what it was that Edward was trying to tell me.

I returned to the book, and the contents of those pages with a renewed understanding following morning, and I I opened the drapes in that house for what I am sure was the first time in decades, as I set about to checking the book against the house.

Each treasure told a tale. Each tale within this string of tales would hold it’s own special reward, if it could be found. What that reward was, was as yet to be seen.

The first set of instructions I decoded seemed to match a painting. The second set seemed to match a clock. The third set matched a plant in the garden. The fourth set matched a taxidermy owl in the study and I’ve been up here for days now trying to find the item in this space of the attic which matches the fifth and final description.

I wouldn’t even of cared, except I’d misunderstood his wish you see, and when I decoded the 3rd clue my plan was to remove the plant, the owl and the paining and place them by his grave. It was only when I attempted to do that, I found this coin, and upon taking the coin in to be evaluated, they believe I can get 4K for these coins, that’s each. That’s money I know can take this place out of “haunted mansion” status, and provide it some hope.

Once I knew what I was looking for it was easy enough to find the other coins. One embedded in the picture frame, one hidden in the workings of the back of the clock, the other was not in the owl as you might have supposed but rather was housed in the perch on which he stood, covered in moss.

Edward is no help. He brings me food and cares for the house, but he can not help me in my bid to release both of us from the shackles of this horrible place. The shutters bang in the wind. The winds howl and the mists linger. There is no light within the inner rooms, only the damp smell of fires long since put out. The art fades with sunlight and behind the growing layers of dust. The mice have damaged many of the carvings, tapestries and weaving's. I feel it is a place without salvage, Edward does not seem to agree. Now that I’m putting together the bits of windfall to find the money to work on the place I’m thinking we may just stick around awhile, but it surely won’t be the same dusty old rot trap when I’m done with it.

I swear, I know it’s somewhere up here. I’ve checked every box against that wall, nothing seemed to speak to me. There’s a couple of loose floorboards right there, careful of those, but I’ve looked in there too yes, and there was nothing. I’ll keep looking as I’m sure it’s got to be here.

“What do I plan to do with the place?”

Oh well that’s easy enough, I’d like to clean the place up, replace the drapes, hire some cleaners, repair the front steps, secure those shutters and if I could, I’d really like to fix up this attic space better so I can get my writing space up here.

Turns out that a few days in the old girl she grows on you some, and I suppose I’ve grown up a lot from the kid who used to come to this place, with an active imagination, and a belly full of fear. It’s not a bad house, and I rather appreciate the treasure hunt the old coot has set me on, if I’m being honest it’s become a form of final farewell, which was going rather well for me until I got stuck on this last one.

Oh, watch your chair there, the floor is spaced – Oh no! I’m so sorry you fell over. Here, let me help you with that, I’m really sorry that happened, are you hurt? No, no it’s ok, let me get that for you. So sorry about that. Really.

Look! When you fell there, you seem to have jarred a hidden compartment open somehow! Ha, you did it!! We did it!

1 little black book, and $20 000 … and now the house can be saved, and I can get to writing that amazing story I’ve been working on. One day I’m sure you will find it, or it will find you.

Thanks so much for coming by today to ask about the house, my plans for it, and how I came to have it. I’m really sorry the chair tipped over on you like that, and I’ll hope you’ll feel inclined to stop by the house again, when I have some of that renovation and clean up work done. I’m sure it will be a beautiful old house. It would be fabulous to have you stop in some afternoon, should I count on seeing you; then?

The reporter left, the coins were cashed in, and the work around the old place was done. Edward is still adjusting to the light and lack of dust but I’m sure he’ll come around eventually.

So; Here I sit, alone; in the attic. My belongings scattered around me, collected through time and waylaid in a bid to inspire and evoke, a peek into the creation of realities and the claim on newly birthed worlds not yet realized, explored, or known. This is where my unwritten thoughts linger, written in time throughout my possessions which shall one day come to represent the sum of all that is me. This is where my unwritten thoughts linger, suspended upon the delicate threads of a web, held before a blackened window and displayed for eyes, which do not see.

This … is where my unwritten thoughts linger.