Author: admin

I felt confident in my hard-won knowledge of the house and its mysterious ways. Now that I knew the path inward, I felt certain I would be able to master its strange magic, with the power to arrive and depart whenever I might wish.

I walked confidently to the path over at the side of the house. I looked forward to once again traversing its magical stones — for I now understood that this was no mere mortal abode.

Yet I now found the path transformed. The formerly perfect alignment of the stones had been altered beyond all recognition. Where once they had fit one to another like the intricate pieces of a well-wrought puzzle, now there were jagged gaps. All here was randomness, without the slightest hint of rhyme or reason.

Quickly I hastened to the garden, for I was eager to reenter through the little side door and be reunited with my bride. Yet the garden was not to be found!

Surely there must be some error. Perhaps the path had split in two, and I, unawares, had veered away from the house. Yet by and by I came to the rear corner of the house. What madness was this?

Stifling a growing sense of panic, I turned the corner and continued around. There were brambles and stray tree limbs in my way at every step, yet impatiently I pushed through these obstacles. At long last I came to a familiar sight. My blood ran cold as I realized I was back at the front of the house. I had arrived where I had started — at the unopened door!

This was indeed a strange occurrence. Yet what happened next was even stranger.

Filled with a sudden sense of purpose and adventure, I sprung up from my seat. I found myself filled with curiosity concerning what strange visions might now lie just on the other side of that door.

“Whatever is the matter, dear?” was the question from my perplexed bride.

“I have a sudden urge,” I replied, “to open the front door.”

Was it merely my imagination, or did her lovely features distort and take on an oddly demonic aspect, for just a moment? Surely it was merely my overwrought imagination at work, for in another moment I perceived that all was as it had been — my beloved’s usual cheerful countenance and demeanor had been fully restored.

“There is no need,” she admonished. “It is cozy right here, is it not? Just the two of us alone, with all the time in the world together.”

At those words I felt an odd sense of foreboding, as though some terrible thought were trying to intrude upon my brain, hovering just barely beyond conscious reach. “I think,” I replied slowly, “that it would be pleasant to have a bit of air.”

Before she could object, I had walked over to the unopened door, and on an impulse had flung the bolt and stepped through the portal. Once outside, I looked around me in some surprise.

The scene before me was precisely as it had been when I had first approached the house. For some reason, this was not at all what I had expected. As I peered around, examining my surroundings, I felt a rush of air, and could hear the door slam shut behind me.

“Ah!” I replied, “it must be the wind.” I turned around and tried the doorknob, but the door would not move — not even an inch.

I was rather more amused than concerned at this sudden development. For now I knew something I had not known before — the way back in.

It was the door. Not the side door through which I had entered, but the one in the very front of the house — the unopened door.

In my mind I traced our route through the house, starting from the location of my ingress, and realized that the door before me was located precisely at the point from which I had first approached the dwelling. The difference was that now I was seeing it from the other side.

At first I regarded the door as a mere curiosity. After all, I already knew that it could not be opened. And what is a door that cannot be opened, I mused, but a particularly ornamental section of wall?

But then, upon further examination, I espied a small yet crucial detail. From my current vantage point, I could perceive at last that which could never have been seen from without: The door was bolted from the inside.

Of course! In a moment I understood the situation in its entirety. The lovely companion sitting beside me, my own beloved brought magically back to life, must have drawn the bolt as a sensible precaution against visitations from unwanted strangers.

I felt a thrill of delight at this realization. How wonderful it would be for the two of us to simply step through that portal hand in hand, and at last enjoy the happy life together which cruel fate had once denied us.

In this moment, I questioned my very sanity. Had I gone mad, or was this all a dream? The latter explanation seemed implausible, for the experience of my senses appeared far more real, more vivid, than any mere dream could ever be.

Yet madness seemed an entirely inadequate explanation. For if I were truly mad, would I have retained the presence of mind to question my own sanity? My thoughts in this regard were suddenly interrupted, in a most agreeable manner.

For the apparition of my beloved leaned forward again and bestowed another kiss upon my lips. And in that moment I was lost. I returned the kiss, and gave myself over completely to the reality of the situation.

“A ghost?” I heard myself reply, as though nothing out of the ordinary had transpired, “I understand such apparitions to be invisible. That fact alone would render them extremely difficult to see.”

“True,” she laughed, and with the sound of her laughter I felt a great burden lift from my soul. “Now that you have returned to yourself,” she said, “perhaps I can put on the kettle.”

“A spot of tea would be wonderful, my love,” I agreed. We retired to the living room, which seemed to be just as I had remembered it, and soon we were lost in conversation.

Yet there was something about the room that was not quite as I remembered. As our pleasant conversation continued, this discrepancy began to gnaw at me, distantly at first, then gradually with greater urgency.

What, exactly, was amiss? I found myself furtively scanning the room, examining it for details. And then, all at once, I had it.

Long I stood there, eyes closed, not daring to see into what unfathomable situation I had stepped. I could feel a soft breeze at my back, as the air from the still open doorway behind me wafted gently in from the garden within which I had lingered merely moments before.

I took this occasion of temporary self-imposed darkness to listen carefully, taking in the sounds all around me. Off at some distance I could hear the uncertain rustling of the trees outside the house. Yet here within there were other sounds, sounds that seemed oddly familiar.

For example, I could make out the steady muffled ticking of a clock. It seemed to me that I had heard this particular clock before, although I could not, at the moment, place the memory.

Then I heard another sound that was far more surprising in its nature. It sounded for all the world like footsteps approaching. Yet surely this was impossible, for I knew the house to be abandoned.

My eyes remained tightly closed, now more out of fright than from any act of will on my part. While I stood there, still as a statue, my head was filled with a million thoughts. What manner of creature approached? Was I in mortal danger? Were these to be my last moments upon this earth?

And then I felt something completely unexpected — the touch of lips upon my lips. A kiss, warm wonderful and wholly familiar.

Startled, I opened my eyes wide. Standing there before me, with not a hair out of place, was my deceased bride.

“You are home early,” she said brightly. Then she peered more closely into my face, which in that moment had undoubtedly turned the color of alabaster.

“Darling,” she said, “you look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Perhaps,” I thought to myself, “this is my long sought for passageway into the house.” It might have been wise, I shall admit, to exhibit prudence, given the eerie and inexplicable events that had attended my arrival.

Yet I found myself becoming oddly impatient. A touch of that strange madness which had earlier overtaken me now appeared once again to possess my will. Determined to tarry no longer, I felt in the moment that I must gain entry into this accursed abode, whatever the cost.

In a headlong rush, I proceeded through the garden in the direction of the little side door. Surely the answers to these mysteries would be found on the other side of that unassuming portal.

But then the oddest thing happened. As I continued to approach the door, it appeared to recede before my eyes. With every step forward, the little doorway seemed to become only smaller and farther away.

“It is but an illusion,” I said under my breath, and in that very moment I was struck with sudden inspiration. I closed my eyes and proceeded blindly onward, reaching out one hand as I walked forward in self-imposed darkness.

In moments my outstretched hand had closed upon a doorknob. Turning the knob, and taking care not to open my eyes until the deed was done, I flung wide the door, and stepped resolutely through the now open portal. At last I had entered the house!

The revelations of the last several minutes had been so oddly unexpected, so deeply disturbing in their very nature, that some part of my mind wished to cease, then and there, any further exploration of this no doubt accursed abode. Yet there was, in another and perhaps darker portion of my soul, a craving toward the opposite outcome.

For the very madness of this situation, its sheer illogical perversity, had the inexorable effect of compelling some stubborn part of my being to continue in its explorations. Surely, I told myself, hoping to find a rational basis for my own inexplicable desire to continue, it is one’s obligation to seek a logical explanation for such an impossible place.

Perhaps this was all the work of some poor bedlamite, a hopelessly deranged yet undoubtedly talented charlatan, who had suffered a tragedy of his own, parallel to mine in one aspect or another. For this unfortunate individual, perchance my own bereavement had become a kind of mirror by which to illuminate his own grief twisted soul.

Toward this end, perceiving my interest in this singular dwelling, could such an individual have fashioned an elaborate facsimile of that wondrous garden which was held so dear by my late lamented beloved? All of this which I now saw about me, might it be the result of the workings of an insane yet unusually meticulous mind?

I was in the midst of pondering these odd yet strangely compelling possibilities when I perceived, at the end of a narrow path leading from the garden to one side of the house, a small door.

Arrayed before me was a small and rather perfect garden. It was clear, to my astonished eyes, that this garden was well tended, and well loved.

All here was as it should be, and everything was in its place. I could tell as much from the neat and well trimmed rows of flowers, the clean lines of the paths between plantings, the tidily ordered patches of green and brown, punctuated by phosphorescent splashes of wildest color.

Yet it all seemed familiar — entirely too familiar. “Is this some terrible jest?” I asked myself. “What cruel madman would go to such great effort, merely to achieve an end such as this?”

For I recognized this garden all too well. It was the very image of the well tended little garden that had been the pride and joy of my late departed bride.

Upon closer examination of the vicinity, I now espied a narrow stone walkway running off toward the left side of the house. Until this very moment I had missed it, as the path was rather overgrown with vines and many years accumulation of fallen foliage.

Determined to effect an entrance into my new abode, I proceeded to push aside the fallen branches and other detritus, continuing steadily with my task until I was able, at last, to see the path’s stonework in full.

Now that I could view the path clearly, I was struck by the odd cut of its constituent stones. Each slab, in and of itself, appeared completely random in form, a product of Nature’s capricious whim. Yet the stones fit together, each to its neighbors, with startling exactness. Taken as a whole, they formed a perfect if utterly wild mosaic.

Each stone of this path had obviously been fashioned with loving care by a master stonecutter. But to what end? Who would go to such extreme effort only to achieve such an idiosyncratic result? There were mysteries here, to be sure.

Quickening my resolve, I set upon the path with steady gait. Yet the moment I turned the corner, I stopped dead in my tracks, and gasped aloud in utter astonishment.

Before entering, I examined the rather large house key closely, though I fancy myself, at best, a gifted amateur at metalworking. The key was of a curious and archaic design. It had been crafted, I surmised, by some long ago master, one possessed of remarkable skill with punch and press.

Even more curious, though you may think me odd for noting such a thing, from this near distance the house itself appeared to possess a distinct, almost human, personality. By some curious arrangement of the window shutters and of the door itself, the house seemed to be, dare I say it, smiling. It was a strange, mocking smile, which played upon the entranceway as though some private joke were being shared.

But enough of such fancies. It was time to take possession of my rightful property. I inserted the key into the ancient lock. It turned easily, with a satisfying smoothness of motion. Yet the door would not budge. Push or pull as I might, the accursed door would not open — not an inch.

My immediate response to this unexpected turn of events was quite startling and unforeseen. I felt a sudden spasm of pure rage pass through me, quite unlike my generally even temperament. “You are my house now!” I heard myself shout, “I must be allowed entry!”

I took some moments to calm myself. “How absurd,” I thought with amusement, marveling at my own temporary madness. “It is, after all, only a house.” Restored thus to my usual rational state of mind, I set about methodically to discover alternate means of ingress.