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.