Gate House by Jan Darrow

We came in from the locked gates.  The drive was a curve through the trees, overgrown and shady.  Half a mile back was an abandoned house.  Brick walls and a slate roof lazed under the brimming sun.   Most of the glass was unbroken reflecting blue sky.  The gutters dripped rain from the night before.

Inside was a stack of newspapers dating from 1962. The sun came in from the closed living room windows showing dust in the air.

Someone left a video camera on the bottom step of the wide wooden staircase.  The light of a hand slid down the bannister leaving fingerprints in the dust.  We toured the empty spaces and imagined the people who once lived there; their children.  Dinners in the large dining hall.  Fires in the open grates.  The cooks and the maids living in another century, yet it could have been yesterday

The archways were dark wood.  We opened doors to cupboards that were mostly empty.  Dressing tables in the bedrooms were wiped clean of history.  Dry memories.  Snapshots really.  No ghosts curled up in the corners.

  

Later that day we sat in the grass outside and took turns drinking a bottle of wine until the sun landed behind the trees and the sky got dark.  We took the camera from the stairs and made our way back out to the road.

  

At home we watched the video.

It seemed to be something made for tours through abandoned houses on YouTube.  The camera angles were awkward and shaky but the murals on the walls were inspiring. Some of the wooden cabinets shown were gone when we were there.

   

There were no background sounds except the occasional noise from birds.

The video maker opened the bedroom window and panned the overgrown garden below.

“It’s enchanting,” a voice said.  “Can you see the irises blooming down there?  And the cedar hedges and boxwoods?  It wouldn’t take much to make that garden gorgeous again.”

The window closed.

“Somewhere long ago in the history of this house there’s a story about a missing girl, I think.” 

The camera moved to a low hanging ornate mirror on the wall.  For a few seconds we saw a reflection, and then a giggle.  “Beautiful…” 

It was a girl.  And then the frames went dark.

Jan Darrow is a poet from Michigan who connected with the natural world at an early age.  She has been published online and in print and finds abandoned places utterly beautiful.  You can see more of her work at jandarrow.blogspot.com.