GHOST
Aaron DeWeese
Forsaken manse of Richard Sharp Smith,
Four stories and high guarded by gargoyles.
Through grimed window I see what your master has stored within.
Piled to the lofty ceiling of the first floor, a deserted treasure trove of dust covered artifacts, and yes! books!
I enter secretly.
I climb atop giant piles of rotted bedding. I think I hear something; some movement outside of this once grand hall.
I climb yet, and am able to just peer up over the shelf's edge. I am filled with curiosity and wonder. Stacks upon stacks of books are mingled with various other odds and ends. There, closest to me is nearly 100 duplicates of a hardbound volume.
My footing is precarious. The contents of the shelf are just out of my reach. It must go back twenty feet or so, and it encircles the whole of the cyclopean hall. If only I could get a little higher, I could pull myself up on to it!
I hear more noises from beyond the hall. Clanging! The dust covered estate is not quite abandoned! I must hurry to claim my souvenirs and leave this place!
Oh! The books! Rare, out of print, and sitting here in vast piles for what must have been decades! I stretch myself to the utmost and am able to see further back into the shelf. A violet water pipe, half the size of a man, stands atop a pile of books.
With my middle finger, I am just able to reach the top of the spine of a book and pull it down to me. The spine reads "Doctor Phil". I am astounded to find such a modern publication! I look at the cover. It is a strange caricature of an adolescent with a very long nose.
Again, the sound of objects being moved! This time nearer!
I manage to pull two more books down from the shelf, along with a strange crafted object that I seem to have no memory of. I place them under my arm and look down over my shoulder to the filth that was once a majestic flooring. A well dressed mustached man with salt and pepper hair has entered from a doorway at the south end of the hall.
He has not yet seen me. With my prizes in hand I rush down the piled bedding and jump to the floor some seven feet below. I flee through the doorway at the north end of the hall and circle around to the back of the grounds, where I know of a stairway that ascends a hill.
Filled with the terror that I might be seen fleeing, I spring up the overgrown stairs, emerging onto Reed Street. I glance at my books, and then back at the manse.
It towers above me, a massive rectangular piece of architecture. Each of the four floors are encircled by what are resplendent and massive windows. There must be hundreds of rooms within!
I look to the top floor. The roof is walled-off from view, with gargoyles perched all around. I wonder at what mysteries that roof may hold. Perhaps a now diminished bloodline secretly dwells in the ruins of their past?
As I gaze back at the gargoyles, a vision opens to me — that of an old woman, gargoylesque, sitting in a wicker chair, attended to by hand maidens. This scene played out long ago, atop that very roof. She sits by a fountain amidst an atrium.
I turn and quickly head up the hill that is Reed Street to home — Summit Street.
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