The House

Chapter 8 - Day 1: Finding My Bed

Time to get myself settled in for the night, which means time to face the dreaded first floor!

Yes, I've been dreading it. 

Coping with just one floor has been bad enough. I'm feeling partial to spending the night on the couch. At least, I was feeling partial to that until I tried the couch. It is rather hard and lumpy, not half as comfortable as it looks.

Upstairs it is.

I grab as many of my bags as I can carry and head up the stairs. They creak and moan, but they are not rotten, not breaking, and I make it to the first-floor landing without incident.

So far, so good.

I gratefully lower my load to the carpeted floor. Carpet! Old carpet. Well, this carpet is probably too old and threadbare to hide any bugs. Right? Right?! 

It might have been lovely years ago, but it is not anymore. It has some kind of intricate pattern woven into it, but now it's too faded for me to discern the colour or design. There are no dust explosions when I walk on it, which is probably a good sign. 

I'll take it...

Right across from the stairs is a closed door; to its left, near the end of the landing, is a similar door and between these two doors hangs the huge nautical clock. I can smell the sea when I'm this close to it. 

I really can. 

The clock mainly consists of an old ship's wheel and is covered in fossilised barnacles and coral and stuff that looks like dried seaweed. It is pretty and creepy and fascinating in ways I cannot describe. It is also extremely loud.

Trying to ignore the resonant ticking of the clock, I open the door across the stairs. It is a bathroom, larger yet similar in style to the one downstairs. This one has windows, and they look out on the orchard in the backyard. It's too dark to see much outside now, though. 

There are more cabinets in this bathroom than in the one downstairs. The tub has a floral curtain and a very old-looking shower. I decide to try it, and it works!

Next to the bathroom is a hallway with a half-moon table carrying a graceful female statue at its end. I flip the light switch set just inside this hallway, and the entire first-floor landing and both its hallways light up. 

There are three doors in the right-hand hallway. Two on the opposite side of the stairs and one leading to a room set next to the stairs leading down to the ground floor. The first of the two doors on the opposite wall is locked, I think... 

I'm not going to test that theory. I have rules about locked or stuck doors now. I leave them the hell alone.

I consider peeking through the keyhole, but movie scenes where eyes peek back from inside puts me off this idea. It will probably be too dark in the room to see anything anyway.

The second door opens into a large room filled with a crowd of quiet figures. Startled, I find the light switch just inside the door and flick it. Furniture ghosts fill the entire space. There is no clear path to move among the items shrouded in dusty sheets, and I'm not about to re-decorate, so I turn off the light, close the door and turn my attention to the door in the opposite wall. 

To be honest, looking at all the quiet sheet-covered mystery items gave me goosebumps... and not in a good way. If not for the sheets, I might have spent some more time admiring the furniture; I'm curious enough, but covered in their sheets, some of them resemble standing humans just a little too much for my comfort.

I open the door opposite and flip the light switch in one nervous move. No more startling events for me tonight, thank you. Light first, then look.

I'm greeted by a huge puff of dust, enough to make me sneeze. I'm about to drag the door shut, but then I realise what I'm looking at and decide that the dust can have me. There's an antique writer's desk against the far wall, looking out towards the front yard and the forest leading to the road. 

Some tall exhibition cases containing interesting objects vaguely visible through the dirty glass line the walls, and lower ones are scattered around the room. Books cover almost every surface in the room. It's a museum! Sort of...

To the left of the desk is an elegant fireplace with a low table and three leather reading chairs arranged in front of it. Next to the reading section is a balcony with stairs spiralling down to the ground floor.

I run to the balcony and look down into the dim room at the bottom. I cannot see much, but what I do see are bookshelves. Rows upon rows of bookshelves, and they have books on them! I love books. Especially old books, and the ones I'm able to see seem ancient.

The bookshelves that line the walls stretch up past the end of the ground -floor, almost reaching the ceiling of the first floor. There are some of those ladders on rails, running their breadths. I'm feeling a little giddy, but exhibiting amazing self-control, I reverse my steps, turn off the light and close the door to the study-library-museum. 

I'll explore it tomorrow, preferably with a feather duster and a mask of some kind.

There must be some way to enter the library area from the ground floor, or that room will be the most impractical set-up I've ever seen in my life. I cannot wait to get to know it intimately. Libraries excite me, as do museums.

I step past my luggage and the nautical clock and try the other door on the landing. Another bathroom, identical to the one on the other side of the clock. Its shower is working as well. I'll go collect my toiletries from downstairs and put a roll of toilet paper in every bathroom I find in this place. 

I like having options.

Directly across from this bathroom are stairs leading to the 2nd floor. I can vaguely make out the outlines of a door where they end. There's no way I'm going up there tonight. No way. 

But what if there's someone hiding up there?

"There's no way!"

There are four doors in the hallway next to these stairs. Two on either side. This passage also ends with a half-moon table and a statue. This one is of a man that matches the woman at the other end. My heart contracts sadly at the thought that they'll never be able to meet.

"They're statues! Shut up!"

Three of the doors open into furniture storage rooms similar to the one in the opposite hallway. The last door opens toward the back of the house and leads into the room I believe I'm supposed to sleep in.

This bedroom is clean. It is quite large, and there are various items of beautiful antique furniture and ornaments in it. I'm surprised that people would rent out a house containing this much valuable furniture and decorations. Most of the things I've seen thus far need some TLC, but they are quite beautiful and not in bad repair.

The bed is set between the two windows facing the orchard and the pond. It is huge and not in keeping with the light style of the rest of the furniture. The bureau, the vanity, the end tables and the sofa are all dainty looking, standing on spidery legs. I'm sure they'll break if I touch them too hard. 

The bed, in contrast, is carved from solid dark wood. Intricate patterns of forests and deer and flowers decorate the headboard, the sides and the four sturdy-looking bedposts. Silky waves of white cloth hang draped from thick, similarly decorated beams stretching between the tops of the posts. It is beautiful.

The mattress is fairly new and covered with a clean white fitted sheet. PRAISE THE LORD! I've been having visions of poking springs, bedbugs and other weird things sharing the bed with me. I drop down to my knees and peer into the shadows underneath the bed. 

Nothing. Not even much in the line of dust. Whoever cleaned the room did a really thorough job.

I open the double doors of the 3 wooden closets. Except for some extra pillows and a fluffy blanket, there's nothing in them. 

Good!

I'm never able to sleep the first night in a new place, sometimes not the second night either, and that is under normal circumstances, where I didn't have a creepy, stressful day like today. Standing in the huge room with its beautiful decorations and its walls covered with faded silver and blue wallpaper, I know I shan't be able to sleep tonight either.

☼☼☼