by Miranda Hawkins
The old magician hadn't been dead long, but all his affairs were put in order swiftly and efficiently, just as I expected. With no surviving relatives, the will was made simple and straight-forward, no complications. Now, all that was left to be done revolved around the sale of the estate; that's where I came in. My job was to make the house and its' grounds presentable ASAP for the flow of prospective buyers. No problem. It was a beaut; elegant Victorian and an amazing shade of misty blue that would have half the hemisphere dying to get a peek inside. But, to quote my librarian mother's favorite cliche, you can't always judge a book by it's cover.
When I first stepped into that room on the third floor my nose crinkled in utter dismay. All the furniture was covered with the same shade of ghastly yellow, each piece bearing a sensory overload of teal trim. And as if that wasn't enough, the violet wallpaper was covered with twining kelly-green vines and stylized mourning doves spaced at equal intervals across its' whole, creating the most horrendous scene ever to burn itself into my eyes.
I turned to Roger, my assistant, and said, "Air out this room, then strip it completely."
He nodded, making all the proper notations, a look of shocked horror on his face. I knew how he felt. Each room had been one disaster after another, cheap and gaudy in every sense of the word. The kitchen was done all in cornflower blue and tangerine orange, with palm frond wallpaper that would've made a caterpillar cringe, but the dining room was even worse. Covered in crimsons and mauves, the wallpaper was pasted with a butterfly/rose print that I was sure had to be against the law. Just thinking about it made me start shivering in revulsion.
"If I'd known magicians were this tasteless I never would've taken the job," I grumbled, mostly to myself, then to Roger, "I need a break. Finish your notes here and you can go." Before he could reply, I'd left the room and headed for the stairs.
Quickly, I made my way out onto the large wrap-around porch for a breath of much-needed fresh air and arrived just in time to watch, Jesse (my soon-to-be ex, if he didn't have an explanation) pull into the driveway, dust billowing thickly around his Ford pickup.
"How's it comin', Erin?" he asked, stepping lightly from the vehicle and smiling lop-sidedly at the murderous look I was giving him.
"You could've warned me!" I cried, moving from the house's shadow to meet him head on.
"But then you wouldn't have agreed to do it," he replied, with that stupid grin still plastered on his face.
He was enjoying this! "Damn right, I wouldn't! This place is an absolute freak show!"
"I thought you enjoyed a challenge."
I sighed, amazed at his audacity. "This isn't a challenge, Jesse, it's a nightmare. Besides, you're not the one who's going to spend the next few months staring at it!"
"Calm down, darlin'. I know it needs work, but. . ."
"Needs work?! This place doesn't ‘need work', it needs a miracle. How could you do this to me?"
I was just getting started on Jesse, when Roger bolted through the front door and off the porch, screaming, "Miss Lane, Miss Lane! Ohmigod! Miss Lane, you're not going to believe this!"
"What, Roger?" I sighed, knowing only too well what his overactive imagination could do in a place like this.
"Well, I was finishing up my notes just like you told me to and it was kinda stuffy, so I thought I'd just go ahead and open the window like you said, right?"
Couldn't hurt to humor him. "That's right, Roger."
"So, anyway, I opened the window and kept writing. Suddenly, I started to hear this funny sorta fluttering sound and I look up from my notepad and the birds. . . remember the birds?. . . well, they're comin' off the wallpaper and flyin' around the room!
Amusing as it was, this had gone too far. "Roger," I said quietly, "you've been working awfully hard lately; I think you should go home and get some rest."
"But it's true, Miss Lane, I swear. . . Look!" Then he flung his arm up at the third story window.
Stunned, I watched in disbelief as a large flock of mourning doves, shot from the opening and, circling the house once, expanded up into the air
Jesse looked from me, to Roger, and back to me again. "What is this, Erin? Some sorta revenge for getting you into this."
Mouth open, wide eyes glued to the third story, I could only shake my head in negation.
But Roger, who very rarely lacked in words, said what I couldn't. "Why would we set somethin' like that up when we didn't know you were comin' out today, Mr.Struthers?"
Silence. Now, Jesse was fixed on the window, too.
"Hey, Miss Lane, maybe we should go check it out. Ya know, see if there's any more still up there."
"I'm not sure that's such a good idea, Roger," I answered, motioning for him to return his attention to the third story.
Vines of kelly green were quickly sprouting from the open window and traveling undetermined paths down the side of the old house. Unconsciously, we all three backed up a step and within fifteen minutes, it became impossible to tell where the house ended and the surrounding forest began.
|
|
