She was stunning, a figure out of some sort of fairytale. I jumped and turned to see a beautiful woman stood in the doorway. “So sorry to keep you waiting,” said a voice. The fire light cast light onto the crystal and cast a shadow of the horse against the wall. Normally I would have found such things tacky, but they were so well crafted I couldn’t felt but feel a sense of awe as I gently touched the figurine of a horse. I turned away, looking at the mantle above the fireplace where several small, crystal figurines were lined. The complexity of the patterns were confusing and I found I couldn’t stare too long at the cluttered, complicated design. The circles each had hands as well, but more than two and they spun in different directions.
Around each circle were several symbols, but none I had ever seen before in any math class. Where the face of the clock was supposed to be were instead several circles, which rotated counter clockwise, some overlapping each other. The wood was a deep rich color, mahogany if I had to guess. I found myself inching closer to the flames for warmth.Īgainst the wall was a grandfather clock. It was surprising to see a fire lit on a July night, but regardless of the summer heat and the fire, the room was still chilly. Against the far wall was a massive hearth in which a fire roared, the flames devouring the pile of logs in the grate. They looked to be taken from a previous era, probably the 1920s except, unlike the door and the rocking chair, they seemed brand new. There were two sofas facing each other, each with the same floral pattern. The living room, much like the porch, was large, but fairly empty. When he was gone, I looked around the room I had entered. Without another word, the man shambled out of the room. More out of the pressure to be polite rather than the logic, I found myself crossing over the threshold. “Come on, come on, I don’t have eternity,” said the butler. His eyes, gray and watery, glanced from me to the porch light, where the moth continued its determined struggle. His face was lined and wrinkled and under the sagging folds of his chin was a black bowtie. It was an old man who wore what appeared to be an even older tuxedo. The door opened and in the yellow light, a pale face appeared. Before I could search for answers, I heard footsteps on the other side of the door and the doorknob turned. For several seconds I waited and the questions began to form in my mind. A heavy silence hung in the air, only broken by the tapping of the moth against the glass, its wings fluttering madly. The porch was large, but mostly vacant, save a single wooden rocking chair that looked as old and weathered as the door. Beyond the steps the darkness was so thick I couldn’t tell what street I was on, or if I was even on a street at all. I watched it struggle for several seconds but my eyes wandered past the moth and down the porch steps where the light did not reach. It tapped relentlessly against the glass, desperately trying to reach the light. A single moth fluttered around the glass, its wings moving so quickly they were nothing but a blur.
To the left of the door, encased in a dusty glass lamp, a weak light bulb glowed softly, casting a ray of yellow light. At eye level there were patches of paint missing, showing where years’ worth of knuckles had rapped against the wood.
The wood was splintering and the gray paint was flaking heavily. In the weak light of the porch lamp, the door stood illuminated.
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