Nothing But Bones

9: The House

With animal companions in tow (or in arms), Tiff and Elton walk down the old and battered road toward the reportedly haunted Winter Manor. The property is cut off from the road by dense pines and a looming stone wall that hasn't been adequately maintained in a very long time. Bits of it are strewn about in many places along the perimeter, with more than one spot gouged, leaving sizable missing chunks here and there. Despite the disrepair, the wall has no discernible gaps or breaks that would allow anyone to easily slip through the stone barrier and onto the mansion's grounds.

The once ornate iron gate denies entry to the long, gravel-strewn driveway stretching up to the manor house. The rusted bars do not budge, and the gate doesn't open, primarily due to the shiny new chain and padlock wrapped several times around the middle bars.

From the design, it is impossible to tell what the builders envisioned for the house's aesthetic. It's a three-storied building made of gray stone, with the bottom half of the structure crawling with vines and a grand porch with spiraling columns with an almost Grecian aesthetic that hides the doorway in shrouded darkness.

Many of the house's windows are broken, especially the massive floor-to-ceiling windows facing the gates. While ownership has changed hands, seemingly no one has started the renovations necessary for occupation. The only sign that anything has changed is the new lock.

Tiff wants to sigh, looking at it. She imagined something more imposing, more gothic. The house isn't even that large as far as spooky mansions go; it's simply a large house fallen into disrepair.

She knows what that's like. She moved into one. Size-wise, Mr. Iotrescu's estate is larger, and she's willing to bet the inside of the Winters' place is far less imposing. Whatever ghosts may or may not exist there probably wouldn't even object to her taking off her shoes.

There's a part of her that thinks, like she did at the diner, that this would be a great place to try to tap into something beyond her. The difference is, it makes a lot more sense here than in a vinyl booth while she's waiting to order a strawberry milkshake. Her hand itches for the point-and-shoot in her bag. She takes it out and snaps the picture without looking— and, with its return to the exterior pocket with the Lake Wonder Bigfoot patch from the gas station on it, so too go the defenses. It's like marbles spilling down the stairs: all gone.

She leaves them down for a moment, like she's searching.

Elton's hand reaches for the chain, giving it a strong but futile tug. Dingus pisses on the gate while Kepler fiddles with Tiff's shoelaces.

"Well, there it is." He gestures up to the chained gates and the house beyond. "The Winter Manor! I hope it's everything you ever imagined and more."

She's more focused on the gate than Elton. Something's beyond the iron. She isn't sure what. Maybe it's just Nothing again, taunting her. Maybe it's something worse than the shadow version of Tiff Sheridan that really only lives in her head. Whatever it is, that horrible thing made of bone and darkness strikes that same primal fear deep into her.

She knows what that means. She can run from it physically, or she can run from it by distracting herself until the wave passes. The second option is a little less humiliating and she can indulge in it as much as she wants from where she's standing in untied shoes.

Tiff pulls up a more recent contact in her phone: Bryce Baker (Fucking Guilt). They haven't amassed as large a backlog as she and Denny have, or as she and Betty did both before and after the Fae Realm excursion. The conversations have gone largely the same way, though.

So maybe she didn't mention to Betty that the man who gave her the stroller she's still fixing may or may not have been Elvis Presley. Maybe she didn't tell Denny that she had a run-in with a werecoyote in Empire City when she was staying late to take an exam. Maybe she didn't tell either of them she was going to Canada in the first place. She'll certainly tell Bryce, though.