IV: Bridgeland

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Bridgeland Manor

Keen eyes and a pointed ear turn up from the leather medicine bag. Medora stares at me for a moment, the end of her tail curling above the hand-holds, giving me a disapproving look.

"It's only a little creaking and a big house." I tell her, taking up my cup of tea, finding it warm against my fingers. Light floods the foyer of Bridgeland Manor, sliding up the walls inch by inch. The foyer blends seamlessly into a hallway wrapped with dark woods and delicate ceiling carved out of deep oaks. On either sides, just past the foyer, are great double archways.

Passing through one of them and into the study on the left, with it's doors propped open and pages scattered on the furniture, I pause in the hallway watching my cat paw at the floor.

Uncertain of her new home.

The wood groaned under my feet.
The sound is a reminder of how empty Bridgeland had been for the last eight months. Leaving the floors and the walls to creak and moan with the pressure of only my footsteps since Medora refuses to leave my medicine bag.

"It's only a big house," I tell myself, warming my socked feet in the sun. "A big house with burn marks in the wood and smoke damage in the ceiling."

I place my cup at the base of a statue leading into the study. The man looks discontent with his disembodiment, the tuft of his moustache is turned down along with a shining head and chipped nose.

Most of the rooms on the second floor were closed up. Which left any available ones on the first floor to serve as storage: rows of paintings titled upright on the floor, linens thrown over furniture, stacks of boxes full to the tops with plastic wrapped figurines and heirlooms. Years of collecting– music boxes and lockets, books and clocks, the precious and the old and the strange– all packed away or damaged.

The grandfather clock that always loomed over the staircase was now laying the length of the staircase landing, still ticking but eaten away by flame and smoke. The golden accents melted into a pool of metal.

Light floods the foyer, sliding up the walls inch by inch as the sun moves. The foyer blends seamlessly into each room with dark woods and delicate ceilings carved out of oak. Some touched by flame, some perfectly intact.

Medora pads into the room behind me, her tail high and curled at the end. She takes small uncertain steps, glancing at me over her shoulder, before continuing into the room.

"Agatha said you'd protect me from the house," I say to her, bending over and twirling her tail. "How do you feel about that?"

Medora simply sneezes in response.

The little orange cat stalks around the room, crouching under the armchairs and hoping onto the desk, the corner of the latter rests in direct evening sunlight. She wasn't the only one not entirely adjusted to the January winter, especially not days like this with it's never-ceasing snow.

I'd wrapped a blanket over my shoulders this morning after deciding on two pairs of socks and a cable-knit sweater. Despite the cold, I'd been instructed not to light the fuses in the any of the fireplaces but I had full use of the gas stove which was keeping me warm with cups of tea and hot chocolate that I sometimes spiked with bourbon.

There's one more week of January which meant it was still J-term when classes have not yet started but the students were welcomed back on campus, some already enrolled in pre-term lectures. Sometime since arriving at the house a week ago, I'd let my laptop die (and the warmth it provided) after opening it to a string of emails from the Head of my department at the University.

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