VI: Histories

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Bridgeland Manor

The last of the wallpaper falls from my fingertips to the floor. The underside not sticky anymore and it lands, with no sound, into the already forming pile of wallpaper strips.

The papered door behind the bookcase was simple. Less ornate than the other doors in the house. It had no decorations, only a gleaming keyhole of melted brass and matching hinges around a plain door. It eases open with the arrest hint of pressure.

The hinges old and tired.

The door swings outward revealing an open space, rough and worn. Big enough for my palms to touch both sides at once. The alcove about four feet wide, before it opens into a room. The air stale and tasteless, heavy in my lungs.

Light floods in from a crack in the ceiling. It starts against the wall closest to me before reaching up the diagonal wall on the underside of, what I presume is, the staircase. Afternoon light streamed through the edged. Yellows and blues coming from the stair-glass window above the curved in the staircase.

It leaves bright patterns on the dust coated floors and high-up onto linen-covered furniture. But these sheets are embellished with greyed stringy spiderwebs. Their fabrics older then those covering the furniture in the rest of the house. There isn't even a sign of smoke damage, as if the room hadn't been touched by the fire.

I take in the room noting the signs of age and preservation. Dust lines still intact except for where my socks had been, the place where the door had swung out and left a quarter circle of clean wood in it's place.

In the farthest corners, beyond a table inlayed with spiral legs, in the light flooding in from the open door, are rows of shelves. The tinkling light from above dances across glass jars resting in rows. Stakes of jars resting on the ornately carved shelves. Specimen jars? The water inside too stagnant to see through.

It must have been some time since someone stood where I am now.

There wasn't a lightbulb, or switch or candle. I tilt my head up to the ceiling, breathing through my mouth, trying not to notice the stale air. The ceiling was cracked but there wasn't any sign the fire had even touched this room. The yellowed age of the wallpaper wasn't even decorated.

The pantry off the kitchen had more design then this room. More care.

I step lightly over to one of the linen covers, tugging the material off with a flourish that send clouds of dust into the air. A light sneeze sounded from the doorway, followed by the padding of catspaws. Small paw prints trailed in front of the table, looping underneath it, and back again.

I folded the sheet, tossing it onto the table in the centre.

It had been covering a box. About the size of both of my hands and filled with glass slides. The kind I used at work to examine samples of remains. But these were much older and just as muddy as the jars across the room. A few of them were broken, other unkept so that air had gotten between the glass coverings.

Not something uncommon to be found in Bridgeland. I used to spend summers wearing gloves to touch special books or bones, fossils, with Edmund. I used to have a ring around my eyes from staring into a microscope with so much wonder that I didn't notice the racoon-eyes I had after. But these slides were much older than the things I used to discover with him.

Did he know about this room? Did Agatha or Ana Crane? I set the slide back into the worn box, leaving it where it was for now. On the other side of the room, another low shelve now covering in little paw prints, are rows of books. Though Medora had obviously decided that these books weren't worth her time.

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