Haunted House

Subject: Haunted House Wed Sep 17, 2008 8:26 am

Haunted House

Haunted House Haunted_house

Whatever hour you woke there was a
door shutting. From room to room they went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening
there, making sure--a ghostly couple.

"Here we left it," she
said. And he added, "Oh, but here tool" "It's upstairs,"
she murmured. "And in the garden," he whispered. "Quietly,"
they said, "or we shall wake them."

But it wasn't that you woke us. Oh,
no. "They're looking for it; they're drawing the curtain," one might
say, and so read on a page or two. "Now they've found it,' one would be
certain, stopping the pencil on the margin. And then, tired of reading, one
might rise and see for oneself, the house all empty, the doors standing open,
only the wood pigeons bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing
machine sounding from the farm. "What did I come in here for? What did I
want to find?" My hands were empty. "Perhaps its upstairs then?"
The apples were in the loft. And so down again, the garden still as ever, only
the book had slipped into the grass.

But they had found it in the drawing
room. Not that one could ever see them. The windowpanes reflected apples,
reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass. If they moved in the
drawing room, the apple only turned its yellow side. Yet, the moment after, if
the door was opened, spread about the floor, hung upon the walls, pendant from
the ceiling--what? My hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the
carpet; from the deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its bubble of
sound. "Safe, safe, safe" the pulse of the house beat softly.
"The treasure buried; the room . . ." the pulse stopped short. Oh,
was that the buried treasure?

Haunted House Haunted-House-02

A moment later the light had faded.
Out in the garden then? But the trees spun darkness for a wandering beam of
sun. So fine, so rare, coolly sunk beneath the surface the beam I sought always
burned behind the glass. Death was the glass; death was between us, coming to
the woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the windows;
the rooms were darkened. He left it, left her, went North, went East, saw the
stars turned in the Southern sky; sought the house, found it dropped beneath
the Downs. "Safe, safe, safe," the pulse of the house beat gladly.
'The Treasure yours."

The wind roars up the avenue. Trees
stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the
rain. But the beam of the lamp falls straight from the window. The candle burns
stiff and still. Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering
not to wake us, the ghostly couple seek their joy.

"Here we slept," she says.
And he adds, "Kisses without number." "Waking in the
morning--" "Silver between the trees--" "Upstairs--"
'In the garden--" "When summer came--" 'In winter snowtime--"
"The doors go shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse
of a heart.

Nearer they come, cease at the
doorway. The wind falls, the rain slides silver down the glass. Our eyes
darken, we hear no steps beside us; we see no lady spread her ghostly cloak.
His hands shield the lantern. "Look," he breathes. "Sound
asleep. Love upon their lips."

Stooping, holding their silver lamp
above us, long they look and deeply. Long they pause. The wind drives
straightly; the flame stoops slightly. Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor
and wall, and, meeting, stain the faces bent; the faces pondering; the faces
that search the sleepers and seek their hidden joy.

"Safe, safe, safe," the
heart of the house beats proudly. "Long years--" he sighs.
"Again you found me." "Here," she murmurs, "sleeping;
in the garden reading; laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here we left our
treasure--" Stooping, their light lifts the lids upon my eyes. "Safe!
safe! safe!" the pulse of the house beats wildly. Waking, I cry "Oh,
is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart.[/b]

Subject: Re: Haunted House Wed Sep 17, 2008 11:19 am

Subject: Re: Haunted House Wed Sep 17, 2008 11:41 am