The Manor Off Milton Way

BY J.D. Bose

PROLOGUE

The smooth, even resonance of song filled the dark halls of the large house as candles flickered, filling the room with a warm ambient light that mingled well with the sound. Her light hands gracefully danced upon the strings of a classical guitar made of rich mahogany, the elegant tone echoing as all was still but her hands and her melody.

This was how she spent most of her time, writing music—perfecting the tune—pouring out her thoughts and heart into a form of expression that often used no words. In a world that had become aged with chaos, war, bloodshed, and greed, it was an unexpected sanctuary for the lonely soul that occupied this dark mansion just off Milton Way.

If one took the time to drive out to the edge of town and visit the vast property, it'd appear normal at a glance. But something inside was different. A mystery was wrapped around this place, and few ever thought or dared to try and pick it apart. Some say an old widow lived there whose rich husband had passed away long ago, other rumors suggest it's abandoned or used by wandering vagabonds as a place to rest. However, the sweet melody that faintly filled the night air over the manor said otherwise. It always said otherwise... but there was never anyone to listen.

Eliette's chestnut eyes stared at the wall with a hollow gaze, the dancing light of the flame on her side table caused them to almost glow with their golden hue. Something inside her felt void, empty... and no matter how pure and honest her music was, that time always came when she needed to fill that hole once again.

She was a beautiful lie whose faux finish had faded over the years to reveal the truth... it was a terrible curse she bore, an unfortunate deception she'd succumbed to that made her what she was today. Who would be the next victim of her circumstances? Perhaps that is a tale for another day.

CHAPTER ONE

The longest street on the edge of town was the only route that connected the estate off of Milton Way to the rest of civilization. No other buildings populated the end of the road, the slate shingled roof of the expansive mansion served as a stark contrast to the otherwise picturesque skyline. The neighborhood kids loved to ride their bikes and skateboards down this way, especially during Halloween. Pulling up to the end of the long driveway encased in tall spear-headed wrought iron fencing—wide innocent eyes gazing over the barren trees and gnarled branches peppering the yard—they’d tell ghost stories and legends about the property as the occasional hum of a far-off creature—most likely an owl—disturbed the quiet of this place.

The eldest of this group was fourteen, the other three children somewhere between nine and twelve, but they all looked like tiny dolls when contrasted against the larger-than-life mansion, clad in stone.

“Are you sure we should be out here?” The young girl beside him spoke hesitantly.

Her voice drew Markus’s attention, and the brown-haired teenager turned to look at his little sister. “Sidney, this place has been abandoned for decades, no one ever drives down here so there’s nothing to worry about.” His warm voice reassured her, but his own heart skipped a beat in trepidation. There was a gap in the fencing around the back, and no one he knew of had gotten in trouble for going through it, yet…

“Yeah, Markus is right. After all, who wants to drive down here when the place is haunted with,” he paused and leaned in towards Sidney for dramatic effect, “GHOSTS!?” Crowning his sentence with a jump scare that elicited a yelp from little Sidney’s flushed face, Lex let out a boyish laugh as he raised his arms in defense at her swatting.

“Don’t scare me like that Lex!” She cried before giggling with a breath of relief.

Markus shook his head with a smirk at the kids’ antics. “Alright guys, take it easy. It’ll be dusk in about an hour, so if we want to explore at all we will have to make it fast and less noisy.” His hazel eyes glanced from Sidney to Lex as their chuckles died down, before looking over to the quietest of the bunch, twelve-year-old Adam. “You ok man?” He asked the thin-framed boy with dark hair, patting his shoulder in reassurance.

Adam’s stormy eyes flicked up to meet Markus’ gaze with a slight flinch, as he had been zoned out taking in the sight of the manor. “Oh! Yeah, I’m fine.” Adam rubbed his freckled nose nervously before shoving his hands into his hoodie pockets. “Are we gonna’ do this, or what?” He mumbled as he returned his sights to the mansion before them.

“Sure, let’s go.” Markus replied with a nod, and Lex rang the bell on his bike handle in agreement before they followed Markus like little ducklings after their mother.

The swoosh of polyurethane wheels on concrete ebbed and flowed as Markus fishtailed his board around the perimeter of the property. Eventually he kicked up the board, snatched it under his arm, and looked back at Sidney and his friends dismounting their bikes. He tilted his head in a nod to the direction of the gap in the fencing and walked up the subtle hill of overgrown grass towards the fence. He tossed his board over the fanged rods of iron before crouching down slightly and turning sideways to squeeze between the space caused by a missing bar that had broken long ago. Lex casually flopped his bike onto the grass before following Markus’s lead, turning around to wave Sidney in with both hands. She hesitated a moment as she carefully laid her white and robin’s egg blue bicycle on the grass next to Lex’s bike. Her clear green eyes glanced around the property. She slipped through the gap more gracefully—and timidly—than the boys. Last to enter was Adam, who dropped his red bike with the rest and passed through. He brushed off some dirt from his acid washed jeans and whispered “I hope we don’t regret this” with a nervous swallow.

Hazel eyes looked around cautiously, Markus crouched a bit to hide behind the hedges that grew along the fence-line and provided a perfectly sized gap for him to pass through. He led the younglings along before slipping through an opening in the wall of foliage towards the back of the property. Lex wasn’t tall enough to be seen over the hedge, but he ducked anyway, of course. The enormous home cast a dramatic shadow across the matted grass and weeds underneath their feet, the cool dew untouched by sun tickled their ankles as they walked. Sidney crossed her arms and rubbed the sides of her arms as she bit her lip in reaction to what was either the drop in temperature or the eeriness of it all… or both.

As the quartet took a moment to look around, Adam’s blue-gray eyes narrowed as his gaze locked onto a particular spot. “Hey, do you guys see that?” He spoke in a hushed tone before pointing to one of the corners of the multi-faceted building. One by one their heads turned to see what Adam was identifying, before realizing it was the trash bin.

“Yeah, so?” Lex mumbled back, as Sidney tilted her head.

“Wait, something shiny is there!” The girl seemed to forget her anxiety as curiosity took over and she walked towards the trash.

“Sidney, you should be careful.” Markus spoke in a warning tone, but before Sidney could process his words she was already reaching to touch it.

“Ow! That hurt!!” The girl’s dark blond hair swayed as she recoiled, clenching her hand in pain. “It cut me!” She grit her teeth with a fearful wince, Markus quickly turned to her in concern. She opened her hand to reveal a small slice across her palm. It looked like a papercut, but a little wider and more obvious. Markus sighed as he pulled out a small hand sanitizer from his pocket—something he never used to carry back in grade-school, aka the good ol’ days—and carefully spread a few drops on her hand. She flinched slightly, but as the cut was rather shallow, it didn’t sting as bad as when she skinned her knees when she learned to ride her bike.

“I told you to be careful Sidney, you can’t just reach out and grab things like that.” Markus was in full big brother mode as happened from time to time, so he didn’t notice Adam and Lex going up closer to inspect what had caused the injury until Lex’s voice broke the brief silence.

“It looks like a metal thread?” Lex’s sandy hair was tousled between his fingers as he scratched his head in bewilderment.

Adam narrowed his gaze and leaned a bit closer before chiming in with a confused tone, “it’s a… guitar string?” The small slice on her hand faded from a sharp sting into a dull pulse as Sidney clenched her hand shut and walked up to Lex’s side, with Markus on her right. The four pairs of eyes analyzed it for a moment before Adam pulled out his Swiss army knife and unfolded the little blade, using it to lift the lid of the trash can. Not only was the rest of the guitar string residing inside, but a few others rested half-coiled on a paper packet branded with a name they recognized.

“Guys, this is new.” Markus tried to hide the concern in his voice, and Lex spoke up in a poorly timed joke.

“Well as new as trash can be, anyway.”

Adam rolled his eyes before turning to look up at Markus. “Isn’t it supposed to be abandoned? I know they say homeless people come here sometimes but would they have new looking guitar strings to throw away?”

Markus bit his tongue slightly behind his closed lips as his hazel eyes met Adam’s gaze, before looking back into the trash bin. He shook his head slightly. “I don’t know, it’s kinda’ weird.” He mumbled.

Sidney’s gaze wandered from the bin to the window behind it and continued to travel upward. She was following the sprawling vines of ivy up to the newest peeking leaves and curls around the window of the third story. Her eyes squinted slightly at the window, hazy with years of dust and dirt, seemingly-lined with a sheer curtain when—

Sidney’s shriek knocked the wind out of all the boys, Markus’s knee-jerk reaction being to clap his hand over his sister’s mouth. “Oh my God! What!?” He half-whispered in a ragged breath, removing his hand from her mouth as she took a breath to speak.

“I think I saw someone!” Their heads darted up immediately to look at the window she pointed to.

“We should get out of here.” Lex said in a hesitant tone.

“Uh, haunted or not stranger danger is a thing.” Adam contributed his support with the remark as he let the trash bin drop by closing and pocketing his utility knife.

Markus quickly checked his watch, looked up at the window once more, then to Sidney and the boys. “I don’t want us to be here when it gets dark anyway, let’s go.” They all nodded in agreement and slinked their way back between the hedges and fencing, one by one picking up and starting to ride their bikes and skateboard without a word down Milton Way. They were silent until they had passed the couple of vacant lots and an abandoned house that resided on the east side of the street, before taking a huge breath of relief in unison at the sight of civilization as they saw Mr. Bennington taking in his mail.

“That. Was. Insane!” Sidney shuddered and pulled her bike onto the sidewalk after Markus, followed by Lex and Adam.

“You scared us so bad Sidney!” Adam groaned, and Lex quickly piped in.

“Yeah! There wasn’t even anyone there!! We didn’t get to explore at all because of you.” He furrowed his brow in a frown, before Markus stepped in.

“C’mon guys, go easy on her. Besides, we needed to be home soon anyway.” He hid his white-knuckled fists in his pockets, not wanting the kids to see he had been frightened too. Of course, not to the degree they were, but they still didn’t need to know that.

“What did you expect me to do!? I know what I saw!” Sidney put her foot down—both metaphorically and literally—as they slowed to a stop to form a circle on the corner of Adam’s yard.

“What did you see then? All you said was a person and when I looked, I didn’t see anything!” Lex retorted, crossing his arms.

“I told you, a person!”

“What does that even mean, Sidney?” Adam sighed and Sidney looked even more frustrated.

“Someone was standing behind the curtain, like, you could see their shadow!” Lex groaned at this.

“Great! So we all had a heart attack because of some shadows?”

Sidney gave an exasperated ‘no!’ and was trying to argue back when Markus held up his hands.

“Enough already, that’s enough. Look, we need to bandage Sidney’s hand and I don’t feel like getting yelled at by mom for being late to dinner, so let’s just call it a day, ok?” His hazel eyes flickered between the three to see who would respond first, resting on Sidney as she nodded and then gliding to Adam and Lex who gave despondent ‘yeah’s.

The anti-climactic dissipation of the group was emphasized by dragging feet and mumbled disappointment as each kid went inside their respective homes, but Markus couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that something wasn’t right.

CHAPTER TWO

Delicate fingers dressed in pale skin slowly brushed aside the antique white curtain from the window as golden eyes akin to a cat looked out over the backyard as night fell. The slowest, quietest of exhales escaped her dusty rose lips as Eliette leaned closer to the glass pane, leaving no fog on its chill surface, no trace of her breath.

She thought she had seen one of the children before and pondered a moment how they were getting into the estate. An expressionless bemusement was set into her face as if carved of stone as she walked away from the window. The sheer curtain ghosted her movements as it returned to its resting place; the woman listlessly leaving the room as darkness of night cast it in black. She knew it well enough to not need the light and found the attention light drew unnecessary and often inconvenient.

How long had she been residing here now? Long enough to feel weary, yet not long enough to feel timeless. The only vagabond within its walls was her, despite what rumors may suggest. Warm bodies had trespassed many times, even entered the home, but never stayed. She made sure of that. One way or another, they were sent on their way as swiftly and softly as the breeze that made branches scratch and shutters rattle against the windows of this soulless place.

A forlorn expression tugged at the stoic woman’s face as she slowly sat down in the velvet wingback chair, glinting in wine tones of maroon and blood red. Her chestnut eyes slid over to the guitar resting beside her, the hollow companion to her vacant days and deserted nights. Gaze lazily moving up the neck of the guitar fret by fret, her eyes departed their focus on the instrument and moved up the ornate framing of the window to the regal crown molding kissing the ceiling.

Despite its age, the mansion was in decent condition. In a way, it resembled a historical building used for educational tours more so than an abandoned property. The Convocation was to thank for that. Generations past of members were responsible for the original construction of the estate—which once stood in elegant glory as a crown jewel of the town—referred to as “The Stone Palace” in those days. Now a specter of its former self, the real haunting of the manor was the present building itself. Long past were the years of decadence that had filled its walls. The lavish feasting and imbibing of scarlet alcohol from bottles no longer produced from wineries no longer bearing fruit. Halls which were painted in warmth, rooms filled with laughter, and cellars soaked in whispered secrets. Eras past were the times of Convocation meetings and sentence hearings held behind the locked double doors embellished with carvings of ivy and bone inlay, forever scarring the lacquered walnut in wounds of tasteful ostentation.

Now, only one member stood here, the lone sentinel of the estate left with nothing but her bittersweet melodies of nostalgia and romance. How bitter a pill to swallow it is to be forgotten.

Eliette is merely a chapter in the novel that is this abandoned manor on Milton Way, which is but an entry in the saga of The Convocation. And it is in this chapter, in this day, in this moment that she must find a means to satiate the sadness, the sustenance to carry on just one more day, for their story began before her and will continue beyond her. An organization entangled in history and permeating the past like roots which spread in breadth and silence.