I was witness to its inception. I saw how they built a world around themselves, some would call it a life, and I was there for its ultimate, inevitable demise.

I stood there, moulded a century ago by able, hopeful hands, built brick by brick to stand in all my magnificent glory upon the golden hill. My rooms are filled with ghosts and my walls echo with decades of laughter, haunted by nights of weeping, refreshed by the fresh paint of newcomers to this world.

Oh, I was wearily there, my sight sleepy now to the infinite cycles of the sun and the moon as they chased each other across the ever changing sky. An old crone lived within my walls, her bitter outlook had all but driven everyone away. I could turn my attention from her, just exist, as the sad darkness bloomed within me. The landscape around me, filled with glorious frondescence, turned desolate with neglect. My eyes were rheumy and tired when she arrived on the scene. She arrived first of course, bright eyed hopeful child. Brilliance shone from every crevice of her, rosy-cheeked human. Intelligence radiated from her stare. Oh she was known for her stare. She gave him that stare when she first laid eyes on him. She had him, then. I have not seen such ensnarement in all my ancient time here on this hill. Always an excuse to be near her, to help her out of a rut or a scrape. She accepted it without question, of course. She was one of those. Those little fireflies in a night of humanity, one can’t help but stare, follow, attempt to catch one and be a part of the fleeting joy that seems to buzz through them and leave traces of itself sparkling wherever they step foot. Only to realise they have caught something black and sticky, and they rush to wipe their hands.

When she came to live within my walls, I felt it. I felt the hum of life start in my very foundations, a slow and gentle rhythm that made me sit up, after many years, and open my eyes and really see the sunrise for what it was. She dug up my front garden and ploughed her way through the acres that lay sprawled around me, and within a few years I was adorned with blooms and scents that brought a smile to my countenance – if a house can smile. The old crone did not look so old anymore, her frown lines softened, I often heard a strange hacking sort of laugh, disused for years, echo within me. Once she stood at the bottom of the garden amid the roses and the sunset lit her snowy hair on fire – I caught a glimpse of her youthful ethereal beauty then. She had, I realised, not always been bitter.

I saw our young heroine fall in love. With he who had been ensnared. I saw how his smile captured her laugh in a net, I saw how he lent his strength to her zeal for life, I saw the potential of their power, together. Their first years together – some would call them turbulent. She spent a lot of her time digging the earth around me. Soon I began to hear gentler sounds, little feet pattering on wooden floors, windows flung open then anxiously sealed shut. Only to be flung open again, ‘smell the spring!’ would be her cry, and they would smell the spring. Her and the little one. For it began to only be her and the little one. The old crone had long since been carried away in a black coffin, and he who had been ensnared appeared to have lost his tongue for I no longer heard his voice. When winter threw her cold arms around me, and draped me with her soft ermine cloak, and turned the landscape into a dreary wasteland, sometimes soothing us with a covering of white to lend magic to her deathly shroud, I began to wonder at his silence. I turned my thoughts inwards and began to search for him. Footsteps, his calm assertive tones, the assured way in which he threw logs into the fireplace. I heard nothing. She dug her way through the winter, turning the earth, planting seeds, and I eagerly awaited her blooms come spring.

The blooms bloomed when the earth turned herself towards the sun that spring. First came the soft green buds, then an explosion of vibrant, gaudy colours. Too many to count. They filled every cranny and spilled out of the garden into the acreage beyond. So many of them, I was suffocated by their smell. Sweet, sickly, masking the scent of something else beneath the surface of the land. A stench I had been smelling for years, but I had been dismissive of it, so bright did she radiate.

This was Day One of my Short Story Challenge. The why of which is outlined here, and the challenge of which is outlined here.

O’Henry, also known as William Sydney Porter, said of the short story writing process: “Write stories that please yourself. There is no Rule 2.” That is what I shall do.