Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Seven hundred and some odd days had passed since my Pa pa’s death. After about two hundred of those days had gone by my Nana left us as well. They found her in eternal sleep in her bed on thanksgiving mourning. They say she died of natural causes but I don’t think they were right about that.

I was still serious and I didn’t play very much at all anymore. Not because I didn't enjoy it but because of well, the inevitable. Through the time since those seven hundred and some odd days I had become more and more engrossed within the thought that there’s no point since we’ll just be moving again soon. And look at this, I was right!

I called my father daddy all my life and now I wasn’t so sure that he was. I hardly ever saw him and that made me very sad. He switched jobs a lot claiming that he wanted what was best for the family but I only half believed him.

The other half was scornful claiming he was greedy. In later years however that half faded as my daddy came home more and more, but by the time that began to occur I would be nearly out of the house myself.

At the current age I was nine years old. I as I said was serious, far too serious for a child my age. But I was also very curious.

I remember when we were packing to move again. Daddy said we were moving to Florida and we would live in a much larger house. When I was packing a box however, I dropped a folder full of what I thought where daddy’s work papers. I recognized most of them but there was one I didn’t recognize at all. On the top I read the word ‘DEED’ out loud.

“Deed to what pumpkin?” My Momma said from behind as she took the paper in her hands.

“Chris!! You need to come in here now!!” My mother yelled excitedly.

“What, what is it?” My dad asked while walking out of my parent’s former bedroom.

I heard them whispering but I couldn’t make out what they where saying. Then they turned to me, both of them smiling as my mother leaned down and hugged me tightly.

“Okay I’m not sure about Savannah but I’m lost.” Sarah said while coming and sitting next to me. Jessica was living with her real dad aka my moms first husband. He was nice enough...now.

“Girls do you remember that house that mommy used to go to when she was little?” My mother asked and we nodded.

“The one that had the attic sealed from the inside?” Sarah asked with a nod from my mother in reply.

“What about it momma?” I asked as I watched the grin that was forming on my mothers face grow broader.

“Girls this is the deed to that house! I don’t know how it ended up here but…” My mother began to ramble on and on and I could tell that Sarah like me had stopped listening as we looked at one another.

A few weeks past as we postponed selling our current house but everything stayed boxed up. It was only until three weeks after the deed was found that we figured we weren’t moving to Florida.

“I wonder what we’re gonna do.” Sarah said as she looked to the sealing of her still boxed up room.

“I don't know.” I said as I leaned against the wall next to the closet door on the far left hand side of the fourteen by fourteen foot room.
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The Spanish moss hung down from the old oak trees on that early fall day, along that long stretch of deserted road. The trees were in perfect lines on either side, and above us, seeming like eternal statues. They had created a lush canapé of natural greens, and lovely silver grays overhead. It is truly a sight only understood when seen by ones own eye, I have come to realize.

It’s a scene from a fairytale I was reading in the car as well, as we drove through those trees from the story it seemed, where the prince rides through the trees on a gallant stead of solid black, or white, I can’t clearly remember. He then finds his long awaited princess under a tree, much larger than the rest in front of a glorious castle like home. With the breeze blowing gently and the butterfly’s fluttering about at sitting eye level, giving you a spectrum of the deepest purple, to the brightest yellow only adding to the already lush scenery of the front yard.

The princess does not see her prince at first, as she sits with her back to him her finger out stretched for a monarch butterfly to land, gently and silently. Then he walks to her side and sits beside her.

“I knew you’d come.” She’d say as she looks up to his now lowered gaze, with out an ounce of surprise. Then they’d both smile and share a lingering kiss, in a sweet moment of bliss.

I finished the story book for the billionth time, as we pulled up to the house seemingly from the story itself, with its white pillars at the front, and all the way around the porch seemingly going on forever, and following behind the pillars path.

The Spanish moss and diverse types of vines, were overgrown to an outrageous point, and taking over everything from the pillars to the porch floor. In time that would be cut back and controlled however. The house had few windows from what you could see at the front, but the windows it did have where in odd shapes. The nicest windows where the ones seen from the front of the house on the first floor, in front of the dinning room and the living room


I had wondered if this house was actually the inspiration, from the lovely little fairytale picture book. I’m sure you’re a bit confused so let me explain. You see it had been two months since I had found the deed to my mother’s childhood weekend home. Momma and Daddy had been discussing our next move that we originally believed would have us going to Florida. However it seemed after the deed had been found, our parents thought it might be better for a different type of change.

My father you see was a novelist, and the first of his published books had brought a lot of money into the house and the savings accounts in the past few months.

Daddy always wanted to quit his computer job and rely solely on his novel work, but he never had the courage to plunge into the deep, as they say. I guess he took the deed as a type of sign to adventure, out from our original plans.

The car came to a stop after our eleven hour drive, from Hattiesburg Mississippi. When I was little that was the one home I think I will never miss.

“The moving trucks won’t be here, for at least an hour.” Momma said to my daddy, as she walked with him to the porch.

“Oh this place brings back so many memories.” Momma said in an almost childish tone, as she practically skipped up the porch steps.

Momma placed a hand on the pillar nearest her right side, and seemed to watch her memories flash by, as if they were an old movie. A tear ran down her cheek then, as her smile broadened and she walked on, not seeming to see the now over abundant vines and Spanish moss but seeing the past. Which would consist of her experienced, of tea parties on clean sheets and, childish offerings of flowers lain all about on the porch floor.

I felt as if I saw them too. Not just from the pictures, but from my mother’s gaze. I feel like I really did see those black violets, and daisies, that had lain scattered on the once, perfectly white painted porch floor. But then I don’t doubt that I really did. That house it seemed was not just a house, it was a place that held the memories, and recreated them whenever it pleased.

My daddy took nearly ten minutes to force the giant oak doors open, but really with how engrossed my mother, my sister Sarah (Jessica was still with her dad), and I were it seemed like no time laps had occurred at all. Its strange, how that kind of thing can happen I guess.

We were reawakened from our dream due to the screeches produced by the rusty hinges on the door, we noticed the true beauty of the inside no matter how tattered it seemed, it still didn’t take away from the visions we witnessed.

“I’ll race you.” Sarah whispered as she pointed to the top of the stairs.

“Kay.” I said as we got ready to run.

We looked at one another, and began a silent count to three. Then we ran. We ran past our parents not really taking in their warnings, of 'don’t run' and all that. We ran up the stairs toe in toe, until a blast of cold air passed right through us. I slowed down but Sarah kept going. I don’t know if I had been the only one to feel it, but a shiver went slowly down my back, as I finished our race at a walk.

“Why d' ya stop runnin’?” Sarah asked, as I sat at the top step next to her, as we waited for our parents.

I thought about telling her, but somehow I thought against it, as I looked down the stairs then to her awaiting gaze. I smiled in that moment, as I looked up with a goofy grin now spreading on my still chubby, child like face.

“If I told you, it would ruin the surprise.” I said and looked back to her. She only looked at me persisting, with an accusing stare, then laughed and looked up to where I had been looking, towards those wooden beams of our new long awaited home.