It was a dark and stormy night, the nocturnal sounds were silent in the large mansion, clouds had drifted in from the North, obscuring even the stars. A scream pierced the tumult created by the howling wind, the large mansion was no stranger to screams, in its dark history it had perceived many a scream, all of them in anguish or pain, but this scream was neither. The scream was a name, not a name that it recognized, it knew that it had been sold, the real estate agent had brought along a few people, but the history that clung to it…that was one reason people stayed away from it.
This scream was one that it had not heard in many years, not since the turn of the century. Oh indeed it was a mansion that did not mean that it knew nothing. Ever since the last nail had been hammered home, since the last varnish brush left its wood, it had been. It was not possessed, oh no, it just…was. Of course humans did not understand it, they could not hear its voice, they could not understand it’s thoughts. They perceived this all as wind howling through gaps in the roof, as rafters creaking as the heat contracted or expanded the wood, but it was so much more, it was the mansion itself trying to commune.
Again it heard the voice, it came from the left wing, where a few of the old furniture still remained, nobody came to fetch it after the lord had killed his wife, two children, the butler and maids. Of course the human was not made of the sterner stuff like the mansion was. This lord had shot himself with what the humans then had called a “flintlock”. There had been strange energies in the left wing since then, some of the tenants had been whispering about spectres, ghosts and angels. The mansion only felt energies…ah yes, the voice.
It should be difficult to look inside one self, but like most things, windows had two sides and they allowed it to see on the inside of itself. Of course when wedded couples retired to their bedrooms, the mansion averted its gaze, it was built as a gentleman’s house and a gentleman never pried in the private affairs of others…now where was it? Oh yes, the voice. The mansion focused on the location of the voice, it found that it was an energy, as the mansion watched, the voice rose again, crying out the name “Edmund”, it was filled with so much rapture, so much lustful need, that the mansion did not quite understand why the energy would manifest itself here and cry out a name that did not belong to any of the previous tenants.
It was certain that it didn’t know the voice of the energy either, as a mansion it prided itself on remembering voices and names, there was so little else that it could do, that remembering was one of the primary things that it liked to do. “Oh Edmund…” The voice trailed off, like it had found its final release and now lapsed into the final bliss. Well he may not have seen what the couples did, but that did not prevent him from listening and he had heard this a few times, especially the newlyweds. A cold, wetness splashed on its roof, it heaved a soft sigh and settled in for the rain which was surely to follow in the wake of the heralding wind.
Another day found the mansion, sunlight came racing down the trees which surrounded it, hit the gargoyles on its roof, then the warming rays stroked over its roof, heating up the cold, clammy tiles, making it feel much better. The rain of the previous evening was hard and short-lived, there was enough drainage to drain the waters away from its foundations and basements. Yes it had more than one basement, practically a basement and a sub-basement. The sub-basement had been unexplored and unused after the passing of the second owner. The mansion gave a satisfied sigh as the sun dried the remaining dampness from it, there was so much satisfaction in feeling the damp leaving its exterior and to feel the warmth soaking into its old stones.
It watched as a car entered the gravel road leading to the huge iron-wrought gate of the grounds on which it stood. Usually when a car entered the gravel road, it meant that it was somebody coming to see the mansion, to walk the grounds around it and inspect the out buildings. It knew that it was supposed to feel a sort of kinship with these buildings. But there was just no awareness from them and it seemed that they had no life. Never in all the years that it had been standing in place, did any of these buildings ever show any inclination towards communication or even showing the slightest indication that they had at the very least a small amount of self-awareness like it had.
The car was followed by the now familiar silver Honda of the person called an “agent” and agent of what the mansion had no idea, it did know that this female person always came here with potential buyers for the past twelve years. It had seen her mature into a woman, when she started at the age of nineteen, she was young and what most people called naive, but over the years she had grown self-assured and she knew exactly what she wanted to do and how to do it. It had heard her once mutter in a voice which nobody was supposed to hear, that the mansion seemed to be cursed and that it was extremely difficult to find a buyer for property with such a stigma attached to it.
Of course the mansion knew that it was not cursed. There was no strange energies tied to it, nothing that had happened inside of its walls had anything to do with it. It all was the folly of the humans, they always tried to change it, never accepted that it looked the way it looked. The car came to a halt and one door opened, a man stepped from the car and looked the mansion over, it could feel the man’s gaze, it lingered, did not penetrate and seemed to me more of an assessing than critical gaze. The mansion studied the man as the man studied it, there was something very familiar about this human, but what it was, the mansion could not yet tell.
The Honda came to a halt behind the man and the woman got out, it was not the same woman who always drove the Honda, she was younger. When she spoke, telling of the mansion’s history, the estate, the uses there had been for it in the past by numerous owners, the mansion recognized her voice as the one of the previous evening. But did energies not only materialize if they were dead people? This confused the mansion. She took the man on the normal tour of the outer buildings, the mansion watched them. There was something in the man’s walk, in his gestures and the mansion just could not really understand why the man haunted him so.
Then came the tour of the mansion itself, as usual the tour started at the right wing, came into the central mansion and moved to the left wing. It was on the sofa where the energy had manifested itself that the two people fell into a tangle of arms and legs, kissing feverishly…the mansion averted its gaze as the two started their dance of carnal pleasure. It was not deaf to their coupling though and even as it listened, it realized that the man had made no sound and that all the pleasured sighs and moans came from the woman alone. Then she started using the name: “Edmund!” the mansion wished to look upon the scene, to understand what had happened the previous evening, but found itself strangely frozen in place. It could not move itself, could not commune, it could only listen and think.
Her final cry of bliss brought about strange happenings within the mansion, it could feel a heat from the sub-basement, like fire burning inside a hearth, but it knew that there was no fire. This heat travelled slowly upwards. A scream pierced the left wing, this one filled with fear and cut off short, the mansion could still not do anything, it could feel the heat reaching the left wing and with a voice which shook the mansion to its foundations, the man finally spoke, “You offer for another year.” There was a low grumble, another entity inside of the mansion where there had been none before, the mansion remembered that voice! It was the voice of the second owner!
“You did well, another offering when the mansion awakes.” The voice was cold, menacing and dangerous, the mansion could not make sense of what it heard. Why did the voice speak of it? Who was this? Dimly it remembered black candles, blood, chanting and the same heat, It was long ago, barely a year after it had become aware. The second owner was a friend of the builder; the first master had been persuaded to do it as a dare, a way to prove that nothing would happen. Something did happen and the mansion realized that it was the fact that it was aware which allowed it all to happen…a blinding flash from within itself blinded it, wrapping it in a dark from which it could not see, a silence it could not hear. Into this dark abyss it felt itself being pulled.
It was a dark and stormy night, the nocturnal sounds were silent in the large mansion, clouds had drifted in from the North, obscuring even the stars. A scream pierced the tumult created by the howling wind, the large mansion was no stranger to screams, in its dark history it had perceived many a scream, all of them in anguish or pain, but this scream was neither. The scream was a name, not a name that it recognized, it knew that it had been sold, the real estate agent had brought along a few people, but the history that clung to it…that was one reason people stayed away from it.
This scream was one that it had not heard in many years, not since the turn of the century. Oh indeed it was a mansion that did not mean that it knew nothing. Ever since the last nail had been hammered home, since the last varnish brush left its wood, it had been. It was not possessed, oh no, it just…was. Of course humans did not understand it, they could not hear its voice, they could not understand it’s thoughts. They perceived this all as wind howling through gaps in the roof, as rafters creaking as the heat contracted or expanded the wood, but it was so much more, it was the mansion itself trying to commune.
The scream had come from the left wing and the mansion shifted its attention to the room in which it could feel the energies. Again the voice cried out, a voice in the stages of rapture, “Oh Edmund!”…