Chapter Text
At a traveler’s first glance it may have seemed an ordinary house, albeit a bit large. However, it was anything but. Such a thing could be seen by the more keen of observers as far away as the wrought-iron gate, noticing the fantastical creatures and strange runes hidden within the intricate whorls and spirals. Most dismissed it as curious and went on their ways, and even those who didn’t initially were forced to, for the only time the heavy gates screeched open was when a new family took up occupancy, which happened rarely, and none of the residents deigned to leave except in boxes, even to retrieve food, all of the inhabitants as far back as memory served always having their few goods delivered through a hatch in the gate. That was the closest “common” folk ever got to the house, unable to see over or even really through the closely-woven iron.
If any of them had on a regular day, they would have seen a stone path forgotten by time and people, overgrown with moss and wildflowers that children would gather up by the bunches when they lived there, and for a few weeks, the worn white stones would be visible once again among the waving grasses. If—and this is growing exceedingly unlikely—by any chance someone was to journey along the forgotten stone path through the clover and dandelions and actually approach the front door, they’d notice an elaborate white arched doorway, carved with waves and dolphins and with fishes and seashells.
Ensconced within this intricate frame was a wooden door, sometimes red, sometimes black, it’s only extraordinary quality that it was always faded. And, of course, the silver door knocker. This intricate knocker was almost never used, but it was beautiful despite, or perhaps because of, it, carved into the shape of a dragon with a coiled tail. Though the detailed knocker was seen by so few, those who did gaze upon it did so for the rest of their lives, along with every other detail of the great red-brick house. It wasn’t just a house you lived in; it was a house that lived in you.
If one got past that marvelous knocker, which on the date of this writing very few have, they would find themselves standing on a rug so red that one could almost fancy that it had been stained such with the blood of former occupants, staring out at softly tinted lilac walls and honey-gold wooden floors, and a crystal chandelier larger than the world’s tallest and fattest men combined and shining like a thousand captured stars in the light streaming through the great bay windows of the house’s welcome-room.
If a resident (all who have ever beheld theses scenes have been residents) were to advance up the white-carpeted spiral staircase in the room’s middle as they all did eventually, they’d find a long hallway, seemingly windowless but lined with white doors along the corridor of which the walls had been painted with mint in an age time has forgot, but which still looked like it had been done last week.
The rooms beyond the doors were all exactly the same, although with the house’s layout and outward appearance that seemingly would have made no sense to an outsider, although whenever you were actively beholding it it seemed perfectly reasonable. All these bedrooms were splendid, and would have been the envy of the state had they known of them. With a beautiful and cheerful abstract pattern, though still identical to those in the other rooms, letting in flecks of colored light that danced upon the yellow walls and flitted over the dresser and nightstand’s painted vines and flowers, pausing only to linger on the sunny blue blankets that lay upon the bed.
If one elected not to venture up that spiral and instead went around it’s back, they’d find themselves in a kitchen tiled with geometric patterns in small black diamonds and with copper pots hanging over the black counters shot through with white from the underside of the dark cabinets fixed to the walls, the silver handles appearing to drip off them like teardrop earrings.
At the far end of the kitchen was a swinging door such as everyday folks see in a restaurant, and if one were to go through it they’d enter the dining room, home to a chandelier even more impressive than the one in the welcome-room, structured too instead of merely a cascade of prisms. The candles held by its branching golden arms would illuminate a dining table and chairs carved with the same whorls as the fence outside, complete with the hidden pegasi and griffins, dragons and twisted runes, climbing up legs and backs, hissing malevolently at the residents of the cabinets of golden wood that lined the deep forest green walls, intricately painted dishes and vases accompanying sculptures of people and animals and a few strange mixtures of the two behind the glass fronts.
The chandelier would also, more likely than not, illuminate a small passageway five feet high and three wide, lined in mirrors. If one would so choose to enter this strange passage, they would find it full of sharp corners and unexpected turns before it suddenly spit them out at the back of the house, near the dark grey rear door, the passage they had just emerged from looking like a mere unassuming crack in the red brick.
They could re-enter the house through the grey door, but unless they knew about the key, hidden within the beak of the bird carved into the doorknob, it was unlikely. This was when the front-door’s dragon knocker was most often used, for few could find the mirrored hallway from outside. If, after re-entry of the welcome-room, they would turn right, they’d find themselves in a room with walls and cushioned couches of maroon and gold, and a fireplace large enough for a midnight tryst. The walls round the room were hung with portraits in ornate gold frames, or at least gilded thus.
If one did all that they would have explored all the house easily accessible, though not even half of the whole. After all, they hadn’t even discovered the secret greenhouse yet, but ah, maybe another time we’ll explore the innumerable mysteries of that strange house.