Pictures on the Wall

Part 1

I don’t remember what her face looked like. Father doesn’t allow her picture to be hung on the walls, he hasn’t for an awfully long time. I don’t even remember what her voice sounded like, it’s a gurgle of a mess in my mind these days. No matter how hard I try, it's not even a distant memory anymore. I want to remember; I want to pretend she can touch me again. I want to see her face, but Father says I mustn’t.

So instead, the halls that she used to walk are all I must remind myself. The roses have since wilted and father has yet to replant, they won’t bloom again. Not without her touch and I don’t have that special magic she used to sprinkle over them. So, their brown leaves curls upon steams spiked with thorns. They litter the ground around them, fluttering in breezes that come and go.

The shadows grow longer, day by day. I don’t go into the garden anymore. I haven’t in such a long time. That was her special place, where she belonged. If I dare to step through, I just know I’ll ruin it. I’ll trample over the lilies that bloom annually and disrupt the bees that swoop in to harness their pollen. But from my window right above the garden, I can see patches of grass inside of turning brown, footprints left behind if I dare to assume. I let myself think that, to believe that they belong to the one person who loved the garden so much. As if her simple footsteps have created death within those stone walls. Father says they are just simply patches of dried up earth. The earth is dying in the garden with someone to attend to it.

I refuse to. That’s her place. I don’t want to mess it up. If I did, I would have nothing left of her. For the halls do no good in keeping the memories I crave alive.

I don’t remember what her face looked like, no matter how hard I try. Pictures used to line up the staircase, single portraits of each family member and family photos in between. There are squares of faded wallpaper where her portrait and our family photos once hung. Gaps in the memory line, like missing bits and pieces of your life from when you’d been a child. Eventually, you’d no longer remember what was supposed to have once been there. One day, there would be no questions asked about the missing pieces. It would be a fit puzzle, the jagged ends no longer sharp and easy to slip into place.

I still tried though. I tried to keep grasp of those fading memories, even if everything was gone from view.

The halls were so cold. The place she had once walked were never filled with heat these days. A fireplace sat in the living area of the west wing and had once been full of the flame of life. She’d attend it at night, urging the flames to lick up towards the bricks smoldered in black. It had warmed the hallway outside of the area too, filling the house with a gentle warmth that only a blanket could give. The blanket was gone now, forbidden in her absence. But even if it were allowed, I wasn’t sure that it would do good to keep the cold away.

Nothing ever kept the cold away. Not these days.

The absence of her arms made me feel empty. It didn’t help that Father never held me anymore. If he did, if he would’ve just once, maybe I wouldn’t feel so cold these days. But Father locks himself in his study in order to pretend that the loss of Mother didn’t happen. Even though the trees outside have begun to droop, weeping in desperation for the revival of what had been lost.

Her smile had once lit up the place. It was the sunshine that rose every morning and the moon that took its place at night. I couldn’t remember the last time I had woken in peace, to where I felt the desire to jump out of bed. For the air no longer smelt of burning flat cakes or frying bacon that was sizzling in its. Bacon was all she could really cook, everything else usually got scorched to a crisp. Father was the cook otherwise, even if Mother did try her best. But Father didn’t cook anymore.

We sit in silence now. The books on the shelves collect dust, the stories printed upon the pages within no longer read or even looked upon. We don’t dare touch them. It was an unspoken rule to not touch them. Mother never really liked reading, hardly ever took a book out of the shelves if it wasn’t done for our schooling.

Father kept us in line and not running amok the way it would’ve happened had mother been in complete charge of our upbringing. That was probably a good thing. Because I was fairly sure if Father hadn’t stepped in, my brother at least would’ve ended up running naked through the forest that lay behind our home, on the other side of the garden. Perhaps that’s why the shadows were growing longer every day and a breeze cooled the air, brushing against my skin when I stepped out the door. The forest was thick.

Father said to never go in there. The forest was forbidden, off limits. He said it was because other people owned it and we could get into serious trouble for going inside it. But I suspected otherwise. Father was a man of many secrets and kept to himself quite often. It was a piece of him that had rubbed off on my brother and had become adamant before he’d left to explore the world. To find his place in this world, as he had told me once before.

The world was an open canvas and he had wanted to make his mark upon it.

My sister was different. She was the quiet type and so very much unlike Mother. She wasn’t like Father either. Sometimes, I teased her that she wasn’t even part of the family. She acted like a young lady should, the way our grandmother had once taught her. That woman had always looked down at Mother for the way she flitted around, her erratic behavior and desperate need of constant approval. It wasn’t ladylike, she always said. I wasn’t like my sister, I wasn’t desperate to hold my head high and only be seen, not heard. But I wasn’t erratic like mother, I didn’t find pleasure in spinning around and finding things to fret about. I had no interests in keeping up the garden. For I tended to kill plants when I touched them and forgot they even existed when I somehow managed to keep them alive.

She was married now and never visited. Her husband didn’t like us, said our home was creepy and gave him bad feelings, whatever that was supposed to mean. Our home was big and old. It came with creaks and groans, but old always came with those in hand. I suppose he would have preferred it when it had been new, but the manor had been in our family for generations. Father’s great-great grandfather had built it from scratch on a much smaller plot of land. Each new generation to pop up expanded the land, made it wider.

Our family has never exactly left. We’ve always lived in it and one child has always stayed behind in it. I suppose this time it was me. My sister wasn’t going to come back, and neither was my brother. They’d made that quite clear before both had left. It was just me now, it had only been me for such a long time.

The corridors of my home have felt so cold for such a long time. Heat doesn’t fizzle through like it had once before. Mother had always kept the fires brewing in the night when the fall chill would hit and all day everyday when winter would raise its weary head. Those were the times when Father had been beckoned out of his study and would make chili and cinnamon rolls. That was the best part of winter, sitting in the west wing’s living area to enjoy the warmth of chili, the gooey=sticky rolls, and hot chocolate that Mother overheated in fear of not making right without doing so.

We aren’t allowed in the West Wing anymore.

Part 2

The bricks are lined with black soot, fire having licked at their surface but had yet to break them entirely down. Not yet, maybe not for a while. They were sturdy bricks, determined to not let go of the foundation anytime soon. The scent drifts from the west wing, forever lingering.

I stop right before it, right before I can truly step into the area of the west wing. I don’t like the smell. Its tart and makes my stomach churn. But Father has said plenty of times to not go in it. To not approach the west wing. I don’t want to anyways. The West Wing is also where Mother and Father’s room lies. I don’t think he’s changed it. Father never goes in there anyways. He stays in his study and pretends that she’s still here, that the woman he so loved was still here. He likes to pretend that nothing has changed.

We don’t leave anymore. We haven’t gone to town in a long time. I lost count of how long it’s been. The grocer stopped dropping food off a while ago. That, too, has been far too long to remember. I don’t know why he stopped. Maybe it was the food piling up on the front stoop that we just didn’t take in. Or maybe it was because he was no longer being paid. Father’s money had begun to dwindle after we lost Mother. It quickly vanished, no longer was it inside of existence. Nobody came for us though. The manor was ours, our name printed on the paper. Nobody could take it away; Father had made that clear for as long as I could remember. It was ingrained into my brain. I couldn’t even remember being told it once. It was just what I knew. The manor was ours; it always had been, and always would be. Father always said we had to do whatever it took to protect our home.

Even with it now bare of the life it had once sustained. The halls echo when you walk down them, but the air is stuffy with the windows locked tight. Father doesn’t want a draft to flutter in, so I don’t catch a cold. But he doesn’t know I still slip outside in the early morning hours and take in the fresh air. When Father’s awake, I’m not allowed to open the door without him. The house is stuffy, I feel suffocated sometimes. I hate being locked up, but Father insists it’s for my own protection. So, I can’t be taken away.

Though, no one ever comes around. Not anymore. So, who would take me away? I don’t dare ask Father. He doesn’t like a lot of questions and I don’t think he realizes that nobody has come in ages. Father doesn’t like coming out of his study, not at all if he can help it. Sometimes, I think he forgets that I exist.

He says we mustn’t live in the past. The present is where we are supposed to be. Father doesn’t realize he’s living in the past though. No matter how much he wants to proclaim that we mustn’t slip, he does it every time. He does it all the time. He lives in a world where we didn’t lose anyone. All the while, forgetting me, the last of what was left.

The halls echo when I walk through them. I can still smell the fire that once upon burned in the fireplace in the west wing living area. We don’t go in there anymore. That was Mother’s special place. Her pictures no longer hang on the wall. Only faded squares where they had once been places were a reminder of what once was. Family photos don’t exist, and the books collect dust upon the shelves. I can remember her reading to us at night, but her voice is only a garbled mess inside my mind. The words are distorted and whatever they had been before were now incomprehensible.

Mornings were cold anymore. I woke with the chill that drew a foggy breath from between my lips. Blankets no longer did any good, not even if it was three topped over me. Nights were the worst. The cold came when the sun descended behind the horizon to wake upon the other side of the world. It made the world around me turn frosty, even without the snow. Some days were crummy, gloomy skies that clung and hung low towards the ground, threatening for the white crystals to fall in flakes upon the ground.

Her voice no longer fills the corridors of the manor. Father’s footsteps have long since disappeared upon the ground that is now littered with dust. The housekeeper that had once arrived at the crack of dawn only to stay until the brisk of dusk no longer comes. She hasn’t in such a long time. I wasn’t sure why; I wasn’t sure what happened. Just one day, she had stopped arriving. She’d been my friend, always told me stories of what the world was like for her when she’d been a young girl growing up. She wasn’t educated with reading, but she knew how to keep a home clean and tidy.

Dust now floats in the air and dirty dishes are coated with white fuzz in the sink. The air smells rancid, the thick scent of leftover smoke lingers in the air. But no fire is allowed even in the downstairs fireplace. This manor is cold, I can see my breath. But Father doesn’t like fires in the fireplaces. I think it reminds him of mother.

The pictures that line up the staircase tell of a fractured story. I no longer remember what she had once looked like. Father won’t allow that. He stays in his study. Sometimes, I think I hear him crying. I don’t dare approach him though. I know better. We aren’t supposed to bother him in his study.

I’m not supposed to bother him in his study. I don’t touch the books and I only go out in the early morning when dawn arrives and the crisp, fresh air is sweet and tender to take a breath in. The time that Father is slumbering and doesn’t know. I don’t go to the garden though. The roses have wilted, and the grass has begun to die in splotches like footsteps of someone walking over them. I say they’re footsteps, Father insists I stop letting my imagination run wild. But there are no kids my age for miles on end and I’m not allowed to leave the manor. When I do, I only ever go as far as the end of the driveway, but by then the yellow sun that tries to break the cold has appeared. It doesn’t do well in its attempts, but it’s still enough for me to retreat inside my home.

Father says we mustn’t leave. I don’t know why. He has never told me and always pretends to not hear me when I ask him during his rare appearances at the dinner table. I miss having someone to talk to, but that comes with the territory of protecting our home. Father says if we leave, we’ll get it taken away from us.

The bricks are scorched black from the flames that had licked them. The air is stagnant from the fire and always smells so rancid. I have gotten used to it by this point. I must. I can’t leave beyond the driveway. Trees line behind the garden that I do not dare touch. I will kill the lilies that remain in bloom every year, which have begun to lessen in their numbers. I don’t want to ruin what’s left of them. The garden used to be a place of solitude, a place to go and think. I could just lie in the grass and stare up at the sky for hours, listening to my mother sing a gentle melody that no longer haunts my mind.

I cannot remember the lyrics and the piano lies silent these days. Its papers of song are gone, vanished with the pictures that had once lined the walls. Her name isn’t even allowed upon lips. She’s fuzzy in my memories, a once upon time story that has been told so many times on repeat that words no longer make any sense.

Shh. Do you hear that? The door creaks when it's opened, but joyous voices fill the halls.

No one has come in such a long time. The moss has climbed in vines up the sides of the manor, hiding its windows and scorched bricks behind green canopies. The windows are covered in grime, the housekeeper not having come in such a long time. I’m so cold, it’s been so long since a fire has burned in the fireplace of the west wing. We aren’t allowed to go in the West Wing, Father forbids it. I don’t know if he’s changed his and Mother’s bedroom yet.

Shh. They are coming. Sun filters through a gentle breeze whisk through the door.

A fractured story lines up the wall on the side of the staircase, telling bits and pieces of a long-forgotten story. I’m so cold, but the little girl is wearing a dress. It's been so long since I’ve had someone to play with.

It’s been so long since the fire took mine and Father’s lives. I’m so cold.