Hearth Manor

Mary didn’t know why she was afraid of the dark, nor did she understand the intricate and fluid cycle that brings day into night and night into day. Nonetheless, as a child, Mary could be seen watching the sun through the glass panes of her family’s 15th century Manor house, following its motions ever so carefully with her curious eyes. When orange leaked into the sky by evening, again Mary watched as the sun sank behind the trees at the far end of the estate, forever wondering where the warmth of the world resided when the moon came up. However, much like the push and pull of her wooden yoyo, Mary did know that this mysterious sequence of rotation was as steady and continuous as the rhythm of the four seasons. By nightfall, Mary’s mother would leave a burning candle outside of her bedroom door, a flicker of comfort. Each night just as soon as Mary could distinguish her mother’s feet creaking down the corridor, her eyes would dart open. There, she would lay staring at the scintillating flame as it flared and blazed like an untamed marriage. With small strong fingers, Mary would clutch her quilt into her chest as she watched the monsters and myths come to life in the shadows dancing on the walls, two opposing entities, together forming stories and mares. When the amber glow in the hallway would melt away, Mary felt cold and helpless alone in her bedroom, unable to close her eyes for fear of the bedtime beasts under her bed. Each night, growing more despondent, the moon was her only saviour and so she looked at its piercing white light until either she fell asleep or the sun came up. These nightly terrors carried on for years, but always to her surprise and relief, by morning, her bedroom was unchanged and everything perfectly in its place.

On the day of her 12th birthday in June 1822, Mary had made up her mind; she would no longer allow the night to control her. On that very eve, Mary once again waited for her mother to disappear into the hallway. When the clank of the far bedroom door sounded, arose Mary from her bed. Ghostlike and terrified, Mary squeezed her eyes tighter than ever before as she set her feet down into the hellish swamps of her bedroom floor. With the candle in sight, she fled with such drumming in her chest that she didn’t dare look back, and with one brave saunter, she fled the room, slamming the door behind her. The brass candelabra stood elegantly in its usual place, on the hallway console of the 2nd floor; she reached to claim it. Armed in luminescence, Mary wielded her fire through the darkened corridors, banishing shadows in her stride, a crusader of the night. Instinctively she kept moving as the yellow glare of her candlelight filled the long winding labyrinth; with each pause came a new opportunity for the cloaked shadows to shroud in around her. Alas, the more she wandered through the night, the more silhouettes caught up with her. Before long, Mary could walk the house over and over in one night, barely thinking to move her feet, almost naturally or unconsciously gliding in and out of secret doors and passageways. In the portrait room where grand paintings hung in uniform around the tall, beamed walls, Mary did her rounds. Greeting each member of her family in turn, they were a comfort to her in these lonely night-time escapades, so much that when her candle burned out each night she would rest here under their watchful eyes. Mary found here that dark without light is as peaceful as light without dark on a summer’s day, and only the combination of both is where the monsters hide. In her efforts to subdue these night-time fears, Mary was left tired and weary in the hours of sunup, which led to a solitary existence, but a quiet life was one that she could be content with. Oddly, visitors rarely came to Hearth Manor, and when they did, they fled before entering its colossal iron gates. Mary hadn't received anyone since she was a child; by now, she had no expectations until one spring afternoon in 1970 when a shudder rumbled through the stones of Hearth Manor once more.

“Well, here she is, Miss. Old Hearth Manor House.” Echoed a man's voice from the foyer.

“There's more structure here than I had anticipated. I was told it would be in ruins.”, replied a woman.

“The fire, it perished the interiors, but as you can see, you could absolutely renovate if you wished, Miss.”

“My family would be so pleased to see their old heir-loom brought back to life.” She spoke through dust and soot.

“If you don’t mind me asking Miss, what became of your great-great-aunt?”

“Whatever do you mean? Everyone was lost in the fire. You have told me as much, sir.”

“Goodness, then I should inform you, Miss, she didn’t die here. It is said that she fled the building when it went up in smoke, no one in these parts ever saw her again, but some rumoured that she died of shame. Of course, for, leaving poor Mary behind in the fire.”

“Mary?”

“Oh dear, you didn’t know. Mary was her daughter Miss; she was but 12 years old when the tragedy occurred. I suppose they kept that quiet. Tragic it was. The people of the town didn’t forget, mind you.”

Unnerved, the woman uttered, “Well, how very sad. I think I’ll take a look around the wreck now, thank you.”

With the tour of the house complete, and the sun falling uncontrollably behind the blackened, tar-washed estate, the woman sent her guide away.

“Be in touch if you need anything, Miss, goodbye.”

Having not seen it on the way in, the woman found herself walking toward a peculiarly unsinged door. Pushing through its ironclad armour, she entered a room untouched by tragedy or fire. Portraits hung like a ceremony for the dead on the walls. A chill trickled through her blood as the woman looked up to find a painting of a small child and a curiously handwritten obituary undeath. “Mary, who looks out her window by day awaiting the return of her mother, and who by night, runs from her own shadow. 1810-1822”.

The gentleman by then had reached the end of the driveway. With a twist of the head, he glimpsed back one more time. There on the second floor flickered a burnt orange flame. He drove on.