The Empty Room

The Castle

As you may have already guessed, our Castle is not really a castle in the technical sense, but more of a mansion. We call it a Castle because its granite walls loom large and behind them, we feel invincible. Our “moat” is a creek, albeit a roaring creek, and our “drawbridge” merely a bridge, though the iron gate at the end of it keeps most unwanted visitors away. It was purely in fun that we first referred to our home as a “Castle,” but it wore the name like a cat wears fur. When you touch the stone comprising the walls, Castle feels right. When the oak doors groan open and you take that first step inside, Castle feels right. When you stand in the grass during a storm and see it illuminated in the darkness by a backdrop of lightning, Castle is not just right, it is the only suitable word.

The Anti-Chamber

Unlike the traditional antechamber preceding a room of importance, our anti-chamber resides on the far side of the drawing room. It is used primarily for harboring cumbersome guests. Guests are eschewed inside, typically with the promise of intimate conversation, away from the droll of the larger gathering. At first glance, it would appear to be a room of quaint luxury. Neatly stacked logs in the fireplace, shelves full of books, and stained-glass windows. Admire it all from one of the cushioned chairs along the western wall. Were you merely passing through, you may wish to spend more time here. Should you see that wish fulfilled, however, the room will turn on you. The chair on which you sit emphasizes style over comfort, evidenced by its lack of armrests and knotted back. The marble floors grow cold in the winter, and the logs in the fire are just for show, as is the fireplace that houses them. Reach up the chimney and you will find a smooth, flat surface where the flu should be. Try to pass the time with a book and you will see that these too, are a mirage. The spines contain no titles or authors, and if you were to pull one out, you would find that it does not open. If only you could see past the opaque glass of the stained windows, you would not gaze upon the oak and elm trees sprinkled around the property—you would stare into the void of an empty white wall. Guests go mad in this room. They pound and claw at the wooden door, begging to be let out. Half the time they are so disoriented they don’t even realize they are pounding at the wrong door, which, if opened, would reveal more drywall. Not that it matters. It’s locked anyway. As is the door through which they entered.

The Drawing Room

Because we’re too civilized to mull about in a “living room.” You’ll find no televisions or game machines in this gathering space. Naturally, it serves as the epicenter to any decent party, at least before dinner is served. Guests assemble here for light appetizers and cocktails. If pressed for a safe topic of conversation, they often turn to the framed paintings adorning the walls. Not a single one is imported. Each and every painting was created in the Castle by one of its inhabitants. The life of our Castle spans centuries, and only work of the highest quality earns a spot on the walls of the drawing room. Anything short of our lofty standards is rejected—burned or exiled to the shadows of the attic. It may sound harsh to the soft and sentimental. You’ll hear no denials on this point from any of us. The results, however, speak for themselves.

When guests are absent, the drawing room is a communal quiet space. Inhabitants come here to read or write, even draw. Don’t mistake this for etymology. The drawing room derives its name from “withdraw,” not from sketch-work. This is a fitting word for it indeed, as it has been used often as a haven for cohabitants wishing to distance themselves from spats. Not a room for quarreling, but for peace and reflection. It is well understood among Castle residents that anyone found in the drawing room in the middle of the day is likely there to work quietly in a shared space away from their rooms, where they can look up every now and again to see the light shining in through the eastern windows, illuminating the tulips and lilacs growing just outside. This is not to say that there are no conversations, only that the conversations are generally of small pleasantries, or of a hushed conspiratorial nature, assuming the right people are lucky enough to have the room to themselves. Different residents come to this room with different purposes, but they generally respect one another’s right to function in this space without excessive distraction or fear of violent verbal exchanges. This unspoken rule is most often broken by siblings, and occasionally by scorned lovers, from whom no room is beyond the boundaries of wrath.

The Tower Bedroom

We can skip over the secondary bedrooms and guest rooms, in the interest of cutting straight to the crown jewel of the Castle: the Tower Bedroom. Kids grow up dreaming of the day they can finally call the room theirs. It has nothing to do with the feathered pillows or silk sheets—you’ll find those in every room. Its allure lies in the sheer scope of the room, and in the knowledge that you have reached the pinnacle of Castle life. This room has been known to drive a wedge between siblings. Step inside and you will understand why those who have lived in the shadow of its presence for decades would go to any lengths to claim it for their own. When you consider the tertiary rooms branching off from the central bedroom—the dressing room, the study, the observatory, and, of course, the bathroom, with its resplendent jetted bathtub—you realize the Tower Bedroom is essentially a small Castle unto itself. You could spend weeks in here, completely cut off from any outside contact, isolated from the world and your fellow residents—and many have done just that, opening their doors only to accept meals left by the kitchen staff before retreating back to their inner sanctum, their egotistical oasis.

The Empty Room

There is one room in the heart of our Castle, adjacent to the Tower Bedroom, in which you will hear no laughter or conversational buzz. Its silence is of neither rest nor contemplation. It is a much heavier silence. The door to this room remains shut. Our inhabitants do not go in, and guests who are lucky enough to tour the Castle are ushered past without so much as a cursory word.

The Attic

Yes, believe it or not, we have an attic. The attic is a trademark of all old houses, and our Castle is no exception. It rests above a trapdoor in the ceiling of the tallest tower, and is home to both mice and ghosts. Any building that has withstood the decaying sands of time as long as our Castle, has ghosts. They are echoes of its history, stamps from the past in which the Castle will always have one foot deeply entrenched. This is not to say that you would see them were you to enter the attic. But you might feel them. Walk among the cobwebbed rafters, have a seat on the mildewed floral couch, and tell us honestly whether you feel truly alone. Dust off the standing mirror, and here, perhaps, you may catch a glimpse of the veiled bride, still waiting for a groom whose feet grew cold before his heart. His ghost is here too, but, unlike the wistful bride, it is a ghost defined not by a presence, but an absence.

The Mirror

On second thought, leave the mirror alone. It is no accident that our vintage standing mirror lives in the attic where no guests are likely to stumble upon it, and where even longtime residents of the Castle seldom tread. If we told you its age, you would not believe us. The molded engravings of its hawthorn frame are as smooth and vivid as on the day of its unveiling. The wood neither molds nor rots. The glass itself is so clear you could walk through it, feeling only a cool shudder as you pass. Hold up your right hand and wave to the clearest reflection of yourself you’ll ever find. The hand that waves back will be the opposite hand, that is to say, the reflection’s right hand. Is this a trick of the glass? Maybe. Or maybe it hints of another you, a shadow running parallel to your own existence. Speak to it and you’ll see that the reflection’s lips do not always move. Ask of it, and you may be met with a blank stare. Then again, you may not. You may receive an answer.

Madness

Not a room, but a state of mind, one which has inflicted too many of the Castle’s residents. The madness which consumes our residents is always the same, and there is no term for it. No diagnosis, and, as far as we can tell, no treatment. It plants its seed in those who stare too long at the hawthorn mirror. It begins with a fascination, evolving rapidly into obsession. The inflicted lose all desire for food or sleep or human contact. Why seek the counsel of a cousin, a sibling, your own mother, when there is another you, an other you, who holds the answers to any question you could think to ask? What allure lies in the world we know, when the one we don’t know beckons from beyond the crystalline glass? 

Many have withered away before the mirror, unaware of their need for sustenance. Their corpses resemble abandoned costumes—loose skin draped over a pile of bones. If you seek to keep the inflicted away from the mirror, nothing short of shackles will do the job. A locked door is not enough. Wood can splinter. Glass can shatter. Even shackles are not a perfect solution. Who among the most dedicated would let something as silly as a hand keep them from fulfilling an insatiable desire?

The story circulates among the Castle’s residents of the night Willy K.’s parents woke to the sound of cracking wood and ran to his bedroom to find he had ripped his chains from his bedpost with the help of his freed right hand. It took a heavy dosage of sedatives and a thorough cleaning effort to discover that he had gnawed his wrist down to the bone in order to slip his hand free from his cuffs and use it to break the bedpost that held his other hand chained in place with an almost inhuman display of strength for a seventeen-year-old boy. There was not enough skin left on his wrist to stitch. He awoke from his sedatives pale as snow with fever in his eyes. His only words, Take me to the mirror, poured from his mouth on a loop until his parents felt they had no other choice but to do as he wished. They carried him, his eyes fluttering between vacant and lucid, until they reached the attic, at which point he sprang from his father’s arms and crawled like a beast to the hawthorn mirror. Afraid to look at the glass, his parents turned away. We do not know what he said, only that he issued a last, desperate laugh, before crumpling into a ball on the attic floor, lifeless and limp. His mother picked him up off the hardwood, and although his face was stony and placid, she caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror, and she swore its lips were curled in a smile.

The Front Balcony

To step foot on the front balcony suggests that you are confident and ready to greet the day. Perhaps you are merely expecting guests, and wish to greet them as they approach the front steps, from a position of strength and omnipresence, having watched them drive through the gate and crawl up the gravel driveway. Whether or not they see you on the balcony, they are sure to sense you—sense something—an all-seeing presence tracking their every movement. One way or another, they will know they are being watched. When they walk through the front doors, no matter who or how important they are, and see you standing tall in the entryway, they will know their place as a humble guest in your Castle.

The Back Balcony

To step foot on the back balcony is to enter a different world than the one out front. It is possible that you occupy this space even as someone else occupies the space on the front balcony, the two of you completing an unknown symmetry, as if standing with your backs to a mirror. Contrasted with the front, this balcony is of a more contemplative nature. Residents come to watch for wildlife on the edge of the vast forest, to meditate on their worries, or simply to lose themselves in the dense fogs that roll in from the trees with the onset of dusk. Should you stumble over the railing and splinter your bones on the ground below, you would not be the first. None have suffered such a fall from the front balcony. Out back, the thick Castle walls hide your actions from the watchful eyes of the world. It’s just you, the trees, and the fogs out here, and, in some cases, the owner of the hands that pushed you.

The Empty Room

The Empty Room was not always empty. There was a time it held more than just furniture. Hope, a promise of the future. Before it was empty, it was the room of infinite possibilities. Possibilities which vanished with the hollow chimes of a Grandfather Clock. No more future. No more possibilities. A room in pieces. If you enter, its emptiness will permeate you. You will be empty too. But it hardly matters. You will never enter this room.

The Fogs

If there is one thing we fear more than the hawthorn mirror, it is the fogs. The breath of dusk. A moonlit ocean rolling in like the rising tides that cover the beach at night. Were you to watch from the back balcony, you would see them first fill the gaps between trees, then shroud the trees themselves, as if swallowing the forest whole. Some treat the fogs the same way they treat the mirror: they ignore them. They shut the curtains and turn their backs to the nightly specter. Others are just the opposite. They watch from the balcony, they watch through windows. Perhaps they go so far as to step foot onto the back patio, ready to jump back inside through the open door should the fogs draw too close. The fogs breed a different kind of fascination than that invoked by the hawthorn mirror. Most residents lose little sleep watching the fogs. Most residents do not stop eating, or withdraw from their surrounding realities, as they would if taken by the mirror.

There are, of course, exceptions. There always are. Look at Valerie K. Convinced that Jerome waited for her in the fogs, she stayed up from dusk to dawn, gazing into their milky depths, searching for her late lover, only to sleep through the day. She moved from a seat by the window to the balcony, then to the backyard itself, until one night she could stand it no longer and walked barefoot through the grass and into the woods, vanishing into the fogs.

We’ve all seen faces in the fogs. Even those who claim the fogs are nothing more than weather have seen faces. They refuse to admit it, as if by sheer stubborn willpower they can make a natural phenomenon out of something wholly unnatural. But we recognize the faces. They are the faces of those we’ve loved and with whom we’ve fought, those who were here before us, and those here alongside us who left too soon. They are the faces of portraits lining the corridor to the Tower Bedroom. Eyes of intent now blank and vacant. They are the faces of our past that foreshadow our future. Faces of individuals bound together by a force that moves as one.

They didn’t always cover the forest. They were once a wisp between trees. Now they not only block out all trees behind a wall of white, they spill onto the grass of the backyard, edging closer to the Castle walls. Every morning the fogs retreat, only to return after sundown, as if something is calling them back. Calling them home.

The Empty Room

The Empty Room does not have to stay empty forever. We may imagine a day in which its emptiness fades into the history of this Castle as a thing of the past. Another imprint. The Empty Room can become a thing of the present, maybe even a thing of the future. Our Castle has always had a dark side to it. Ghosts do not grace the bones of a building known for happy endings. We own our dark past, but are not consumed by it. Our Castle is defined by many qualities—chief among them perseverance. Lichen may cover the stone walls, but the walls still stand. Winter’s breath may slip through cracks of old windows, but the fire within staves it off. For two centuries, our Castle has stood firm amidst a changing world. It will continue on, as it always has. Until the Empty Room is no longer empty, there will always be a storm cloud hovering in the offing of our fair-weathered present. When the Empty Room is no longer empty, perhaps the clouds will dissipate, and we can finally be at peace.