The Story of Maudlin Manor Pt. 1 - 3

Once on a night of cold regret

As I walked a country road

I met a man who offered a ride

Said that it was warmer inside

Said to get in out of the wet

He’d take me as far as I wanted to go

I looked at the man and took his measure

And he seemed a decent chap

The rain beat down in quick succession

Led me to take his proffered suggestion

I shook his hand and called it a pleasure

And then removed my cap

We drove for a bit in the downpour

And the wipers went to and fro

The night grew deeper around us

The forest began to surround us

I said that I’d been there once before

And I knew where I wanted to go

The House on Dorsey Street

There is a house on Dorsey Street

I’ve passed it many times

And each time I find it weeping

Raining rivers from windows

Unused to the sun

What sadness resides

Within those walls

That it leaks so uncontrollably

I’ve heard the stories

Whispered from one ear to another

And seen the way passersby speed their steps

Looking over tweed clad shoulders and upturned collars

Lest they be recognized by what lies within

 It is after all only a house, although

Sometimes I wonder

My footsteps slow as I near the facade

And now and then I stop and grasp the iron gate

 We gaze at one another forlornly the house and I

As if we were lovers kept apart

By unrelenting parents who misunderstand our kinship

And think it something dirty and ill intended

Something frightening perhaps

 It wants me back that much is true

To walk the floors and hide behind curtains

Or in closets, safer there we thought

The house and I

And so we pine for one another

And what might have been

And what happened there once

I know that she tried to protect me

I always thought so

Offering up her secrets

And now that she is empty she cries because she couldn’t

The Curiosity Chronicles - Excerpt

 

The Curiosity Chronicles

The Gallery of the Obscure

You will need to prepare for a story like this.  Stories like this one should be read at night, long past your bedtime, preferably during a thunderstorm and by the light of a candle.  But if your parents are the overprotective type a flashlight will do. 

If you look around the room you are in right now and think about it you are probably warm.  You’ve probably had a delicious supper and possibly dessert.  And very likely as you begin this story and huddle beneath your blankets you are in your own room and you pulled this very book from your own bookshelf.  You likely have a parent or two somewhere in your house possibly making your lunch for tomorrow or folding your clothes.  Perhaps they even tucked you into bed and kissed you goodnight.  Now close your eyes for a moment and imagine that it was all gone.  Imagine that all you owned fit in the knapsack that is lounging on the chair in the corner and that your parents aren’t there at all but traipsing through the jungles of Costa Rica or climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro simply because they liked the sound of the word.  And now imagine that they had forgotten you completely.  If you can picture all of this then you might be able to imagine what life was like for the Cornell children and how much they longed for what you have right now.  Pity I wouldn’t give it to them.  I couldn’t could I?  Who would want to read a story about 3 children who had everything they could have wanted and dressed in lovely clothes and had holidays at the beach with their equally lovely parents?  No one.  Not a soul.  And so the story I am about to tell you is about 3 children whose parents didn’t want them at all.  In fact they hadn’t seen their parents in so long that they had forgotten what they looked like.  Almost.   Maybe I should rephrase that.  They tried very hard to forget what their parents looked like because sometimes it is less painful to forget a thing than to remember it.