House of Glass. Jen Christie

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СКАЧАТЬ a deep drag on her cigarette. “You need to hurry, there’s not much light, and you don’t want to be there in the darkness.”

      I had well remembered the glass house from that night long ago with my father. Our view from the boat was of a beautiful jewel. I had often created fantasies about that house and the woman who was the lady there. Right then, as I walked across the grass, my old boots moved as fast as when I was a child. I could feel the lure of the magical house as if it were beckoning me.

      I walked to where the trees gathered at the edges of the manicured lawn, barely able to restrain my urge to run. There was a dirt path peeking out from the foliage and I felt the wind as it travelled unopposed from the sea up the trail. I turned and gave one last look at the forbidding stone house I was leaving behind, the perfect lawn, the English garden, and I eagerly stepped into the wild brush that lay between me and the stone staircase. Me and the glass house. The ground sloped downward, giving a hint to the cliffs that lay beyond.

      The path itself was neglected, weeds and vines blurring the edges between wilderness and civilization. I hurried along, intimidated by the clawing, reaching tendrils of the coral-tipped vines. The sun was nearly gone below the horizon, and the slanted light blazed across the tops of the trees, but left all else dark and shaded. As I walked, the breeze was strengthened, and the trees thinned until they were wind-bent and haggard. When the trees stopped suddenly, and there was nothing but a sheet of sky in front of me, I knew I had reached the cliff.

      A ball of fire jumped before my eyes, and I reared back in fright. As I watched, the fire came higher, and I could see that it was attached to a torch, which was held by a young woman who was climbing the stairs. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you. The new girl. I saw you at dinner. You might not remember. I’m Annie.” She made as if to hold out her hand and the fire swirled a bit, and I saw that she was older than me, not much, and had wide, brown eyes that reflected the gleam of the fire. “Sorry about that,” she said, as I cowered a bit. “I’m just lighting the torches.”

      “It’s okay,” I said. “That’s quite a job to have.” I leaned a bit over the edge, noticing the white froth of the ocean before looking back quickly.

      “Hah, I’ll say it is.” I couldn’t tell if she was joking or scared, but she had high emotion, an almost nervous agitation. The color was reddish on her cheeks. “And you? You are going down to the house? To her house?” She looked genuinely confused.

      “Mrs. Amber asked me to return something.”

      “Oh.” She thought for a moment and added sheepishly, “I suppose since none of us will go into it.”

      “You won’t, either?” I asked.

      “Oh, no. I won’t go any farther than the bottom lamp. Even then I have to force myself not to look at the house.”

      “Why? Is it haunted?”

      “No. It’s just…just a bad feeling that I have.”

      “Oh.”

      “You better hurry,” she said. “I’ll see you on in a bit then?”

      “Yes.” I left her at the top of the rise, and stepped over the cliff. The stairs were crude and roughly hewn, and I knew that they were very old. The air was salty and pungent. A bolt of terror struck me at the steep scale of the stairs. I looked up toward the horizon and saw the other end of the island as it curved away. I thought of my home, somewhere over there. There was no return. Everything was gone. I had to make this job work. There was no choice.

      Down the steps I went, and the moist wind from the ocean fought against me the whole way. It was a precarious descent and I traveled with one hand on the wall in order to give me balance. The drop was steep and cragged, with pointed stones that waited patiently for a missed step.

      I came to the cottage, built on a natural shelf in the stone, and hanging over the edge. It was a bold design, with simple lines and a broad, sweeping form, almost like a wingspan. It was vermillion in the gathering dusk.

      I unlocked the double doors. Heat swirled out. It curled around my body, licked at my skin, and cajoled me to step inside. I gave in to it, to the warmth. I closed my eyes and savored it for a moment before I stepped over the threshold. And when I stepped a thrill went through my body. The bliss started somewhere deep inside me and bloomed like a flower, a precious desire that I wanted to last and last.

      I was only one step inside and already I was soaring. Wall-to-wall windows overlooked the sea and gave the impression of flight, of hovering in the heavens above the Earth. Standing perfectly still, I let the smells, the sights, the warmth of the house welcome me, chasing away any hesitation, any emotion other than rapture.

      The dining room was just beyond the entry, and a large teardrop chandelier hung over the table. In the center, facing me was a golden statuette. It was a nude, a reclining woman, whose long hair fell along the curve of her hips and skimmed the line of her breasts. She was reaching, her hand extended and open. The expression on her perfect face was expectant, waiting.

      The shadows were growing long. I needed to hurry. I could see the door to the bedroom and went down the few stairs into the sunken room. But when I saw what was beneath me, I stopped again, for my breath was sucked away.

      I stood on a floor of glass, and underneath, twenty feet below, were jagged rocks. A tiny strip of beach was there, and white-capped waves rolled onto the sand directly underneath me. “My God,” I breathed. There was only a thin plate of glass between myself and oblivion. I reveled in it, in the danger.

      I boldly stepped closer to the ceiling-high windows and looked out. There was a small deck that stretched away from the house, but I felt no need to step outside.

      I saw the whole world spread before me like a painting. I was enthralled.

      Reaching up my hand, I traced my finger over the glass. It was like velvet, and my fingertip left no trace behind. Everything that I ran my finger over— the island, the houses that dotted it, the waters below—it all seemed within reach, as if I could simply reach out and touch it and it would be mine. A picture of Lucas came to my mind and I laughed to think it could be that easy.

      Sunlight danced across the top panes of the house and everything around me was drenched in golden hues. The walls seemed somehow to tease color and detail from the world outside. I could even discern the rays of the sun as they descended into the depths of the ocean, like fingers plunged into the deep. The island seemed impossibly green, a forbidden, shimmering and fertile green. I instinctively knew that at night, with the cool blue and purple rays of the moon, the house would be at its finest.

      I had already lingered too long. I needed to hurry.

      The bedroom was off to one side, and I could see the door already open. I went inside, and the room was cooler, darker and had a neglected odor to it. In the rest of the house, the glass walls let in every detail, but here, in Celeste’s domain, the room was secretive. The walls were covered in thick velvet curtains and only a lonely sliver of dying sunlight streamed into the room. The dressing table was tucked into the far corner and the chair positioned as if time had stopped the moment Mrs. St. Claire vanished. There were still cosmetics on the tabletop—an open tube of lipstick, a hairbrush, a full-length mirror just next to the vanity.

      So this was her hideaway. It was so obviously a woman’s domain. With a lace-fringed comforter and pale pink pillows on the bed, it felt like I had stepped into her secret place. I wondered what about the ocean, the perilous view and the frightening floors appealed to her. Was it the same things СКАЧАТЬ