The Fires

A Story of Ghosts

(Paid subscribers can listen to this article read aloud by Shelby.)

—

If the fires were lit, we couldn’t feel it.

The cold has always carried itself through these walls much easier than the heat. It lingers in the empty rooms, and when the doors get cracked to keep the freeze out, it stretches its long fingers across the hallways, grasping hands with the room across the hall. We don’t mind the cold, not really. It has been worse in this old house, and we remember. Before there were five fireplaces, there were only two, and we would gather near the hearth to see if the heat could reach us. It could, but not like it did when we needed it to survive.

This house was built ten years before the stock market crash of twenty-nine. Some of us can easily recall the turmoil of that time, and some of us arrived here after. We didn’t know then that this kind of opulence would mark the turning point of a bygone era and that shutters would cover the windows for three whole years. There isn’t much we would have done differently if we had, we agreed, except maybe look out them a little longer beforehand.

Those were dark days, inside of the house and out. We didn’t get any visitors, and the chimneys became full of spiders with no swirling smoke to keep them at bay. The dust settled on everything, and when the house shifted during a storm, flakes of plaster would fall from the ceiling, and for a moment, it felt like we were in the underworld. But it was the silence that was the hardest. The clocks ticked louder in those days than they ever had before or have since. We all thought that it was a shame—a mostly new house, like this one, should have been full of life back then, and instead it was full of broken dreams and broken dishes, unlit candles and the ghosts of the people we were.

We can see ourselves everywhere in these walls; our memories live alongside us, following us around like a hungry cat. We try not to talk about the hard ones, and when possible, we avoid the rooms that make us sad. All of us—with the exception of Sarah, who spends most of her days in what was once her child’s nursery—linger in the middle spaces. Sarah seems not to notice, nor care, that the nursery has many times since been changed, and is now a storage room. We leave her be and leave her to her grief, hoping for her sake that a future resident might have a baby.

We cling to the things that make us feel alive. Laughter in the dining room, lovemaking in the bedrooms, and even a drunken argument, a thrown vase, and shouting at midnight are welcome. A slammed door and inconsolable crying reach a part of us we weren’t sure existed any longer. Now that we know it does, we are drawn to it, getting as close as we can so that we might think it our own.

We look to the trees—the true keepers of this land—and watch through wavy beveled glass as they stretch their tired arms to the sky. We tell stories of the ones we’ve climbed, the ones we planted, and the ones where we buried our dead. The oak is our favorite as it is the oldest and the tallest, anchored in what is now considered the corner of the property. Catori, like the tree, is the eldest of us—though you wouldn’t know by looking at her. She’s been here the longest and spent some many years alone before being joined by another. She tells us stories of when the oak was just a sapling, and her grandmother said it was sacred. It holds the spirit of the land, she says to us, and we believe her. She has watched it the longest, and so we turn our backs when she goes to it to pray.

Like the trees, we bear witness. We gather in the dormers on the third story, getting as tall as we can and craning our necks to watch the seasons through the glass. Once there was a forest, thick with orange and red trees in the fall, canopies that nearly touched each other, and roots that reached the porch. Then there was a road—compacted dirt kicked up by horses, the sashaying hems of women’s dresses, and the shuffling of busy feet escaping the cold. Next came the carriages, dragging through the snow, lit only by moonlight and the occasional lantern of gas and flame. And then one day in the spring, a window lit up in the mansion across the street, and here again in our own. We marveled at the ease and wondered what magic was this? It was summer when the cars came, the forest shrank, and the animals retreated. We and the oak bore witness to the passing of time from the dormers in the attic, huddled together by the fire.

Ours was a grand estate, and we knew it. There were worse places to live in this town, but not on this street. Blythe Avenue has always been something of a dream for most people, even before it was called the “historic district.” And we should know, it was a dream to many of us as well. The large mansions loomed next to smaller but no less ornate houses, and the names among them were old. Inside, through the years, we watched and listened as those who came to visit or stay commented on the decor, the architecture, and the pristine condition of the land. We arched our backs and stood taller, nodding to each other in silent applause.

We watched as they walked up the slender, dim stairwell that winds through the back, near the kitchen—steps connecting the utility areas to the first landing–a path not seen unless looked for. Here is where we used to witness the servants press each other against walls in quick moments of hidden passion when they thought no one else was looking. But we were looking. The butler’s room was partway up in the middle, and Sarah says he was a kind man.

We watched as they walked up the main staircase, large and wide with the swooping banister. We stared intently as they stepped in our footprints, the worn-away wood that remained over the years. Sometimes, we would look at the prints closely and tell stories about our feet, where they went, and why they walked the way they did. Some of us smile because we remember each other, and we saw the walking feet. Some of us listen intently as we get to know our housemates.

While she wasn’t here any longer, many of us remember the first lady of the manor who demanded it be built with a European influence. No expense was spared as she brought in floors to mimic Versailles, marble mantels from Greece and Rome, and foyer tiles to match. We knew her, with her curled blonde hair pinned back with a diamond brooch, and her white gloves floating above the banisters so as not to get them dirty. She hung the paintings in the gold gilded frames–commissioned to honor the four seasons– the ones we look to when the sky changes light. We knew her, we remembered her, and we were grateful.

We watched as the house was given as a wedding gift–a true story we witnessed but still find amusing. If it weren’t for the bride herself being among us, we might not have believed it, a gift of a house such as this. We watched as the young couple giggled and danced, made love on every flat surface, and drank champagne until the bottles were empty. We envied them, joined them, and missed them when they were gone.

—

These walls were built with wood from the land, and Catori says she can still hear them crying. Some of us say it is the settling of the dirt, and others say there is a ghost among us. We wonder then what we truly are. The wood here has memory–the oak taught us that–and sometimes we think the doors are alive, slamming in anger at midnight. The wallpaper has peeled and has since been replaced, but we still see the bones and what’s underneath. And when the cold comes in, the fires are lit.

—

This time, the fires were lit in June, unseasonably so. It was humid, and the hydrangeas were in full bloom. The bees were out of their hives, and the shutters were swollen from the early summer rain. The oak leaves were green, and the paved roads were busy. This is when they arrived and lit the summer fire in the hearth.

There was no baby, much to Sarah’s and our dismay–we all had wanted that for her. There was instead a husband and a wife, young enough to throw parties in the parlour but old enough to afford the house. They came first for a night before they came forever. We watched as they wandered the halls with wine in hand and said the things we had heard for over a century... the architecture, the walls, the art, the care. We arched our backs and stood a bit taller–silent applause all around.

We liked them immediately, we all agreed. In common with us was a deep love for this house and, by extension, the people who tended it before them. We stood back as they stared at our faces—faded portraits that still adorned the satin-covered walls—wondering aloud who we were and how we lived our lives. We said our names as they walked from frame to frame and answered the questions as they asked them. If they could hear us, we didn’t know it.

We liked the wife and her long, flowing nightgowns, running barefoot down the stairs. She was not afraid of the dust on the banister, played music on records all hours of the day, and painted red flowers in watercolor when she was sad. If anyone could have seen us, we all agreed, it would have been her. Sometimes she pressed her hands on the wood of this old house and heard the crying walls. Catori bowed her head, and we turned our backs as they prayed together at the oak. We wondered if she thought she was alone.

We liked the husband because he remembered the land and the blood that was spilled in its tending. Peeling paint and cracked hearth stones were a bother, and we were grateful for how often he set out to make repairs. He made bourbon in the evenings, refurbished light fixtures in the basement, and looked carefully as his wife showed him her red flowers. We gathered next to him every spring as he planted and pruned and gathered again the year he buried his dog beneath the oak. We were there with him, though we do not think he knew it, and Catori bowed her head.

These were bright years, inside the house and out. The shutters were open, and the rooms were alive. The candles were lit; the dishes were whole. The parties were often, and the chimney smoke swirled the spiders out of their webs. Some nights, the husband twirled the wife around the parlour to Frank Sinatra, dancing past midnight, and we twirled with them. Other nights, they sat on the porch with their bourbons in hand, watching the rain and listening to the thunder. They made love often and in every room of the house, and we were looking. For all of the nights and all of the years, we were with them, getting as close as possible so that we might think their happiness our own.

—

They aged gracefully, we all agreed. Her hair turned silver but stayed long, and his was white. She still wore her nightgown, but could no longer run down the stairs. She placed her hand on the dusty banister for support and stepped slowly in our footprints. We walked carefully with her and would have held her up if we could. He repaired his lights in the dining room as the basement was too far by now. He would not leave the wife alone in the upper level of this old house and watched her carefully over the rims of his glasses. We forgave him when the hearth stones remained cracked, and the weeds overtook the garden. We would have tended it for him if we could.

We do not know which direction the winds came from; some of us thought it was the south, but others said the east. We huddled in the dormers and watched through the wavy glass as the branches moved in every direction; it must have been the west. If we could have felt fear, we would have. None of us remembered a time when nature was as angry as it was on this day, and Catori said that is because it did not exist. The house moaned, and we moaned with it. The plaster fell in flakes from the ceilings, and the shutters came loose from their hinges. The beams were crying, and we begged them to hold on.

We did not see the oak as she fell, but the wife did. We heard the wail come from her throat and wondered how she could still make such a sound. If we could have screamed, we would have. We would have warned the husband that she was unlocking the door and that nature has never been this angry. We would have called her back and begged her to stay, and we would have told her to mourn the oak from the parlour. If we had voices they could hear, we all agreed, we would have used them. But we didn’t. And when the second tree fell, we were close enough to think her pain our own.

—

The days became dark again, and the spiders moved back into the chimney. The candles stayed unlit, and the dishes piled high in the sink. Sarah cried in the old nursery, and we turned our backs as Catori bowed at the fallen oak. More hearth stones cracked, and the shutters dangled precariously, slapping the windows at the slightest breeze. The husband hung the wife’s photo on the wall next to ours and still made two bourbons each evening. On the nights he listened to Frank Sinatra, he made three. We watched as she tried to comfort him, and all agreed not to get too close; we knew this grief was not our own. If she could have held him up, she would have, but he did not know she was there.

We spent our days following behind as he walked the halls of this old house, seeing the wife in every room, yet not seeing her at all. The visitors had stopped coming, and the doors were not cracked in the cold months. Red watercolor flowers covered the parlour floors, and the music no longer played. The lamps went out one by one as the husband stopped repairing them, and we all agreed it was too dark for him to be here alone—though he wasn’t actually alone.

It was an evening in July when he made four bourbons, and we knew it was her birthday. He sat on the front porch, and she sat in the rocker next to him, though we do not think he knew it. We huddled next to him in the summer heat, agreeing that if we could feel hate, we might have felt it toward the trees as much as he did. We couldn’t, but we were close enough to think his hate our own.

We did not know what the husband intended or if he knew so himself, and we watched as he lit the candle. She was the closest behind as he carried it to the parlor and set it near the drapes. We dropped our eyes to the floor as she begged because we knew he could not hear her. It only took a minute for the flames to climb the curtains and reach the crown molding. It only took two for it to reach the red watercolor flowers that covered the parlour floor. Five minutes passed before it touched the worn leather chair that held the husband and his fourth bourbon. And after that, we do not know.

The fires were lit, but we couldn’t feel it. By the time the trucks arrived with their hoses full of water and the men running about, we were gathered by the fallen oak. Together we bore witness once more. The flames engulfed the house, and Catori said the walls were crying. Sarah watched the nursery, and the wife watched the door. He was not coming out, we all agreed, but we do not think she knew it.

Before there were five fireplaces in this house, there were only two. And on a birthday in July, as the smoke swirled around us and the spiders fled the chimneys, we were looking as there were none.

—

Written by Shelby Bundy