Myth

by Terri Todosey

  “Oh,” I said, not sure what to think and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of disappointment creep up inside me. Music camp was our thing, not his thing to share with someone else.

  “I’ll help you look for them once I take this painting down to the ballroom for inventory.”

  “That’s okay, I’ll find him,” I replied, and as she turned to go, I noticed the painting she held. It was of a grey haired man wearing a vintage style suit and standing beside a chair in what seemed a typical pose for an older portrait, but there was nothing typical about the man’s brilliant green eyes that gazed out at me from the canvas.

  “Do you think that’s the mad man who haunts this place?” I asked staring back at the eyes in the painting.

  “Mad? I’m not sure,” she said. “But he must have lived here, judging by the chair in the painting.” She looked over the frame she held onto. “It’s the same chair that’s in the parlour.”

  I stared at the painted face. He didn’t look mad. He actually looked pretty normal, but maybe he was able to keep his madness a secret I thought, relishing the idea of keeping the rumour alive.

  “Be sure to keep Justin out of trouble,” she said disappearing down the north corridor.

  “Of course Ms. Littner!” I hollered back.

  Then glancing up at the raised circular ceiling that rose up two stories over my head, I saw another, much larger painting that had been painted directly onto the ceiling itself, as though the ceiling was a round canvas and the crown moulding that encircled it was its frame.

  It was a lake scene, with many ships painted onto the round lake, like a regatta of sorts. Some ships were huge with many sails and some were small rowing vessels, but what made the picture especially interesting were the many mermaids in the water around the ships.

  It was a grand foyer that branched off in several places. Directly in front of me and forged into a delicate leaf design, was a long black iron railing that guided the wide staircase up to the second level. I stepped closer to get a better look at the massive crystal chandelier that hung centred above the upper foyer. Even from the underside, I could see that several half-spent, dusty candles remained within its decorative holders. There were too many holders to count and I imagined how brilliant it would have appeared when lit up, back in its day. A burly man wearing a t-shirt that read Lockhart Electric stood on a ladder examining it.

  To my right and left were corridors leading off in both directions. I stopped for a short moment and pulled out my phone. There were no new messages so I texted Justin: heey;) where are you?

  Hearing conversations bellowing down the left hall, where Ms. Littner had gone, I popped my phone into my back pocket and decided to try my luck exploring the corridor on the right.

  Even with the heat outside the tiles remained remarkably cool under my feet. They carried me along to a cozy little room with some ancient furniture, a wood fireplace and a large antique tapestry. Its colours had been muted by years of dust, but I could still see that it was of an old town with a horse-drawn carriage in the foreground and a large house, clearly this mansion, set high on a hill in the background.

  I had no idea how old the tapestry was, but I could see that Lockhart had changed over the years. The trees around the mansion were much smaller then, and the vines and bushes that hedged the home were tidy and maintained. Still, I recognized Miss. Pennycook’s peaked roof to the far left of the scene and the front doorway of the convenience store that looked like some sort of general store in the stitched picture.

  Below the tapestry sat a small table bordered by a couple of chairs and I recognized them as the chair in the portrait Ms. Littner had been carrying. I could see where the paintings must have been hanging, because they had left two bright rectangles, where they had protected the wallpaper from the bleaching sun and accumulating dust. My phone dinged.

  Justin:I’m in the library

  Tali:library??

  A couple of ladies with a bucket and some cleaning supplies entered the room and I decided to leave in search of the library further down the hall.

  The next room was a storage room, where several volunteers were carrying out boxes and tins filled with old items. It was way too small and cluttered to even attempt entering.

  Adjacent to all the commotion I found a room that was octagonal in shape. I stepped inside to find walls lined with dark wood panels and a ceiling raised to a cone shaped crown. Along the back wall was a full floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the town. The room was completely empty except for a large black grand piano that sat in its centre.

  Back in the hallway, I found myself steps away from the very end where another narrow and much less spectacular staircase stood beside a single wooden door. The door was taped off with yellow DANGER tape and a workbench was pressed tightly against its doors.

  ‘That’s interesting,’ I thought, squeezing in beside the workbench, ‘if I could just take a peek’. I pressed my ear tightly against the solid door and tightened my hand around the knob. I listened quietly, but couldn’t hear a thing. Turning my head to the other side to make sure no one was watching, I twisted the door knob. It was unlocked, so I eased it slowly open and peeked inside. The door had led to a large open room with tall plaster archways and tiled mosaic walls. Each wall had a scene depicted in the mosaic handiwork. Not seeing anyone, I snuck in and found myself steps away from a large rectangular pool that took up most of the floor. I could tell it had been empty of water for a while, because the small tiles it had been made with were covered in a layer of dust. I stepped up to it and looked down inside. Even with the dust I could see that whoever had built the pool had painstakingly affixed thousands of colourful, tiny tiles to the concrete pool walls and floor. Together they formed a detailed picture of a mermaid on the bottom of the pool. She had dark flowing hair that curled around her and a long fish tail that went the full length of the pool. Surrounding her, illustrated in the same small tiles were four sea animals: a seal, dolphin, walrus and otter.

  “Hey you’re not supposed to be in here!” A stocky man wearing a hardhat and construction boots had walked in from somewhere on the other side of the pool startling me.

  “Crap,” I muttered, having been caught before I really had a chance to explore the room.

  “What did you say?” he asked, walking towards me.

  “Sorry!” I hollered and quickly slipped back through the door I came in before he got a good look at me and things got more complicated than I preferred. I couldn’t afford to have my mom find out that I had gone in a restricted area.

  Climbing back over the work bench and past the danger tape I closed the door behind me and slipped under the stairs. ‘BING’ my phone went off. It was...

  Justin:yea, you can’t miss it, it’s huge!

  Tali:OKAY:’) I’ll come find youuu

  ‘Where the heck is the library?’ I thought and tucked the phone back into my pocket. Glancing up, I found myself facing a narrow hall that I hadn’t noticed before, tucked in behind the back staircase.

  The hall was as short as it was wide, and at the end of it was a small black door with a gold decorative handle. Attached to the door at eye level was a sticky note that read:

  PLEASE KEEP OUT!

  I pressed my ear against the door, but heard nothing. ‘This can’t be the library,’ I thought, but just to make sure, I glanced back over my shoulder first, grabbed hold of the fancy knob and turned. It too was unlocked, and looking around one last time I quietly and carefully creaked open the door.

  “Tali? Is that you?” came a familiar voice.

  Looking inside the dimly lit room, I found myself face to face with my mom.

  “I would have thought you’d be looking for your friends,” she said.

  “I... I am,... actually,” I fumbled to answer.

  “Didn’t you see the sticky note I posted on the door?” she
continued.

  “Sticky note?” My voice lilted upward as my mind raced for a quick answer, but nothing came that would help persuade her of my alleged innocence.

  “I have to finish photographing this room before it’s opened to the public, so if you want to stay, don’t lay a hand on anything!” she said as she moved her tripod further into the room. “And don’t get in my way!”

  Normally I would have gladly left for another room that my mom wasn’t in, but this was by far the most interesting room I had come across, so I decided to quietly stay for at least a short bit.

  The room looked like some sort of study or office, surrounded by aged wood panels, a fireplace, some statues, a couple of paintings that hadn’t yet been collected and many shelves covered with interesting looking objects. The ceiling was domed with a stained-glass picture of a pond littered with green lily pads, shell pink lilies and several gold fish. It was as though the pond, inverted against gravity, hung from the ceiling.

  I walked across the creaky wooden floor towards a long bamboo spear that was mounted on the wall above the fireplace by two brass brackets. Its tip of sharpened stone, was tied to the bamboo end by some sort of strong grass or wicker.

  On the mantel itself was something I had only heard about but had never seen until now. It was a wooden sailing vessel inside a bottle, laid on its side in its own stand and I had to press up on my toes to get a good look at it. The ship was detailed intricately. Made mostly from wood, it had a carved mermaid on the front prow, with two white sails and plenty of string for rigging.

  A wooden cabinet with glass doors and wooden shelves built right into the wall on either side of the fireplace were filled with books, statues and more odd looking objects. A row of tall glass canisters filled with different types of rocks sat on one shelf and several small, round lenses, each having a different circumference and curvature, lined up neatly in their own metal stand just below on another shelf.

  On the other side of the room, an old wooden desk stood on four pillared legs with large carved feet that resembled the talons of a gigantic eagle. As I drew closer, my hand skimmed the plush leather chair behind the desk and I imagined the man in the portrait sitting in it.

  ‘What kind of man was he?’ I wondered. What did he import and export that afforded him such an extravagant home? Maybe if I sat in his chair, some remnant of the past would rub off on me.

  I glanced over at my mom who had her back to me taking photos of the fireplace. My hands slowly slid down the arms of the oversized chair and wrapped themselves around the carved wooden ends of each arm rest, as I gently lowered my body into the seat. My fingers fit perfectly into the smooth wooden grooves and I imagined the owner of the chair holding the ends in the same way.

  My eyes drifted down to a dark, metal object that sat at one corner of the desk. It was in the shape of a bat and I noticed the head of the bat was hinged onto its body as though it could be opened like a container. Next to it stood a small, half-finished clay statue of a girl, about the size of a stretched-out hand that grabbed my interest. The artist had finished the girl’s face, but only half of the body. She had a long turned-up nose and a nasty face so puckered up that she looked as though she had just eaten a lemon. Leaning in, I saw a set of wings tucked neatly behind her back.

  A faerie statue? Who would carve such a sour looking faerie? Maybe it’s why they never finished it, I thought, but as I studied its details, I felt as though someone was watching me.

  Glancing over my right shoulder I immediately found my voyeur - a painted set of dark eyes looking down at me from behind a thick layer of dust on an old oil painting. Although the dust hid most of the image, I could see that it was a young woman wearing a wide brimmed hat and a long Victorian styled dress. Her red hair was in stark contrast to her pale face, and her dark haunting eyes peered down at me. She looked like a painted ghost.

  ‘If I could just wipe a little of the dust away that veiled her face,’ I thought raising my hand up towards her, but the bright flash of my mom’s camera reminded me not to touch it.

  My eyes then fell on an antique globe that sat on a stand below the painting. It resembled a globe in my old school library, however this one appeared much older and faded.

  The settled dust hid the surface of the top hemisphere, but by crouching down I could faintly make out the underside which didn’t look at all like the lower half of earth, where I had expected to see South America, Africa and Australia. In fact, I didn’t recognize any of the places on it; places named Saltus, Montis and Demoror Ari.

  While I was crouched down studying it, my ears drew attention to a faint whirring noise that I quickly determined was coming from an expensive looking clock that stood beside the globe on a decorative table of its own. It too was dusty, but I could tell that it was intricately made, its base depicting a mountainous scene of evergreens and bright red flowers. The most unique feature however, was that it had four hands instead of three - one of which was making the whirring noise that I had heard, as it sped around the clock’s face much faster than normal. The three remaining hands seemed not all that unusual. Surprisingly, the clock seemed to still work, having the correct time - nine thirty-four.

  “A curious clock isn’t it?” a flash of my mom’s camera nearly blinded me as I stared at it.

  “What do you think the extra hand is for?” I asked.

  “No idea, but don’t touch it,” she said. “I can’t afford to have you break anything.” She then moved in closer for another picture.

  It was on this second flash of the camera that I caught a glimpse of something shiny, deep between two panels of the wall.

  “What’s that?” I asked pointing to a thumb-sized piece of metal.

  “Not sure, but I’m done here,” she said opening the door to leave. “I have to go photograph the carriage house, and I suggest you make yourself useful and go find out what job you can help out with.” Then with her tripod under her arm and her camera bag over her shoulder, she left. I watched her disappear down the hall before I quietly shut the door again and turned back to study the piece of metal I had found in the wall.

  It appeared to be some sort of latch and when I reached out to touch it, I was able to lift part of it between my finger and thumb. As I pulled gently, one of the panels opened up like a secret doorway in the wall.

  Chapter Three

  One Simple Task

  I was disappointed to find that the doorway didn’t open into a secret room, vault or tunnel as I had hoped, but a bright and busy library where many people were dusting and recording the titles of books that lined the shelves.

  Justin wasn’t exaggerating when he had said the library was huge: it was the full height of the house and the most impressive room I’d seen so far. Although its wooden bookshelves and tables were oversized, they fit quite comfortably in this larger-than-life room. The ceiling was raised with a genius blend of intricate cuts of coloured glass mixed with clear, transparent glass to let in the outside sky, and its merged creation was beautiful. Oddly, many of the shelves were bare, but there were some old dusty books that appeared not to have been touched in over a hundred years.

  I spotted Justin in an aisle between bookshelves, chatting with some blonde haired girl - Emily?

  “Hey Justin!” I called out, sauntering towards them.

  “It’s about time,” he said, seeing me. “I was thinking you’d gotten lost.”

  “Yeah well it wouldn’t be hard,” I said. “This place is huge.”

  “See any ghosts?” Justin looked at me through his black framed glasses, his eyes gleaming with that familiar sense of adventure.

  “Not yet,” I grinned. “But I’m dying to check out the rooms upstairs.”

  “You wanna explore?” he turned to the girl.

  She cringed hesitantly. “I don’t think we’re allowed to just wander off anywhere,” she offered, with a tone th
at sounded too much like my mother.

  “What they don’t know won’t hurt ‘em!” I said.

  She looked at me and I think wondered if I was serious or not, and then looked back at Justin.

  “Emily, this is Tali. Tali, Emily,” he smiled and turning towards me he continued, “I met her at...”

  “Music camp,” I interrupted. “Your mom filled me in.”

  “She plays a mean piano,” he said.

  “Nice,” was all I could say as I forged a smile. Having just met her, I couldn’t explain the awkwardness of our twosome having suddenly become a threesome.

  “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” I smiled politely, hoping she’d decline.

  “And where, pray tell are you and Littler going?” asked Tina Rigsby, stepping out from behind a tall shelf of books, followed by four other classmates. “I hope not anywhere that could get you in to trouble,” she smiled coyly. “Aren’t you, like expelled if you get in trouble once more?”

  “Yeah, maybe you should distance yourself from us, just in case,” I said impassively.

  If there was one person I wanted to wake up and discover was hit by a bus, mauled by a bear or enlisted by the military and shipped off to serve, it was Tina. But somehow she and her friends seemed to insufferably latch onto us.

  “It’s not like I’m gonna tell on you,” she smirked.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” I said coldly.

  “Aww, that’s not fair Tali. When have I ever ratted you out?”

  “Art class two months ago would be a quick example,” I responded dryly.

  “You can’t count that. I was simply trying to protect our privacy, and bringing a camera in to the bathroom was sooo not cool. Who does that?” she scowled.

  “Weren’t you grounded for life after that last detention?” chimed in Blair.

  The detention he was referring to was inspired by Mr. Palouzie, our art teacher, who told us to come up with a unique way of expressing our feelings through modern art and experimentation. I summoned up the great idea of making a toilet paper smiley face on the ceiling of the girls washroom, which was supposed to symbolize that no matter how shitty life gets, we’ve got to smile and make the best of it.