Part 16

        The windows were set higher up on the walls than I had first realized. It was hard to get right up to them, but the one I did, even standing on tip-toes I could barely see inside. Lace curtains hung in front of the window, and it was so darkly shadowed that I couldn't make out anything beyond what might have been a wood chair right in front of the window. Frustrated, I tried vainly to pull my self up to get a better view, but all I got for my trouble were my fingertips scratched raw by the rough stone windowsill. I never had been any good at doing pull-ups. I sighed, and leaned against the cool stucco wall for a moment, letting my gaze drift over the grounds. All I could make out were more overrun gardens... no, there was a gazebo of some sort at the edge of the clearing, but that too was covered in vines. What wasn't? As frustrating as it made reconnaissance, it made for gorgeous photos. I was entranced by the way the vines interlaced, the way the tendrils curled, the lazy grace of the lines they drew over every surface. I groaned when I thought of all the film I'd have to develop in the next few weeks, but inwardly I smiled, knowing what fantastic shots I could get here, especially once I had sorted out the best times for sunlight around here.
        I closed my eyes a moment and let my head fall back, resting on the wall. When I opened my eyes, it was to see the vines silhouetted almost pure black against the bright blue sky, tracing their delicate curls across the canvas of the sky. I grinned broadly, pulling my camera up, shifting back and forth to try to get the line of the house to fall straight across the image I'd take. The shadowed wall looked even darker when set against the sky, and I made sure to adjust for the brightness of the sky, rather than the dimness of the wall, so the contrast between the two would be even sharper (though I could of course adjust that in making the print itself). I couldn't zoom nearly as much as I wanted, I'd have to see what I could do with enlarging and cropping. I wanted the image half light, half dark, with the intricate tendrils of dark arcing up into the light...
        I trudged my way up along the rest of the house, looking up longingly at the windows, pushing past bushes to check for small doors, still seeing absolutely no way of getting inside. Hopefully Caleb was a good lock pick... My parents had never let my sister or I have a lock on our bedroom doors growing up, so while I knew the paper clip theory, and the credit card theory, I'd never tried putting either into practice. Gardens, gardens... they must have spent a fortune on landscaping this place, and there had to be someone tending it. I wondered vaguely if there would be a small house nearby, a servants' cottage, or if they had had rooms in one of the wings of the main house? But there had to be a garage, or more likely a carriage house, nearby too, and I hadn't seen one yet.
        I turned the inside-corner of the "L" of the house, and followed the back side of the portion of the house with smaller windows. Somehow I had already decided that these were the bedrooms, the sitting rooms, the library maybe, and the windows at the back of the house looked out from the kitchen and dining rooms. I still had no idea what sort of room the huge windows were a part of... a sun room of some sort? The windows were more cathedral-like than greenhouse-like, but it did have an exit to the back porch...
        No luck seeing inside of any of these either, though a few of the windows seemed to have window boxes or something, as there were fresh bursts of plant life trailing downward from them, different shades of green and the added texture of differently-shaped leaves. Reaching the side of this wing, I found another small door, again of wrought-iron curlicues, with a wooden door set behind it. Locked, but at least there had been a path leading up to it. Finally, I rounded the last corner and faced the front of the house again. It felt a little less forbidding now, but I was every bit as twitchy to get a look inside. Rationally, of course, I knew the place would probably have been gutted when the last residents left, there would be little more than bland furniture that wasn't worth moving, and a few odds and ends that had no emotional importance to the owners. Artistically, though, I held out hope that there might be a few small things left... some small memento, a lost earring, a scrap of a note, something. Things always got lost when people moved, there had to be something... I wished I knew more about plants, I was sure there were all sorts of hints to the personality of the people who had lived here in the gardens, but, I had no idea what was supposed to be there and what were weeds, let alone if any of the plants were rare or anything. I knew roses were picky to grow, so I was pretty sure they'd had a gardener, at least to help, but---
        But if roses were so picky, how could these have done so well so long on their own? I'd have to talk with Mrs. Mayhew, and sort that one out. I knew it was too cold here in the winters for really delicate plants to survive, and I knew - from my mom's own failed attempts - that all sorts of weird things could kill off roses. Weird.
        I laughed at myself. Right, the roses were weird, but a mansion in the middle of nowhere that was gorgeous but apparently no one wanted, that wasn't strange at all.

        The sun was getting lower, dipping into the tops of the trees, and I knew I was going to be exhausted by the time I made it back to the Mayhews'. Before I left the clearing, though, I went back to the front porch, ducking low under the wisteria, and took a picture of the intricate knocker, now that the light caught it better. I still wasn't entirely happy with the light balance, I'd have to see what I could do about the contrast when I printed it. Partway back out the wisteria tunnel, I turned back, and took a picture of the door, with the dark vines leading up to it. The light wasn't quite at the right angle to get the effect I wanted, but it was close - little stars of light twinkled throught the vines, which were mostly very dark, curling around the lighter arched entry, the dark wooden door cemented in the center of the image. I might have to try that shot again another time, with different lighting, but I was down to my last two frames on the roll. (I never completely used up all of my film until more film was less than five minutes away - you never knew when something really striking would catch your eye, and I hated the way images I missed would haunt my memory. I couldn't draw for crap, so if I missed the photo, I really had no way to communicate the image... Even if I could, the lighting would undoubtedly be off, and the camera always caught details your memory lost, if you had even noticed them in the first place.)
        I moved slowly as I walked away from the house, constantly turning to look back... Unreasonable though I knew it was, each time I looked back my heart skipped a beat, half-expecting the house to not be there, to it have all been some sort of odd dream. ---God damn, if this was one of those dreams I took all sorts of gorgeous pictures in and then woke up and didn't have them---! I prayed like anything that it wasn't, I wanted so badly for this place to be real...but not too real. I almost didn't want to come back, for fear of shattering the dream-like qualities of it, the ethereal atmosphere.
        If I ever woke up and found it foggy outside, I was making a beeline for this place. I'd have to spend like a week straight in the dark room, but I didn't care. It looked like I'd be doing that soon anyway, at the rate I was going. How many rolls had I polished off today, four? or was it five? I had to get into town soon, and see how much Rite Aid was charging for the film I needed. Probably more than I could get it for on the Internet, but I'd have to see what the shipping charges might be...
        I was at the edge of the clearing now, standing at the first marker of piled stones. They were such a vivid red, I had to wonder if they hadn't been painted or something at one time. I smiled wistfully back at the house, silently promising I'd be back soon.

        I decided to strike out for the road I knew couldn't be far off, which meant actually circling up around the house again, going past it. While it might have made sense to start from the back of the house...I wasn't about to try to fight my way through the wild of the gardens. A little distance away from the house, the woods resumed their normal density, and the canopy of leaves far overhead kept the underbrush at bay, making walking much quicker than it had been around the villa.
        The villa. That suited it much better than "the house", "house" was such a small, commonplace word, and this place hadn't been that at all...