The Heights

The moors were beautiful, and they were sad.

If you stand upon them you can see for miles; the house is tall and strong a little way off, and the wind chills you even on the stillest day.

There is a smell of lavender plants and old water, their unhappy child the murky brown around them, a twin to the boy in the house in the distance.

It seems always to be raining, even when the sun is glowing, even when the skies are dry. It is a feeling, a sense, like the cold in an old house with all its fires blazing.

There are paths worn among the grass, between stables and patios and the water’s edge; imposters among the green.

An ornate house has a way of being powerful and fragile simultaneously. Here, the grey stone is thick and handsome, crumbling and mossy. It is a picture of status which rises above the people of the town, where grubby little boys could be found, but does not rise above its landscape; how could it?

There is noise in parts of the house; happy noise, bustle, the growl of animals. There is a pregnant silence in other parts, its belly punctured only by sharp words and pointed fingers.

The creatures inside are privileged, brash, well-fed; the dogs are much the same. Some others are less so; they are rather more like the plants – soft, subtle, beautiful. One is more like the marshes; darker, natural, and yet somehow still attractive.

Sadness is sown into the curtains, painted onto the cornice. The gargoyles try their hardest to rid the house of pain; their expressions are understandable – the water must be bitter, grainy, cold.

Happiness is in the quiet corners, flickering candles in the darkness. Where a book would be read, a hand held, or a kiss stolen. At the windows, there is the promise of freedom, and the possibility of shadows cast to create fear and sadness; memories rather forgotten, or rather remembered differently.

There are stories here, there can be no doubt. They are bigger than the buildings, longer than the reeds, deeper than the river. People will fall in love here, will hate, feel pain, share laughter, be cruel to one another. And the rain and leaves will continue to fall, tapping on the windows and trickling down the roof; the lightning will whip and shout, like the father of the house.

Lives will begin and end, some as quickly as the tempers of men, some even more unfairly.

The boy, dark and strange to begin and just so at the end, will remember.