When a woman moves into the sleepy town, it rouses everyone's tongues to start wagging. She is strange and distant in her manner. Tia Frost is blissfully unaware of the townsfolk's discomfort with her. With Burt at her side, she wonders about the wo...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I left the property and found the lady by the side of the road at the bottom of the drive. She got in the passenger side of the car. "Where's Burt?" I asked looking into the trees.
"He will meet us at home." I could see that was all I was getting and directed the old car towards her house.
She looked around the interior of the car and shook her head at it. Is she unimpressed by this old thing? I don't blame her.
Following the road away from Edith's House, the turning for the next house was at least a mile up the road that ran out of the small town. I turned up the road and to my surprise, it was smooth and freshly tarmacked. This road twisted and turned through the forest for longer than I thought it should have. Finally, the house came into view. It wasn't anything special to look at.
It wasn't a massive house for someone with enough money to buy that much land. It was a very standard holiday-type house with one bedroom on the first floor which was common in this area. The place didn't look like it had been rebuilt or even refurbished. It was a carbon copy of Edith's house except Edith's place looked like it had been worked on recently.
I stopped near the older model Volvo that was there. I saw Burt come running to the passenger side and jump up at the lady as she stepped out. She hugged him until he got down. I got out of the car as Burt danced around her.
She walked towards the door to her home. I followed her inside and was struck by the amount of books. Nearly every wall had bookcases that were overflowing with books. I could see books stacked neatly with other books stacked haphazardly in front of them. Except one.
A small nondescript bookshelf stood in the corner that didn't have books piled up in front of the neatly stacked ones. It was neat. The room looked like she had run out of space to put the bookshelf but kept buying books.
The one neat bookshelf seemed populated with one author's books. She was drawing attention to it by not stacking the books that sat on the floor next to one of the two armchairs on those shelves. The shelves that had the books stacked in front of others were all made with the same wood but that one small bookshelf was painted white.
"You have a lot of books."
She turned to me and then looked at the shelves except the neat little one. Odd why would she miss that shelf with her eyes? "I like reading."
She walked into the kitchen, leaving me alone with Burt. He watched me from an armchair, which was his from the blanket and fur all over it.
I looked over the books on the shelves closest to me. An odd mix of horror and philosophy books. Another bookshelf held psychology and fantasy books. Why would you stack these genres together?
There were no ornaments on any of the surfaces. Only books. I walked around the small living room. There was nothing to tell me what this person liked. No photographs, or paintings. No items of value at all. Just books and a clock on the wall above a small wooden table with two chairs tucked under it. Next to Burt's chair was a small plastic crate that had Burt's toys in it.
