Greenbriar Manor

Mack's Choice

Mack woke up at 3 am to knock on the door of his room. Heavy-handed. He sprang from his bed and went into the hallway. He thought he saw someone go into the kitchen. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and wandered toward that direction. He did not know who the staff were anymore. It seemed that his mother was the only long-term employee. There had been a lot of strangers drifting in during the night and dusk around here. One morning he encountered a scraggly-haired woman about the age of his mother with wild eyes and smeared dirt on her cheek she was carrying a wooden bucket. When he asked his mother, she shrugged and told him not to worry sometimes people needed help and the outdoor pump was open to whomever needed it. She had looked vaguely familiar. Maybe Brooklyn's mother was sick and needed some help. He realized no one had ever actually seen her before. Maybe they too had something hidden down in the glen. The thicket had grown thick with blackberry vines with thorns as sharp as needles and as big as his pinky nail. No one would go through there again not even the dog. He knew that Mari and Brooklyn traced another footpath near the creek to get home but he was not about to trespass for any good gentleman keeps off another man's land without invitation. Or so his dad had always said. He hoped that someday his father might come home. It had been a long two years since coming here. He brushed a tapestry on the wall and thought he heard a faint whisper and tinkling of music coming from the pink bedroom just beyond. When he got to the door, he opened it but saw no one there. A gust of wind hit his face, and he shuttered. The window was open. A sheet dangling from it. What had Ingrim done now? He stepped into the room and on the edge of the shelf sat the horse figurine and another strange object. This was a bird painted the color of sunny skies. It made him feel instantly happy. It looked like an Swallow. His father had been to sea long ago and came back with one tattooed on his calf. He told him that everyone they had meant they were strong and were closer to home. He knew that this place was never going to be that for him, but he liked the bird. Every morning, he would lie in bed until he heard the songs of the birds and greet the day somehow knowing he too would make it and be happy. He put it in his pocket of his pajama shirt and closed the window. Fran would blame them for the soiled linen and Ingrim's running away from the house at night. He had to find someone. But who? Where was everyone? 

Not again. Since that horse had gotten here there had been more storms. Fitful dreams. It seemed as if a nightmare as dark as that stallion's fur had settled around his home. His father was gone. His mother stayed fully given to her work or fiddling with things in the attic. Ingrim stayed obsessively in the barn with that horse. Even Brooklyn had taken to that horse trainer and become an assistant. Fern had Mari although he was never quite sure what they had in common. They too seemed enamored by that horse. Since they had found the porcelain horse and saddle everything here had changed. The manor seemed filled with secrets and corners seemed darker somehow even in the daytime. 

He sometimes wished his mother had never come here at all to this place. He wanted very much to find something to do. He decided that he would stay at school and join some kind of club. Something that other kids did instead of play catch with old baseballs and run around after a horse for fun. He wandered into the library and to a shelf of worn how to books. He found one on astronomy and one on instruments. Maybe he would join the band or take up piano lessons. He had noticed that big one in the great hall that was never touched. There had to be more that this house could offer him than what he had found so far. Tomorrow at school he would get the band teacher Mrs. Ruth Guffree to sign him up for lessons. Then he would have something to be good at and it would be okay to be alone.

He walked into the great hall and again he heard the giggling. The piano sat dusty and uncovered he walked over to it and sat down on the bench. He touched the middle key and a chill went through his body. Excitement and something else. Someone was watching. he turned to see a girl older than Mari and younger than Fern. Her eyes were bright green like emeralds. Her face covered in dark curls. Skin as pale as the stucco walls of their old house. She raised a finger to the music on the piano lid. He picked it up almost beyond his control. A concerto entitled Contest Petit Four handwritten pencil marks littered the page. He did not read music but the girl was humming the melody. It gave him chills. Who was she? Why did this seem familiar? Like a dream. Like a promise. She sat next to him and placed her ice cold fingers over his own she showed him where to press each key and in a moment the music seemed to flow from him. A memory...he sat in this great room playing something greasy on his fingers. As he played he felt the world ebb and sway light flicker on and off in his mind. No actual light the power came back on in a gigantic flash as the last note echoed down the marble halls. His hands covered in decades of thick grey dust. When he finished the piece she smiled and touched his lips and left him. 

Fran drifted into wakefulness to hear a familiar music box sound but this time amplified. Long and loud chords like something creaking and wailing. It took her a minute to realize it was a piano very out of use. She thought of Vera playing until her fingers bled trying to remember the chorus long forgotten and the youth that her cousin had attained eternally as she shriveled with age and passage of time. But who was playing that dreadful durge now. She ambled close to the hallway. The lights flickered on blinding her and she noticed at the piano was Mack and someone else. A girl. She peaked around him and with a sneer she made eye contact with her. The girl from Vera's bathroom mirror all those years ago had hold of her son. She screamed over and over again as the house filled with light. She rushed to the room but as she got there he was asleep on the piano bench his fingers tinged with grey dust. Snoring. It had all been a dream. It must have Bridgette never came home all those years ago and she smashed the teacup. They would not be met with this again. She had made her own choice. Hopefully, Mack had too. She would talk to his pediatrician about his sleeping fits and her own nightmares. What she had not seen is the tiny bird that was carefully in his pocket. The day would dawn and there would be a song in his heart that she could not hear or keep him from chasing.  

The house picks its children and gives them a purpose. Ingrim was to ride. Mack was to play. Mari was to befriend. Fern was to mend and Brooklyn was to guide.