Is this Rare?

Chapter 32

The first room is an entryway, of sorts. There is a small hall off the the right and I think it may lead to a kitchen. On the left, there is a staircase. It looks as if it used to be beautiful and grand, but it is now crumbling and rotten. Many boards are, now, nonexistent. The few, which are left, are disfigured and moldy. I lightly step the toe of my shoe on the bottom step and it cracks under less half my weight. Quickly, I step back and nearly avoid the board cracking under my toes.

"My mum said not to go upstairs. We are not even allowed to try." Andrea tells me, "We are just supposed to stay downstairs. How about we go down that hall?"

I nod in agreement, not wanting to experience the strain of climbing the crumbling staircase. I follow behind Andrea, down the first hallway. My eyes lay on the saddest thing I've seen in my life. Pictures frames line the walls. They contain pictures of, I guess, the family, which lived here. Even though people in the photo look modern, the photos themselves look old. Torn, discolored, bent, and yellowed.

The first photo has a lady in it. She is beautiful. With shoulder length golden hair, deep brown eyes, a slender nose, and a gorgeous smile. Her lips are bright red and she is smiling, which only adds to her beauty. I can't help but think that she resembles a princess from a storybook I read when I was little.

I take a step forward and scrutinize the next picture. A man sits in this one: on a stool, made of some type of metal. His hair is closely cropped and dark brown, nearly black. He is stocky built and has broad shoulders. His facial features are unexpected though. Soft and small. His nose is almost an exact replica of his wife's. His eyes are blue, which is strange because most people with blue eyes also have blonde hair. His lips are also small and pale. But, despite his smileless face, he seems strangely happy.

The final photo has a little girl in it. She is happily hugging a huge bear. Her golden ringlets hang loosely over her shoulders, tied out of her face with a baby pink satin ribbon. She is wearing a light pink, flouncy dress with lace trims. Her eyes are bright blue, just like the man in the previous photo, who I guess is her father. Her lips are the same color as the woman's, who is probably her mother. She is adorable and I'm reminded of myself, somewhat.

But, her bear is the most intriguing thing, my eyes keep going back to it. It's brown, looks soft and fuzzy. Some areas of its fur are matted. One of his button eyes has popped off and lays on the floor in front of me, right beneath the picture. I bend down a pick it up. Rolling it around in my fingers, I think out loud, "What happened to you?"

I wipe a few tears, which are begin to spill over my eyelids and slide down my face, away. When I look up, I see that Andrea is already walking into the next room. The kitchen. So, I follow her. In the kitchen, we find that the fridge is full. Full of rotten food. We quickly close the door and regret opening it, in the first place. We decide not to search the cabinets for fear of what we will find. Nothing seems out of the ordinary so we quickly move on to another hall. This one with blank wall. There are three doors, one on each side and on at the end of the hallway.

We enter the first room. It's a bedroom and it looks as if a child had lived here. There's a bookshelf stocked full of storybooks, picture books, and loose coloring pages. As I pull one off the sheets of paper from the books, it crumbles in my finger. The pages are also yellowed like the photos in the hall. Next, a dresser is overflowing with clothes and dresses. Against the outside wall is a white bed, cover in a pink blanket, which is frayed and dusty, but pretty all the same. On top of the blanket, lays a bear. The same bear that was in the picture. I pull out the button from my pocket and place it on the pillow next to the bear. When I turn away, I see the final piece of furniture in the room is a toy box. It has been painted with purple and pink paints, the edges have been decorated with flowers. I turn to leave the room and see Andrea staring at all the furniture.

I ask her, "Are you okay, Andrea?"

She shakes her head and replies, "Yes, and no. I've never had a room like this before. Even when I was a kid. All my stuff was like black and gray. Nothing was ever pink. But, yeah, I'll be ok."

I smile and we head out the door. The room across the hall is a bathroom. I open the door and with one glance, decide to let Andrea investigate in there. She walks in, does a quick inspection, and exits as quickly as possible.

We enter the final room. The one at the end of the all. But, before Andrea can open the door, I say, "I'll bet this is the master bedroom." When she pushes the door open, I find out that I was correct. We walk in and begin looking around. It's almost like a normal bedroom but a few thing are different. The bed is extremely small for a master bed, there is no master bathroom, and the picture frames on the wall keep catching my attention. Another thing I've realized about this home is that there are no electronic in here. No TVs, no computers, even no outlets come to think of it. This house doesn't even have light bulbs. But, it's still light in here. It's strange and reminds me of another place I've been recently. Our cabin! Ours has lights but no windows and in storms we still see the lighting flashes. I decide to keep it to myself for now, plus it doesn't seem that important at the moment.

I walk up to those frames again and pull one off the wall for a better look, when I realize that it's not what's in the frames that's getting to me, but what's behind the frame. A storage space. I reach my hand in and tug on something until it comes free and I fly backwards into Andrea. After we untangle our arms and legs I hold out my hand. A necklace with a gold chain and a green jewel sits on my open palm.