The Vault

1.

"Did you know you can use a dock leaf to help with a nettle's sting?" Abraham said as he walked through the woods with his daughter, Allison, who preferred to be known as Alice despite her father's protests.

"I'm not walking this far every day, Father, you're going to have to get me a driver," she whinged while scratching her ankle furiously.

"Nonsense, the forest air will do us both good!" Abraham said cheerily, before they came to a break in the overgrowth.

In front of them, standing out like a sore amongst the nature around it, was Templeton Manor. The walls greened with damp and mould on the outside, while cobwebs filled the windows from the inside. The whole clearing around the gangly, old mansion was eerily silent.

"It's ugly." Alice said bluntly, breaking the suffocating tranquillity surrounding them.

"It's not ugly, it's beautiful. This house is nearly as old as time itself you know. I'm sure real royalty may have lived here once... and anyway, it was a bargain at the price I got it for."

Templeton Manor had been quietly decaying inside those woods for years while the world outside became industrialised and revolutionised by invention and science. Abraham was right, the house was nearly as old as time itself, with no-one knowing who the rightful owners had been and how it had ended up abandoned those many centuries ago. That was how the property had fallen into his hands so cheaply, when he won the house at auction for a fraction of it's true value.

A large wall ran around the house's interior garden, leaving the road to end precisely at the steps to it's huge wooden front door. Moss swelled through the cracks in the wood, like it was desperate to escape from the stuffy corridors within.

"I don't want to live here." Alice said moodily.

"This is just what we need, a project, something to clear our minds, it can get us away from the old life and get me writing again." Abraham said with an arm on his daughter's shoulder.

"It's only you that needs to clear your mind and get away though. I'm fine," she said stubbornly.

"Allison. I need you here for this. Please."

"Fine, but just while you get back on your feet, as soon as you're feeling better I'm going to do what I want for once." Alice protested.

Abraham smiled politely.

"And don't call me Allison!" She continued.

The front door was stiff and would barely budge as it ground along the stone floor within. Abraham applied some extra pressure with a forceful shoulder charge that caused a sharp screeching sound as the heavy door slid across the floor.

The air was still and musty inside the house, and just like outside, was accompanied by a deathly silence. Abraham took his daughter's coat off her shoulders and hung it on an old hanger inside the porch before they continued into the opening hallway.

The first left took them to the living room, it was a large and empty space, with ceilings that seemed far more high than necessary. A giant chandelier was dangling from the centre of the room, but with such needlessly high ceilings one would need to climb a bookshelf to light the candles that collected cobwebs up there.

Through the living room was a dank little greenhouse that was so filthy light barely broke in from outside. Alice scratched away at some of the filth on the window revealing the large garden on the side of the house. It had a stone pathway that led through various different allotments and clusters of plant. No doubt at one point in history this was a rather marvellous garden to witness, but that point in history was most likely centuries ago she though to herself.

"How many young ladies your age have their own private garden to tend to then?" Abraham grinned from the entrance to the greenhouse.

"I hate gardening."

"You used to love it when you were younger, I remember you and your mother were always planting some exotic flower or something."

"Yeah that was when I was a kid," she said bluntly before leaving the filthy greenhouse.

Abraham sighed wearily as his daughter walked past, ignoring the plant pot he had been holding out for her to look at.

Their relationship had been very strained lately. Abraham had been suffering greatly since the disappearance and presumed murder of his wife. The resulting depression had caused him to lose all inspiration to continue writing his highly successful series of books, and left him overly dependent on his daughter to get anything done.

Alice, on the other hand, was fed up with his reluctance to move on and get over things, it had been well over a year now and she had such huge ambitions for a young woman. She had always wanted to get out and see the world for herself rather than read about it in her father's books. This was a dream her mother had always supported despite her father's disagreement, but with her now gone, she was left feeling a responsibility to look after him.

The other two rooms on the ground floor were a kitchen that was at the end of the entrance hallway, and a large library, that sat in the far left corner of the house, connected to both the living room and the kitchen. Like everything else in the house, they were both filthy, and Alice continued to be unimpressed.

Also in the opening hallway, was a spiralling stone staircase that led upstairs to the three bedrooms. Abraham had the master bedroom that looked out over the garden, while Alice chose the larger of the two remaining rooms, which looked out over the woods to the right of the house.

"All our things shall arrive later today, but in the meanwhile as you can see we have a lot of work to do, I know it doesn't look like much now but trust me, after some love and care are put into it we will have this place looking as majestic as it no doubt once did," Abraham said proudly. He spoke with a gentlemanly tone that clearly showed off his wealth andclass.

Alice smiled at him. At least he was upbeat for once.