I stared into the living room that had fallen into disuse more than a decade ago. Dust drifted across light beams let in through gaps in the heavy drapes and it tickled my throat as I inhaled.
My grandmother had foregone the use of most of the house since I was the only person who ever visited and the only rooms that were ever used were the small sitting room where the T.V lived, the kitchen and her bedroom which had its own ensuite.
We would sit and watch her shows until seven and then we'd talk about our week. She'd usually end up telling me one story or another from her childhood. I'd sit and eat the chocolate I'd bring for us to snack on. She'd have eaten one piece and I'd eat the rest while she talked.
Now, the house stood empty of its only inhabitant.
Her funeral had been a week ago. We had a closed casket as apparently, someone had misplaced her body. To my disgust, no one seemed to find this news disturbing; I was the only person who seemed to show any sort of distress. I asked them how you just misplace a body, but all I got were vague excuses and embarrassed apologies.
After the service, the family gathered to hear the will.. Not only did Gran have the mansion, but she'd also saved a substantial fortune. When we were all seated, the solicitor opened the file containing her will and read it aloud. "To all those gathered, I would give to you one brief and final message. I've lived a long and full life, however towards the end, I was forgotten by almost all except in times of need. I expect the vast majority of you are only here to to take what has been left to you in my will, so I'm pleased to tell you that I will not burden any of you with inheritance, save one. To my granddaughter Anna, I leave everything under my name, including but not limited to my life's savings, my house, the property on which it resides, and all contained therein. To everyone else, I hopefully leave you with the lesson that people don't exist for your benefit, and a deeper understanding of compassion."
Then the room erupted in a cascade of abuse shouted at both the lawyer and me.
I didn't particularly want any of it, but the longer I sat in that room with all those people doing everything in their power to get their hands on what they could, the more I felt none of them deserved to see a cent. The next morning I packed what little that was important to me and I left for my grandmother's house.
I spent a large majority of the last week in the sitting room, going through the few books that were on the shelves. She had a fey-like imagination and her interests reflected that; J.K. Rowling, Terry Pratchett, Jim Butcher, and Lev Grossman to name a few. An obsessive love of fantasy was another thing we shared, however after finding myself nearly buried in pizza boxes and chocolate wrappers, I decided it was time to stop reading and explore the rest of the house.
I used to play games all the time when I was younger, hiding under the dining room table, behind the cloth that hung to the floor, running tracks the all the rooms and halls that connected, so big at the time that I'd sometimes get lost. It's still big, but being older brings with it an ability to safely navigate a fourteen bedroom house.
I made my way through the rooms on the ground floor. From the sitting room which sat at the centre of the ground floor, the hall stretched out toward the front and rear, splitting at each end, leading toward the outer edges of the house. Making my way toward the front door at one end of the hall, two guest bedrooms were the first on the left with a bathroom between them on the right. The hall then opened on the right into a small atrium with another entrance to the sitting room on one side and the kitchen, open to the hall on the other. Past the kitchen was another bedroom on the left and last on the right on the right was a room, pulled back from all the other rooms, that made the main entertainment room.
