Coldsgrove

Read To Me

Aiden leads me through countless glorious rooms with amazing furniture, paintings and artifacts that I am afraid to touch. Weaving continuously through room after room with less and less accurate words to descried the decor.

We come to a large hallway. It's a lot like all the others, thought its longer and with paintings and sculptures lined along the walls, I can't see any doors though. I narrow my eyes in thought and stretch to see any kind of outlet to this part of the house. I can't see any thing until we are standing right in front of it. Aiden hesitates at the large door, "What's this one?" I ask him and he sighs. "It's my personal library, collections." Aiden says and I look up at him eagerly.

"Please, can I see it? Please?" I plead with a wide grin and pout out my lip, I know my actions are childish, but I am one compared to his knowledge and experiences, he gives into my plea with a huff. He opens the door and I walk into a room with high walls that are all lined in rows after rows of books.

The room only has one love seat, I drag my feet to the small couch still with awe written on my face. I hear Aiden behind me chuckle, "What is wrong Audrey?" he smirks and I shake my head slowly.

"Nothing is wrong, it's just so big. Why is it so big?" I ask and pick up a book on a table I hadn't noticed on my way in. The book had been set on the small, carved, wooden table, I can't be certain what the title is, but I know its a collection by Edgar Allen Poe.

"In the time period my father built the house in had a silent understanding that the bigger the wealth and property the more powerful you are," Aiden answers my question, but my mind has already leaped to a new subject.

I open to the marked page and find lines, pages and stanzas of the same dark poetry with unfamiliar dialect. I look up to Aiden that stands in front of me towering above, "Can you read this?" I ask him and he nods once. "Will you read to me?" I ask and a sheen of red replaces the normal color of my skin.

"If you would like," he says with his usual voice, he takes the book from my hand and settles in next to me on the small couch.

I lean just far enough to see the page and watch with my eyes as he finds the start of the poem and begins to read in a tone I had not realized he was capable of. Aiden always had a sense of power that rolled off his speech, I could hear it like faint church bells, always there, but not antagonizing. Though now his voice was soft and doesn't make the normal rumble pattern, it's full of passion. Vulnerability.

"It was many and many a year ago In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child
In this kingdom by the sea.
But we loved with love that was more than love- I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me

And this was the reason, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven
Went envying her and me- Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know, in this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we- Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams with out bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling -my darling- my life and my bride, In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea."