Samantha found herself standing, staring at a gigantic door way. A large ugly face sat squarely in the middle of the door. Made of the strangest black shiny metal that seemed to just suck away the light. The dark amber eyes followed you wherever you went. From its grimaced mouth hung a knocker made of the same black metal. Where the knocker lay against the door, marks, nicks and scratches from years of being knocked upon covered the surface. Somehow this made it so much more gruesome. Samantha reach out to touch the knocker without evening thinking, as her hand crossed between her and the door she noticed something was wrong, her hands have never been so smooth or Petite not since she was a child.
Glancing down at her feet also tiny, nearly frail and dressed in white knee-high socks and black patent leather shoes. On the left sock sits a dirty brown scuff just below the knee, Samantha’s mother will have something to say about that. It’s then that she noticed below her feet was no longer the aged wooden planks of the porch but a carpet, only ever seen in really dated home’s, like a grandmothers. Hers was pinks and gold’s in colour, this one was rich blues, ivories and red flowers scattered across the sea of blue. When did she knock, or pass through the door? Time here always seemed so disjointed. Maybe it was her, looking down on Samantha.
In later years she came to find out more about the big house by the silver bridge. About who lived there and how on its last day’s the light danced off the Liffey River until dawn broke, the sky was a light so bright that you could tell it was burning from two towns away. Back to this moment she looked away from her feet to the mantel. Standing in the entrance way to the right of a mantle as big as you could get, a fire roared in the hearth and stationed above the mantel was a framed likeness of the most beautiful woman you ever did see.
Her hair was as black as a Raven and just as sleek; her crystal blue eyes pierced your heart when you took them in. She was dress in all her finery and sat stiff and hard. As she probably knew that she would be sitting there, perched above the mantel. You could smell the smoke now, and something more. It burns her throat and catches her breath. Crackling and popping sounds emanate from all around.
As Samantha has done for the past 21 years, sitting she took a deep calming breath, coughing a little. Reassuring herself “I am in my own bed, in my home”, she repeats this over and over to herself. “The house is not burning; I am not burning.” Heart finally stops racing, her recurring dream struck again. This is the house that burned down before Samantha was born.
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