text: They stared up at the old mansion with apprehension. None of them could name when it had been built, nor who had built it, just that both had been well before their time and that time had changed it immensely. The sheer size alone was enough take them aback, but it was the condition at a glance that truly shocked them, down to the youngest who was just 11 months old and had no earthly concept of what a mansion even was. The paint was peeling and washed out, showing old brick walls that looked more like raw, weeping wounds than the dry, red clay that they were. The shingles of its vast roof were almost all gone, and the roof itself looked sunken and pained with water damage, or like something had smashed in but not through it. All of its windows were broken and revealed nothing but pitch blackness inside, save for two windows along the centre which reflected the midday sun in broken shards that shone like eyes staring down, peeled open and malevolent, at the family who had trodden upon its domain. The husband, a barrel chested, younger man, step forward on the brick pathway, ignoring the pleas of his wife, a taller, older woman, to please get away from it, please. “It’s going to fall on your head Hal, for gods sake.” “It’s fine Luanne, I’m just getting a closer look at it.” Immediately upon finishing the sentence, he stepped onto the first cracked and dusty step and could hear the stone groan under him as he walked up with great caution to the front doors. They were in the best condition of any part of this old monster, firm and tall and carved with symbols of lions facing each other. The door knockers were around the crotch level, which forced Hal to avert his eyes as he wrapped a hand around one of them and found that he had to push it open. “Lousy design.” He muttered beneath the wailing creak of the door slowly, deliberately, opening inward to reveal yet more darkness. Hal leaned forward so that the clear blue sky and its huge spotlight of a sun did not get into his eyes, which helped them adjust. Inside the mansion was a floor made of wooden planks, which were rotted and soaked over with mold and fungus. The grand staircase, an enormous thing that may have once been quite proud, had collapsed midway up and the debris littered the hallway that, Hal gathered, would have led to some kind of kitchen or recreation room. Above him hung a chandelier, an enormous and complex structure of glass that, to his shock, seemed utterly untouched by the doubtless decades of decay and neglect that had put this place in its present state. It swung about, slowly side by side, of seemingly no accord. Looking down again, he saw on either side open archways that led into rooms he had no idea the use of. A low groan emerged from within the bowels of the mansion, beckoning him inside, deeper yet deeper, so that he may be shown even more of its sights. He ignored it and turned around in a huff, his lips pulled a tooth baring expression more suited for a baboon as he stomped back down to his family, his wife completely unsurprised. “It’s a goddamn dump.” Hal blustered out as he took his place by Luanne’s side. “I told you we couldn’t trust that website, but the offer was just to good pass up, wasn’t it.” “Don’t start up on that, you wanted this place just as badly as I did.” “Yes dear, I know, but I did offer the idea that it was too good to be true.” Luanne looked up at the mansion again, quickly squinting and looking away from the glare of the broken glass. “And you were right, are you happy?” “Not in the slightest dear.” Hal simply nodded and marched back to their car. “I’m with you on that.” He said as he pulled open the drivers side door and slipped halfway in. “What’s eating you? You look troubled.” “Aside from the house?” “Aside from that, yes.” Luanne sucked her bottom lip in and looked over her shoulder again at the looming beast behind her. “I have an odd feeling about the place, likes it got something wrong with it outside of how it looks.” “Well, you won’t have to worry about that honey.” Said Hal. “We’re going to march right into that real estate place and scream our heads off til we get our money back.” He gestured up at the mansion, his movements wild and exaggerated as he got more and more worked up. “They show us a beautiful house in those pictures, tell us it’s all furnished, and then we show up to THIS?! Not a chance in hell I’m letting that slide!” His sudden descent into hollering at the top of his lungs made Luanne and their baby flinch, and the baby immediately set off into a loud and miserable wail. Luanne went to work right away rocking it as Hal hurried over, his eyes wide with shame. “Oh Georgia I’m sorry honey.” He cooed. “It’ ok baby, it’s ok.” She said, and it worked rather quickly, as Georgia stopped almost as quickly as she started. Both parents were pleased. “Save it for the real estate agents Hal.” Luanne said. “Only if you help me.” He said right back, and the two kissed and walked back to their car. Once little Georgia was buckled securely in her seat, the two took their own and drove around the roundabout and it’s huge, concrete fountain (which held no water at all) right back out on the path they came in. They were gone for a minute, then two minutes, then five. It was on the fifth minute that the mansion, realizing that they really were not coming back, shut its still open door and let out a disappointed sigh. Maybe next time big guy.