A House on a High, High Road

A dirt road wound down around the moore and up towards the very essence of dismal dreariness. The night was far from young, and the moon hung high. She shone a pale yellow-white, a beacon to her twinkling cousins, reflecting a mood of eternal melancholy. Her song reached the trees, rustling branches, and whistling back at the birds. The road was damp and only lit by the pale light of the sky; it twisted and turned, tree roots burst from the ground, warning all who attempted the visit to turn back, to go far away and never return.

At the end of the road, above the moore sat a lone house, shrouded by unkempt bushes and ivy. The front door was of a peculiar wood, rather unpleasing, as though the wood were either the strongest in the world, or about to crumble at any given moment. The song of the moon did not reach this high, for all was dead and silent but the faint crackling of a slowly dying fire.

The air was cold, yet the wind dared not intrude on this property. In fact, hardly anything dared trespass except for one. A single woman in a white dress walked along the treacherous path, avoiding the tree roots and rocks with ease. She reached the door, robed in snowy white, and she knocked a single eery knock.

Inside the house a man awoke with a start, flask in hand, sitting in a faded arm chair facing the front door. He sprung out of his seat immediately, throwing the flask across the room and stumbling forward. He reached the door, head pressed against it, eyes squeezed shut. With a creak, the door inched open until the two were face to face. He sank to his knees letting out a strangled cry, tears tracing the curves of his nose down a rugged face.

The woman just smiled. She stood there, stoic and stately, eyes drowning in forgotten sorrows.

Slowly he began to rise, weak with shock and disbelief. The woman extended her hands as if she were a dove stretching her wings in an expression of peace, a goddess reaching down from the heavens to drag the unfortunate mortal out of his engulfing misery. The moon shone especially bright on the woman whose beauty and fair skin rivaled that of the heavens themselves. For a moment, the man made no move, it was almost as if he was rejecting her offer, until he interlocked his hand with hers, a familiar motion. With this, all seemed to relax so that the noises of the moore were hardly audible.

Hand in hand the two began to depart the dismal house, toward a grassy patch below the stars. She led him forward like a siren to the sea, face lit and eyes glistening. She danced in front of him, a delicate dancing nymph among the tree until they reached the quiet picnic destination. A silvery-blue blanket lay smooth across the grass, and the picnic basket’s contents were meticulously placed atop.

Releasing the rugged hand, the woman took her place on the blanket and motioned for the man to do the same. With less grace, he took his seat as well. Neither made a motion for food. One faced the moore and the other sat staring at her glowing figure. She turned to face him once more, laid a hand atop his and spoke in a gentle yet warning tone, “My love, Wake up”.

The man blinked once, long and hard and when his eyes opened at last, the woman was no longer in front of him. He glanced down at his hand which still felt the pressure of her grasp. To his great surprise, he found not the blanket below his hand. He saw not the glorious feast that had been in front of him merely a moment prior.

Instead, below his hand was grass covering a hard earth. He raised head slightly, and his eyes grew wide with realization and misery. In front of him sat a gray stone, a headstone.

Scrambling to his feet, the man began to run, run toward the cliff overlooking the moore. He reached the edge, heart caught in his throat and swallowed. Suddenly, the wind had overcome its fear of the property and joined the man on the cliff, whispering in his ear words of poisonous encouragement.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, a familiar, moonlit hand. Yet, in front of him appeared another hand, outstretched in an offering of eternal bliss, relief from misery. Thousands of whispers made the formerly quiet moore excruciatingly loud. Torn in two equally miserable directions, he fell. He fell to knees above the moore and shut his eyes, shut them forever.