Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
“Mmmroww!”
Then he continued down the wooden bridge. It was as though he was telling me to follow him.
Since I didn’t have any other choice, I did.
The bridge was long and straight and it ran over a narrow brook that was murmuring quietly to itself. Looking over the wooden railing, I had another bright flash of memory.
I saw myself standing at this exact same place, but I was somehow much shorter—my head didn’t even reach the top of the railing. I was looking through the space between the wooden rails and down into the water. A little toy boat was skipping along on the water, weaving and bobbing as the current carried it under the bridge and beyond…
Then the memory was gone as quickly as it had appeared. I blinked and looked up to see that Sebastian was already at the end of the bridge. He was looking over his shoulder at me as if to say, “Are you coming or what?”
“All right, all right—I’m coming,” I told him. Another gust of chilly wind whipped past me, making me shiver. Being a Florida girl, I have pretty thin blood and I was only wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt and a pair of yoga pants. (I pretty much live in yoga pants—it’s one benefit of working from home.)
I hurried to the end of the bridge and caught up with my cat, who was now making his way down a dirt path shadowed by towering, colorful Maple trees.
The foliage was even more exquisite up close. I reached out and plucked a bright red leaf bigger than my palm and examined it. The intricate tracery of veins convinced me I wasn’t dreaming—which I had been half suspecting from the moment the door was drawn in the middle of my apartment. What kind of dream had such elaborate detail?
The dirt path led to a house, just as I had suspected. It was an English Colonial style—two solid stories built directly on top of each other with an attic above. A narrow sidewalk led to the house through the surprisingly well-tended front lawn.
I looked at the house, studying it. There was a broad front porch and four white columns supporting a portico. The windows looked like eyes but not in a bad way—they almost seemed to smile at me. The faded paint and white trim made me think of an ancient Grandfather for some reason. I didn’t have any feelings of foreboding—actually, I felt almost at once that I would be welcome here.
Sebastian seemed to feel the same way because he sashayed right up the front sidewalk and sat on the porch. Then he looked back at me again as if to say,
“Well? Come on!”
“Wait a minute,” I told him. “Let’s just be sure this is, uh, Grandma’s house.”
A glance at the mailbox at the end of the sidewalk convinced me, however. It was clearly marked as #1 Crooked Lane. Apparently this was the house I’d inherited.
I walked up the sidewalk and as I did, I had the strongest feeling of déjà vu I’d ever experienced in my life. People talk about remembering past life experiences—that was what it felt like. I could almost see my younger self running around the front lawn—jumping into piles of leaves in Fall…stomping in puddles during Summer…building a snowman in the Winter…picking flowers in the Spring… So many memories popping around my head like flashbulbs going off. It was hard to keep track of them all.
There was no doubt about it—I knew this house. The question was—did it know me?
“Well, only one way to find out,” I told Sebastian.
I walked up to the front door, which was painted a dark green that somehow worked with the periwinkle blue clapboard and the white siding. I looked for a keyhole at first, since I still had the heavy iron key in one hand. But I couldn’t find anyplace to put it.
At last, I gave up and just put my hand on the outside of the door. Was it my imagination or did it vibrate slightly at my touch? I tried the knob, but it wouldn’t open—it wouldn’t even turn. How was I supposed to get in?
“Talk to him.”
The voice was faint—a barely-there whisper in my ear. It might have been another Autumn breeze but somehow I didn’t think it was.
“What?” I looked around, wondering what was going on.
“Introduce yourself,” the tiny voice suggested.
Was I going crazy? Imagining things? Or had I been wrong before and I really was dreaming?
Whichever it was, I decided there was no harm in following the voice’s suggestion. After all, what did I have to lose?
“Er, hello, uh Morris?” I said, feeling silly to be addressing a house like it was a person. “I’m Sarah—the granddaughter of Elvira? I have her will right here,” I added, waving the crumpled document, which I was still hanging onto. “It says I, er, own you now.”