Girls Running From Houses

The house was somewhere else before this.

In the chapel, the girl whistles an idle tune. Even so, yew trees drift over the black water of the stagnant pond.

She is sick of it all.

She arrives at the house on the trail of the mistress of the house, who ruined her stepbrother. But she meets the Count, who might be a fox in the henhouse.

They venerate the fact that she is incautious. But they do not intuit that, before she departs the house, she will reel along these halls, carrying a torch.

She discovers that the house has been beset by tree shadows. But in addition, there is a myth of a bloody wild man, who passes through locked doors and who is sometimes overheard speaking to the children.

The first mistake the girl makes is to love. The second is not to be poised to flee.

The girl is a baker. She is inelegant. All she wants is a little affection.

If they could make a girl out of solid stone, she would be amenable.

In summer, the girl is escaping the house.

The house is symbolic of the country. It resembles a chess board.

Mortality belches sulfur in the cemetery.

She soon learns that the house teems with pens.

The house is sullen. The Count is sarcastic. All the girl wants is a good meal.

She flees, pursued by time.

Sweet reader, the girl did take time to consider.

The house is constructed beyond a sacred well. It is contaminated by dolls. The girl arrives on a wild and windy day.

Those in the house prophesy her fate. But they will not know that — before she flees —the girl will bind them in these stones forever.

When she is removed from the house, she will wear someone else's clothes, and the guilt of ancient sins.

The house (from which fumes waft) is built with stucco.

The house, like the girl, is counting down.

The house contracts and expands, as if breathing. The foyer is counting down.

The house is mysterious. It is threatened with redevelopment.

Not without reason, she is like all the girls before her.

The governess. The spy. The governess. One of these is a murderer.

The house, like the girl, is tiger-quiet.

In the bookshelves in the guest bedroom, she finds a surprisingly new pamphlet. It is tied with string.

The house is worm-blooded. It is threatened by high seas.

The Countess reeks unmistakeably of the grave.

The one thing the girl must accomplish to escape the house is not to love.