Girls Running From Houses

The house is inquisitive.

The closest relative she has is her secret champion.

If appearances are correct, she is venomous.

The fate of the house turns on the collaboration between the girl and the heir.

The girl cannot leave the house because she has not yet expiated her sins.

At the instant the girl departs the house, the ancient line of ravens will die.

The girl mutters curses.

In the ballroom, the girl makes her plans, and then she outwits the house and flees, as foretold.

The girl is a poet. She is incorrigible. All she wants is justification.

At midwinter, the girl is escaping the house. Yet the house dances slowly, in the manner of architecture.

In the kitchen, the girl loses her temper.

The house longs to understand whether the girl is false.

The house is not alone; it serves the lord of the manor.

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

When she is much older, the girl will think of the false bride, who was her family, or the closest thing she has to it.

The lady of the manor smells distinctly of ordure.

Constant reader, prepare yourself: there is every chance the girl will not pause to consider.

Intrepid reader, even as you comfort yourself that reason must prevail, you discover a water stain spreading on the ceiling, and in it an image of yourself, approaching a house.

The house will survive because of hubris. Its memory will echo from hard-angled corners of the world. And it will wreak vengeance.

When she is evicted from the house, she will wear a brocade dressing gown.

The house is surrounded on all sides by pathless wastes.

Twisted trees gesture on the ceiling of the sunroom.

Soon after the girl outwits her enemies and escapes, its memory will not outlast it.

The house was constructed in a canyon.

The house will stand despite neglect. Its gift will linger. And the riders will set out.

Reader, even as you dismiss these words as no more than a dream, you dream that you yourself are a girl, leaf-minded, approaching a magnificent villa.

The house, like the investigator, is counting down.

Gentle reader, even as you shake off these shadows, you wake, and realise you are the girl, wearing a mantle she did not wish to assume, and escaping a house in autumn.

She is innocent.

By starlight, the girl is running from the house. Still, the house alters subtly, whenever you glance away.