𝖎𝖛𝖔𝖗𝖞;
The haunting overture danced along the ashy hallways of the crumbling home. Each note seemed to push at locked doors, peek behind blackened curtains and pry beneath charred floorboards, begging the torched abode to give up it's sordid secrets.
The Winthrope Family had owned the land for decades. An expanse of lush, green earth surrounded an almighty, 17th century mansion. Inside heavy doors lay vast rooms, all gilded edges and Persian tiles, expensive rugs and silk curtains.
That was before the entire legacy was burnt to the ground.
Mr. Winthrope's shadow remained in the home. Scorched into the wall, a black silhouette against curling wallpaper, the abrasive man refused to depart. Forevermore, he'd stay, arms crossed in inky defiance, glaring a coal gaze into the razed rooms of his precious building. Mrs Winthrope remained in the dust and bones scattered across the living room floor. Likewise, the Winthrope children, all four, existed only in the carbon pressed into their bedsheets, each one captured in an eternal, cremated slumber.
Still, echoing notes whispered through Winthrope Mansion's splintered doorways. A soft, melancholic tune played on keys long since forgotten, a grand piano stood at the centre of the entryway. Inexplicably untouched by flame, white marble and inlaid gold surrounded a maw of ivory teeth and pitch black sharps. An empty stool, white marble with gold feet to match, sat adjacent to the imposing instrument. Quite a sight, although long since abandoned in the decaying, burnt out mansion.
But despite it's solitude, black and white keys sunk into the mouth of the marbled beast. The source of the morbid tune dancing between charred rooms, the lonesome piano played an indelible lament of the lost Winthropes. Each tragic note trickled betwixt the locked, heavy doors, spilling into the blackened earth surrounding the home. The entire breadth of land, held not only the life and bones of the deceased family, but an unfathomable, infinite elegy.
Originally written and shared as part of Verbuary 2020: https://tinyurl.com/mu5j5y9n