At the Threshold
The old place had history, rustic, charming in the way old houses can look, even when run down. Hell, he ought to know, he’d been running down this street himself for years. But today it blinked at him, and he slowed down his pace to take a closer look. The windows looked sideways back, questioning his motives. But he didn’t know them himself. The house just spoke to him today, and it never had before. What the hell was it that grabbed him, just the dappled light through an even older elm tree on the glass, or something else?
He wandered over to the rickety picket fence, palings in disarray, like mad dancers dangling in ecstatic abandonment in the breeze. The gate was unhinged, cast aside on the rampant weeds that were once the front lawn. Stopping briefly, he examined the place again. Once more he sensed a reciprocal attention, a woody intelligence that had waited a long time for this day. Why today? What was special about today, and what exactly did this house want to tell him?
As far as he knew nobody had lived here for years. Some kid used to come and cut the grass, but maybe the money ran out. Whatever the case, it was suffering from neglect. But not now, not this day. He knocked on the door…