I was trying to come up with some kind of excuse to not get dragged into the fray of the moving in family, but rather casually, Raven just stepped over to beside me, resting a hand on my back as she walked me towards the house. As she walked me up the rest of the driveway, the mansion seemed to keep getting taller and stretching out thinner as it rose, that monolith of Victorian gothic architecture, towers marked the build of the house with heights ranging from below the roofline to far above, the same dark materials that made up their walls with slightly curved windows matching the stone of their build, the same tar shingle roofs and turrets stretched needle like at their peaks, gargoyles and things now adorning the edges of the roof as they perched in strange and unnatural shapes, angles and amalgamations of various animal parts. Dark vines of ivy with spots of various flowers adorning sections where the vines had space for purchase, wrapping and twisting around window frames, spilling over the edges of window boxes and twisting and snaking around the pillars: morning glory flowers in white and purple tones, the dark red-purple-pink of clematis making these arches across the tops of the windows as they sprawled over the awnings set atop them, the soft and perfume like scent of jasmine filled my nose as the clusters of white flowers twisted up the fluted dark stone and wood pillars flanking doorways, curtains of vibrant purple, white and lilac cascades of wisteria as it clambered over arbors, pergolas and porches, the blood red color of other flowers like mandevilla and cypress vines making the home look far…far more vibrant, but the majority of the house was covered in washes of sprawling climbing rose vines in black, red and white.
The driveway was now lined in large cases and planters of sculpted topiary bushes and other flowering vines, planted trees between the planters softly wrapped around iron arches marking the driveway along the points so they could grow and twist and intertwine above the pavers, statues of all sorts of people and creatures adorned the grounds, matched by the topiary and all of the stone of those statues and planters was a stark, icy white marble thickly veined in black, grays and flecked with gold. Iron and bronze toned glass lanterns were studded into the sod looping around the planter bases the trees were rooting into, similar ones set into the basins of the various vase like planters and matching areas with strings of lights, dull and dim already twisted and wrapped about the plants set there.
“Something wrong?” Raven asked making me flinch a little at how…absorbed by the grounds I felt.
“Just…strange seeing the house like this, I’m so used to seeing it just…looking terrible; the gardens overgrown, windows all broken out and all of that kind of shit” I said as I motioned behind me towards the house. She smiled softly as she softly gripped my shoulder before sighing.
“My father is an avid gardener, he loves flowers and things, so…he insisted that the flowers get planted before the construction began to give them time to start growing a little before we got here.” She said as she kept leading me towards the house, not forceful, but it was obvious she didn’t want to further anger her Auntie, so I turned back on my feet and walked alongside past the long ovate fountain in front of the front landing, lined in matching black, gray and gold tiles and a marble statue of a dragon set in its center with the water pluming from its toothy jaw.
The home was a long building with these weird angles, projections and dips in its structure as it covered the hilltop, this wide projection set in the center of the front where I walked alongside her. An arch of the stone wrapped in sprouting vines as they crawled up the trellis further towards the balcony above, just past the arch was a little step up to the front landing where a double door set of these very tall, but oddly thin doors of black wood sat, adorned with gold along the filigree along the edges of the door and large crystal knobs, the windows around the door were vivid colorful, stained glass depicting a large red rose flaking the arch of the door, that first arch was covered by a red glass dome that met the edge of the balcony which was set right over the door, full walls to either side of the front landing as a few plants and things adorned the are and a large hanging rope for the doorbell. She just pushed on the door as it swept open in a long, slow, smooth motion as it swept along the floor.
Loud tango music filled my ears as she walked me ahead, as I could hear people talking and moving about. Inside was warm, bright and…for someone like me, who has never felt at home in my actual home, this place made me feel…so comfortable and warm and just…at home here. Closer, I could see that the dark stone and brick made up the bottom two floors, but the dark siding covered the upper two, the windows all arched up to a sharp point in ornate frames, the left side of the home twisted along the hill before sharply turning 90 degrees, the curve itself and the end of the projection adorned in wide towers with tall turrets, the right side curved along the hill before an angled projection went along the side of the driveway where that red muscle car sat adorned with a few more towers, behind the main body of the house was a projection of half a circle rising to the third floor of the house with the very bottom floor of the house, set lower where the pool and patio were, looped in wide archways that rose up to the actual third floor of the house, beside that circular one, along the projection that turned sharply was this large built in greenhouse and similar things like that, but central to the main building, where the front door was and that balcony was, rose to a fifth floor above where a large clock face stood. The balcony being nothing more than just large archways with the rest of the tower rising above it.
It’s an opulent foyer, open to the fifth floor ceiling above telling me that that balcony was a false one, the flooring this pristine icy silvery gray marble flecked with mirror and veins in black, dark wood along the bottom half of the walls and smooth, pale white smooth plaster along the upper half, thin stone and wood pillars marked all the corners and framed every doorway and archway, two grand staircases in iron and wood swept in a mirrored curve from the second floor at the back of the foyer as they flanked a double wide archway below the landing of the second floor, but the house branched off in both directions from the foyer too, those corridors lined in wide dark purple and black rugs patterned with gold filigree and white roses. Art covered the walls in these pristine and ornate frames of dark woods, materials and other painted materials matching the look of the home, tapestries were set rolling down the walls with obvious age to their make, huge windows filling the home with sunlight, suits of armor in steel or even burnished bronze or brass were in mirrored pairs along the halls and rooms. Everywhere you looked was just…it was obvious they loved their finer things, but there was honest and true care for the home in how everything was being placed, set and how the house was absolutely spotless of dust or anything of that sort.
“We have a guest!” Raven called out into the house.
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