The House

This photo shows the house as I inherited it, mice and all. I haven't changed a thing, except to recharge the spells that Edgar had around the place and become friends with the familiar that keeps watch over it.

Yes, I'm familiar with the occult arts.

I had to learn rather quickly, what with everything that occurred after Edgar's death. But I'll get to that later - I'm not much of a paranormal expert nor a writer it seems, with all the rambling I tend to do.

So there's the house. Not terribly big on the outside, but it's even smaller on the inside. There's junk from the 1800's stacked in the cellar, junk from the 1900's piled in the attic, and a few modern conveniences on the main floor. You can't tell from this photo, but there's a steep gorge behind the house that drops about 50' or so to a swift, stony stream and the house kinda steps down the gorge in 4 labyrinthine levels.

I have memories of that house from my youth; summer visits as a young lad when Uncle Edgar was home, and when I was older and in college I would visit whenever I could. It was always musty, dusty and in a state of perpetual disarray. Edgar had built it himself one summer when he was a young man in his twenties. I know he had help building it, but it's still quite a thing to envision, building a house with your own two hands and no electric contraptions involved.

There's only a few acres left around the house now. It was once much larger, but was sold off to the local mill. Well, it was actually leased out for 99 years, but I'm not going to be around in 2086 so it might as well have been sold.

A bit of History

A bit of history.

I'm new to the whole paranormal business and still quite skeptical about many things. Until very recently I lived my life without a care for the shadows or odd events. I was firmly rooted in the present, looking forward to my normal everyday activities with no more ambition than to plod along at my employment, retire and eventually, die.

All that changed when my uncle Edgar finally passed away at the unheard-of age of 111 years. I say unheard of because most of the men in my family tend to either die early from adventuresome accidents or sometime shortly after they pass their 80th birthday. It's possible that he might even be alive today if he hadn't wandered away from his house while the nurse was napping. Well, maybe not, as he'd be well over 121 years old and even though he was (mostly) sound of mind and body when he wandered off, he was showing signs of dementia and slipped into those old memories of his more and more often. I was there the day they discovered his remains, not more than a mile from the house. I'm surprised we didn't find him sooner, because we searched the entire area for three days with dogs and dozens of volunteers. The woods were not that dense... But I digress.

Uncle Edgar was different than most of my other relatives. He was an adventurer, an explorer, an active man with a taste for the exotic. See the young lad sitting on the bottom left of the photo? The one with the strange eyes? That's Great Uncle Edgar circa 1900.
Edgar's house was filled with the unusual - a ratty lion's head trophy that he shot on safari in Africa in 1912. Huge wooden masks and spears from tribes lost to civilization. Books and flowers and smells that would tickle your nose and make you sneeze violently. And dust. Gods, I don't believe the man ever dusted.

So when everything was said and done, the funeral was over and the will read, I was given the house and contents because "Edward is the the only one of you damn fools that would ever visit when he didn't need money."
So I inherited the house and all of it's contents and a small sum of money in a savings account. Mr. Farmer, the executor of the estate, also gave me a sealed envelope which bore instructions to open and read when I was alone.

Edgar was a strange old man.