blodeuedd

Not a frequent thing, by any means.

I was with a girl around my age (maybe A-L? I'm not sure) and we were visiting a town in which were many antique shops and artists' boutiques. It was a quiet afternoon in early summer and there weren't very many people out on the streets; we were taking our time, strolling down the tree-lined main street, looking into shop windows. Near the place where we were supposed to meet our ride, we looked into a store that was in an old house and had huge front windows, one on either side of the windowed door. There were paintings on display, a few late Impressionist works but mostly what I took to be 18th century portraits. The clothing and hairstyles were of that period, but the style of painting wasn't, it was more like a cross between Rembrandt and Renoir. Inside, on the left, seated facing the street, a woman was at a drafting table, working on what I assumed was a painting. She was wearing a shawl over a long gown and her hair was white and piled on top of her head. In fact, she looked like she had just stepped out of one of the old portraits.

The door of the shop seemed to be locked but we didn't have much time left and were really curious to see inside. Another person had joined us and we came right up to the glass, looking inside and trying to catch the woman's attention by just standing there and shifting around, being very casual about it, the way people are when they want something but don't want to seem as though they have to bother someone to get it. I was looking closely at the woman, trying to determine her age. I couldn't tell how old she was, but she was quite lovely. Once or twice she glanced sideways at me and I would automatically pretend I was looking elsewhere. Finally, she made a motion for us to come in.

Inside, I was with two children, a boy and a girl, both about eight or nine years old. It turned out that the woman had much more than paintings; there were all sorts of antiques. It also turned out that we weren't in a shop at all, but in a gigantic castle in the countryside. If you've been to Versailles, this would dwarf it, and the outside looked somewhat like the Russian Summer Palace.

For some reason, I thought the woman lived there all by herself and there did seem to be only her things strewn around. She didn't say anything as we wandered through the room, going up the staircase on the right (there were two of them, leading up to the second floor from the front shop-like room). Everywhere were piles and groups of antiques, placed on tables or on the floor, grouped by what they were.

At the top of the stairs, the hallway stretched both ways. The two children were still with me, jumping around excitedly but being quiet about it, so I let them be. We turned left. Just past the top of the other flight of stairs, where the corridor led on to other rooms, I noticed things that could only mean a man was also living there. For some reason, this was quite shocking to me, because I had believed the woman to be alone and the last of her line.

I called down to the lady and asked if there was a man in the house and she answered that there was. In fact, the man himself was in the next room and he said something to the effect that he was there in person, if I should care to see it for myself. I didn't. Deciding it was time we leave, I told the children to follow me. We took the left-hand stairs.

The stairs had a landing half-way down on which was a collection of large clear glass vases and a large quantity of beautiful old bronze lamps and light-fixtures. I took a moment to admire them, touching some of the lamps that had carefully wrought decorations, then continued down. The girl was still following me but the boy took his time, fascinated as he was by the vases.

Suddenly, it was as though I'd vanished. I think I had left the place, but for some reason I was still able to see what was going on inside. The man who'd been upstairs ran down, shouting at the woman that she had to be more careful, that the place was to be his and that he didn't want anyone else looking around. She replied that no harm had come of letting us in and that he'd have the place soon enough as it was. He replied that he was thankful none of us had touched his lamp.

During this, I was experiencing a growing sense of unease because the boy, lagging behind, had in fact run his hand over that particular lamp when he was running down the stairs to catch up with me. I knew that this would have a slew of repercussions, because at that very moment, someone was explaining to me exactly who the man was.

Normally, the huge property, which had much more on it than just the palace, was willed to one of the children. However, every few generations, when the line had all but died out and had no money left, a very rich man would show up and offer an enormous sum to buy the place. Left with no choice, the last surviving heir would sell it, on condition that the man would do all he could to find a relative of the family and will the property to him or her. The man in question was always the same man; he was in fact immortal, or as close as one could get, and his existence was tied to the property and to the lamp (though I think it was actually the metal of the lamp that was important, not the object itself), which is why he returned every hundred-odd years.

Unfortunately, I woke up and never found out what the boy had caused by touching the lamp.

I should write a story with this.