a good man is hard to find.
In one of Boston's older and reasonably middle-to-upper class neighborhoods, there is a house.
This house is inhabited more by memories and ideas that never really were - but have only crystallized with time - than it is by people.
The man who lives here is not a ghost, but he has lived like one in the past. He sees himself as a lighthouse keeper, a watchmaker marking time - not like those religious fanatics who hang out on rooftops waiting for the rapture coming any day now, but draw that image and it will be a mirror, too.
In this house, there is a small bright kitchen overlooking a backyard meant to be full of the noises of children; their play imitating the unmagnificent lives of adults and their own secret worlds, deeper and more rich than simply When I Grow Up. The grass is neat except where it has been recently trampled, a laughing scattered path marked from a night when it rained. The prints suggest adults rather than children, but richer secret worlds - well, who is to say those don't exist in the eye of a storm?
This house contains a set of stairs.
At the top of the stairs there is a door which is always locked. This is where the real ghosts live, or did once; the ghost of memory, or the ghost of how all happy families are alike. Once a man slept here; now his son is always watching the sky, ticking off days on the calendar and never disturbing the dust on the steps of the mausoleum he's built out of his love and his guilt and all the things that keep him here.
In this room stands a perfectly ordinary cabinet. There is a place for a small key at about chest level on a person of average height, and a key does exist, a tiny ornate bit of brass on a chain. It belonged to Henry's mother, and it has never been locked, because it has been empty since she died.
Until now, that is.
Now the little key is swimming on a brass ring with what looks like a thousand others, markedly smaller and lovelier than the rest. But then, for the secret it's hiding, maybe it should be. No one would ever look to such a pretty little key to be the guardian of the atrocities it is hiding, or at least - hiding the record of.
The inside of the cabinet is a mausoleum of its own, see, a shrine or a memory wall or just obsessive horrified cataloging, the inside of both doors covered in neat sheets of newsprint, arranged meticulously so that not an inch of cherry red wood shows underneath.
"blows delivered to the head and chest" Basingstoke investigation unveils corruption
"brutality"
"violent nature of the crimes"
Charitable clergyman found committed repeated sexual assault
"trauma to face and neck"
"blunt instrument repeatedly struck"
New Hope Rehab facility seeks new leader; offers not forthcoming
"excessive use of force"
Additional Victims Come Forward in Basingstoke Case
"sternum completely shattered"
High Society Targeted Again in Second and Third Murders
"ligature marks"
"deep bruising"
"excessive"Beaconsfield Killing "Calcuated Crime of Passion"
"robbery possible motive"
Globe Accused of "Gory Sensationalism" Re: Graphic Depiction of Strangulation
inhuman
violent
violent
violent
When the cabinet is opened a flutter of motion may catch the eye, or the small unobtrusive noise of the scrape of some small round thing against the walls of paper - there is a string of pearls hung there above therelentless litany of carnage. Its luster and careful polish would make it a terrible incongruity in such a place, were it not for the bloodstains.
There are always bloodstains. Everything leaves a mark; whether it's visible is immaterial.
In one of the oldest neighborhoods in Boston, one of the good neighborhoods -
Someone has a secret.
This house is inhabited more by memories and ideas that never really were - but have only crystallized with time - than it is by people.
The man who lives here is not a ghost, but he has lived like one in the past. He sees himself as a lighthouse keeper, a watchmaker marking time - not like those religious fanatics who hang out on rooftops waiting for the rapture coming any day now, but draw that image and it will be a mirror, too.
In this house, there is a small bright kitchen overlooking a backyard meant to be full of the noises of children; their play imitating the unmagnificent lives of adults and their own secret worlds, deeper and more rich than simply When I Grow Up. The grass is neat except where it has been recently trampled, a laughing scattered path marked from a night when it rained. The prints suggest adults rather than children, but richer secret worlds - well, who is to say those don't exist in the eye of a storm?
This house contains a set of stairs.
At the top of the stairs there is a door which is always locked. This is where the real ghosts live, or did once; the ghost of memory, or the ghost of how all happy families are alike. Once a man slept here; now his son is always watching the sky, ticking off days on the calendar and never disturbing the dust on the steps of the mausoleum he's built out of his love and his guilt and all the things that keep him here.
In this room stands a perfectly ordinary cabinet. There is a place for a small key at about chest level on a person of average height, and a key does exist, a tiny ornate bit of brass on a chain. It belonged to Henry's mother, and it has never been locked, because it has been empty since she died.
Until now, that is.
Now the little key is swimming on a brass ring with what looks like a thousand others, markedly smaller and lovelier than the rest. But then, for the secret it's hiding, maybe it should be. No one would ever look to such a pretty little key to be the guardian of the atrocities it is hiding, or at least - hiding the record of.
The inside of the cabinet is a mausoleum of its own, see, a shrine or a memory wall or just obsessive horrified cataloging, the inside of both doors covered in neat sheets of newsprint, arranged meticulously so that not an inch of cherry red wood shows underneath.
"blows delivered to the head and chest" Basingstoke investigation unveils corruption
"brutality"
"violent nature of the crimes"
Charitable clergyman found committed repeated sexual assault
"trauma to face and neck"
"blunt instrument repeatedly struck"
New Hope Rehab facility seeks new leader; offers not forthcoming
"excessive use of force"
Additional Victims Come Forward in Basingstoke Case
"sternum completely shattered"
High Society Targeted Again in Second and Third Murders
"ligature marks"
"deep bruising"
"excessive"Beaconsfield Killing "Calcuated Crime of Passion"
"robbery possible motive"
Globe Accused of "Gory Sensationalism" Re: Graphic Depiction of Strangulation
inhuman
violent
violent
violent
When the cabinet is opened a flutter of motion may catch the eye, or the small unobtrusive noise of the scrape of some small round thing against the walls of paper - there is a string of pearls hung there above therelentless litany of carnage. Its luster and careful polish would make it a terrible incongruity in such a place, were it not for the bloodstains.
There are always bloodstains. Everything leaves a mark; whether it's visible is immaterial.
In one of the oldest neighborhoods in Boston, one of the good neighborhoods -
Someone has a secret.