Songbird
A (Potential) Novel by Eileen Kelly
Elijah Wright’s Childhood Home
You’re on your way to visit a friend in The Neighborhoods when you decide to take a bit of a detour: the sun is out, you’re running a few minutes early, and you turn left down South Lynn Street instead of heading straight up the hill to the houses ahead. You have to admit that this isn’t an area of the island you frequent--the houses here are mostly inhabited by older couples, and only a few families have school-aged children. The houses themselves are older, too, and quirky in a way that new constructions on the island aren’t, with colorful painted porches that add charm even when the paint’s peeling a bit. One house even has a turret, and you’re suddenly jealous of the child that had the good fortune to grow up in the little circular room inside of it.
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The sun peeks through the leaves above and dapples the sidewalk with moving spots of honey-colored light. One particular house near the
middle of the street catches your eye, it looks less well-cared-for than all the rest, with an overgrown lawn interrupted with flowering weeds. The living room window has no curtains, and if you peered inside you’d see an emptiness that suggests that the house has likely been in its current state for some time--a fine layer of dust coats the home’s wooden floorboards, particles dancing in the mid-afternoon glow on the other side of the glass.
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Pretend for a moment that you decide that you are feeling a bit more curious than usual, and that your visit with your friend can wait just a few more minutes, and you make your way carefully across the porch to the front door, which--much to your surprise--you would find unlocked. You look behind you, but the street is empty, and you decide to step through the doorway. You might feel the need to be cautious as you walk across the floors, but you have nothing to worry about--the home was constructed with care and attention, and if it is not made to do otherwise, would likely stand just as it does today for hundreds of years to come. If you came with this knowledge in mind, you might feel brave enough to venture to the upstairs, where you’d find three bedrooms. The center room is the smallest, but it has a peaked ceiling that reaches to the house’s rafters, and a dormer at the far side of the room holds a window seat bordered by wooden bookshelves on each side. Pinholes dot the plaster walls if you look closely enough to see them, the ghosts of pictures and papers that once decorated them.