V.I.T.R.I.O.L. Part Two

 V.I.T.R.I.O.L. 

Part 2/7

Crunch, crunch went the gravel as I pulled into the driveway of my familial homestead. I quietly got out of my car and beheld one of the few luxurious complete isolation afforded, a sky littered in stars to the point of excess.  Their light cascaded over the rocky cliffs and onto the little white house, giving it an ethereal glow. Although I knew better… This scene was an ominous one.  My eyes wandered up to the tiny window on the tippy top floor, and I felt that familiar chill zap down my spine. 

The remote town of Silver Falls boasted a population of 700. Every member of the community could trace their lineage back to the first families who set up camp here and never left. The founders intended to settle in the city about one hundred miles southwest of this place, but the initial journey proved too perilous. After enduring all the cruelties associated with pioneering difficult terrain, they decided Silver Falls was ‘good enough’. My ancestors were cowards and quitters. I sighed into the night sky… I guess I did belong in this place after all. 

With defeat hanging heavy on my heart, I skulked into the old house. I tried my best not to wake my aunt as I slipped off the vintage steel toed hiking boots that were once my grandmother’s. I let my bag gently touch the ground as I untied their bright yellow laces. I heard a creak on the stairway, but I knew that was not my aunt. I focused harder on untying the knot until I no longer felt eyes upon me.  As the lace loosened, so did the presence. 

I walked up the old stairs, all the way up to the tippy top floor. I leered at the ornate skeleton key placed inside the locking mechanism of the five paneled wooden door, my bedroom door. I twisted the key making the door squeak as it opened. There it was. My brass framed bed, my sloped ceilings, my tiny window. And the thing that was never mine. The black mirror with the heavily gilded frame which hung from my bedroom wall. 

The mirror had been my mother’s. It was one of the few mementos I had to remember her. I always felt a twinge of guilt because it gave me the creeps, and I feared I had nothing in common with a woman I couldn’t recall but was meant to feel a connection to. She died in the first week of my life due to unknown circumstances. Or at least, unknown to me. Also unknown was the identity of my father, a secret which died with her. My aunt described her with an Emily Bronte quote, ‘She was a wild, wicked slip of a girl. She burned too brightly for this world.’ My demure aunt always said this with envious admiration, so I didn’t have the heart to point out the cruelty of the literary fact that Catherine died giving birth… which hit a bit too close to home. 

I went to grab the pillowcase I usually used to cover the black mirror. But my late night departure had me in a rare form. Tonight, I took no issue with sullying the memory of the dead. And so, I placed my fingers along the gilded frame and slid the mirror off of the wall. As I went to set it down I noticed a neatly folded piece of paper attached to its backing. 

My exhaustion and defeatism was immediately replaced with curiosity upon this discovery. I put the mirror face down on my nightstand and carefully pulled the paper from its backing. I unfolded the paper, written on it in nearly perfect calligraphy was;

Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem.  

As I set the piece of paper on the nightstand I noticed it had a companion. On the back of the frame was also another skeleton key, just as black and heavily gilded as the mirror itself. Then… I heard stairs in the hallway creak, the presence had returned…

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