The Secret of Closings

CHAPTER ONE

 Parsons Running, April 1802

The fire ravaged the ballroom. The castle was going up in flames and not a thing could be done to stop it. All the servants could do was stand and stare in stunned silence as the yellow glare of the escalating flames lit up their faces. The flames continued raging until the fire was contained, leaving the entire western wing engulfed with the smoke billowing out. The ballroom remained a saturated, ebony shell with woodwork all brittle and flaked. Family secrets and memories were buried along with it. A heritage was destroyed forever. 

Bodies were taken out on stretchers. Footsteps of a forlorn lady echoed throughout the hall. Her loud sobs reverberated down the stairs. A figure dressed in black sat on the floor, her body rocking from side to side as she cradled her face in her hands. 

Silence, eerie silence followed as the desolation set in. 

Then the blackness came along with the thick, dense fog of nightfall and the castle loomed Gothic in its stillness.

As the years passed, the estate became rough and overgrown, returning to a chaotic, natural state. The wind gently swayed the tall grasses in abandoned gardens. Wild bushes made a claim on every vestige of land left over to them. Parsons Running, once a pleasant, quiet village, home to friendly people, was now a mere distant memory of better times. 

The mist hung over them too.