The Old Eldridge Manor

An exercise on creative writing, written 5.28.2024

There was something quite peculiar about the old Eldridge Manor that sat atop the hill. Passerbys often reported feeling watched, as though being spied on from the looming brick parapets that lingered high above the earth, observing from the heavens.

The mansion had dwelled there for centuries, being built once upon a time by the great and rather peculiar old coot, Blunder Eldridge who resided there many years before his sudden disappearance. No one dared to inhabit the manor since his vacancy; not even the songbirds of spring, who instead built their nests in the ground willows encircling the decrepit expanse. No, the castle stood lone, touched only by falling rain and the stretch of moss, growing on its northern borders.

Luminous as it was, Eldridge Manor remained the talk of the town, at the forefront of most people’s minds as they enshrouded it in stories of folklore and mystery. No one really could be sure, after all, if their tales were true or that of fiction; for while the castle’s walls held profound history yearning to be told, the stone could not speak. And so it captivated the minds of all who laid eyes upon it, a subtle reverence chilling to the bone. Every now and again a group of teenagers or gusty neanderthals would approach its tall oak double doors in the vein attempt to impress a mate or to act upon the limitless vigor of the young, but even the bravest never dared to actually try and enter the unknown chambers within.

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Shadows danced in halls illuminated by pale moonlight that crept through rotted wood plank window panes one particular night as Dee observed from afar. She took a sip out of her stainless-steel Thermos almost burning her tongue as piping-hot Earl Grey tea gently met her lips, her mind prioritized instead on the spectacle resolutely displayed through her pocket binoculars.

Ever since she had arrived in Bloomsville, she had been intrigued by the majestic stone manor sitting at the point of the large hill overlooking the rest of the — otherwise forgettable — town. Had she not been assigned here on a lucrative business prospect, perhaps she may have dared a visit to the ghostly place.

But for now, spying from afar would have to do. She sighed deeply as she cast shut the shutters and extinguished the oil lamp on her bedside table. Perhaps another day, or even a different life I will gaze upon the mysteries held within. Her mind raced as she lay, consumed only by the mansion. Why it was so intriguing she could not say, but as though catching a virus, it had contaminated her mind like the others, and now she could not help but let the intrigue dominate her dreams as she drifted off to sleep.