Prologue:
It was an old country home. Though most people seemed not to believe it at first. When you turn onto the road leading up to it, you find yourself climbing, winding, through old, bent trees shadowing the path. You can see the hills for miles when you look up, the big red tower at the top of the largest hill. And then, suddenly, there's a set of four mail boxes, and before you realize it, you've missed the turnoff. You have to turn around, and right there is that little street sign, a wooden slat, hanging off an old, nearly invisible post. You have to make a sharp turn into the narrow street, and you start driving down the old pavement. You see houses. Houses sitting, tucked into their neat little corners. This seems like a normal street, you say to yourself, I thought this was an old country home. And then you look up. You look up and you see this house. This big, paint-peeling house. It's right up there, on the hill. You keep driving and the pavement turns to gravel, crunching under the tires. There you are, driving up the street, which is now at a steep incline, and twisting through the trees. And when the incline stops, you expect to keep driving. But no. You stop. Because the house is right in front of you, the road melded into the driveway. The biggest house on the street, it is definitely a country home. You can see for miles from the hill. But there's no lead-up to it. It's overwhelming. It's magnificent. Then you get this fear. This deep, welling, fear that rises within you. And you don't want to be on the top of the hill looking down at the other houses. You want to be down there, looking up. But it's too late. You're already there.