The Hounds' Gate

by awilla the hun

For some days, a good friend of mine has left me a house. She has not told me where she has gone. There is absolultely nothing wrong with it. There are absolutely no hounds at Hounds Gate. There is absolutely no magic in this world.

1. Chapter 1

There is, in a city not unlike your own, a place called Hound's Gate.

It is near a castle, where men once laughed and fought and hanged.

It is of red brick, and black window frames, giving it the appearance of a diseased mouth. People work there in front of computers, ostensibly for a respectable estate agent.

There is nothing unusual there.

The wind has never whistled through it like a God whispering to himself.

The manholes have never rattled and lept as traffic growls and snarls past-just a whisker's width, but still perceptibly, audibly, wrongly, for anyone of vision.

A girl, who lived close by for a time, did not disappear.

It does not have deep roots, roots of unimaginable depth and age.

I know nothing about it….