Chapter 2: R e m e m b e r
Klaus sighed. All those years of trying to forget...
And now he had to remember.
He stood shivering in the dark, wintry air, partly from the cold, and partly from the fear of what he was going to do.
Before Klaus stood the ruins of a building. There was not much left of it. The wood had dissolved away over the past decade, and now all that was left were a few random objects that hadn't perished. Several doorframes were still standing erect, the ones that hadn't been constructed from a flammable material. The front steps were still there, but it was crumbling into a small waterfall of rocks and pebbles. The foundation was still holding up, but weeds and other assorted plants had grown around and in between the bricks and cracks in the cement. Pure snow blanketed pretty much everything though, and you never would have guessed that the local children were convinced that the site was haunted. And you probably never would have guessed that the place was one a stately mansion, a home to a family that seemed to have the perfect life. But somehow it all went wrong.
And it was all because of fire.
Klaus hesitantly approached the front stairs. After staring at them for a long time, he took one step forward. Snow crunched underneath his foot. Klaus took another step. And another. He then found the tips of his boots almost touching the bottom stair.
Klaus shut his eyes and took the last strides between him and the doorway. He didn't open them. The memories were returning.
"Goodness, you three are soaking wet! Didn't we tell you to come back inside if it started raining?"
His parents were standing in front of the charred brass doorframe. Only then it didn't look so burnt. Klaus's older sister, Violet, was standing in front of him, and he could feel little Sunny sitting in his arms, fiddling with his glasses. He could see them all, as clear as day, or as clear as superstitious children thought they could see the ghosts. They were all there. A family.
As long as he kept his eyes closed.
Klaus took another step forward and found himself entering a grand room, the parlor, where they used to welcome guests at dinner parties and hang up their coats. And then the room was suddenly bustling with people, talking and laughing, all of them dressed in their finest clothes. One of the dinner parties, of course.
And suddenly everyone disappeared, but Klaus kept walking.
A familiar feeling came over him. A feeling of safety and familiarity, a feeling that covered him with security and comfort, a feeling he knew well.
Klaus was entering the library.
He outstretched his arm. His hand made contact with the smooth surface of the iron archway that served as the entrance to his favorite room. Something else was coming back to him. Unfolding before him was a scene torn from his childhood. Around him were his parents, and Violet.
"Wow, Klaus, it looks like you've grown a couple inches since we last measured you!"
"And see? He's an inch taller than Violet was when she was his age."
"I'm still taller than you now though, Klaus."
"Well, you just wait a few more years, he's going to be shooting up like a rocket not too long from now."
The wall next to the doorframe. It had been their measuring chart. As time went by, small lines and names started to crowd into each other, marking the years and the memories.
Klaus walked farther into the library. He pictured himself next to the rows and rows of bookcases that housed the books he had probably spent years of his life reading. He could remember how he and his sister would take turns pushing each other on the bookshelf ladder, the one with wheels on the bottom so you could move from one end of the bookcase to the other while being able to reach the books on the top shelf. One of them would run as fast as they could while pushing the ladder as the other held on for dear life. Klaus could hear their laughter.
He opened his eyes. No, there was still no one there. The library was gone. Violet was gone. Everyone was.
Klaus turned around and once again surveyed the ruins. The iron doorway was behind him. He turned around and walked back through it, back towards the entrance.
Klaus kept his eyes open. He didn't want to see what he knew he'd remember next. He only heard the voices.
"Hey kids, why don't you go to the beach today?"
"Alright," Violet had said. "When should we be back?"
There was a pause. A pause Klaus hadn't noticed before.
"You kids just have fun now. The trolley will be leaving soon, so hurry up and catch it!"
Klaus slowly stepped down the front stairs, fitting each foot almost exactly into his old footprints in the snow. Something occurred to him. He stopped walking.
No "Be back before dark!" or "Come back when the streetlights turn on," or even a "Head home before dinner!"
They knew. Somehow they had known.
But how? Why didn't the save themselves? Why didn't they use the trapdoor under the rug? How come they weren't still alive?
Klaus broke into a brisk walk. He had to get back to his apartment, and then he could write. Words were building up in his mind, words that would soon spill out onto to typewriter paper, and become sentences. Sentences would become paragraphs, paragraphs would become chapters, and, by the time the journey that takes place over the course of this story ends, the chapters would form a book.
It started here, at the ruins of his home. And with all the years that had suddenly come back to him here...
Klaus wondered what he'd remember when he went to the beach the next day.