In a small, sleepy town, there’s a hidden home that has seen both tragedy and miracles. Drive through the pastures and up into the mountains, where a veil of fog hugs the roads. In the liminal spaces of twilight, the curve of a road is only seen in the flashes of light from coming headlights on cars that wind carefully upward.

The home has only known one family. It was built long ago for the Bikerson family. There was a loving father Thomas, and his obedient wife, Annie. They had three young children running the grounds, with an exhausted but loving Nanny. The wrap around porch is worn where Annie once knit sweaters while rocking on her grandmother’s rocker. The smell of rising yeast bread once filled the kitchen with warmth. The youngest child would often convince the Nanny to give him the first taste, slathered in fresh churned butter with fresh picked blackberries and honey from the hives. He would sip raw goat’s milk, still warm from the pasture out back.

The fireplace bricks are now crumbling. If you pull the third one from the right, you’ll find the letters a wife kept from her husband, as he didn’t need to know who she loved before he entered her life. The charred one amongst the ashes still holds the imprint of surprise and pain, with a bit of burned gore.

The imperial staircase will lead you to the master suite on to the south facing side of the house. The north facing side leads to the children’s and Nanny’s rooms. She was preparing to leave for studies abroad and wanted experience before seeing the world. Thomas spent far more time in the north wing, than the south. The cooks and gardeners enjoyed the gossip as much as Annie tried to ignore it. There is too much darkness to uncover up those stairs. The spirits that reside won’t rest, knowing you would poke and prod through their pain. You must keep moving.

If you walk through the side door, you’ll find yourself in the greenhouse that leads to the indoor pool. Annie often spent her afternoons in the greenhouse with the gardener Joe and his wife Amber. They would talk about the history of the land and the herbs they were growing. Annie was curious, but cautious of anything that was more than gardening. Her religious upbringing told her to be wary of what she thought and did. Amber’s family was raised on the land, long before it was visibly touched by man.

The family never enjoyed the pool. It was beautifully crafted with tile. The glass room once had ivy crawling up the sides, with sunlight fully alighting the water below. The children saw things they would never speak of and Annie always felt it was too cold to enjoy the water. Thomas never gave it much thought, as he was often thinking of other ways to entertain himself.

Years of neglect gave way to trees and vines growing chaotically through the tiles, breaking up the mosaic images. The humid air hangs heavily, and smells of life and decay. Small spaces have become home to smaller creatures. There’s a solemn weight that sits heavily with the silence and chill of grief when you enter this space.

There’s a story hidden in the broken panes of glass that still filter light through the verdant canopy. The wind that whispers on the air will speak in riddles about the mysteries living in the walls of the old manor. She knew what she was doing but understood there was no one to stop her. All she held that night was her protection charm and a sense of duty, carried in the pulse of her veins.

The broken tiles beneath the dust shift and settle as if still being walked on by patrons and servants, now electricity and sound. The ghosts tell their stories, hoping someone will hear them. The crackle of unrest will reach the marrow of your bones, if you stop for too long.

The cottage around back smells of sage and dragon’s blood. To get there, step around the tangle of rosemary and over the bridge that spans above the meandering stream. It’s surrounded by Black Sea salt and hanging crystals. There’s three bells hanging on a black cord that chimes on the door knob. Even without a breeze, you’ll hear the chime before reaching the door. A bundle of devil’s shoelace sways gently, as if it carries an energy of its own. It’s tied with a leather cord and the soft wood sounds much like the dried bones tied with hag stones above the west facing window. The broom hanging upside down was meant to be that way. I wouldn’t touch it.

You may enter with a pure heart, to find it’s carefully kept with a soot covered hearth that bears the mark of fresh embers. The estate is long abandoned but the secrets stay hidden in the magic conjured in this space. Spice jars line the walls, while some lay cracked and broken on the stone floor. It provided food for some rodents and instant death for others. They never learned to read the language scrawled in a spidery script on fading strips of yellowed paper. The cottage is made of flat stones, layered with mud and magic. In the eaves below the roof, there’s a birds nest hiding a hand crafted book of shadows. I don’t recommend touching it, but I won’t tell if you do.

Here is where you’ll find the detailed events of the night the house was abandoned and fell to ruins. You won’t just read about Thomas and Annie. There’s little space given to the love that turned to hate. You’ll see drawings of the burial ground that was desecrated for the pool. You’ll understand the sacred ground, unearthed for a man that did not honor his wife, and the wife that took her revenge on the mother and father of the fourth Bikerson child on the way. Annie’s three children were taken by spirits of unrest, nourished through the blood magic performed by their mother under the lunar eclipse that night. She didn’t know what she was doing, or what was in the tea the young witch Amber offered her from her own greenhouse. She only remembered waking from a deep sleep, covered in blood and bone.

That night, Amber slept peacefully, after the rituals allowed her ancestors to rest. The lunar eclipse was a time of great transition and change. Some say Annie drowned in that pool later that year. Others say she moved away quietly. No one really knows. Once you leave the property, you forget all you thought you knew when you were there.

Mind that salt circle on your way out. It does no one any good to disturb this space. Drive safely, and don’t return.