"Well, it certainly doesn't look like a house that's been sitting unused for over a century," Julia Trent observed.
"No, it doesn't," Mark Hallon agreed.
They both stood just in front of the first step up to the large porch of the even larger two-story house. It was Mark's understanding that no one had gone anywhere near this place for about five generations. Nevermind the fact that it was in the middle of the woods, 12 miles from any other person.
Apart from the design, and the fact that the paint had all but completely weathered away, the house looked like it may have been only a decade old. The wood was in surprisingly good condition.
"And your great, great, etcetera grandfather had this built," Julia asked, hesitant to believe it was the truth, though not suspecting Mark of lying. If there's one thing she could trust, it's that Mark would not lie to her... even when she sometimes whished he would.
"That's what the deed says. I mean, you saw it yourself," Mark reminded her.
"Yeah," she remembered. "Yeah, this box is getting heavy, so can you maybe open the door?"
Realizing her ordeal, he moved suddenly, sprinting up the porch steps to the door. The wooden steps and porch were in far worse condition than the house. If appearances were not enough, Mark's every footfall caused a creaking sound that made Julia worry for his safety. She glowered disapprovingly at his willingness to put so much force on those wooden steps.
"And why am I carrying this box instead of you," Julia inquired playfully, as she carefully took each step up, not fully trusting the integrity of the wood.
"Uh, because you volunteered to help," he answered, holding the knob in one hand and searching his pocket for the key with the other.
"Pretty sure I said that I'd keep you company."
"Yeah. That too." He inserted the skeleton key, and it turned with some resistance, creating the sound of rusty metal against metal, as the internal mechanism moved the bolt into an unlocked position. He turned the wobbly knob and pushed the very worn door open, observing dust falling from the door frame. He stepped aside to allow her through.
"I recall no additional agreements," she said walking along the porch, stopping in front of him.
"And yet...," he smiled, gesturing to the box she was holding completely of her own free will.
"A momentary lapse of judgement, I'm sure," she said, smiling back, and dumping the box into his arms. She took a few steps inside and looked around. He followed and was standing beside her once more.
"Wow," he remarked. "That is a lot of cobwebs."
"You packed a broom, right?"
"Yeah. Probably should've pack a rake."
Almost every vertical surface of the inside of the foyer was covered in cobwebs, and every upper horizontal surface was brownish-grey with dust. Since it was an open foyer, they could see that a couple of other rooms were in the same state.
"Good thing you're not afraid of spiders," he added.
"A spider," Julia replied, emphasizing the A. "I said I wasn't afraid of A spider. Singular. Fifty million spiders is a completely different matter."
She remained calm, in the knowledge that, because they were cobwebs, they were not in use, but there was still the uneasy insight that it probably meant that all of the spiders were just somewhere else instead. Someplace hidden, no doubt.
"Well, maybe you'll get lucky, and it'll be just one gigantic spider," he joked, dryly, then looked at her.
She looked at him and just raised an eyebrow, not giving him the satisfaction of a verbal reply.
"You know, this box is starting to get heavy. Would you mind," he joked, extended it toward her a couple of inches.
"Ooh, look. A table," she replied sarcastically feigning surprise. She pointed to the narrow table against the foyer wall and then immediately turned and started back toward the open front door.
He smiled to himself and walked over to the table. About five seconds after he set the box on the fuzzy surface, the whole thing collapsed, and the crashing sound echoed through the house, stopping Julia in her tracks.
"What the fuck," she exclaimed, turning abruptly.
Mark just stood there looking down at the mess.
"Hmm," he pondered. "Hundred year old house looks great. Hundred year old furniture... not so much."
"I'm getting the broom," she said, turning toward the door, once again. "And maybe some matches," she added, out the door.
"We're not setting the house on fire," he said casually, though loud enough for her to hear.
"We'll see," she shouted back while descending the porch steps.
The plan was to come check the house out and stay a week, regardless of what condition it was in when they found it. They packed camping equipment, just in case it was too far gone to safely shelter them. That didn't seem to be a concern... unless you were a safety code inspector.
Except for a lunch break, they spent every remaining daylight hour, of the first day, just removing cobwebs and dust from the more important rooms and furniture.
There was also intermittent debate about whether or not to utilize the outhouse in the back yard. Julia's position was a pretty firm, "No way in hell am I setting foot in there", while Mark's opinion was a less dedicated, "Best not tempt fate", so they both agreed that Mark would dig a hole behind the outhouse.
They decided to risk lighting the living room fireplace and the wood-burning stove in the kitchen when the temperature started dropping noticeably.
The larger furnishings seemed to still be in decent condition. They guessed that the table in the foyer collapsed simply because its legs were so spindly, and probably were not intended to hold any real weight to begin with. Old furniture was typically built to last, after all.
Upstairs, in the master bedroom, they both stood at the side of the large bed with a massive, wooden head board. Even through the thick coat of dust, they could see that the blanket was fairly moth-eaten.
"Five bucks says there's some animal's skeleton under there," she wagered.
"I'd take that bet if I disagreed." He paused. "So, you wanna do the honors," he asked, referring to the task pulling back the blanket.
"No. No, I really don't."
He grabbed the nearest top corner and quickly threw the blanket down to the foot of the mattress. A dust cloud bloomed, making both of them immediately regret that decision.
They coughed and waved their hands through the cloud, and when they finally got a look at the sheet below, they were both surprised to find it still in relatively good condition.
"Darn," he said, flatly. "Should've taken that bet." He pressed a hand repeatedly into the mattress, testing it. Seemed okay, but there was no creaking of springs.
"Must be set directly on slats," he guessed. He used both hands and gave it more force, but it still held up. He turned and sat down on the mattress, seeing Julia scrunch up her nose and upper lip in mild disgust.
He bounced up and down a little. Nothing. He stood up, held out his arms and fell backwards onto it. The structure didn't budge. The mattress itself was a bit lumpy with internal degradation, but otherwise it seemed like a decent place to sleep. He got up and stood beside her.
"Dibs," he said.
"Right, like I'm sleeping in any of these rooms alone."
He looked at her and smiled for a few seconds, then wrapped his arms around hers and laid his head on her shoulder.
"Awww," he teased, implying that she just wanted to be with him.
"Yeah, you can stop that."
He moved a hand to repeatedly stroke down the back of her head, kicking the tease up a notch.
"I will hurt you," she warned.
He lifted his head and gently kissed her on the cheek. She jabbed her elbow hard into his ribs, making him release, but he laughed through the pain. She just stood, facing forward, but she was smiling, too.
If she were to be completely honest with him, she actually did want to be with him. When they first met, three years ago, he was not her type, and she was clear with him on that, but he was fine with them being friends, so they kept it a platonic relationship.
He was cute enough, but definitely too nice of a guy for her to find attractive. On the other hand, she was running low on decent friends. Her last boyfriend, Jerry, really crystalized the fact that she had some pretty lousy priorities, when it came to relationships. She had a habit of falling for jerks, but Jerry took the cake.
He took her for granted and used her in almost every way: financially, emotionally, sexually, and for too long of a time, she let him. When she'd finally had enough, she broke it off, which did not set well with Jerry, at all. She decided to go on a relationship hiatus.
Mark was very supportive. He made sure she didn't get depressed about it, while never actually bringing it up. After a couple of weeks, Mark had inherited the deed and key to his long lost great, great, whatever number grandfather's property, and wanted to check it out.
He said, and she agreed, that a vacation from her normal life was exactly what she needed, so she helped him pack up his jeep, and they were off.
The long drive let her meditate a lot on her life choices. She began to appreciate Mark more, realizing that he was a genuinely good guy. She worried about him a little for it, actually. Part of her felt like she needed to protect him, but whenever she thought back, she noticed that there had never actually been any times that she did need to.
Since she was the one that had friend-zoned him, she felt a little bad that now she wanted more. She didn't have the slightest clue how to try to change things without feeling like a completely hypocritical asshole. Maybe she was the one from whom he needed to be protected.
As a defense mechanism, she had started behaving a little more harshly toward him. Not bad enough to hurt his feelings, or anything. Just enough to be able to lie to herself about how she really felt, and she was doing an excellent job of it, until he wrapped his arms around her.
She knew he was just teasing her, but underneath that humor was still a loving embrace, and it sent a flood of sadness, anger and joy rushing through her, all at once. It was all she could do to keep herself in check. She did not want to suddenly break down right there in front of him, so she relied on her defense mechanism to keep her safe.
When he started stroking the back of her head, her eyes closed involuntarily, and she almost let herself get lost in his touch, but she amped that defense up even further.
And then he had the audacity to kiss her on the cheek. That nearly broke her. If she hadn't jabbed him, she would have started bawling uncontrollably. Tears started welling in her eyes, and she had to remain motionless in order to fight them back. She didn't want him to see her cry.
