The house was abandoned tens of years ago, nobody knew how much time it remained empty. Nobody saw any sign of life there, the house just stood on the hill, stuck with one side to a bushy slope, with the years passing had been covered by long lush sprouts of crawling plants, tightly snuggled to lumps of its walls, by thick moss, partly fresh and succulent, emerald green, partly dry dead but soft like a grass fleece, that relentlessly conquered centimeters, one by one, of the building's body, penetrating the wooden window frames, slowly, layer by layer, paving the floor, turning it to a luxurious bedding for some mysterious lovers, forest creatures, maybe elves.
She met this place by chance. She was wandering in the woods, walking her dogs, sometimes she went deep into the forest trying new paths. The forest was kind to her, showing its most intimate lanes and alleys, like it wanted to lure her once for some fantastic lovemaking. As if it knew that she was in love with its wondrous spirit, with all the greenish rustling surrounding, with the wet warm air that entering her nostrils, pervading her by heady lightness, making her dizzy of sweet languor.
She kept walking through, ignoring these generous proposals for not to fall in temptation to stop and lay there, enjoying her sudden total privacy in that enshrouding silence. She kept walking until she reached to the border line of trees above a deep valley. She never saw a map of that area and didn't know about existence of a valley and a house on its slope. It was like a last revelation of the forest, the final, winning temptation that she could not resist.
Since that day she came here from time to time, as though she wanted to keep it for herself from herself, not to make it habitually, but to turn it for being the secret temple of her loneliness.
She used to climb the old wooden stairs, groaning beneath her steps, to linger for a long hours in the rooms of all three floors. There were remains of furniture, old fashioned heavy wooden wardrobe with one dangling door, where a small owl arranged a hideout. The ceiling of a ballroom of old days was full of hanging cooing bats, there were other quarters tightly packed with booming wild rose strewn with white and pink small odorous flowers and spiny thorns. She liked to throw off her shoes and to tread on soft moss, carpeting floors. Sometimes a bird disturbed by her presence noisily flew out of the window. At last she nestled in a bedroom where an old mural paintings were still visible from under green leaves covering the walls. She was pleased to feel the soft touch of thin blades of grass and fluffy moss on her skin when she lied down, sometimes remaining only with her t-shirt on, sometimes naked, for she knew that she is alone.
She never saw any sign of someone else's presence around. There was no sound of steps or broken branch, no crumpled moss inside the rooms, no any belongings, accidentally left behind. Her dogs running and seeking around never found any living creature that might catch their attention. She heard only birds in the dark dense crowns of trees, sometimes swoosh of wind, suddenly cannoned into them, rustles of some insects, swarming in dry leaves that covered a ground.
Some time ago a man walked on the valley's floor. The house on the slope up above caught his eye. It took him around two hours to climb there, the slope was precipitous, but not craggy, it was covered by soft green grass that sometimes was slippery under his boots' soles. He discovered a perfect shelter where he could dwell without being disturbed by anyone. He started to come there almost every day, he found a way through the forest that leaded to the small road where he could park his car on its narrow shoulders. He loved this house.
Being an architect, he paid tribute to unknown builders who created such a perfect abode for his pleasure of solitude, he enjoyed to come here sometimes, drowning in its womby rooms overgrown by thick breathing moss tissue. He explored the building, he learned how the long thin threads of roots slowly ruined the porch, he saw a weak resistance of window frames, their attempts to stop the stern invasion of the forest. The house struggled but succumbed and lend itself to the favor of the conquer.
For the first time he saw her, it was like an impact that raised in him crushing sensation of destruction, profanation of sacred. First he heard a noise of four paws climbing the old wooden stairs, then he saw an ablong big beast body through a doorway, it looked like an old hedgehog's fur coat, the long pink tongue tumbled out of open mouth. The dog run to the upper floor, then, finding nothing interesting, went down quickly, finally run out of the building into the woods. Another dog, maybe the older one, didn't want to enter, he put his head on his paws, calmly laying outside. Then he saw a girl entering the main door, confidently moving apart the bushes.
