Episode Details

The Little Door
by Thecrownclown
Cool and dry the night's breath whisked through my window, the thin ivory gauze of the curtains fluttering as if in an intricate dance. I lofted a sigh, my chin resting upon my left palm, its conjoining arm used for a base as my elbow rested on the window sill. The day had waned in a cloud of surreal existence, or so it had seemed. We'd finally moved into our new house, every moment spent spiriting away this token or that from the overly packed boxes.
The house itself was beautiful, filled with dreams of the lake that reflected in the delicate woodwork carved into every orifice the dwelling. Deep, red cherry guarded the doors. Fish, marine flowers, and dragon flies danced through the molding as if they were alive. Walls of deep, sky blue and ceilings tiled with but a hint of light green. The floors shared the dark blood red of cherry wood, waxed and buffed until they shined in the daylight. Everything about this beautiful house screamed luxury, an artistic masterpiece made into a home nestled on a modest lake deep within the Catskill Mountains.
I had always dreamed of living in a house so delicately made. It was everything I could of hoped for, yet there was a feeling of unease about the entire small estate. The entire day had seemed like a dream, I had pondered this idea several times today while I plucked this trinket or that from the news paper from which they had been wrapped. You see, we were not by any means financially sound. It seemed as if there was never enough money to go around, we seemed to always be just barely getting by. How could we afford this luxurious house then, you say? The devil is in the details.
Several years ago we had decided, since all but one of our children had left the house to begin their own journeys through this tainted and cruel world, that we would leave our tiny house on the Mountain behind. The roof was in bad repair, the floors nearly ready to collapse under our very weight. We fixed things the best we could and put the old girl onto the market. Our children had grown up there, the old place full of every beautiful memory you could imagine. Though it saddened me to say good bye to our home of nearly twenty years, I knew it was time for us to settle down in a place completely of our own for the rest of our years. That is when David found this house.
Located nearly two hours from everything we had known for the duration of our relationship, the house offered to us a fresh start for our older years. David was already in his 50's, though I had only begun to enter my 40th year. It was time for us to enter the next phase of our lives, and we had found the perfect place to do so. Modestly priced, David reasoned that because it was so far out of the way they probably had a hard time selling the property. It was only a single story house with three bedrooms on two acres. Surrounded by dense forest, a small lake jutted out towards the house from the west. There was barely room for the water to saturate the soil around the small body of water before the foundation of our basement claimed the ground in the name of human habitation. In recent years, the water had begun to encroach on the basement, the humid air in that dark room heavy with moisture. Nothing a good sealing couldn't fix.
With a decent price, we paid little more then we had for our old house. Our former home had been sold fairly quickly to one of our old neighbors. We hated her, in fact, everyone on our old block hated her as well. The money was good though, and we were able to put a healthy down payment on our new abode. That was six months ago. Just a few days prior the paperwork had gone through, and we were off to our new life.
Now, our oldest three children had left, leaving only my seventeen year old son who would be staying with us until next year when he planned to leave for college. It was a tough time for me, and in addition I had just given up the p