My mother and my aunt decided it was time to see the house we are trying to buy. I stood back and watched with trepidation as they picked their way over the crumbling driveway and up to the front door. The house was once a wonderful structure, built by an inventive and skilled mason, but his descendants went on to paint everything sloppily, tack cheap material over the paneling, and lay down the worst carpet that not a lot of money could buy over the hardwood floors. So walking through the house is an emotional experience, one which takes you from “eew” to “oh, neat” in a short time, if you’re looking closely.
The most notable thing about the house becomes immediately apparent when you open the back door. It is a moment that reveals your character; either as fantasy adventurer or hardened pragmatist. In the yard lies the sprawling remains of a massive, multi-leveled crumbling koi pond. Where there were once glittering tiles and mini waterfalls, there are now mossy ruins of stone and veins of rusting pipe. Saplings are growing up through the cracks in the basin, shaded by the heavy branches of an old lychee tree, so the yard is dark and cool and eldritch.
What my mother saw was this:
What my aunt saw was this:
“It’s the fairy underworld!” said my mother.
“It needs a jackhammer,” said my aunt.
Gavin and the cousins discovered an iron skeleton key and tore away like a pack of chickens to test it in all the locks. It was revealed to fit in the hobbit-sized basement door, which had a letter slot and a box affixed to the inside for collecting secret notes. They were transported.
“It’s a fixer-upper in the best kind of way!” said my mother.
“It is technically liveable,” said my aunt.
There was a similar disparity between the realtor and the building inspector, on a previous visit. Our realtor stood politely to the side, trying not to look at the yard, while the builder lit up and said, “I think it might be haunted!”
And all of these reactions are correct. It is intriguing, and it is a mess, and it has so much potential, and it will be so much work. But I am as intrepid as any Weasley, and this Burrow will be mine.
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