Brush and thickets are the only things concealing the broken bearings of the cottage in the woods. They climb effortlessly up the sides of the house and up the tired porch pillars, crawling patterns ripping the walls at their seams. Under the weight of nature, the house sighs a tired sigh that quakes the fine china in the vintage oak case by the left corner of the dining room. A china teacup with a golden cat gracing the handle tumbles from its place and spills its fragments amongst the other ancient items.
The one to clean up the mess with pale fingers is Agnes. A daughter and caretaker. Agnes once had hair of butter that slipped down her back, creamy and sweet.
But now, her hair is tinted grey, moppish. She is never so tired as when she is in this house. Or by the pond.
When Agnes grew up in the cottage, it was built from astonishing colors that swept through her childhood in hues of violet and gold. Gold skies where her childish legs dangled on the rusty swing set out back. Violet clouds of frost when she allowed her lips to press against the cracked windows as she watched her father come home from work each evening. Lloyd.
Lloyd was a man sewn together from different parts. His lanky arms and cricket legs were casually attached to this and that, giving his character a curious sort of presence. After sipping his coffee from the same mug each morning, he would bid farewell to his daughter and, at exactly 7:32am, depart his home and drive away with the windows up in order to keep his suit from wrinkling. He worked as an auctioneer. Did his job well, made small talk, and returned home each evening at approximately 6:07pm to read the newspaper and turn in early.
But that was all before Anya’s disappearance. Gold summers and violet winters became memories that one forgets about, and then remembers fondly for a minute or two. Replaced with grey and brown tones that rotted the butter, creamy and sweet, and broke a good, hardworking and successful man. The coffee and greetings of 7:30am and the 6:07pm newspaper that crinkled when one turned in early ceased to exist.
When those stopped, the house stopped as well. A quiet death that first went unnoticed, but as the days slinked together into one continuum, the house's death became more dreadfully apparent. Vines and branches scampered up the collapsing walls. Passing rains eroded the weakened roof and cracked the already broken windows. But what was most troubled was the pond, located in the left corner of the yard.
In the days of gold and violet, the pond happily housed bullfrogs, fish, lilies, and all sorts of creatures that bathed and hunted their days in etched waters. It was perfect up until the house’s passing. The pond didn’t suffer, and died slowly with lumbering steps that mixed muddy grey skies into a drowned haven of sickly critters and insect-infested logs. Lloyd watched the pond’s death more carefully than the cottage, and with each passing day of watching the pond roll closer to its demise, something changed in him.
Agnes was the first one to notice that he had become an accessory to the pond. A statue that sat still, day in and day out, only breaking to take another swig from a bottle wrapped in the newspapers he once loved. She could smell the liquor in his sweat.