Harris Burdick was a man who walked into a publishing company with multiple intriguing photographs. Each of these photographs came with a story, but Harris Burdick never returned with the stories after he left his images at the publishing company. Famous authors throughout history have written their own stories to go with each of these pictures. these images were very interesting to me, so I wrote a short story to go with my favorite picture. The title of this image is Mr. Linden's library. I hope you enjoy.
Mr. Linden’s Library
At the end of the cul-de-sac on Brighton Street, sat an
enormous Victorian mansion. However this
wasn’t just any mansion; stories and myths have swirled around it for decades,
and for god reason. The windows were
always shut with thick, black curtains, draped over them. Dense, viridian vines climbed up the walls of
the house. Cobwebs and spiders entangled
themselves in the small dark corners of the window sill. The two large French doors never opened and
no one ever came out of the house. I fact, the house had been still for nearly
40 years.
Rumor
has it, a man named Porter Linden lived in that house. Supposedly he moved there after he returned
from deployment during World War II.
Suffering from a severe case of PTSD, Mr. Linden moved far away from his
friends and family, entered the Victorian mansion, shut the curtains, and was
never seen or heard from again.
Only one
person remembered seeing Porter Linden move in that fateful day in November;
Mr. Nigel Lawrence, and he had a reputation as a good man. The entire town looked up to him, however he
always seemed as if he was hiding something.
He would sit in his big plush chair resting by the fireplace mantel in
his quaint little cottage. Three doors
down from the Linden mansion, was the home of Laurence’s granddaughter. Rebel was her name, and she lived up to her
reputation.
On
November 13th, the anniversary of Mr. Linden’s departure from the
neighborhood 40 years prior, little Rebel Lawrence sat on her granddad’s lap, and fantasized about the mysteries and wonder
that awaited the person who dared enter the house. She had been warned never to go there, but
one day curiosity got the best of her and she slipped out of house after her
grandfather went to sleep, and was careful not to let the gate creek on the way
out of the yard. She ran down the
sidewalk, her blond ringlets bobbing up and down on her shoulders, and her
stubby little legs making stride across the pavement. After passing endless houses for what seemed
like the greater part of an hour, Rebel stood silent at the precipice of the
mansion that had tempted her curiosity so many times before.
Silence
engulfed her as she opened the front door.
Sound itself seemed to drown out upon her entrance into the foyer, and
it felt as if she wouldn’t be able to breath.
Panicking Rebel thought about running back out into the street, when
suddenly a violin wafted through the silence, and Rebel had air in lungs again.
Now that
her fears were at bay, Rebel continued to explore the Mansion. There was a room with a giant marble dome,
the walls of which were littered with brightly colored paintings, seemingly
from many different ages. Intrigued by
the beauty, Rebel moved forward, and the sound of the violin started playing
just as she was about to touch one of the paintings. Drawn to its eerie sound, Rebel continued to
walk through the corridor leading away from the domed room, her ballet flats
making a faint tapping sound on the mahogany floor. Turning down a new hallway, she looked into
every room she passed, each becoming more magnificent. At the end of the hallway stood two sturdy
doors. Upon opening the doors, Rebel
found herself surrounded by books of every shape and size, coating every shelf,
table and empty space in the room. Rebel
had never seen so many books. Suddenly
the violin stopped. Butterflies in
Rebel’s stomach seemed to have taken flight to the back of her throat, and she let
out a small cough of exasperation. A
shadow slowly crept towards her! It was
a small man with a long white beard, and he identified himself as the caretaker
of the Linden’s Library. Everything
about him appeared to be ancient except the young quality of his light blue
eyes. .
Rebel peered into them though she could find no deeper
understanding. His eyes were like the
ocean during a storm, their mysteries hidden beneath a stormy façade. The man didn’t smile, his face remained
solemn and still, but his eyes seemed to smile out at her.
After what seemed like an eternity, he questioned
“And who might you be?”
“My name is Rebel”… she replied
When he did not offer any new information, Rebel continued
by saying
“I live down the street. I’m sorry for…”
Her pleas were interrupted.
“What do you want miss?”
“I’m sorry sir, I just wanted to
know the truth about this house”
“Young lady, there is a reason why
I haven’t left this house for over 40 years.
My life is dangerous to anyone who knows its secrets.”
The man shut is eyes briefly, and took a deep breath that
sounded more like a sigh. Rebel broke
the silence.
“Sir, I need to know”.
“If you must know so badly then…
here” the man replied with a smile.
He threw her a tiny red diary and it landed in front of her
feet with a thud.
“I must
warn you, if you read that diary, bad things will happen to you. Your life may be threatened, and might come
to an end as you know it!”
This intrigued Rebel, though she showed no sign on her face
of how badly she wanted to read the diary.
When the old man turned and walked away, she slowly bent down and picked
up the diary. He spoke again…
“Little
girl, I must warn you once more that this curiosity will be the end of
you. I do not wish to see you get hurt,
but if you do not heed my warning, I fear I shall find you a very grave person on
the morrow.”
Rebel pretended not to hear him as she ran out of the
mansion with the book. The mansion was
creepy, but how could anything hurt her if she was safe at her grandfather’s
cottage?
Rebel
didn’t speak to her grandfather when she arrived home, but ran straight up
stairs to read the book in her room. She
opened the cover of the book and inscribed in tiny calligraphy was the phrase
“it’s already too late.”
She pretended not to be creped out, though she closed the
book rapidly and decided she would revisit it later. Afraid to close her eyes, Rebel walked
downstairs to the kitchen to make herself feel better with a midnight
snack. She looked out the kitchen window
and had the feeling that she was not alone.
And right she was! Outside the window sat three men, all dressed in black,
their faces covered. The only visible body parts were their young, blue eyes
that gazed into the kitchen, watching rebel’s every move.
Rebel’s night
eventually ended and the sun rose over the hill in the distance. The sense of
daytime brought peace to rebel, and gave her the confidence to return to the
house of Mr. Linden and ask him all of the questions she had been asking herself
in the late hours of the night. However, when she got there, there was no
violin playing. In fact there wasn’t a sound at all. The house was as quiet as
ever. Rebel walked up to the door and pushed, but the heavy, glass doors did
not budge. Giving up on her inquiries, Rebel reversed to return to her house
when she noticed three men walking toward her. Completely covered in black,
they marched with military stature, completely uniform to each other. Rebel’s heart began to beat rapidly in her
chest, as the men seemed to lunge at her.
One yanked her hands behind her back, and the other pulled a bag over
her head while one tied her feet. After
being forced into a box of some sort Rebel stopped fighting against them, and
completely succumbed to their power, completely vulnerable and alone
She watched her capturers every
move, as one of the men reached down into a tiny knapsack holding a small vile
of liquid. The fluid inside the capsule was red like freshly drawn blood. The
man pressed a needle into the capsule and knelt down my Rebel’s head. As he
punctured the needle into the side of her neck, he began to whisper. As he
spoke, Rebel thought his voice was peculiarly familiar.
“You
were warned, and you did not obey. Now your soul belongs to me. Life as you
know it has changed forever”
As he spoke, the man squeezed the deep
red liquid into her body. The other two men watched eagerly as blood began to
seep down her neck and pool onto the sidewalk. Rebel’s eyelids were all of a
sudden heavy, as if cinderblocks had been placed on top of them, forcing them
shut. The old man’s peculiar voice sent chills through her body as he breathed
a final statement.
“Good Bye Rebel”
As he spoke those words, Rebel’s
body had completely reacted to the drugs and she became nonresponsive and
motionless, draped across the sidewalk on quiet Brighton Street.
Time ticked on and Rebel would
never again be a part of the world she has been accustomed to. After she had dozed off, the men scooped her
up and dragged her inside the infamous mansion. The drugs eventually wore off
and Rebel awoke, once again lying on the chilling marble floor of Mr. Linden’s
library. However, the library was not the same as she had once left it. Instead
of millions of books surrounding her, rebel was being watched by millions of
pairs of young, blue eyes staring at her from the shelves.
The sound of the eerie violin
hummed in the background as the library doors were suddenly whisked open and
the three masked men marched toward her. The third man turned and was immediately
absorbed by the book shelves and became another pair of eyes staring at her. The other two men continued to walk towards
her until they came to an abrupt halt inches from where her body laid. One man
began to speak.
“You are no longer apart of the
real world. This is the price you pay for disobedience.”
Rebel immediately recognized the
voice as Mr. Linden’s.
“Every book in this library was
once blank. Today, every last one is inscribed with a story, each ending the
same way. Your little red diary was the last empty book.”
With that, Mr. Linden turned and
walked away. The red diary sat in her lap and invited Rebel to read its
contents. The sole remaining man stood before her, silently watching as she
picked up the book and started to read. Page after page, rebel read the story
of her life inscribed onto the pages. A rush of memories flooded her mind and
she had become a giant mess of emotions by the time she reached the last page. Tears
rolled down her cheeks as she read,
“Rebel opened the book and saw the
words ‘it is already too late’ “
This time, it really was too late. Following
the last phrase were the words,
“THE END”
A sudden realization overcame Rebel
as she recognized that his life ended the second she opened that book. She
shuts the book and looks up at the lone man watching her. Her eyes begged him
for some sort of reconciliation, but there would be none. The man looked down
at Rebel and spoke with such an evil tone that her blood curled.
“Silly, naïve, little girl. You were
just like your mother. You succumbed to my power. You sat on my knee and let me
fill your head with fascinating stories about a haunted mansion. You fell right
into my trap. Now I hold your soul forever, trapped inside this house, engraved
onto the pages of that book.”
With a chuckle, the man removed his
mask. Nigel Lawrence stood before his granddaughter and delighted in her shock
and disappointment. He chuckle grew into a cackle as he pivoted on his heels
and pranced out the door. Rebel’s body started to vanish as she was absorbed by
the library. Forever, Rebel would rest there, on the marble floor, where she
had first found that little diary. Forever, Rebel would lie in Mr. Linden’s
library, trapped in the mansion that sits at the end of Brighton Street.
