Glasshouses Chapter One
Somehow, even after the storm, the glass was intact.
Sunlight petered through, its beam trapped by the grime both inside and out, but it didn’t affect the plants that still thrived along the sides of the glasshouse.
He didn’t know what they were, their labels long since vanished, and some might not have been planted there deliberately, but instead carried there by feathers or paws because he knew he wasn’t the sole visitor to this place.
He paused his watering, the metal watering can heavy in his hand, and looked at the ruin of a house that was just about visible through the trees.
Half intact, half crumbling, a menace to the road or so he’d read on an online forum, a resident complaining about the state of the place, how it was a blot on the area and needed to be demolished, the notion of new builds more attractive than the house of horrors that stood there as a calcified monument to lives that didn’t have a natural ending.
There were ghosts in the house, he knew, their energy still present on each of the three floors.
He’d never managed to get into the cellars; the external door was bricked up, the cement between the bricks worn away with the rain that pounded against that side, but still the bricks had remained firm.
Inside, the steps down to the cellar were too unsafe for even him to risk, situated in the side of the house that had been gutted by the fire.
He hadn’t been born when it happened. His gran remembered it, a night of sirens and videos shared on social media, thoughts and prayers that no one had been inside and that the firefighters would get it under control.
He’d asked her a thousand times about it, and she’d always told him the same story, never adding any more detail or insight.
So as soon as he was brave enough, he’d found a way to get into the garden without anyone noticing, the wild forest that had been left untended for nearly two decades, the charred wood and burnt debris eaten up by the grass and the weeds and the buddleia that took over.
He’d explored, balaclava’d up in case anyone saw him, videoing it each time, and each time venturing a little further, but he hadn’t uploaded the films, just kept them for himself so he could look at each one, study it, so he could see how time and nature let things rot and die.
The videos from the other places he visited were uploaded, because it didn’t matter so much if other explorers found them and copied him; his reputation of being one of the best was already set and that was without them knowing his age.
He wasn’t uploading this place though. It was his. One of the few things that was.
There was an old water butt that was fed from the guttering around the glasshouse, perfect for filling up the plastic watering can that he’d picked up from the pound store, even though it hadn’t been a pound.
He filled it up, ignoring the sound of rustling from overgrown borders that was probably a rat or a mouse, and went back into the glasshouse, watering the tomato plants and sunflowers he’d planted himself, something to do during the school holidays.
Growing things was fun, as long as he didn’t tell anyone about it. That wouldn’t go down too well at his school and they already thought he was a dweeb anyway.
The watering can was empty, really he needed a bigger one, or some watering system, but if anyone saw that they’d know someone was here regularly and that would cause him trouble.
He wasn’t alone here. He wasn’t the only person who visited the huge house and he didn’t know why they came here.
They weren’t another urban explorer because nothing had ever been posted online about here, other than the stories about ghosts and curses, things you would’ve expected from a house where murder had been committed.
A bird dived onto a moss-covered bird bath, pecking at grubs or something. Then it froze, aware of being watched, and for the first time he was aware that he too was being watched.
What was watching him was another question.
He dropped the watering can and ran towards the place he’d hidden his bike, telling himself that it was nothing, he’d just weirded himself out, he was being stupid and there was nobody there, that there hadn’t been for years. He’d be back tomorrow and everything would feel just fine.
He was sure of it.