Sestina Day 3. Haunted

OK, I should pace myself on this marathon (I've decided to do 100 of these, one a day), but it's technically Wednesday, so to hell with it, here's another.

This time, the words (passed surface doorway light place house) were suggested by @OliverMantel, from Twitter. Hello, Oliver.

It came out pretty dark, which wasn't inherent in the words, so it must be me.




She seemed to see a shadow as she passed:
A ghostly face in each reflective surface,
A silhouetted figure in the doorway.
She hurried onward in the fading light,
feeling the chilling malice of the place,
she longed to get away from the old house.

She'd felt she ought to see her childhood house
Because well over 80 years had passed
Since anyone had occupied the place,
She had imagined dust on every surface
Her mind's eye casting a nostalgic light,
The evening sunbeams streaming through the doorway

These thoughts had opened up a sort of doorway
Inside her head. She'd giggled with delight
Remembering the joy in her old house
Before the night her loving mother passed
Away, and though he seemed fine on the surface
Her father somehow never found his place

But yes, the house had been a happy place
The memories came flooding through the doorway
She and her brother, skidding on a surface
Of polished wood, that velvet tasselled light-
Shade that she'd stroke each time she passed,
The marble dog that stood before the house

So thinking that she'd like to see the house,
(And maybe tidy round the dear old place
Put ghosts to bed and exorcise the past)
She knew as soon as she could see the doorway
Which seemed to glow with some unearthly light
That those horrific memories would surface

The spattered blood she'd found on every surface
The awful silence filling up the house
Her baby brother, lying in the light
Of evening sunbeams, when she'd found the place
Her father'd strung himself up in the doorway
His last attempt to uncreate the past.

The house is old, and as the horrors surface
She leaves the past behind, enters the light.
Deserts that place, and passes through the doorway.