DreamLand Chapter One

Chapter One



Joven Welch stood in the dirt front yard and sighed. She tried to hold her face expressionless while staring up at the two story house. The manor was made up of three triangles stacked beside each other creating a strange square base with a pointed roof. The first triangle was two stories high, the middle appeared to be three stories high, while the third dropped itself back down to two stories. The front of the house was a side view, while the side of the house allowed her to see the line of geometry head on. At the front of the house, in the center of the roof was a fourth square based triangle facing out of the side, one lonely room with two large windows staring out like eyes. The porch was covered by the extension of the slanted roof being held up by four round fingers pushing out of the cracked concrete surface. The house had been painted peach with someone going back in attempts to turn it white. Leaving the upper stories in their original state of color and the bottom flat and lifeless. A three foot unpainted wooden fence stood ten feet across from the porch leaving two sides of the yard unprotected.

She turned in a circle and examined the large, flat, dead oval surrounding her new home. It reminded her of an oversized crop circle. “How fitting,” she mumbled considering she had been dropped into another dimension by her mother. Outside of the circle, lining the sides and back of the house was a crescent forest of deep green being detained by the invisible bubble that held life back from her new residence. The front of the house faced a dirt road that deadened at the beginning of the driveway. The road ran from the house for a mile before finding the highway and coming to a dead-end stop in the small town of Robbinsville, North Carolina.

Joven slipped her right hand into her back jean pocket and pulled out a black scrunchy and slid it over her wrist. Running slender pale fingers through shoulder length light brown hair she pulled it up on her head into a ponytail. Reaching in the breast pocket of her black t-shirt she pulled out an mp3 player and stuffed the ear buds in her ears. Linda, her mother, was already walking through the house deciding on where things would be placed. Her shoulders dropped a fraction lower and she followed the curved brick lane up to the porch and into the large rectangular living room.

The house was bare except for a few boxes Linda had placed along the far wall of the living room. Joven had anticipated an inch or more of dust to cover every surface and was surprised to find it clean. Glancing into the joining rooms she could see dark hard wood floors, all the walls where painted the same flat white as the attempt on the outside. Her steps followed hollowly behind like the ghost she and her mother had run from thinking it would stay in Austin Texas.

The sound stayed on her heals and she made her way across the living area to the back left corner of the room. The cool banister supported her exploration upward to the second floor. The stairs reached a small landing before splitting itself into two hallways. One followed the left side of the house, stacked on top of the kitchen downstairs. The other creeped over the living room she had ignored on the trip to the second story. Each upstairs hall held three closed doors but Joven already knew their secrets. Two bedrooms split with a shared bathroom in a five bedroom house. Down the left hallway stood a seventh door, also closed, hiding her destination.

She continued on, showing as much interest in the second floor as she had the first. Sure that the far door held the room with the eyes that over looked the lack of a front yard, Joven increased her pace and reached for the fake glass doorknob. It turned soundlessly under pressure from her right hand and she greeted the second set of stairs encased in a dark ascending tunnel. Feeling along the wall she found the light switch on the left side of the door and clicked it. Her mental image of hanging cobwebs and fluttering dust met the reality of flat clean white walls sustained by a dark wooden stairs. “This house is much creepier on the outside,” she informed herself. Moving forward with the same steady pace as before she took five stair steps and found her last obstruction, another closed dark wooden door. Turning the twin of the fake glass doorknob below, she gave a push. The door obeyed without a response and she stepped into the last bedroom.

It was a perfect square, with an angled roof that rose away from her. The two window seats sat side by side with a foot of space between them staring over the yard and trees beyond. The floor was the same dark wood, clean, with nothing to support but barren space. Off to the left was a small bathroom with a sink and shower bathtub combo. The room held the only tile she had seen so far in the house, white with sprinkles of gold. “Someone just went wild with color.” It was also the first door in the house that had not been trying to keep her out. A closed walk in closet was beside the bathroom, leaving the right side of the room blank of exits. Mentally she placed her bed in the center of the right wall. Her wooden desk would fit in the far right corner between the bed and window seat, leaving the left side of the wall for her dark green bookcase. Her long door mirror would hang on the inside of the closet door, leaving the large oval mirror to hang on the wall across from the windows giving her a twin view of the outside world above her dresser.

Joven sucked in a deep breath when a hand squeezed her shoulder. “How did I know you would choose this room?” Linda Welch asked, smoothing her short brown hair with her left hand.

“You've known me for eighteen years... Guess that makes you a bit of an expert on the subject. You know you scared the crap out of me.” Joven turned to face her mother. “Besides, from here I can see everything that goes on.”

“It's a great view,” her brown eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “You don't have to stay on guard here. I know that ...”

Joven interrupted her mother, “I planned to have friends here. By the time I get downstairs they should be at the front door. I was thinking I could use one of the extra rooms as an office. I know it's to late to sign up for college right now but in two months early registration will start and I plan to take a full load. Get my life started again.” she stumbled over her words she spoke so fast.

Linda sighed, she knew her daughter didn't want to talk about the last year they had both struggled through. Joven had spent so much time locked away on her own that the move from Austin had not effected any of her friendships. She wasn't even sure her daughter had any friends left since she had not spoken to them in so long. College would be a good fresh start for her and one her mother hoped would bring happiness back into her daughters life.

A low rumbling brought both women over to the windows. Each stared out their own view of a large white truck with large red letters proclaiming BUDGET MOVING... WE MAKE IT HAPPEN bouncing up the short dirt drive. “The movers will just love this little climb... I think you should tell them where to put your stuff.” Linda said and straightened her red blouse and tucked it into her jeans before turning to walk back downstairs.