Short story: Three Souls
Not too far from here, there stands a house. A rickety old thing, narrow and towering over soft streetlights on quiet nights. When the current owner bought it, the only bathroom was an outhouse in the overgrown backyard, littered with leaves and branches and the passage of time. It changed, of course, by the time these inhabitants moved in, but the outhouse remains a hiding place for spiders and flighty little shadows.
With a gentle creak, the front door swings open.
Three distinct personalities coexist in this old townhouse, leaving imprints and echoes in every cracked tile and scuffed floorboard. They shine through in every scattered memory and patterned corner, but it is their rooms that give the clearest glimpse into their minds.
One lives in a haven of knowledge and dreams, cracked book spines and the soft rustle of paper. Novels spill across every surface, stacked high on shelves and bursting with colour. Slumbering below the window is a worn writing desk, found on the side of the road and lovingly carried down busy streets to find its new home. It is worth every minute of that hour-long trek through town, and has seen many long nights of writing as its new owner spins a tale of fairy hunting, to one day join the books on her shelf.
Across the hall there exists a person out of time, surrounded by a forest of her own making. This soul is one that would be at home in the 70s, vintage clothes folded and placed neatly on warm green bedding. Every piece of clothing and accessory has been carefully curated over the years, pried from the jaws of second-hand stores. Vinyl records decorate the walls, scattered amongst shelves of hanging plants and the rich scent of earth. A stash of home-made cookies is a permanent fixture in here, perfect for late nights and the comforting smell of baking. There is not a single curtain in this house after mold was discovered on the ones in this room. They figured it was better safe than sorry, and the time-traveler's plants soak in every extra ray of sunlight that spills across the floor.
The weathered staircase grows narrow as it ascends to the third level, where two turrets stand proud. Stained glass windows filter sunlight and cast vibrant shadows across the floorboards. The third soul of this house resides here, up a set of stairs so slim that a bed frame could not pass through.
One of the turrets is blacked out with tapestries, illuminated by fairy lights, lamps, and flickering candles. Coming from a family of witches, the stash of crystals scattered across the ground is no surprise. Up here, at the summit of the house, the air is sharp with magic. Books on women’s history and culture are cracked open, and it is all too easy to imagine ghosts and spirits emerging from their pages to guide her through the turbulent ups and downs of life.
Three souls occupy this place, and it is in the living room where their lives overlap. Pieces of themselves exist in harmony here, a witch’s string lights glowing like the fairies from the English major’s mind, plants that don’t fit in the 70s bedroom suspended in time, books that broke free of their shelves in the writer’s room, crystals that made their way down from the arcane turret. Faded beanbags lie beside a sunken crimson couch they rescued from the tip shop, scavenging and rehoming pieces that others throw out. One such thing is a fat orange cat they adopted off the street, he hates men but feels safe in this place, and orange cat hair is a familiar sight all through the flat.
These three souls infuse this old place with life, perhaps not friends with the spiders in the outhouse, but certainly familiar with the shadows. Three souls that have learned to make their own light and share it in the place their worlds overlap.