Chimere-Chapter4

Chapter 4

The house of magic.

 

All the way to this place that he had mentioned, the hatted man had his hands nonchalantly in his pockets, humming a tune. He gave me an impression of an old uncle sauntering about on a Sunday afternoon.

 

“So, where is this place we are going?”

 

“Oh, it’s a wonderful place, just you wait and see.”

 

“You’re not taking me to a brothel are you?”

 

“Hahah…no, no, no. I’m not that kind of person. To me, pleasure is in the mind, not body.” Here, he tapped the side of his hat with one finger and nodded to me. The rest of the journey, we walked in silence, punctuated by the hatted man’s humming. I did not recognize the tune, but it sounded like it would be right at home in a circus. This silence was not uncomfortable to me.

 

Up ahead on the dirt road was a single wooden cottage. It was not surrounded by a wooden fence to keep intruders out, but by flowering shrubs and bird feeders intended to invite people in. Middle eastern glass lamps hung in abundance from the porch ceiling and the glass windows were coloured cheerfully. A white rabbit and its babies lollopped about on the porch, their pink noses wiggling. The cottage seemed to belong to either a friendly witch or an eccentric old lady.

 

Without bothering to knock on the door, the hatted man entered the cottage, careful not to step on the rabbits which seemed quite curious at our arrival. However, he took off his shoes and left them outside the door. I did the same. Once inside the shady cottage, he took off his hat as if in a sign of respect, maybe to the cottage itself, and not to it’s occupant. His footsteps were clearly audible upon the old wooden floorboards. He walked towards the middle of what I presumed to be the living room. There, he stood still and hollered, ‘Grandfather Pio! Are you here?”, to which a voice of an old man called back, sounding distant, “Oh, it’s you, my boy. I’m up here.”

 

“Alright, follow me then”, the hatted man told me, “I’m going to introduce you to Grandfather Pio, who can perhaps help you.”

 

The hatted man then walked back out of the living room and turned left. There was a rickety staircase painted white, although the paint was now crackled. Up the stairs went. On the landing, we turned right and went down a long corridor, light spilling in from various windows and open doors. A wide variety of pictures hung on the walls or sat in gilded frames atop tables. Watercolours of colourful countrysides, old family photographs, native African artwork, modern art in relief. At the end of the corridor, we took another right turn and walked a short distance before descending a little staircase, barely half a floor downwards. Here was yet another corridor, even longer than the one before.

 

“How can all this fit into a small cottage? It looked much more modest in size from the outside”, I said to the hatted man.

 

“Well, I do not know for sure, but it is after all a magic place”, he shrugged.

 

The corridor that we now walked down was a cavernously high one, with an ornate white plaster ceiling, corniced at the sides and intricately flowered n the centres. If I had known less, I would have thought myself to be in an Admiral’s mansion. Statues of glass and stone, wood and metal, lined both sides of this corridor. Some were full sized human figures, some busts of noble looking men and women, yet others were majestic and ferocious replicas of beasts, so lifelike that they seemed to charge down the hallway. Grand looking mahogany doors with brass handles opened into unknown rooms on the left and right at regular intervals. As I walked pass them, sweet music streamed out of each one, all of different periods, but each as beautiful as the next.

 

Just then, light footsteps echoed down the hallway, and I turned to see a young boy running, barely 10 years of age, holding onto a satchel with one hand and a piccolo in the other. He slid to a stop in front of one of those doors, it’s size looking ridiculous compared to his. With an anxious expression, he opened the door with much effort, and slid in. Through the crack in the door, I heard a snippet of orchestral music, which withered to a stop, apparently upon the young boy’s sudden appearance. Before the door closed again, I heard what I supposed would be the music master’s voice, giving the young boy a sound lecture about the importance of punctuality. In contrast, at the door on the opposite side, another orchestra could be heard playing, this one full of grace and hard earned knowledge. The thought of this made me smile to myself, the young musicians had a long way to go, but they were on their way.

 

Along the corridor, other musicians played, behind glass windows or within closed doors, calming and melancholy jazz, powerful and youthful rock, deep and resonant vocals. Yet, there was no audience lingering about the place, the music was for the musicians’ own fancy. As we came to the end of the corridor, there was a towering structure, covered in cloth. It’s shape was uncertain, yet I could see a gargantuan marble foot protruding from a gap in the cloth. My eyes lingered wonderingly at it as we turned yet another corner.

 

When at last I turned my head back to the path that we were walking, I almost fell for surprise at what I saw. Not a single corridor, but 10? 20? An infinite number of identical corridors, stretching into the distance. The staggering of my feet sounded sharp and crystalline and I looked down. There, I saw my own reflection staring back at me and I understood where we were. We were in a hall of mirrors. Clear mirrors and glass framed in ornate gold vines covered every surface of the hall. Sparkling chandeliers hung from the ceiling in abundance, all of different sizes, all of them complimentary and beautiful. There were no windows in this hall, yet it was as bright as daylight, there was bound to be a light source somewhere here, distributed and magnified by the mirrors. A gust of wind blew down the corridor, and a flock of white doves fluttered down upon the mirrored floor, like so many snowflakes.

 

Feeling on the verge of dizziness, I kept close to the hatted man, only daring to let my eyes wander around the hall every so often. Still, my eyes caught a glimpse of a group of ballerinas, how many exactly, I would not know. They danced gracefully around in their studio, but once I felt that they were encircling me. It could have been a trick of the mirrors, but they seemed to be casting an enchantment on me, as they danced to crystalline music that leaked from the hall of music. Indeed, I was getting mesmerised by their lilting movements, and, as engaging as I found this to be, I still felt some uneasiness for this place. It was so strange and other-worldly that by instinct I thought it to be dangerous, a deceiving spider baiting its prey into its lair.

 

And dangerous it soon proved itself to be, albeit not exactly in a way that I would have expected.

 

“Step.”

 

Hearing the hatted man’s word too late, I crashed to the ground painfully.

 

“Oh my, do be careful. The journey from here is going to be a bit rough.” The hatted man offered me a hand and I pulled myself off the ground, brushing myself off. However, when I looked up again, I wished I was back sitting on the nice, firm, solid ground.

 

“Oh…my…”

 

“Grandfather Pio, where are you?”

 

“Over here.”

 

“OK, let’s go. Stay close by me please.”

 

And thus, we proceeded forward, into a massive labyrinth of mirrored stairs. My knees shook as we proceeded. Forward, left, right, up, down, backwards and throught the left turning, upside down, sideways, diagonally…

 

“Say this is not true”, I gulped,” Are we not upside down?”

 

“Ohoho… this is indeed a magical house.” The hatted man sauntered onwards, leaving me no choice but to follow him less I be left alone in this nightmare maze, left to die of hunger or insanity, or both. My face, which was reflected a million times around me, all looked whitish green.

            We walked up; or down, I do not know, a horizontal spiral staircase and turned to the right upwards. Walking across a rickety glass hanging bridge, a few clockwork birds twittered round and round my head, mocking me. I tried to swat them away, but almost vomited into the mirrored abyss as the bridge swung at the energy of my flapping hands.

 

“My dear man, please try to be a bit more gentle. This bridge is not as sturdy as it looks.” The bridge looked anything but sturdy to me. “Oh, and mind that missing pane.” I quickly avoided the gap in the bridge.

 

Reaching the end of the bridge, I deliberately planted both palms on the nearest mirrored wall and slid myself slowly and carefully to the blessed mirrored ground. If I was lucky, the hall would stop spinning about in a few minutes’ time.

 

“Ah, we’re nearly there, young man! Brighten up!” The hatted man threw his hands up in genuine gladness and did a sort of jiggling walk towards a door at the end of the hall. Grudgingly, I pulled myself off the ground and slowly followed him out of the damned mirrored labyrinth.