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Tower Beach
They said the tower was deserted, that nobody ever went there. They said that kids never played there, that no one had ever asked if it was for sale, that even the teenagers did their partying out of sight of it. They said that any time a pet went missing, it had last been seen heading in that direction.
She shuddered, thanked them for the warning, and left town. After dark, she circled back and angled to the beach.
It was impossible to miss, even in the dark. The moon glinted off the random parts of it built of cobblestone while the rest, apparently built of shadow, absorbed the light. As the sun rose, she saw that the shadowy building material was dark oak. There were no walls, just pillars and wide archways, as if the tower were a set of open mouths. The roof appeared to be domed and jagged at the same time.
Vines crept up the pillars. As she moved around, inspecting the edifice from all sides, she saw that it was snugged up to the landward hill, although she had a strong impression, deep in her gut, that the tower had once stood free but the land was moving on it, intending to absorb it.
Her circuit took her seaward, where extensive shallows came up to minuscule beaches, then rises, low hills, high hills, again surrounding and crowding the building.
In what she was calling the front of the tower because stone steps led to the opening there, she was shocked to find two scarecrows, side by side, one atop a stone pillar, the other sticking out of the ground – Or was it, also, on a stone pillar that the land had already absorbed. The part that took her aback was not the scarecrows, but the fact that they didn’t face the approach to the tower, but faced the tower, itself.
Perfect.
Inside the tower, the floors were of light, smooth birch. There were no inner walls and the ceilings were high, so the four rooms (one on each level) were bright and airy. There was no ruined furniture nor any sign of human or non-human animal habitation, not even a cobweb. A clean slate.
She carried primitive tools with her: an ax, a pick. On the other side of the hill were birch trees and oak trees (no dark oak, though…. Where had the dark oak come from?) and beneath the hill were stone and coal, gold and diamonds.
Slowly, she built smelters and furniture, doors and, from the sand on the beach, glass windows. She only enclosed the lower floors, more to ensure her privacy than her safety, leaving the upper floors open to the elements.
As the townspeople had said, no one came within her sight or hearing. Dogs and cats wandered up now and then, then wandered on, searching for a better life than they’d left.
And every year, the landward hill crept higher and every year, the shallows became beach, the beach became land, the land swelled up and embraced the tower from the seaward side.
She had to enclose the floor next to the top to keep the landscape out and her living space in. She had to enclose the top floor.
First, the vines would obscure the glass, then the earth would layer up behind it, then stone replaced the earth. Even when her only light came from her candles, lamps, and hearth fires, the air remained fresh and sweet, and decay touched nothing.
If the townspeople still talked of the tower, if they knew it was there or no longer there, she couldn’t know. If the tower were still on the surface of the earth or was now encased in a mountain, she couldn’t know. She was buried alive in a large, airy sepulcher, needing neither food nor drink, forever cut off from any world but her own.
Perfect.
My nails this week. Base color a neutral with sparkles over two nails. I stamped the accent nails wit green, but that didn’t show up enough, so I stamped over that with the same teal I used for the other stamps.
MY PROMPT TODAY: A building I found in one of my Minecraft “worlds”.
MA
Dan Antion
May 11, 2024 at 9:12pmWell done. I think that might be a perfect ending. I hope she has stuff to do her nails.
Marian Allen
May 12, 2024 at 9:41amOh, that would be a must! lol