15
As all things of the world are meant to pass on and be no more, so Bourne Manor disappeared from the shores of Lake Champlain, letting loose its grip on the red stone cliffs, on Wysteria Barrows, and myself. Freed from its own bondage, Bourne Manor’s light blazed one last time over the lake, sending a fierce warning to all sailors and fishermen to heed the dangerous rocks that guarded the entrance to its harbor—calling no more lost souls to its ominous doors.
If such places as Bourne Manor carry within them the stories of a mournful past, as some believe, or harbor those lost unto themselves, then perhaps the Manor did indeed know more of me than I knew myself. Perhaps it knew that I would uncover the secret held within its walls in a set of wings crafted by a dreamer. Perhaps it foresaw the future I would bring to it on that February morning and welcomed me all the same.
I cannot know the purpose of dwellings lonely and forgotten. I know only that in the arms of the wind, both Wysteria and the Manor lost their grip upon me and I feared them no more, no more than a starling would fear the temporary entrapment of a barn gate, knowing that its true nature is not bound to earth.
I flew over the lake that night, neither blown off course nor caught in the currents, but safe in the wake of the captain’s wings and not far from the reach of Farley’s hand.
By the light of a rising moon and with the promise of finding those like myself, we safely reached the western shore.