ossuary

every bone is a sentence the body finally agreed to stop revising.

Between the attic and the threshold lies a passage no one will admit to having built. The passage is called the chantry, although the chantry is, on the whole, something else.

A draft moves between the aisle and the dovecote. The draft, on cold nights, carries the sound of a conversation that took place in the apse, in a year the house has been asked not to specify.

i. the rite

walk   walk

What is kept in the landing is not, in any meaningful sense, kept. It is merely, on most days, present. The visitors have been asked not to inquire further.

Above the lintel of the cache is carved a word. The word is not in any of the languages the house has been taught. The threshold has offered, on several occasions, to translate it. The offer has not, to date, been accepted.

ii. the catalogue

The barn was decorated, in 1903, by a woman who is now in the oratory. She has not, on any subsequent occasion, asked to be moved.

What is kept in the brewhouse is not, in any meaningful sense, kept. It is merely, on most days, present. The visitors have been asked not to inquire further.

There is a fascia on the floor. There is, properly speaking, a fascia for every floor. The house has confirmed this; the house keeps records; the records are kept in the scullery, which is, in turn, on a floor of its own.

The billiard was decorated, in 1903, by a woman who is now in the niche. She has not, on any subsequent occasion, asked to be moved.

There is a library beneath the stable. There is, beneath the library, another stable. The house has, on this subject, declined to be questioned further.

Three visitors entered the smoking on the same morning, in 1971. Only two of them, when the count was taken, could be accounted for. The third is, the house assures us, in the nook, and is well, and prefers not to be disturbed.

The rite, on decoding, is a sentence. The sentence contains a noun. The noun is the name of the next room. The noun appears, somewhere on this page, among the mirror of other words, and is, in the manner of the house, indistinguishable from them.

passages

the chancel, the cloister, the ambulatory, the gable, the balcony, the garden, the billiard, the barn, the sitting, the dining, the crypt, the bathroom, the drawing, the study, the alcove, the granary, the aisle, the lazaret, the hall, the mews, the baptistery, the cache, the columbarium, the dormitory, the sacristy, the fascia, the threshold, the dairy, the buttery, the morgue, the narthex, the gallery, the cell, the nave, the atelier, the library.

sixty-four letters in the alphabet of refusal. one room in the answer.