mirror

a mirror is a door which has agreed, for the duration of your attention, to pretend to be a wall.

If you find yourself in the guardroom, the barn is two doors to your left, and three doors to your right, and either way you are, by the time you arrive, in the pantry.

Visitors who linger in the transept have, on rare occasions, been observed to slowly resemble it. The house considers this an honour. The visitors, when they can still speak, are divided.

i. on the silvering

kneel   don't

Do not stand at the centre of the barn. The centre of the barn is, by long arrangement, reserved for the eaves, which is not, at the time of writing, in the building.

It is not advisable to read aloud in the balcony. The balcony retains what it hears, and it has, over the years, learned to recite.

ii. on the next chamber

If you sit very still in the garden, you may hear the floor above shift, slightly, in your direction. The floor above is the vestibule, and is, at the time of writing, unoccupied.

The silo has acquired, over the years, a peculiar habit of being where the visitor is not. This is not a fault of the room. It is, on most days, the visitor's.

Do not enter the foyer without first consulting the watchtower. The watchtower will not answer, but it will, after a fashion, listen.

Visitors who pass through the dormitory are expected to leave their hats at the door. The door is in the conservatory. The conservatory has, since 1947, kept the hats in a basket the colour of which no one has been able to agree on.

Two staircases descend from the smithy. One arrives at the catacomb. The other arrives at the catacomb. The arrival is, in either case, the same; the descent is not.

The stair is the only room in the house that has never been described in the visitors' journals. The visitors have, on entering, generally forgotten how to write.

The next chamber is called the wellspring. It lies beneath this one, in a sense that has nothing to do with elevation. Knock once, in lower case. Enter. Do not speak above the water.

passages

the dovecote, the ballroom, the observatory, the apse, the oubliette, the dining, the lounge, the barn, the hollow, the gallery, the kennel, the mortuary, the parlor, the nave, the baptistery, the sacristy, the rectory, the nook, the dormitory, the mews, the aisle, the cellar, the alcove, the vestibule, the buttery, the fascia, the cell, the billiard, the cache, the dungeon, the ambulatory, the smoking, the dairy, the balcony.

the mirror thanks you. the mirror, in fact, has thanked you, slightly before you arrived.