WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:06.759 It was the last house on Hofforn Lane, a sea 2 00:00:06.759 --> 00:00:10.039 greens bowl of a place, squeezed montidy clapboats with painted porches, 3 00:00:10.240 --> 00:00:13.039 but refusing every rule of symmetry. On the day of 4 00:00:13.039 --> 00:00:15.560 the neighborhood open house tour, its eaves bristled with flowering 5 00:00:15.599 --> 00:00:18.480 vines and sunburn shingles, and the gardens built their sodiums 6 00:00:18.519 --> 00:00:21.399 onto the walk. I'd seen the house nearly every day 7 00:00:21.399 --> 00:00:25.679 for two decades, waving sometimes to the Oobnaur passcross. I'd 8 00:00:25.679 --> 00:00:28.920 never paid a close attention. There were other prettier houses 9 00:00:28.920 --> 00:00:31.640 on the street, tollbrick, prouque nan two Arts and crafts, 10 00:00:31.640 --> 00:00:35.240 bungalows that always made the Association newsletter. This one looked 11 00:00:35.240 --> 00:00:37.799 from the sidewalk as if a dozen ambitious additions had 12 00:00:37.799 --> 00:00:39.759 been tacked on over the years, with barely a plan 13 00:00:39.840 --> 00:00:42.679 among them. But the torment I could finally see inside. 14 00:00:43.280 --> 00:00:46.560 I'd always liked open houses, even after retiring from teaching, 15 00:00:46.640 --> 00:00:48.560 because you never knew what people would reveal when the 16 00:00:48.560 --> 00:00:50.679 doors came open, Corks that never made the way into 17 00:00:50.759 --> 00:00:54.280 yard gospel garden competitions. I walked over with my yellow 18 00:00:54.280 --> 00:00:56.640 sun hat and a small notebook, taking a printed floor 19 00:00:56.640 --> 00:00:59.280 plan from the welcome table in the front garden. There 20 00:00:59.320 --> 00:01:04.079 was a big sign welcome lemonade and cookies inside. Please 21 00:01:04.159 --> 00:01:08.879 enjoy your self guarded exploration Hartly. I could already hear 22 00:01:08.920 --> 00:01:12.319 the trickle of conversation drifting down the wide steps. Miss 23 00:01:12.280 --> 00:01:14.799 s Hartley herself greeted us at the door, brought hipped 24 00:01:14.840 --> 00:01:18.400 silver bob sherp was dressed battered with tiny pastel boats. 25 00:01:18.879 --> 00:01:21.280 Take your time, mind the sunken step in the back corridor. 26 00:01:21.439 --> 00:01:24.640 She said, this a big placed twenty nine rooms, believe 27 00:01:24.680 --> 00:01:28.079 it or not. Her smile was bright and unhurried. The 28 00:01:28.120 --> 00:01:30.439 phrase caught my ear, not twenty or twenty five, but 29 00:01:30.560 --> 00:01:33.640 twenty nine. I glanced over her head past old wavy 30 00:01:33.640 --> 00:01:35.840 glass that mumbled a view to stuck a so shallow 31 00:01:35.840 --> 00:01:39.120 it looked almost folded. Twenty nine. Not many people can 32 00:01:39.200 --> 00:01:41.560 keep track of all those, I replied, half joking, and 33 00:01:41.640 --> 00:01:44.400 she burst out with a laugh. Though you'd be surprised 34 00:01:44.519 --> 00:01:47.400 everyone ends up with their own number, she said. At 35 00:01:47.400 --> 00:01:49.400 the time, it just sounded like one of her stories. 36 00:01:50.120 --> 00:01:53.439 Inside was a soft chaos of light and rugs. Rooms 37 00:01:53.480 --> 00:01:56.000 opened with the apology into one another. Music crined Paarlor 38 00:01:56.159 --> 00:01:58.719 Paula to dem with low bookshelves, bookshelves to what could 39 00:01:58.719 --> 00:02:00.200 have been a sewing room, but all, I says all 40 00:02:00.200 --> 00:02:02.200 were rubber boots and a half dunk cross were penciled 41 00:02:02.239 --> 00:02:04.840 onto a window sill. A pair of little girls sat 42 00:02:04.879 --> 00:02:07.200 in the bay window, reading aloud in two different voices 43 00:02:07.239 --> 00:02:10.479 at once. As the hubbub of visitors filled the central hallway, 44 00:02:10.520 --> 00:02:13.039 I let myself slow down, counting as I went making 45 00:02:13.080 --> 00:02:15.840 marks on my pamphlet. It became a game. One for 46 00:02:15.879 --> 00:02:18.120 the dining nook, two for a room of glass cabinets, 47 00:02:18.120 --> 00:02:20.360 three for the sloping library that looked toward the garden. 48 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:23.120 I walked with precision in a way teachers learned to 49 00:02:23.240 --> 00:02:26.400 left to right, then upstairs, pausing after the landing for breath. 50 00:02:26.479 --> 00:02:28.840 And another two rooms that fit together like puzzle pieces, 51 00:02:28.879 --> 00:02:31.680 only the corners didn't quite me At the end by 52 00:02:31.719 --> 00:02:35.000 that stair, I stopped and counted my marks twenty eight. 53 00:02:35.759 --> 00:02:38.879 I flipped the pamphlet over, recounted twice. I must have 54 00:02:38.919 --> 00:02:40.400 missed when they had to be a closet a back 55 00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:44.039 hallway to slit by. I doubled back, echoed by two 56 00:02:44.120 --> 00:02:46.240 other guests, one with the camera and one with the 57 00:02:46.280 --> 00:02:49.319 sensible blue card again, both brows knit and silent arithmetic. 58 00:02:50.039 --> 00:02:52.520 Near the cookie table, busy with proofs of lemon and almond, 59 00:02:52.520 --> 00:02:55.800 the woman in a cardigan handed her sheet her friend thirty, 60 00:02:56.000 --> 00:02:58.840 The friend said, shaking her head, I swear I only 61 00:02:58.879 --> 00:03:01.759 marked twenty six. A man college age with the camera 62 00:03:01.840 --> 00:03:04.479 slung around his neck called over, Hey, does any one 63 00:03:04.479 --> 00:03:06.919 have twenty nine? That's the magic number? Or await, how 64 00:03:06.960 --> 00:03:09.479 many did you have? His tone was lightly mocking, but 65 00:03:09.560 --> 00:03:12.520 I saw his eyes flick towards the owner. Misss Hartly 66 00:03:12.560 --> 00:03:15.240 bustled over her beaming. No te alike. I do hope 67 00:03:15.240 --> 00:03:18.599 you enjoyed yourselves. It's always twenty nine. She said the 68 00:03:18.599 --> 00:03:20.520 phrase with a little flourish, as if it were a 69 00:03:20.560 --> 00:03:23.520 punch line I'd missed. I left the lemonade, half finish, 70 00:03:23.599 --> 00:03:26.520 my map clutched in one hand, Standing on the walkway, 71 00:03:26.599 --> 00:03:29.280 watching neighbor's stream behind me, I found myself grinning at 72 00:03:29.280 --> 00:03:31.560 the impossibility of it, Hooked by a mild but persistent 73 00:03:31.599 --> 00:03:35.159 itch curiosity, nothing more. There's something appealing about a puzzle 74 00:03:35.159 --> 00:03:38.639 that everyone solves differently. That evening, in my own garden, 75 00:03:38.719 --> 00:03:40.759 I found myself turning over the house in my mind. 76 00:03:41.400 --> 00:03:44.039 I had always considered myself precise, the sort who counts 77 00:03:44.080 --> 00:03:47.000 bolts as I planted them, saws library books, answers trivic 78 00:03:47.080 --> 00:03:50.639 questions before the television host finishes the sentence. The teacher's 79 00:03:50.639 --> 00:03:53.400 habits die hard, My lake husband used to say, But 80 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:56.159 this little discrepancy, the utter inability of a dozen sorber 81 00:03:56.240 --> 00:03:58.599 visitors to count the same rooms, felt mischievous, like a 82 00:03:58.599 --> 00:04:02.240 gentle prank. Yeah, Yet it was persistent. The neighborhood was 83 00:04:02.280 --> 00:04:05.560 well mashed to idiosyncrasies, half on lan culled under old 84 00:04:05.599 --> 00:04:08.080 Maple's houses, stitched in place by nearly a century's worth 85 00:04:08.120 --> 00:04:11.039 of substitutions. The east end was all brick and light, 86 00:04:11.080 --> 00:04:13.560 a glass solid as packed lum full of pensioners who 87 00:04:13.599 --> 00:04:16.680 had read every birth and death announcement twice over. Farther 88 00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:19.480 up with the experiments around herded Victorium a taxi to 89 00:04:19.519 --> 00:04:21.759 me above the stairs, the sunken ranch of bottle windows 90 00:04:21.800 --> 00:04:24.160 that looked like a jigsa puzzle started by an enthusiastic 91 00:04:24.199 --> 00:04:26.759 child and finished reluctantly by a tie at one. I'd 92 00:04:26.759 --> 00:04:29.360 been here since my early fifties, after Daniel's death, in 93 00:04:29.360 --> 00:04:31.319 a paleol of cottage with a patch of peonies too 94 00:04:31.360 --> 00:04:33.519 well to impress the flower patrol, but met with loving 95 00:04:33.519 --> 00:04:36.680 indifference by me. My routine was solid. I supped at 96 00:04:36.680 --> 00:04:38.720 the elementary school now and then read a book or 97 00:04:38.759 --> 00:04:40.920 three each week to wat siege with Clara, who lived 98 00:04:40.959 --> 00:04:45.000 two blocks over. I played the Everdaese lead crosswords, corocery coupons, 99 00:04:45.079 --> 00:04:48.120 local Trevine Knight. Never the sort to go hunting for secrets, 100 00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:50.600 yet people brought them to me. Sure my teachers, I 101 00:04:50.639 --> 00:04:53.680 caught what others let slip. Missess Hartley was fictious and 102 00:04:53.800 --> 00:04:57.000 she inherited the Otause twenty years earlier. Known for her elaborate, 103 00:04:57.040 --> 00:05:00.720 sometimes contradictory, always vibrant stories, she was the sort of 104 00:05:00.759 --> 00:05:03.120 person who made jokes with the mailman and cold teenager's 105 00:05:03.120 --> 00:05:06.199 dear heart. Rumor said the house was bequeathed by a gnat, 106 00:05:06.240 --> 00:05:08.639 but there were whispers of a lottery ticket, a lost cousin, 107 00:05:08.800 --> 00:05:11.519 even a wedding gun amok. In nineteen eighty seven, I'd 108 00:05:11.560 --> 00:05:13.839 hurried them all often from mister Prescott across the way. 109 00:05:14.439 --> 00:05:17.279 Mister Prescott, with his cane and Seir's ca hat, prided 110 00:05:17.360 --> 00:05:19.920 himself on knowing every brick on the street. He'd lived 111 00:05:19.959 --> 00:05:21.839 here before the post was split, as he liked to 112 00:05:21.839 --> 00:05:24.240 remind newcomers, since before the paint on the house dried, 113 00:05:24.319 --> 00:05:27.000 he once told me, frowning in his direction. He rarely 114 00:05:27.079 --> 00:05:29.519 joined festivities, but his porch was a source of running 115 00:05:29.519 --> 00:05:32.720 commentary on politics, pruning the teak of sized spaniel next door. 116 00:05:33.240 --> 00:05:35.560 The local children. Some mine more in spirit than a 117 00:05:35.560 --> 00:05:38.839 genetic circulated in the yards, like wind, inventing games, pumping 118 00:05:38.920 --> 00:05:41.720 rumors about treasure, obsecret doors, and magic always in the 119 00:05:41.759 --> 00:05:45.120 sea green house. Once I'd overheard a breathless eight year 120 00:05:45.160 --> 00:05:46.680 old confde a friend that if he listened in the 121 00:05:46.680 --> 00:05:50.000 closet under the stairs, the walls whispered. Their parents mostly 122 00:05:50.040 --> 00:05:53.319 cared about bilaws and the annual flowerred competition, dismissing house 123 00:05:53.319 --> 00:05:56.160 oudities as signs of a bygone era or architectural excess. 124 00:05:56.839 --> 00:06:00.399 Even so, the police drew conversation that old barn is amazed. 125 00:06:00.439 --> 00:06:03.680 Prescott would say, you'd freeze to death in there by October. 126 00:06:04.279 --> 00:06:07.480 Others complained about drafty corners, inexplicable heat in the attic, 127 00:06:07.560 --> 00:06:09.680 the window seats deep enough to nap in and lose 128 00:06:09.720 --> 00:06:12.920 your shoes. Everyone accepted it was unusual but no one 129 00:06:12.959 --> 00:06:16.040 pressed for more. I walked the lane most days, sometimes 130 00:06:16.040 --> 00:06:19.480 with Chlora, other times alone. We always passed Missus hartly, 131 00:06:19.560 --> 00:06:22.959 trading greetings through a thick screen door until the open house. 132 00:06:23.040 --> 00:06:26.600 The interior never stirred much interest. It seemed there immutable, 133 00:06:26.600 --> 00:06:29.040 a polite neighborhood secret that didn't matter much to anyone. 134 00:06:29.680 --> 00:06:34.079 Now my mind returned off, sidestepping the ordinary puzzles. The house, 135 00:06:34.199 --> 00:06:36.680 with its jumble, unlilled, refused to settle into shape. The 136 00:06:36.720 --> 00:06:38.759 more I thought back, the less clear the path I 137 00:06:38.839 --> 00:06:42.759 had taken began twenty nine, twenty eight thirty. The numbers 138 00:06:42.759 --> 00:06:46.319 had all been claimed. Was it simply bad? Counting the 139 00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:49.360 nerves of a crowd, the confusion of converging hallways. The 140 00:06:49.399 --> 00:06:51.519 next morning, beneath the quiet sweep of the wallot tree 141 00:06:51.519 --> 00:06:53.759 outside my window, I found the pamphlet from the tour, 142 00:06:53.839 --> 00:06:57.920 dotted with my Keffel marks. I reconsidered the tally. Every 143 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:00.399 room had seemed definite as I entered a kitchen that 144 00:07:00.480 --> 00:07:03.160 must have been remodeled more than once, and quit heavy curtains, 145 00:07:03.160 --> 00:07:05.560 admitting only a slant of dust, A staircase that rose 146 00:07:05.639 --> 00:07:09.240 like an afterthought. Yet the math would not align maybe 147 00:07:09.319 --> 00:07:11.360 I missed a door, or my own sense of direction 148 00:07:11.439 --> 00:07:14.279 betrayed me. One reflection too many in the large old mirrors. 149 00:07:14.839 --> 00:07:17.040 But it was not just me. While I watered the 150 00:07:17.079 --> 00:07:20.040 hydh rangers, I remembered the conversation from the lemonade table. 151 00:07:20.199 --> 00:07:22.920 None of the visitors had the same number people with 152 00:07:23.000 --> 00:07:26.160 digital photos, in Nephon's argue, besides shy retirees with pen 153 00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:29.040 and paper notes. If it had merely been a model, 154 00:07:29.120 --> 00:07:32.639 the numbers would have clustered. Instead, they spread out, not wildly, 155 00:07:32.759 --> 00:07:35.759 but stubbornly enough to unsettle. It would be easy to 156 00:07:35.800 --> 00:07:38.240 drop the matter there, decide that the confusion belonged to 157 00:07:38.240 --> 00:07:40.079 the old house, and let it join the catalog of 158 00:07:40.079 --> 00:07:43.199 neighborhood oddities. But something in the lightness with which Miss 159 00:07:43.160 --> 00:07:45.439 s hartly repeated it's always twenty nine stuck with me 160 00:07:45.480 --> 00:07:48.160 a certainty, yet not quite an explanation, as if she 161 00:07:48.160 --> 00:07:50.120 relished a puzzle as much as I did, would act 162 00:07:50.120 --> 00:07:52.480 the need to settle it. By mid morning, a pair 163 00:07:52.480 --> 00:07:54.720 of neighbors strolled past my gate, debating the room count 164 00:07:54.720 --> 00:07:57.839 in low amuse forices. Their tennis rackets were gartten. I 165 00:07:57.879 --> 00:08:00.639 called out, did either of you get twenty nine the 166 00:08:00.759 --> 00:08:03.399 ground and shook their heads, their answers diverging by more 167 00:08:03.439 --> 00:08:06.240 than one. Danielle, I thought, would have laughed at me 168 00:08:06.240 --> 00:08:08.959 for fussing over a number, But then I could already 169 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:11.560 feel a familiar friend liege at the age of my curiosity, 170 00:08:11.600 --> 00:08:13.240 the place in me that refused to let a puzzle 171 00:08:13.279 --> 00:08:16.639 rest unsolved, especially one paraded so openly amid lemonade and gossip. 172 00:08:17.199 --> 00:08:19.680 That afternoon, I decided the simplest way to lay it 173 00:08:19.720 --> 00:08:21.480 to rest would be to go back one more walk. 174 00:08:21.600 --> 00:08:24.839 A systematic approach, I resolved to as missus Hotley to 175 00:08:24.879 --> 00:08:28.279 open her doors again, just once for proper count. Even this, 176 00:08:28.600 --> 00:08:31.959 I tried to tell myself, was nothing more than neighborly thoroughness. 177 00:08:32.399 --> 00:08:34.159 I returned that even to the memory of the blue 178 00:08:34.159 --> 00:08:37.159 cardigan woman standing just inside the entry map in hand 179 00:08:37.799 --> 00:08:40.240 her friend had marked thirty, she only found twenty eight. 180 00:08:40.919 --> 00:08:45.159 Both were insistent their numbers would not line despite digital evidence. 181 00:08:45.159 --> 00:08:47.679 To compare shead photos showing a pale green corridor a 182 00:08:47.759 --> 00:08:50.720 friend's camra showing an archery in its place. Some one 183 00:08:50.759 --> 00:08:52.679 pointed to a door that others wore was not them 184 00:08:52.720 --> 00:08:55.200 minutes earlier, and another guest showed a photograph of a 185 00:08:55.240 --> 00:08:57.840 corridor elan couldn't recall, its windows glowing with late light 186 00:08:58.480 --> 00:09:01.399 by the entryway. Missus Hartley seemed delighted by the growing confusion. 187 00:09:01.879 --> 00:09:04.320 When I mentioned the disagreement, she just grinned, It's always 188 00:09:04.360 --> 00:09:07.519 twenty nine, isn't it a wonder? She handed at napkins 189 00:09:07.519 --> 00:09:10.200 with cooky shaped like keys and teapots, the picture of calm, 190 00:09:10.480 --> 00:09:12.600 as though we all were enjoying nothing more mysterious than 191 00:09:12.600 --> 00:09:15.200 a word game. The more evidence I gathered, the less 192 00:09:15.240 --> 00:09:18.440 idea I had of what precisely was happening. Guests who 193 00:09:18.440 --> 00:09:21.000 compared their lists were met with shrugs, laughter, in the 194 00:09:21.039 --> 00:09:23.159 growing sense that some trick was being played, but by 195 00:09:23.200 --> 00:09:27.039 whom the house itself felt physically unchanged unapologetically There yet 196 00:09:27.080 --> 00:09:29.919 agreement over its contents kept slipping further away, even as 197 00:09:29.960 --> 00:09:33.360 the sunlight angled down and the lemonade jug emptied. Walking home, 198 00:09:33.440 --> 00:09:36.240 I made the decision almost absent mendedly. I would return. 199 00:09:36.320 --> 00:09:38.480 I would count methodically room by rooumen from my own 200 00:09:38.559 --> 00:09:41.440 peace of mind, I would enlist help. The next morning, 201 00:09:41.480 --> 00:09:44.320 I rhymus, says Hatley's bell apology and request in hand, 202 00:09:44.879 --> 00:09:47.960 she met my cushion with enthusiasm. Of course, I'd rather 203 00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:50.320 get to the bottom of it myself, she said. I 204 00:09:50.399 --> 00:09:52.200 nushered me into her front Paula, with the matter of 205 00:09:52.240 --> 00:09:54.440 factor of someone who expects to be proven right but 206 00:09:54.480 --> 00:09:57.320 welcomes the effort. Her house coat was blue that morning, 207 00:09:57.399 --> 00:10:00.279 with incongruous orange flowers, and she offered me tea instead 208 00:10:00.279 --> 00:10:03.600 of lemonade. I gathered my tools, a fresh, gritted notebook, 209 00:10:03.679 --> 00:10:06.360 colored pens, measuring tape because in old houses nothing as 210 00:10:06.399 --> 00:10:08.879 ever quite as labeled, and a small digital recorder left 211 00:10:08.879 --> 00:10:10.679 of her from my supen days in case I wanted 212 00:10:10.679 --> 00:10:14.039 to dictate observations. I called Clara, a friend, a neighbor 213 00:10:14.080 --> 00:10:16.639 who taught at the community college and was forever photographing 214 00:10:16.679 --> 00:10:20.600 things for her side project on personal geographies. Plora was skeptical, 215 00:10:20.639 --> 00:10:23.840 but entertained. I don't doubt you, Ellen, but there are 216 00:10:23.879 --> 00:10:26.399 weirder things than confusing floor plans. What if you just 217 00:10:26.399 --> 00:10:29.759 missed a closet, she teased. I insisted that every room 218 00:10:29.759 --> 00:10:32.480 would count and nothing would be left to memory alone. 219 00:10:32.919 --> 00:10:35.320 When we arrived, masss hotly led us in and left 220 00:10:35.360 --> 00:10:36.960 us to our devices. To just call out if you 221 00:10:37.000 --> 00:10:40.480 get lost she advised quick to laughter. The rainstorm had 222 00:10:40.519 --> 00:10:42.720 rolled past in the night, so every window was webbed, 223 00:10:42.720 --> 00:10:45.720 with droplets throwing in certain patterns of light crossed to flows. 224 00:10:46.399 --> 00:10:48.480 We agreed on a plan. I would sketch each true 225 00:10:48.519 --> 00:10:52.600 as we entered, noting mode of entry, furnishing doors, window exposures, 226 00:10:52.799 --> 00:10:56.559 and whatever oddities. Plara would photograph each threshold and take 227 00:10:56.600 --> 00:10:59.600 panoramic images at every major turn. We mapped the first 228 00:10:59.600 --> 00:11:03.559 floor steady is a school project, marking kitchen, breakfast room, pantry, 229 00:11:03.639 --> 00:11:06.559 sun room. The ladder my favorite, with its entidy fern 230 00:11:06.600 --> 00:11:08.919 pots and view of a while tomatoes was easy to place. 231 00:11:09.639 --> 00:11:12.519 Plora said, this is room six. Yes. Then I nodded, 232 00:11:12.639 --> 00:11:15.960 both of us, noting the number. We pressed on study, parlor, den, 233 00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:19.879 sterile closet. The house had short, broad corridors in surprising corners, 234 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:22.799 rooms joining at odd angles, like a game of geometric 235 00:11:22.799 --> 00:11:25.679 telephone played over a century. The must of old paper, 236 00:11:25.720 --> 00:11:27.519 the scent of cut grass from the open back door, 237 00:11:27.600 --> 00:11:29.480 a faint trace of lilacsanny in a hole which every 238 00:11:29.559 --> 00:11:31.559 room had a personality, a bit like the people who 239 00:11:31.600 --> 00:11:35.759 passed through them upstairs. Confidence grew, our notes match and 240 00:11:35.840 --> 00:11:40.279 we moved steadily talking through our process room fifteen sewing nook, 241 00:11:40.320 --> 00:11:43.759 two windows, three doors, I said. Clara took two shots 242 00:11:43.840 --> 00:11:47.200 showing the light pouring and from unexpected angles close to 243 00:11:47.240 --> 00:11:49.639 the eavese a cozy alcove, paneled and dark wood seen. 244 00:11:49.720 --> 00:11:51.639 Took sist solely for a stack of jigs or puzzles 245 00:11:51.639 --> 00:11:55.919 and a strip of vivid a match Wallpepper nineteen. Plora asked, 246 00:11:56.639 --> 00:12:00.639 yes nineteen. They felt almost too simple. As we neared 247 00:12:00.679 --> 00:12:03.200 the attic, scrap and s is crept in the sun room. 248 00:12:03.240 --> 00:12:05.279 I loved so much. Ellen's room mate, Klara couled as 249 00:12:05.279 --> 00:12:07.559 somehow was not on her own count, and she frowned 250 00:12:07.559 --> 00:12:11.120 over her camera. I didn't photograph a sun room, she insisted, 251 00:12:11.159 --> 00:12:13.559 scrolling back through a time mine. There should have captured everything. 252 00:12:14.120 --> 00:12:17.240 I paged through my own sketches. There it was plain 253 00:12:17.279 --> 00:12:20.759 as day. Sun room, south window, Potts bird feeder nineteen 254 00:12:20.799 --> 00:12:23.480 paces from kitchen. She pointed to her own list to 255 00:12:23.559 --> 00:12:25.879 study where I had seen a reading nook, an octagon 256 00:12:25.960 --> 00:12:29.000 or room I couldn't recall. I definitely remember windows all 257 00:12:29.039 --> 00:12:32.120 a round. Look here ropt again, stained glass. We turned 258 00:12:32.120 --> 00:12:35.679 through our maps, each with distinct shapes. Both confident. At 259 00:12:35.679 --> 00:12:39.000 the end, Klara's count was twenty eight, mine had become thirty. 260 00:12:39.600 --> 00:12:43.440 We shrugged, puzzled after masking a deeper surprise. We tried 261 00:12:43.480 --> 00:12:46.200 reconciling sketches, but found each had rooms the other failed 262 00:12:46.200 --> 00:12:49.960 to recall. Further tests only multiplied our confusion. Some of 263 00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:53.120 Klara's photos, taken at identical co ordinates to my own drawings, 264 00:12:53.120 --> 00:12:56.360 showed brickton doorways where I drawn open thresholds where my 265 00:12:56.440 --> 00:12:58.960 notes at Wholwilly's to small powder room. Her camera only 266 00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:02.120 found a wall in one photo, verdant light stream for 267 00:13:02.200 --> 00:13:05.159 a large bay window on to threadbare rug. My memory 268 00:13:05.159 --> 00:13:08.559 insisted there was no winter. There is certainly no bay. Curious, 269 00:13:08.679 --> 00:13:11.919 we tried a physical check. We re entered rooms together, 270 00:13:12.080 --> 00:13:14.759 relying on each other's directions, but we found our ruts 271 00:13:14.799 --> 00:13:18.440 altered slightly out of step. In one instance, we smelled 272 00:13:18.440 --> 00:13:21.039 lilac in a small parlor, apparently missing from every map. 273 00:13:21.559 --> 00:13:23.840 We agreed to market room mixed for laid a cross checking, 274 00:13:23.919 --> 00:13:27.080 yet upon returning the room was a normal, rather dingy bathroom. 275 00:13:27.600 --> 00:13:30.399 We met two graduate students in architecture, their arms full 276 00:13:30.440 --> 00:13:32.879 of note pads, who wandered about, eyes wide debating in 277 00:13:32.919 --> 00:13:37.399 low voices about experiential geometry and psychological wayfinding. They shared 278 00:13:37.399 --> 00:13:41.000 our buildiment, blaming each other for getting distracted. Clara lent 279 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:44.200 them appendon. We compared notes, Their diagrams rendered in hasty 280 00:13:44.279 --> 00:13:47.639 lock letders diverged wildly from our own. The day ended 281 00:13:47.639 --> 00:13:50.399 in a mess of papers, ketches, and digital images. Proof 282 00:13:50.399 --> 00:13:53.519 after proof that could not be arranged. A match overlaying 283 00:13:53.519 --> 00:13:55.799 our work only deepened the dissonance. The sequence of rooms, 284 00:13:55.879 --> 00:13:59.159 the orientation of doors, the order of passages were all changed. 285 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:02.080 There was no way our separate records could possibly refer 286 00:14:02.120 --> 00:14:04.639 to the same house, though we'd walk together the whole time. 287 00:14:05.240 --> 00:14:07.759 Back at my kitchen table, map spread beside a cold 288 00:14:07.759 --> 00:14:11.320 cup of coffee, Chlora whistled softly. It's like the househeadits itself, 289 00:14:11.440 --> 00:14:14.399 she said, half joking. As brightened by the problem, I 290 00:14:14.440 --> 00:14:17.600 stared at my paper's multiple versions of small windows, staircases 291 00:14:17.639 --> 00:14:19.559 bending the wrong way, a sun room that might have 292 00:14:19.600 --> 00:14:22.120 been a memory rather than a room. If it were 293 00:14:22.159 --> 00:14:25.480 only me, I'd of guess fatigue, nostalgia. But with evidence 294 00:14:25.519 --> 00:14:28.200 in hand, from two, then four, then half a dozen observers, 295 00:14:28.279 --> 00:14:30.440 each account impossible to overlay on to the next. The 296 00:14:30.480 --> 00:14:33.519 puzzle only grew deeper. It wasn't a matter of miscount. 297 00:14:33.639 --> 00:14:35.840 It had become a problem of reality itself, or at 298 00:14:35.840 --> 00:14:38.480 the very least the stories we told about it. I 299 00:14:38.519 --> 00:14:41.120 thought back to the kit seeker, howiys the parent's impatience, 300 00:14:41.200 --> 00:14:43.639 and wondered, was this some elaborate trick, or had the 301 00:14:43.639 --> 00:14:46.960 house itself slipped anchor? That night I found myself restless 302 00:14:46.960 --> 00:14:49.159 with curiosity, not dread, not the feeling that the house 303 00:14:49.240 --> 00:14:51.080 posed a threat, but that it offered a glimpse of 304 00:14:51.080 --> 00:14:53.559 some larger stranger, a way of being if only I 305 00:14:53.600 --> 00:14:55.679 looked at it from the right angle, if there was 306 00:14:55.720 --> 00:14:57.559 an answer, it might live in memory in the way 307 00:14:57.600 --> 00:15:00.039 people recalled the shape of the house. I decided I 308 00:15:00.120 --> 00:15:02.440 did to look backward as well as within, beginning with 309 00:15:02.480 --> 00:15:05.440 the person who remembered every changehol from Lane had ever endured, 310 00:15:05.679 --> 00:15:09.320 mister Prescott. Prescott answered my ring with the shop about time, 311 00:15:09.399 --> 00:15:11.320 but ushered me up to his porch, a bright red 312 00:15:11.360 --> 00:15:15.200 geranium casting pattern shadows at our fee, Prescott, I began, 313 00:15:15.440 --> 00:15:17.200 have you ever gone inside the Hotly House for the 314 00:15:17.240 --> 00:15:21.639 association tour? He snorted, too drafty, like walking through a sieve. 315 00:15:21.679 --> 00:15:23.440 If you ask me. But I've been in as a 316 00:15:23.440 --> 00:15:25.960 boy in the forties, and since no two visits match. 317 00:15:26.600 --> 00:15:29.799 He leaned back, came across knees, hashadowing his sharp eyes, 318 00:15:29.919 --> 00:15:33.039 remembering Allah, when they build it, it was ordinary enough, 319 00:15:33.080 --> 00:15:35.440 ought to have had maybe sixteen rooms, not much more, 320 00:15:35.480 --> 00:15:37.559 But there was always some wing being added, a wall's 321 00:15:37.600 --> 00:15:40.120 coming down or following over. My uncle helped wired in 322 00:15:40.159 --> 00:15:42.440 fifty one, came back saying there were rooms, he'd swear 323 00:15:42.440 --> 00:15:45.519 weren't they before. Did you remember any specific story about 324 00:15:45.519 --> 00:15:48.519 a changing I pressed, half expecting him to wave me off. 325 00:15:49.200 --> 00:15:51.279 There was a summer must have been nineteen fifty two 326 00:15:51.279 --> 00:15:53.559 when a whole wing showed up, library of summer rooms 327 00:15:53.600 --> 00:15:55.879 something like that. Nobody could say how a why. But 328 00:15:55.960 --> 00:15:58.279 the taxes went up, and the blueprints didn't match what 329 00:15:58.360 --> 00:16:01.320 he saw inside. Even city inspecters threw up their hands. 330 00:16:01.840 --> 00:16:03.840 He shook his head, amused in a little proud of 331 00:16:03.840 --> 00:16:07.200 the neighborhood' quirks. The city kept pro drawing maps. Old 332 00:16:07.200 --> 00:16:10.080 Miss s Hampson, Missess Hartley's an. I suppose she insisted 333 00:16:10.080 --> 00:16:12.799 it had twenty nine rooms and would brook no argument. 334 00:16:13.320 --> 00:16:16.480 The more oppressed, the more tangled, the stories became. Some 335 00:16:16.559 --> 00:16:18.080 said the house was always a bit of a war 336 00:16:18.159 --> 00:16:20.759 and a rabbit maze with impossible right angles. Others were 337 00:16:20.799 --> 00:16:23.600 sure it was sensible until boarding house days in the sixties, 338 00:16:23.720 --> 00:16:26.200 after which the ruins, not the walls, but the actual 339 00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:29.240 room count never matched. Two visits in a row, determined 340 00:16:29.279 --> 00:16:32.559 to push further a visit City Hall. The clerk perky, 341 00:16:32.600 --> 00:16:35.039 but Harry quinted at me through wire room glasses as 342 00:16:35.039 --> 00:16:38.480 I requested the house's blueprints, which ones she qupt, flipping 343 00:16:38.519 --> 00:16:41.679 through manilla folders. We've got at least rien recor all 344 00:16:41.720 --> 00:16:46.240 supposedly originals. She produced resets, each labeled by different architects, 345 00:16:46.279 --> 00:16:50.080 hand dated decades apart. They were at best rough cousins. 346 00:16:50.679 --> 00:16:53.759 Each blueprint showed broad similarities, a central hall, a staircase, 347 00:16:54.120 --> 00:16:58.440 roughly the same footprint, with details diverged. One included a 348 00:16:58.519 --> 00:17:01.600 music room with French windows, which existed nowhere in the house. 349 00:17:01.639 --> 00:17:04.119 Another had a whole west wing missing an a study 350 00:17:04.119 --> 00:17:07.400 in its place. I scrutinized the property tax recos and 351 00:17:07.480 --> 00:17:10.920 found more contradictions. Some years the house was taxed on 352 00:17:10.960 --> 00:17:15.160 twenty eight rooms, others on thirty. Several inspector's notes read 353 00:17:15.240 --> 00:17:18.039 site does not match fl upland provided or discrepancies in 354 00:17:18.039 --> 00:17:21.960 internal measurements. Survey records were a palimpsyst of edits and 355 00:17:22.039 --> 00:17:25.279 margin notes. There were scattered boomers too. One of the 356 00:17:25.279 --> 00:17:28.519 city's older residents, Ms. Jason, a tiny, sprightly woman in 357 00:17:28.519 --> 00:17:31.880 her late eighties, was adamant the original architect was an 358 00:17:31.880 --> 00:17:34.920 odd one, like to leave clues, briddles and woodwork, eccentric 359 00:17:34.960 --> 00:17:38.160 as a mappie. Another neighbor suggested the house was briefly 360 00:17:38.200 --> 00:17:41.039 a boarding house in the nineteen sixties and seventies, rooms 361 00:17:41.079 --> 00:17:44.079 re arranged to accommodate families in Nothing so odd, just practical, 362 00:17:44.200 --> 00:17:47.240 she insisted. I followed the line to a former resident, 363 00:17:47.319 --> 00:17:50.880 Mister Wilkins, met at a community lunch. He was tall, 364 00:17:50.960 --> 00:17:53.200 bent in his mid seventies, and full of the warm 365 00:17:53.240 --> 00:17:55.720 nostalge of someone happy to have left the oddities behind. 366 00:17:56.440 --> 00:17:58.440 I only lived there year when I was nine, he 367 00:17:58.519 --> 00:18:01.079 told me. I phase alike from memory. There were always 368 00:18:01.160 --> 00:18:03.759 jokes about losing your socks, your hat, your sense of direction. 369 00:18:04.359 --> 00:18:07.079 He thought. A moment once I found the door in 370 00:18:07.119 --> 00:18:09.319 the upstairs hallway that wasn't there the day before, opened 371 00:18:09.319 --> 00:18:12.039 onto a room fild with blinding sunlight and flowers lilacs. 372 00:18:12.119 --> 00:18:14.039 I think I shut it, ran to tell my mother, 373 00:18:14.200 --> 00:18:16.519 and when I came back, it was gone. Never managed 374 00:18:16.519 --> 00:18:19.079 to show any one. He rustled in his wallet and 375 00:18:19.119 --> 00:18:22.039 withdrew a faded black and white snap shot marked a 376 00:18:22.119 --> 00:18:25.160 room seventeen. It showed an overexposed rectangle enty but with 377 00:18:25.200 --> 00:18:28.319 a flood of light, wooden floor in distinct shadows. It 378 00:18:28.359 --> 00:18:30.920 doesn't match anything there now, but I remember the smell, 379 00:18:31.039 --> 00:18:34.160 like curly summer, strange thing to forget or remember. I 380 00:18:34.200 --> 00:18:37.759 thanked him photograph carefully returned. As I walked home, I 381 00:18:37.759 --> 00:18:40.599 reaplayed a story in the others, and the assertion grew stronger. 382 00:18:40.640 --> 00:18:43.000 The house was not only confusing, It was unstable in 383 00:18:43.039 --> 00:18:46.160 a way, a defied simple explanation or error. The problem 384 00:18:46.240 --> 00:18:48.799 was no longer one of miscounted doors or hurry visitors. 385 00:18:49.480 --> 00:18:52.480 It was something more fundamental, more disorienting, a house whose 386 00:18:52.559 --> 00:18:56.279 very identity, over decades, refused to settle. The next logical 387 00:18:56.279 --> 00:18:58.799 step was to see hard a evidence, something less fleeting, 388 00:18:58.960 --> 00:19:01.559 more grounded and out of act in memory. I called 389 00:19:01.640 --> 00:19:04.000 upon the modest, if under appreciate it store of the 390 00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:06.839 local Historical Society, a warren of arcades under the library, 391 00:19:06.920 --> 00:19:10.079 run by volunteers and fiercely defended against medlows by mister 392 00:19:10.119 --> 00:19:13.559 Prescott himself, who sat on the board with permission from 393 00:19:13.599 --> 00:19:16.240 Messess Hatley and the archivist. I sorted through shells and 394 00:19:16.319 --> 00:19:20.000 assid free boxes looking for proof. I found hand drawn 395 00:19:20.079 --> 00:19:23.440 room by room illustration faded and annotated without dates, programs 396 00:19:23.440 --> 00:19:25.680 from church events held in the music room, second floor, 397 00:19:25.799 --> 00:19:27.880 north wing, which had never existed on any of the 398 00:19:27.920 --> 00:19:30.720 blueprints in my files, and an annotated guests brook its 399 00:19:30.759 --> 00:19:33.759 curly handwriting referencing entertainments in rooms that by any current 400 00:19:33.759 --> 00:19:37.000 acount were nowhere to be found. Among the photographs, two 401 00:19:37.079 --> 00:19:40.440