It was an old house and had had many owners. People brought things with them or bought things for it, but as the house was on an island, they usually left their second-best dishes and heavy mirrors behind when they moved on
Naturally these objects had their own stories, but they acquired new ones as the next owners adopted and displayed the dishess proudly, or shrugged and hauled the mirrors to the attic. No one, it seemed, ever threw anything away.
Wanderer's adventures began when a family who had lived there for a long time was getting ready to leave, Although she herself had been in residence for nearly fifty years , she had never seen anything beyond the second shelf in a corner cupboard.
Since she was not an owner but only passing through, the objects treated her differently. They told her their old stories and their new ones and stories they had only imagined and had never told anyone before.
© Ariel Swartley
