It sat upon a hill, it’s shimmering spires often glitter around 3 o’clock, when the lazy sun sinks low enough to cast rays through its tall towers. When this happens the entire town pauses, looks up at the sight, the beautiful cascade of rainbow light that bathes the town below in its warm hues.

How wonderful, they say as they sigh in content. How beautiful. It’s a gift from the gods, they say. The children in school wait for it, running out of the building in time to see the spectacle.

They say it’s deserted. The high gate around it has rust creeping into its corners and no one alive knows the sound the large chains clicking and the doors sliding open.

In recess the children run around, pretending to be dragons and fairies, kings and queens who live secluded in their home on the hill.

The longest night of the year is a festival in the town. The moon decides to shine all through the castle, showing a light show from the gods. The night before they all prepare. Parties are held and all through the sound the air takes on a mix of joy and liquor. The children wear their best dresses and wait eagerly for their presents. Streamers layer the roofs, creating dizzying strands of paper crisscrossing the sky in patterns. Families lay blankets down to watch the event and mothers cook mounds of food.

The young man was new in town. A tourist, they say. He saunters in, his blond hair dusted in the falling petals of the trees outside. Everyone knows he is new, the town is small, a smattering of people who had nothing to do but know each other. The tourist pauses at the posters placed on the walls.

It’s a tradition, they say. The glass castle lights festival. It’s the most magical night of the year, and it looks magnificent they say.

The tourists shakes off the petals in confusion. The glass castle?

The bartender laughs. An older man sitting at the bar beckons for the tourist to follow.

The walk out of the bar and down the north street. The man points to the hill. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? He says. We may not have much, but we have our glass lady watching over us. He cannot keep the pride out of his voice.

The tourist is silent for a moment, watching the house. He turns to the man next to him when he has repeated his question. The tourist looks at the man’s face, silent. The man asks the tourist what he thinks of their glass beauty.

“I think it looks too cold for my taste.” The tourist leans against the outside window. 

The old man regards the man with puzzlement and bids him on his way. What a strange tourist.

The night has already began to move its feet, slowly creeping through the sky in a slow, determined manner. The people watch with a restless hum; a visible tension fills the air like a taut string of a violin, itching to be played. The birds above watch the crowds, gathering like mindless ants at the sight of food. Yet one ant doesn’t follow the rest. The crow in the sky turns his head to observe the small black dot trudge slowly in the opposite direction to the edge of town near an abandoned garage. The garage door creaks open and a black Audi, smooth like a sharp knife, rolls out, it’s engine a soft murmur.

The tourist watches the car, his face blank, as a wizened man steps out and hobbles to greet him but the tourist waves him away and opens the door himself. The car rolls away just as it came—invisible.

As the sun dives lower, the car drives higher, uncharacteristically smooth on the old icy road. The road is not straight, it winds, dips, bends with the flightiness of a songbird at the beginning of the hill. As the climb gets higher, the temperature drops and the tourist shivers as he watches the crowd turn into indistinct blurs. The drive is quiet—too quiet.

It has all died since you have left said the old driver in response to a question that was never asked. It has all died.

As the sun waved its last tendrils goodbye the car glides to a perfect stop. The tourist doesn’t move at first, watching his warm breath fog up the window of his car. Then, slow as the night, he opens the door and steps out to face the giant gates that trap the Glass Castle.

He walks over to the side of the gate, a giant pillar, a bulwark of a thing really. With a gloved hand he slowly brushes the flakes off the rusty old sign to reveal a name, molded in the hardness of copper—The Radcliffe Estate.

The driver has turned off the car and came to stand next to him. Suddenly the tourist began to laugh, a short wry bark that shocks the silence that blankets the surroundings.

“What a silly name, the Glass Castle,” the tourist said.

“You don’t like it?” The driver questioned.

The tourist sighed, letting the breath blow out in billows, making the air clearer rather than blurrier. He reaches into the pocket of his tailored wool coat to produce a rusted key. “It makes it sound like it’s from a fairy tale. Like it is so beautiful”

The key fit perfectly, of course and with a slight sputtering and a cough the iron gates swung open and the two men entered.

The night had come, and so did the full moon.

Memories are curious things; more a reflection of the thinker than the events itself. Memories are spider webs, thin, iridescent, but hardy and stubborn. They are always there, they always appear.

To the tourist the cobwebs never left a single part of the Radcliffe Estate untouched. They trapped the house, rendering it immovable to the escape time can give. The tourist didn’t want to come here. It took so long to remove every trace of this cold beast  and as he stood he could feel the memories rustling, pressing cold fingers on his shoulders, whispering tempting words in his ear. He moves to the large living room, pulling off sheets from the furniture, trying to make them move again, trying to revive them again. He walks slowly around, taking everything in, seeing every thread all over again.

The chair that his mother fell in, too bruised to get up. The fireplace where his sister would shiver and scream, begging Him to stop.

The dining room with its long table, always full of vacuous people whose eyes skimmed the surface of his mother’s powdery face. Who settles instead on the jewels around her arm. The mirrors in the room were always dirty no matter how hard the maid tried to clean them–their vision distorted.

The kitchen stocked with bottles of liquor instead of food.

He climbs up the stairs to the large room. The room where all night he would hear her screams, her sobs and her pleas. The room where He made him sit and watch the belt meet skin and blood.

The tourist didn’t want to go to the room at the end. The smallest one, but the quietest. He saw the threads, crossing and knotting to form indistinct jumbles.

The boy’s room was the last one. The room where all the threads ended. The room where He gave the belt to the boy and told him what to do. The room where the mother screamed and screamed and screamed until He took the shattered shards of the mirror and ended it all.

“What do you plan to do with your house sir?” The driver asks quietly.

The tourist shakes his head. “I am the only one left that can still keep these threads alive. But I am also the only one who can kill them”

“Sir?”

The tourist looks out one of the large windows. The house was built before he was born–it was to reflect the outside world’s beauty. His mother designed it to show the world the beauty of the truth. The life of transparency.

“It is not my house. This is not my town.”

For the tourist knew he was a tourist. His presence was in passing; a pebble in the ever flowing river. He was not a boulder to disrupt the stream of illusion with the harshness of truth. He picked up the glass picture frame of the family portrait: the source of the threads.

As it fell to the floor and broke into a million pieces, the town below widened its eyes as the moon’s light shined through the castle.

And they swear they saw wings.