Hillsglade House

Hillsglade House is the ancestral home of the Thorburn Family, sitting between marshlands and the town. It has been around for generations.

Description

{{#if:BlakeBonds 1.1|

“	Books lined shelves in nearly every room with an available wall, some old with cracked spines, some new, recent bestsellers.  It was all sorted more like a library than a home, clearly by some arrangement of age and alphabetized. Anachronistic in design.	”
{{#if:Blake| –Blake{{#if:Bonds 1.1|, Bonds 1.1}} }} }}

The house has a long driveway leading up it's namesake hill. The property is ringed by shoulder-height stone walls topped with wrought-iron railings with a curling vine design to them.<ref>There was a car, my parent’s or my uncle’s, no doubt,

parked in the middle of the gates, at the foot of a long driveway, leading up to Hillsglade House.  Symbolic, really, of everything that had gone on for most of my life.  Symbolic of everything I had walked away from.

My uncle… I was guessing it was my uncle, had parked the car at the entrance of the driveway to force everyone else to find a place to park. I looked down the length of the street.  The property was framed by a short stone wall, shoulder height, along with an elaborate iron fence of roughly the same height, shaped into curling vines with metal points at set intervals.  It had been covered in some black paint or coating, but rust and peeling paint made for a mottled texture. - excerpt from Bonds 1.1</ref>

The house itself looks down on the town. Three stories tall with a tower another story high, the house has grey-painted wooden siding and narrow shuttered windows, and wooden "lace" detailing. It may or may not Victorian in style.<ref>Looking up at the namesake hill, I could see the house.  Not big, but it

drew attention because of the way it looked down on the two-theater 

podunk town.  It wasn’t dark, and it wasn’t ominous.  Barring a slightly

overgrown garden, trees that had grown well beyond the quaint, tidy 

little decorations they might have been when the house was built, and the railing, it was nothing more than a nice house.  I’d dated a wannabe-architect at one point, a brief-lived fling.  I didn’t remember much, but I didn’t feel confident labeling the place as Victorian.  Three stories, with a one-room tower standing one floor higher, off one

corner.  Gray-painted wood siding, decorative ‘lace’ in carved wood 

beneath the eaves and around the railing on the porch, tall, narrow windows with open shutters.

- excerpt from Bonds 1.1 </ref> The front door has a doormat in front, with "RDT" and stenciled roses on it.<ref>My boots were heavy on the floorboards of the porch as I approached the front door.  I stopped to wipe them on the doormat.  No ‘welcome’ was printed on the mat.  Instead, there were stencil images of roses and thorny stems, as well as the initials ‘R.D.T.’ - excerpt from Bonds 1.1 </ref>

The interior is filled with books, and a mixture of old-fashioned decorations and modern conveniences.<ref>My lingering impressions of the house were soon banished.  Only a house.  Books lined shelves in nearly every room with an available wall, some old with cracked spines, some new, recent bestsellers.  It was all sorted more like a library than a home, clearly

by some arrangement of age and alphabetized.

Anachronistic.  That was a good word, to describe it.  Old and new.  A box of colorful cereal sat between the toaster and television in the kitchen, across from a small table with a crimson, lace-edged tablecloth.

- excerpt from Bonds 1.1

</ref> The floors and furniture are dark-laquered cherry, the curtains burgundy. The only pictures are of nature scenes, which clash with the reds of the rest of the house.<ref>Photographs.  Not a single family picture, I noticed.  Instead, there were pictures of nature, blue and green to contrast the dark-lacquered cherry floorboards and furniture, the burgundy curtains.  It made for a startling intensity, but it was jarring, overly saturated.

- excerpt from Bonds 1.1

</ref> The doors are heavy, solid wood.<ref>The door wasn’t the hollow plywood door that you saw in most homes.  It was wooden, through and through, and it closed behind Ellie with a heavy thud. - excerpt from Bonds 1.1</ref>

The deed to the house also includes the nearby marshlands.<ref name=":0">What you should do is sell the property.  Let the town knock down the house, level the hill, drain the marshland and expand like they

need to, make them happy.  Split the money between your kids and grandkids, make us happy.   - excerpt from Bonds 1.1</ref> It's said to be worth millions.<ref>You took advantage of those things, making all of this one big fucked up
game.  Laying down the rule, that only one person gets the property and
the millions from selling it. - excerpt from Bonds 1.1</ref> 

Chronology

History

The house has many stories, some of them true, from incest to murder.<ref>“I remember how we used to make up stories about this place,” Paige said.  “Gruesome ones.”

“Yeah,” Molly said, hugging herself tighter.  “They weren’t all made up.  That bit about great-grandpa and great-grandma being related?”

I shivered a little.  “Thanks.  Thank you for that reminder.”

“The duel where one of our ancestors murdered someone?”  Molly asked.

“Killed,” Paige said.  “I don’t think it counts as murder if it’s during a duel.”

- excerpt from Bonds 1.1 </ref><ref>“You remind me of my father,” she said.  “He had passion, and an interest in justice.”

“He also fucked his cousin, if I remember right.”

She smiled a little.  “You heard of that?  Yes.  That would be him.”

- excerpt from Bonds 1.1 </ref>

Story Start

In the modern day it is acting as a barrier against the expansion of the town itself. For this reason many people want the property to be sold.<ref name=":0" /> It is one of the most heavily fortified locations within the Jacob's Bell against the supernatural that only a few entities can siege.

Mala Fide

The house's protections were brought down by Dionysus, leaving it vulnerable, and in the subsequent arcs it is wrecked.

Sine Die

Faysal then sinks it into the Abyss entirely, turning it into a new addition akin to the Library.<ref>Sine Die 14.10</ref>

Trivia

• Was glimpsed in Worm, presumably as a fragment of what the main character had read.<ref>A quaint old house on a hill, surrounded by rose bushes, a grandmother… Not my grandmother. I barely knew my Gram. I shook my head. The house on a hill had been a memory of something I’d read, once. - Speck 30.4</ref>

References

<references/>