Secrets 2: Secrets in the Shadows by V. C. Andrews

Author:V. C. Andrews [Andrews, V. C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror
Published: 2011-06-12T18:15:10+00:00

11 A Home Away from Home

. Any college town has a unique energy about it. The school, its students and faculty become the lifeblood. So many businesses cater to their needs and profit from their existence. There's also that constant sense of rejuvenation, new students flocking in and bringing with them their excitement and high expectations. I even felt it during the past summers, when the student population was smaller but nevertheless still a major presence. It was such a dramatic contrast to quiet, sedate life back in Sandburg that I always became optimistic almost the moment we drove into the city.

Aunt Zipporah and Uncle Tyler lived in a unique, Swiss-chalet style home approximately five miles out of the city and away from their cafe. Uncle Tyler had bought the home from a well-known sculptor, who eventually returned to Switzerland. To give himself a sense of his heritage and homeland while he lived and worked here, he had the house built in the Swiss style. Behind it was a small building he had constructed to serve as his studio. It would obviously serve as an ideal location for my studio as well. It had good lighting, some long, large wooden tables, an oversized sofa and a half dozen chairs. The bathroom had a small stall shower. He even had a smaller kitchen there so when he was very involved in his work, he didn't have to leave his studio. Other than that, it was a very unimpressive, basic structure with nothing done to dress it up or cause it to give much more value to the property. The walls within looked unfinished, the windows were curtainless and the floors were cracked concrete. Some of the electrical wiring still hung loosely from the ceiling. My uncle left the studio exterior just as it had been, a basic light gray stucco.

Uncle Tyler was someone who liked to step a little to the right or left of what would be known as mainstream, whether that was how he dressed, which was usually a black leather vest, jeans and Westernstyle boots with a tight-fitting, faded T-shirt and a baseball cap on backwards, or what he drove--a restored small English car called a Morris Minor. Instead of signal lights, it had signal flags that came out of the sides when he made a right or left turn. It had a very small backseat and a floor shift. The year before, he'd had it repainted an emerald green.

The house itself, which I did adore, had a lowpitched, front-gabled roof with wide eave overhangs. There was a second-story balcony with a flat patterned cutout balustrade and trim. The exterior walls were made up of a patterned stickwood decoration. The color of the home was a dark coffee. Again, Uncle Tyler had found a house painter who could repaint the home in the unique shade.

Set on a little more than two acres with the undeveloped backyard, the house had a small front lawn and a dirt driveway. Neither the previous owner nor Uncle Tyler wanted to put down a hard driveway.

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