Reilly Road

My Dreams begin in a house.

They spanned over vast horizons, a view peered at from a safe distance. But here; here this house nurtured them and there they sprouted the most glorious wings. The distance turned from unattainable to an infinite, sprawling landscape just at the end of my fingertips. The eleven acres of woods became a million miles of imagination.
The property was punctuated by little mysteries, unexplained treasures and trails blazed by dogged determination. Each tree stretched towards the sun with aching limbs. Some bent and twisted towards holes in the canopy, as if they moved when I wasn't looking- or were carelessly gnarled by the large hands of a troll.

Every season is a new world here. The humid jungles of the savagely beautiful islands of O'an'Aku in summer; The temperate, sea-kissed lands of Zyricon; The autumn chilled mountains and valleys of the magnificent kingdom of Brientine; and the frozen, ice blasted northlands of the Wizards College of Magic in Atlas.
Here, there were made homes for thousands of specters that danced in my head and played their magic tricks in my vivid dreams. I flew through these branches to save the world, I rode gallant steeds through the underbrush to defend the front porch from armies of goblins and barbarian hordes.
I remember the creek. To my dolls it was a raging river running rampant in their path. It soon became the borders between good and evil, the point of confrontation for a thousand battles, the tricky part of each sledding adventure, and the location of several missing shoes.
The mountain loomed like a sentinel at my back, like a great warrior to protect me from the world beyond. The pines at the crest creep in circles along the ridge. My mind goes back there sometimes to recall people who have introduced themselves to me through the scrawled pages of a story. A man in a dark coat who can travel through worlds, a Faery Queen who kidnaps imaginative young girls, An elk king who holds meets for all the creatures of his Forrest there every spring.

Each tree, each plot of grass and forsythia bush graces me with the memories that still cling to their blades and branches. I have rambled through these acres with dreams in my eyes and it has painted this place with magic. I breathe this air with startled nostalgia. I treasure each leaf, each window and every tile. Every bird has been a companion on an adventure, and every trinket lined up for sale has been a tool against an unimaginable foe. This place has been a haven against he chill of real life, and the harsh realities of adulthood.
Even the small things; the clinking of a dozen wind chimes in spring, the fresh cut grass and the sounds of birds and crickets. The hoot of our owl at night and the smell of autumn leaves and the sunlight as it pours over the leaves and glimmers like thousands of spider threads in the air...
I wish I could stay. I want to sprint through the house and leap from the top steps of the living room stairs again. I want to run through the woods, feeling a cape whip about my legs. I want to stand in the starlight outside and pick out Orion, and thank him for watching the house as thoroughly as he has.

I want to go Home.