Chapter 9: Hill House

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/white-settlers-buried-truth-about-midwests-mysterious-mound-cities-180968246/

    "Last night I had the strangest dream" begins Karma brushing snow off the shoulders of her red cape as she leads her boyfriend up the creaky wooden stairs to her third floor room.

"Do tell" encourages Matt while shucking off his navy pea coat and ducking into the double-mulled dormer window.

"A beautiful Indian woman came to my room" she begins, lying back on the sleigh bed and staring at the carven oak door. "She looked at me with dark eyes and was slowly lifting her doeskin skirt when I awoke with a start."

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    The LaMonte estate had decided to rent out empty bedrooms of their decaying Evergreens mansion as the aging widows of Old Ladies Hill began to pass away in the 1960s. Eventually even the two former children's rooms that had served as storage for family furniture were made available as furnished studio apartments. Karma had the cheapest rent in town for a hot third floor bedroom, but it was equipped with ornate furnishings salvaged from reconstruction Virginia by a family of means.
     The original source of the wealth was a brisk trade in Africans for the growing farms of the Shenandoah Valley. Major Seth Mason was able to parlay his land grant for service in the War of 1812 into Wheatlands, a Loudoun County estate replete with auction block and a fleet on the nearby Potomac. Just before the family would have lost it all in the Civil War, his granddaughter Rebecca Thweatt Mason Kerns happened to marry a Yankee teaching colleague at the Academy at Winchester. When the cause was all but lost, George A. LaMonte was able to caravan north of the Mason-Dixon line with the family wealth and belongings intact.

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    "Karma, come see these kids" commands Matt pointing out the window. "They're sledding down the only hill in this little town between the brooks."

"Matthew Berry" she chides, "were you even listening to my dream?"

"Yes I was and that's my point" he responds, reaching an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. "This old house was built on an Indian mound."

"How do you know this stuff?" she exclaims, leaning into his side and nestling her head into his chest.

"It's my thesis, remember?" he laughs, turning toward her and placing a hand on either shoulder.

"Oh yeah" she laughs, reaching up to hold his forearms. "So what does your thesis say about an Indian woman lifting her skirt?"

"Not a single thing" he winks, "but I've heard what's happening in a dream represents something within the dreamer."