The house had always been there. It was made of stone and wood, and had no doors, so the children climbed in through the windows when they wanted to play inside the house.
The window frames were round and the stones in the lowest part of the facade were cut so that half of the circle was made of stone and the upper part was made of wood. There was no glass in the windows, never had been. On the upper floor, everything was made of wood. The roof was made of slate and was as waterproof as the houses in the village, where the meticulous residents repaired and painted their houses all the time.
There were eight rooms and a staircase, four rooms on the ground floor, and four rooms on the first floor. Each room had its own name. They were called No, An, Ti, Us, Pto, Sa, Em, and Torumaga.
None of the adults ever entered the house. They didn’t dare. But they placed their offerings on a large flat stone in front of the house. To them that was close enough.
Many years later two wanderers came to the house. The village was gone, only a few ruins peaked up between the trees. A forest had grown all over the place only not within thirty paces of the house. It was raining and the wanderers knew nothing of the house and its inhabitants.
A short while they did stand in wonder before the building, but the heavy rain soon made them decide to climb in through the windows, which was now much more accessible as the layers of humus that had formed since the time of the village had risen almost up to the windows. They sat in NO for a while listening to the sound of the rain, exhausted from their travels. Then they started to look around. They took off their cloth in AN, and she found a way to hang them to dry in TI. The little bag with food, dried meat and cheese they ate in US. Upstairs they went from room to room. He pissed out of the window in PTO, she did the same laughing, sitting in the windowsill of SA. There was nothing up there, and she froze a bit. He warmed her, and they made love in EM.
That night they slept in Torumaga listening to the rain, and three quarters of a year later their daughter were born in the same room.