Jenny Jenkins lives on Octopus Avenue just outside of Topeka, Kansas. Her purple house stands tall at the end of a narrow lane. It’s an old Victorian which is remarkable for Kansas considering all the tornados. Perhaps it was because the house sat at a high point of elevation for Kansas, 40 feet. Jenny inherited the house through a long line of distant relatives and because she had no children of her own, she was the end of the Jenkins family line. She lived in the enormous historic building alone with a cat named Bertrand who came and went as he pleased.

After she received word that her great, great uncle’s passing had resulted in her new home ownership, she moved to Kansas to decide what should be done with the property. She discovered from friendly (although sometimes nosey) neighbors that the street in the plains was named so oddly because the original owner, Clyde Jenkins, had made a pilgrimage to the Pacific Ocean at twenty-four years old. When he finally arrived on the shore, he found an octopus that had washed up in the waves already dead. He brought it back to Kansas with him as a sort of souvenir and took great care to taxidermy the cephalopod himself. Clyde built an intricate octagonal display case in the foyer, and it still stands there today. The octopus became such a remarkable attraction that the town named the road after it, choosing avenue over lane because it sounded grander.

At first Jenny wasn’t fond of the octopus in the foyer she had taken to calling Ink for its deep indigo color. It unnerved her in the dark. Once, during a storm the power had blown, and in a lightening flash she thought she saw it move. It frightened her so entirely that she took the long way out through the back door and around the side for weeks afterward.

Over time, she’d grown comfortable with Ink, and certainly knowing the history of the thing softened her to its presence in her inherited vestibule. Jenny liked the old house in the small town and often felt grateful for her great good fortune. To Jenny the octopus felt like a glimmer of magic along the sprawling horizon line. Jenny was tickled by the absurdity of Ink and how she had come to acquire such a peculiarity. She often wondered what kinds of surprises might be in other houses vestibules, if only they’d open the doors and share.