The Other Place

Chapter One: The New Room

This new house that my mother has bought is creepy and far from welcoming. It’s an old two story Victorian house with move paint that’s peeling off the walls of my room, making it look as though screaming faces have been sucked into its walls. The faded blue window shutters cling to the white window sill as if they’ll fall any second, and by the way the house looks it seems like it could very well happen. The door to my wardrobe, well I shouldn’t say door because there isn't one, it’s just a big hole in the wall with a rail across it to hang hangers on. In fact the hole kind of creeps me out, it’s just this big black mass that anything could come out of, and if I go too near I could fall right in and into nothingness.

I tear my eyes away from the hole as the movers bring in my bed and ask where to put it. I point to the far corner of the room, as far away from the hole as you can get. They then tell me they will be back with my stuff after doing most of the rest of the house. Probably my mother’s doing, she always has put everything else above the importance of her only child. My friends from where I used to live tell me I should report her to child services but its not like she has never fed me or provided shelter, she’s just not very… motherly. I don’t blame her for it; grandmother wasn’t the best role model for her either.

It seems my room has another twist to it; I have a pair of French doors leading out onto a small deck, which sits on top of the dining room’s roof. The white wood on the door isn't peeling off like the rest of the room, it looks like someone has put a fresh coat of paint on it recently, and has cleaned frosted windows with in the last few days. The intricate handle on the door is in top notch condition, like it was polished every day and when broken, replaced. Hanging from the door is a lock and a skeleton key, which is strange because shouldn’t the key be attached to the rest of the key chain given to us by the real estate agent?

I stare at the skeleton key with my unusually bright green eyes, wondering whether taking it out of the door would be a good idea or not. I feel like it should have one of those ‘Do not touch’ signs attached to it feels as though if I touch it, nothing will ever be the same again. I decide that I'm just being a drama queen again and reach for the key; I pull it out of the door and hold it closer to my face for further inspection. A shiver runs through my body as I stare at the key, I feel as if I know this key but I just can’t figure out how. The design on the handle part is a flower which is just opening like it’s the beginning of spring. I think I may be looking too much into it or it could just be the fact I just moved house but I feel like it represents new life, the beginning of something. I clench the key into my fist and go to open the door but the handle stops. I jiggle it for a few seconds before realising they obviously had locked the door before leaving. Feeling slightly stupid I shove the key back in the lock and twist it. Once the door has clicked unlocked I take out the flower skeleton key and shove it in my pocket.

I twist the handle and pull on the door, it doesn’t move so I yank it again, harder. It still won’t budge, so I pull on it, shifting all my weight on the heels of my feet. The door flies open, making me fall flat on my ass in the middle of the floor. I stare at the sight before me, while the rest of my room and house appear to not to be taken care of this was different. The small deck has been kept in perfect condition; the railing has been regularly painted white and is nice and neat. A small glass table with two chairs either side of it sit in the middle and two long rows of plants sit on the sides of the deck attached to the railing. It has a view of the giant willow tree that looks peaceful as its long leafy arms reach for the ground and dance in the wind with each other like lost lovers. The long driveway weaves out in front of me from the house and into the forest that separates us from the rest of the world.

I hear a pair of high heels clicking against the wood as they up the stairs and I'm pretty sure the movers wouldn’t be wearing heels. I quickly take a step back into the room and close the doors behind me with a click. For some odd reason my head is telling me to keep this a secret from my mother. I have no clue as to why, because it is just a set of doors that lead onto a porch. I leap to where my bed is and sit up straight with my legs crossed like my mother had taught me to do. She waltzes into my new room with her bleached tied up in a ponytail at the top of her head, her face is caked with make up in an attempt to make her look younger and give herself a “natural” appearance. Her cream blouse is tucked into her pinstripe high waist business skirt with nude stockings encasing her long legs which I had inherited and the black high heels click as she walks over to where I am sitting on my bed.