Creative Writing Course

Looking for a husband

...So there she was, a month later on Christmas eve, standing in front of his door again. As before, she knocked on his door, but no one answered. After a little while she decided to leave, but as she walked away, the door flew open with a loud bang. The sudden noise made her jump and stop dead in her tracks. Apprehensively, she turned around; expecting to see the face of the old basket-maker. However, there was no one to be seen. She had two options, leave and act like nothing happened or take a look inside. She chose the latter and stuck her head in the doorway bringing out a quavering "hello, is anyone there?", still no sound.

Even so, she went inside, still hoping to see the old basket-maker. After wandering around for a bit the door slammed shut just as fast as it flew open a few minutes ago. She started to panic and whispered to herself "bloody hell, I just came here for a husband; not to get scared to death.". the darkness consumed her and beside the voice in her head it was as silent as the grave. She fumbled around in the darkness for a while, trying to find a light switch of some sort. Again, luck wasn't on her side so she decided to use the flashlight on her phone. With the help of her flashlight she found a door that led to another room. Since the man still was nowhere to be seen, she started to think that he was playing a trick on her. "Alright, old man. I get it, you don't want to help me." She said in a flat voice. While she was waiting for a reply she felt someone breathing down her neck. The cold air made her shudder and as she swallowed hard she turned around, expecting to be faced with the old man.

Yet, the room was as empty as a newly built house waiting to be furnished. She could hear a mischievous chuckle coming from the corner, "Oi, do you think this is funny or something?" she said angrily. "Oh yes, my dear. This is quite entertaining to me." The voice replied. And no, this was definitely not the old man's voice so who the hell was she talking to? She didn't know. "Who are you and why did you lock me in?" she said, her voice shaking uncontrollably. "Oh wouldn't you like to now." The unknown voice said, "I heard you were looking for a husband, isn't that right?". She nodded slowly, but didn't speak, not trusting her voice. "Now don't go all shy on me." the voice responded. This time she didn't say anything, she didn't dare move, scared to do something wrong. "fine then, I'll let you know my name, might make you more talkative." Suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her leg and when she looked down she saw that her leg was wounded. After a few seconds it didn't hurt anymore and the wound seemed to fade away. "look up" the voice told her, she did as she was told and on the wall she saw a name written in dripping blood, her blood. 'Detlef' apparently was his name, "So, Detlef" she said, her voice sounding brittle, "What do you want?". Her eyes finally adjusted to the darkness in the room and she could vaguely make out the boys' presence, he appeared to be a normal boy her age, but no emotion was shown on his face. "I want to make a deal with you." he replied, voice sounding as dead as the look in his eyes. "What kind of deal?" she said, but he didn't answer. Instead he started to sing a nursery rhyme "Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row." And before everything went black, all she could hear was a loud ringing noise piercing through her ears...