Our House

Part 1 - Entrances

It had been three weeks since my mother died and one week since my dad moved into an assisted living manor due to advancing dementia. The family home was my responsibility now. I had good, older memories there.

When I was a little boy, I could remember riding atop my medium-sized, battery-powered toy train. I laid the tracks in the den and up the steps and around into the hallway. The darkness of the hall with the lights off made it like a tunnel. Then the train moved down to the living room and off to my bedroom. After a certain age, I was too big to ride, so I would put my toys and stuffed animals atop it and play conductor.

It was a beautiful time. My mother was a life-long head librarian for the county system and my father edited reference texts, so there was no shortage of books about the house. Sadly, neither of my parents had the mind or eyes to read for the last years of their life, they just slept in front of the television.

I was a happy child but routinely sickly. Not that it matters much though. A day home from school meant another day on the railroad or reading about strange elevators from other countries in a random Time-Life book series.

After a time, my mind shifted away from books, though I always looked on the shelves with a smile. The train went into the garage, along with all the other old toys. And I moved on. I worked hard in school, made some close friends, and passed all my classes. When I moved away, I stayed close and sometimes came by to dust up and look over all the old things.

Eventually, I returned long-term when mom got sick. I got a job nearby and spent most of my time caring for her. She lingered longer than I expected with quiet, sobbing aches. She died in her sleep with me reading from her favorite book.

At the library, they left a small plaque on her desk and used the money donated from her will to add many new children's books.

My dad would just make eggs over and over and cry when mom was sick. Then, he'd lean back in his couch and sleep till it was time to go to bed. He moved out without protest.

I returned to the home on a Tuesday. It was cool for summer, with a gentle breeze. In the hallway, I could taste the air. It was a little humid with warm spots here and there. I turned the air conditioner on to help circulate it. The walls gave a little kick when it turned on. A flash of dust gave way to a pleasant sheet of air. I told myself I'd probably need to clean out the central unit before I was done.

I brought a package of trash bags, plenty of disinfectant, and sponges. I was ready to clean. I hoped that I might be able to sell it eventually, but that was a long-term concern. This was just to make it nice, like it was when I was young.

I first took to going through my oldest jackets in the hallway. I put mom's aside to be donated. I coughed a lot, so I left the windows open.

The deepest nooks and recesses of the house were filled with items barely remembered and long hidden. Old chess sets. A book series which looked like calculus to a child. Long forgotten artwork. All punctuated by suddenly-disturbed spiders which dashed out of sight.

I dug through one of the side closets till I managed to find the back of it behind decades-old winter coats. As my hand pushed them aside, I felt something shift, like the back wall was loose. With some pushing, I cleared a path. The back of the closet was actually a door. It looked old, with cobwebs bridging the creases like threadbare stuffing. The knob was stiff but just like all the others in the house.

Curious, I cleared enough around the door to open it. There was no expected creak. I opened the door to piles of boxes and semi-organized clothes. I soon realized that I'd found a side opening to the small closet in the spare bedroom.

It made sense. This closet was very near to the other one. Closing the door behind me, I smiled as it sealed with just a small seam in the wall. A disguised door. To look at it, one would suspect it was a flaw in the wall rather than a hidden door. There was no knob on this side but, if I reached in through the crease, the latch easily popped out. I looked back through the door with a smile and laughed. I closed it and continued through the spare bedroom.

As I went back to work, I considered what possible uses that might have. I imagined the original builder had a love of oddities like in the mythic Winchester house, but I didn't dwell on it.

After scrubbing the sofa and gently vacuuming it, I went past the main hall and over to the four doors of the bedrooms and bathrooms. After considering changing the dim overhead light, I looked around. Something was off.

I counted.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five doors.

I rubbed at my eyes and figured I must've counted one twice. Still, that was an awfully low number to mess up. I counted several times and each time there were five doors. One, I remembered as my old bedroom. Then the spare bedroom. The main bathroom. The master bed and bath. But the last door was between the last two, right next to the old, silver-trim portrait of my great-grandparents. It looked just the same as all the other doors in the house and had the same knob.  

I approached the door and felt my neck get clammy. I'd been around a lot the last few years and I would remember if dad or anyone else had added to the house. I took a breath. I didn't really want to open it, but I stretched my hand out and wrapped it around the knob.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I could tell immediately it wasn't a false door. I opened it slowly and peered through. The room on the other side was small, about the same size as the bathroom. It had a wicker couch to one side and a shelf of books on the other. Light showed through a window at the end. The floor had the same thick carpeting as the rest of the house. There were a few stains here and there, but the room looked nice. Definitely a pleasant little room to sit in and read. Only there was no way this room could be here.

I leaned back out the door and looked around. I poked myself and wondered if I was having a waking hallucination.

For a hallucination, it was doggedly persistent. I walked around the new room and tested everything out. The books were ones I'd seen in passing at stores. With a sigh, I grabbed one and sat down on the couch. It creaked a little but was comfortable. I read for a while and flashed my eyes around for any sign the room was suddenly vanishing. I stayed for about half-an-hour without anything odd.

Shrugging to myself, I returned to my work and moved to the master bedroom. I dropped my vacuum and gasped.

Next to the window leading to the back porch, in place of the dresser, was another new door. A sliding glass one. The only sliding doors were the one behind the kitchen and the one over by the carport.

Taking a breath, I peered through the new door. The view of the back porch was different. Previously there had been an overhang with some worn, brown columns supporting it. The only fancy bits were an old picnic table which hadn't been used in decades, now covered in random gardening tools, bags of birdseed, and a broken exercise bike.

Now, the view was entirely different. The pavement was carpeted. There were nice lawn chairs. The area was covered in a light kind of wood. The ceiling was all glass and slanted with the roof.

I stepped in and felt a chill blast of air. There was a small cooling unit towards the middle. I gawked at it all. It seemed like something my parents might've mentioned in passing as an idle project, but I never expected to see it for myself.

Past the lawn chairs was a much nicer couch as well as a fancy TV unit. I gasped as the video games and systems I sometimes pined for as a kid sat beside fancy rows of graphic novels. It felt like it was made for me. I had to sit down for a moment.

I let the air pass over and wondered if I'd passed out, tired from cleaning, into this strange dream. No level of realization or effort seemed able to wake me, so I just relaxed. This wasn't a bad dream, so I would just follow it as far as it let me go.

There were a few exercise mats at the other end of the enclosed patio along with the picnic table arrange more for dining. I laughed to myself at how nicely kept everything was. I considered the two doors at the end. One was the sliding door I knew about. The other was in the same place as the door to the adjacent garage.

Looking inside, I laughed with delight. The garage was absolutely unrecognizable. Before, it was a place where all our extra stuff was stashed. Dozens of my toys as a child. Worn furniture. Bag-covered oddities and sports tables. Now, it was designed like a guest house. There was even a little pit in the middle with bean bag chairs. I marveled at it all and soon realized there were steps leading up. I took them.

The upstairs was a small loft with a bed and kitchen area. At the far end, there was a small hallway leading out of sight. I followed it. I walked past where the roof of the house should've been. The hallway was nicely adorned with family photos I remembered from long-buried albums, presented in fancy frames. The hallway continued almost as far as the one at the front of the house. A small bar area adorned a side.

After considering a drink, I continued till I came to a spiral staircase which took me up higher. On the next floor, I stopped with my mouth open and gazed at what was before me.

I could see a large area, bigger than the whole house, and in the middle of it was a train. It was much fancier than the one I'd had as a kid. It looked more like the scaled-down ones at amusement parks. The rest of the area was designed like a small train station with a wooden platform and signs showing locations. I smiled as I read them. They looked like silly fictional places I may have dreamed up when I was young.

Looking down the tracks on the floor, the path curved around corners and out of sight at both ends. I marveled at the bit of fog which filled the room. I could see fog machines hidden behind the main station platform.

I sat in the conductor's seat on the train and looked over the controls. They were surprisingly simple and similar to the ones on my old train. There was a bar for the engine and a bar to push forward or backwards to move. Opening the windows, I giggled to myself. The engine started slowly, steam building up. Great puffs of smoke swirled around. I soon found the horn. It tooted out as I smiled. This made absolutely no sense, but it was wonderful.

For effect, I yelled, "Alllll aboooard!" There were, of course, no other passengers. I slowly pushed on the bar and the train began to lurch forward. I tested pulling it back and the train gave another lurch to stop and began reversing before I set it back to advance.

I looked out the window as the train began to pick up speed. The room ahead was dimly-lit, like a dark house ride at a carnival. The fog billowed as the train pushed along. Past the corner, I could see small lights in the distance. Plants lined the hallway, which soon opened to a large area with those little lights. As my eyes adjusted, I could see more than just the lights. The entire room had been made up like a tiny town.