Welcome to Shadow Wood

Original Fiction / Fanfiction / Poetry and Prose

Links offsite will open in a new window.

Heart pounding, feet upon the soft white carpet that’s been spilled on and stepped on too many times but never got around to getting cleaned. Hands at the walls, with it’s old paper peeling there, right there by the light switch because Brother dared me to pull at it last week. Whip around the rail because my hand slips on the polished wood and makes a squeak. Dodge the cat as he screeches bloody murder, I step on his tail and almost knock over that vase, the one with flowers and holes all over it. Slip on the carpet in that one place because Brother spilled water a few minutes ago and didn’t tell me, hit the wall and bounce and run on because I have to get away, I have to get there, and then I am. Sanctuary has opened its arms to me.

Slam! The door swings shut and I stand, back against it falling to my knees in that soft, white carpet that’s specked with too many times of food up when told not to and playing with paints while Mama was out. Grabbed up between my fingers, fibers fighting to stay home. I can almost smell it, crushed fabric dancing with scents of wood and plastic toys, and that bit of strawberry Nimmy always sprays in here.

One, two, three, four windows but one doesn’t count because it’s connected to the other one. Brother says I don’t have more windows than he does, but I know better, because I’m bigger. There are four. Cat scratches in the curtains but they keep fluttering all the same when the windows are open, and the shouts from the street tell me that the music is too loud. Cat’s playing with the cords when I tell him not to, and he just stares and stares because he thinks he’s better and he’s probably right, but I won’t tell him if you don’t. Silky white and silver under my fingers, purring in my ears and he rubs his cold, wet nose on my hand, then he bites me because he can. Mean, rotten cat, but I love him.

Glittering eyes stare from the corner with such forlorn expressions that I have to pick one up and carry her around. If she’d only smile a little, but her face never changes. The others stare with jealousy but I can’t carry them all at once, I can’t, so I’ll come back and carry another tomorrow. Polly in her playhouse, grinning cheerfully like the little plastic princess she is, worse than Barbie, the sell out. She’s stuffed in the box under the bed because Grandma won’t stop giving her to me and Brother hasn’t blown this one up yet. Pity. Sewn on button eyed animals fill that shelf over there. Poppy says he’ll sell them someday, but he never will because I know he likes them, too. Soft to the touch, smooth except for the cocker spaniel one, because it’s fluffy not smooth. That one is Brother’s, but he doesn’t want his friends to know he has them, and the cats are mine.

The fan is on, white with floral designs, because Nimmy plans to make me a girl someday but she doesn’t know that I know, so I can fight back, and Mama just laughs when I tell her. Creak goes the floor when I step over that one place by the closet with the trapdoor to the attic that I can’t go into. It makes me sneeze and sneeze until I nearly die. I touch the flowers right beside the desk, painted on with such effort that I can’t be mad at my shaky hand, even if they look like jell-O globs and not flowers. It feels bumpy and rough, worse there in the corner.

Soft, fluffy sheets engulf my falling form. Pillows mutter and jump from being startled and the springs groan at me for being rough. Mean, pretty cat jumps off as soon as I try to touch him. He’d never have that; he has to come to me first. Wind hitting my face from the windows and little birds outside mingling with the cars on the big street that Mama won’t let me cross because people are crazy on it. There’s no tick-tick-ticking because she took the other clock and the new one is still shiny and all black, not like the one Brother knocked into the fish tank because he wanted me in trouble. I miss the tick.

Calling from the street, Mama and Nimmy and Poppy all clambering and Brother wondering why we can’t go yet when I know we’ll only be late, and then will the restaurant keep our table? Can’t I hurry a little because we’re hungry and aren’t I hungry too and don’t I want to eat the nice things waiting for us? The stuffed rabbit with one eye missing and stuffing coming out of her arm, goes flying back with the others. I do want to eat those nice things and she can’t come with me because then I’d have to feed her and Mama got mad at me last time I took her, so she better stay. The door to my sanctuary slams behind me, as I forget, once again, just how special it is.

End