Teaser Tuesday

Here's a bit from The Fall. Not because I'm not working on something else...but because it's the thing I'm thinking about (obsessing? no, not me!) this week. This was a difficult scene for me because it was one of the earliest I wrote, and because I channeled, or tried to channel, my own childhood fears into it. And then I had to take myself out and make sure it was all Madeline.

I stand and pad across my room to put my hands on the heavy wooden door. I can feel the house breathing, or whatever it does. I can feel it watching. Opening the door, I position it carefully, folding the edge of the rug with my foot and using a thick book to keep the door from moving.

I take two steps back. It still feels…wrong. Closing the door is difficult. The malaise that causes horror of closed in spaces, the one the doctors call claustrophobia, has always troubled me. The door must be slightly open, but not so much? I adjust it, nudging the book with my foot. This feels better, but still, I’m on edge so it can’t be right. I put my hand back to the door. It creaks, louder than a door should when moved only a fraction of an inch. I rest my hand against the wood, too long because the feelings that seep into me are not my own. Dissatisfaction is ever the mood of the house.

It wants me to open the door. To put the books back on the bureau, to straighten the rug.

But completely open doors are as terrifying as being closed in with…whatever might find its way into my room. There are things, living and dead, creeping through these halls, and I’d rather they creep past than linger beside me while I sleep.