Air gasped into her lungs as her mind resurfaced. The consuming blackness had retreated, freeing her senses once more. Harmony was lying on the floor in front of the little door. Fragments of mirror were stuck to her face and hair. She brushed them away absentmindedly and picked herself up.
She felt scared and alone. A sickening sense of mortality created a heavy pit of woe in her stomach. Where was Rose? What was taking her so long? She had warned her mother not to leave her. She had pleaded to be taken along for fear that some injury may befall her.
Now something had happened. This was proof that she needed to be protected. Harmony knew that thought was useless. Rose was not the maternal type. She was more the encouraging brand of parent; the kind that would push the offspring from the nest when teaching them to fly.
Harmony snapped out of her dark beliefs. There was no point wallowing in gloom. Negative thinking was never a productive pastime. No, Harmony planned on saving those thoughts for her therapist – when she was able to afford one.
Harmony lifted her head and glanced at the little door. She was understandably fearful that the blackness may return; that she may be plunged back into unconsciousness if she spied the hole in the door’s centre.
Thankfully her worry was for nothing. The door no long possessed a hole. The gap now plugged with the golden doorknob.
“How did it get in there?” she mused.
This game of find the door had been a bit of fun to start with, something to do instead of cleaning. However, now it had taken a more serious turn and Harmony was not at all sure she wanted to keep playing. First she had climbed the dangerously dilapidated stairs and now she had almost been suffocated by a door!
From the moment she opened the letter everything had begun to change. The list of strangeness was ever growing, not that Rose had noticed. Regardless of her mother’s ignorance Harmony was aware. She knew there was something peculiar going on and she was sure that this door would be no exception.
This long lost relative, with her letter full of riddles and half answers, had invaded Harmony's quiet life and left her this death-trap of a gift. Normally Harmony was not one to be ungrateful but this was all a bit much for her to take in. She didn't like it here anymore. She wanted the safety and familiarity of the ambulance to come back and whisk her away.
Was whatever lay beyond that portal really worth so much trouble? Whoever had hidden it, most likely Nova, had gone to so much effort to conceal the door that perhaps it was never meant to be found. Who was she to go looking? Just because the house belonged to her now didn’t mean she had the right to snoop... Or did it?
Harmony looked at the golden handle again and moved a little closer. She told herself that this was to get more comfortable and not because she wanted to open it. However, even as this thought occurred and was accepted she moved a little closer still.
An image of Alice entering the rabbit hole came to mind. The understanding that if she opened the door things might never go back did not stop her hand, driven by curiosity, from reaching out.
“Here goes,” she said aloud, as she turned the handle.
A loud crashing noise tore through the intense stillness and a jolt of shock made her jump. It had come from downstairs. She sat silently for a moment, listening, still gripping the doorknob.
She was sure that if Rose was back she would have heard the ambulance struggling up the drive. Moreover her mother would be complaining loudly about the lack of cleaning. Perhaps it was just the kind of noises that an old house makes? This was entirely possible she supposed.
Harmony had no real experience of being in an old house and as such she decided architectural-creaking was the most likely explanation. She turned her attention back to the door.
Another crash from downstairs, followed by an erratic scratching sound, made all the hairs on her neck stand up. Someone was down there and it sounded like they were searching for something. Maybe it was the vandals back to finish the job? Or perhaps it was looters? Though, as there was nothing of any real value, she doubted the latter's likelihood.
Harmony made the very wise decision to hide. The room beyond the little door seemed like the only real option for this plan to work. It did not feel like cowardice to run and hide. On the contrary it felt like a really good idea to stow herself away and wait for Rose’s return.
The door issued a loud creak as it opened. She winced, hoping that it hadn't alerted the intruders to her location. She was sure the noise had been loud enough to hear downstairs.
Spurred on with adrenaline she pushed the door open as far as it would swing. Her heart thumped in her chest, a concoction of fear and excitement impelled her heart into a gallop. What was being guarded in the deep, eclipsing blackness? What would she find beyond the threshold?
A sour draft of musty, old air crept from the darkness. Like the breath of an ancient mummy, waking from a thousand years of sleep, the rankness called out to her. It slipped into her nose and mouth; invading her throat. She wanted to cough and exclaim her displeasure at the foul odour but she could not. To do so would have surely meant discovery and that was not an option.
She glanced over her shoulder and listened again to check she hadn't been discovered. Then, when she was satisfied that she was safe (well, relatively safe at least) she began to crawl through the tiny doorway and into the dark beyond.
Downstairs, something large moved. It crept with quiet purpose, carefully placing each footfall so as not to make any more noise.
The creature had heard the creaking of the door. Now it was searching for a way upstairs...