Tears
The day opens up very much like yesterday. The sky is clouded and dour, damping down the already weak dawn light and making it feel earlier, which is already too early to be up and about. But that’s life as a servant on a large estate.
Not that it matters to you what the weather is like. Today you will be stuck deep underground with the unenviable task of unwrapping the stored linens, checking for moths and mold, and then carefully storing it again.
Leadmere Manor has three levels of basements and this task takes you to the very lowest one. The staircase deposits you in a cavernous hall littered with hulking, Holland covered furniture which you hurry through to a stone walled corridor. The hall is fitted with gas lamps that barely cut through the gloom. You scurry faster until you reach the proper room.
The work is tedious. There are no offices or workshops down here, only storage, so it’s eerily quiet. You wish you had someone else with you, even though you’ve barely gotten to know the rest of the staff in the year you’ve been here. You did have one friend, Maisie, but she moved on to a different employer months ago, while you are stuck here.
You lift up the next tablecloth to shake out, but instead of snapping down neatly it tears apart with a tremendous ripping sound. It’s a beautiful silk jacquard worth more than your job. Panic grips you as you realize you will surely be turned off without a reference. Your mother and younger siblings rely on your salary. They will starve.
You’re still holding up the tablecloth and through the ugly rend in it you catch sight of a second door in the room. It leads further away from the hall door, no doubt to a room visited even less frequently. Maybe you can hide the damaged cloth away. It might not be found for years, maybe never.
The door of heavy, ancient oak moves slowly as you cautiously pull it open. Bright, dazzling light spills in from the other side and you stop, shocked by what you see. This door, impossibly, leads outdoors. Not only outdoors but to a sunny meadow dotted with wildflowers, nothing like the dreary grounds of Leadmere.
It can’t be real, yet you can feel the breeze that rustles the grass and a nearby copse. You can even smell the greenery and fresh air, a welcome change from the musty, mildewed scent of the basements. It makes you smile, but then you notice the back of the door. It is streaked with deep gouges where something has clawed and torn at it.
Do you step through the doorway?
This is part of the story Beneath Leadmere Manor, written for @calluna’s 9th Tell a Story to Me Contest, based on the prompt, “Deep below ground, a portal opens…,” as well as the #freewrite prompt by @mariannewest: tears.
Image by Bernhard Rohm.