The Room, Writer’s Digest December 29, 2015.
Tanya Books stared at the iron door before her. Did the people who owned the house know about this? She was only renting this second-floor apartment while she went to grad school. Going against the grain, she was taking medieval history in graduate school, not African-American history or women’s studies, or anything obvious to her race and gender.
She was cleaning and her vacuum caught a bit of wallpaper near the cupboard, pulling some of it away. She cried out in shock, shut off the vacuum, and thought, There goes the security deposit. But when she bent down to examine the damage, she saw the black bar of iron at the base. She peeled a little more. Then more. Until the iron door stood before her.
It was plain, with only a handle indented in the door. The black door didn’t even have rivets or a set of hinges that she could see. She imagined the door must have opened inward, into her kitchen. She put a hand on it, wondering if it was the furnace or something. It was cold, solid, without bumps or grooves. Her hand was lighter than the iron door, but still just as dark.
Her specialty was medieval siege warfare, but this door was too advanced for the medieval world. She looked around it, to see if it was sealed.
Notes: What is behind this door?
- A coffin
- A man asleep (Sleeping Beautyesque/vampire?)
- Teleporting to a different time and place (she’s black, so it could cause issues).
- 1800’s Victorian England
- 1800’s South
- A way into fairyland (the door blocks fairies from entering our world)
The biased part of my brain wants to vote for Victorian England, but the idea of an iron door built to keep out fairies is really tempting. Both?