Mother's Room

The keyhole glowed with an unforgiving darkness, Gina thought as she tried to peer through it. Or perhaps it was only the darkness filling the hall that made it so. As she stared at it, she almost believed it to be growing larger, and larger. Like a gaping mouth ready to consume her. The voices filtering through from the other side of the shadowed door only made the keyhole seem more ominous to her seven-year-old mind. And yet, she could not help but creep closer, and peer more intently through this small window to the other side.

Moments earlier, Gina had been asleep in her own bedroom just down the hall. She awoke in the middle of the night often due to the nightmares that plagued her. Often, those nightmares were fueled by the sounds she heard coming from beyond her room. She knew her mother stayed up late to entertain guests. Gina never saw them, for they arrived after she’d been sent to her room and departed long before morning. But she always heard them late at night. Their voices woke her with dreadful fright, and she knew not why.

On this night, however terrified she may be, she felt a strong desire to know. Perhaps if she knew the source of the noises, she might be less afraid of them. Such thoughts did not ease the dread she felt as she leaned closer to the tiny peephole, her heart pounding almost painfully within her small chest.

At first, she saw much of nothing. The darkness she had originally seen in the keyhole seemed to be the only thing existing within it. Perhaps it had been blocked, she wondered. But as her eyes adjusted to the dim light in the room beyond, she realized she could, in fact, see. Not clearly, but she could make out the outlines of the things she knew to be in the room. She had been in the room during the day, so she knew what her mother kept in there. Not that the keyhole allowed for her to see the room in its entirety, but she recognized the edge of the bed to the left, the window directly ahead with the little armchair piled high with clothes sitting in front of it, and just the edge of the open closet to the right.

Through the walls of the house, Gina had only ever heard the sounds as little more than muffled. No words. Nothing definitive. Anything could have been happening within her mother’s room. Now, however, so close to the source, she heard them all too clearly. They were screams. She knew a scream when she heard one, even if it came out gargled. Someone on the other side was screaming . . . or trying to.

Panic set in alongside the terror. Was someone attacking Mother? Did Mother get attacked and beaten every night? Is that why Gina always awoke in fear?

Mother never showed any bruises or scratches, Gina recalled.

A part of her wanted to throw the door open to find out what was going on. But if she did that, maybe she would get beaten, too. She’d been hit before when she’d done something Mother deemed bad. That hurt and more than usually left marks. At the moment, she wasn’t supposed to be out of her room. If she opened the door to find out what was happening, she would surely be punished for bad behaviour.

She tried to cover her ears as she leaned even closer, trying to see further into the room. Somehow, she figured if she blocked out the noise, she’d be able to see clearer.

Movement.

Gina gasped and quickly backed away from the door, throwing her hands over her mouth. She stood trembling, afraid that the door might open at any second. When it didn’t, she lowered her hands and tiptoed back to the keyhole.

The movement continued. She could see the blanket along the edge of the bed getting pulled around. The screams persisted.

Hands. Hands grabbed the edge of the mattress, pulling, dragging a body forward. Not her mother. The head belonged to a man, that much Gina knew. He appeared to be scrambling forward, away from the bed and towards the door. For what reason, she couldn’t possibly imagine. The screams, she realized, were coming from him. Why? What was happening?

A second pair of hands, large, larger than humanly possible, with knife-like points, silhouetted in the moonlight of the window. These grabbed the man’s head, yanking him back out of view. They had lifted him so easily.

Not her mother’s hands. Who or what else was in the room?

Gina remembered an image from years earlier; an image she reckoned to be her earliest memory. She had been two or three at the time. Sleeping in her own room for the first time. At least, she assumed it to have been her first night alone. The details were blurry, not that they mattered. The image that had burned itself in her mind was of a creature she called The Scary. She had heard noises, slipped out of her bed to go to Mother’s room for comfort, and seen it.

The Scary had filled the hall, she recalled. Tall, thin, with arms that reached to the floor. She remembered the hands, for they were similarly large to those she’d just seen through the keyhole. The rest remained blurry

The man screamed again, only this time it sounded less gargled. It sounded real, and it pierced the night with pure, abject horror.

Gina screamed in response to it, her voice blending with the man’s.

His body came into view again as he made another attempt for the door. His hand reached for the knob.

She felt the door shudder as he banged against it. Then again. And again. Over and over. She backed away, her steps in time with each bang, staring at the door in horror, waiting for it to break open.

The banging stopped, and she froze.

Something oozed out from under the doorframe. It spread, and Gina continued to stare in petrified fright. She couldn’t be certain of what it was, but her immediate thought was blood.

A creak.

The doorknob was turning. Slowly, agonizingly, it turned.

Not wanting to be there for whatever would appear, Gina ran for her room, closed the door, and threw the blankets over her head. She trembled as she hugged herself, waiting and praying for morning to come.

She heard a thump, thump, thumping sound, and then, nothing. The house grew eerily silent after that.

She must have fallen asleep, for when she pulled the blankets down, sunlight filtered through her window. It had felt like mere seconds. Though she remembered closing her eyes, she had been painfully aware of being awake mere moments before, listening intently to the silence, and then rolling over to the day.

Slowly, she slipped from under her covers. Tiptoeing, she opened her door to peer out into the hall. Mother’s room sat at the far end, and it looked as it did every morning. Quiet as a mouse, she slunk towards the door. The carpet in front of it looked as it usually did. No stains. No blood. Just the gentle glow of the morning light filtering out from under the door.

Timidly, she knocked. “Mother?”

“Gina, darling, come on in,” her mother called pleasantly.

She opened the door. It looked as it always had. The clothes piled on the chair sat in their usual heap. The bed was a dishevelled mess, indication that it had been slept in. Nothing bore any signs of anything other than sleep having happened the night before.

Her mother came out from the ensuite bathroom, her hair pinned back, and her makeup already done. She still wore her too-thin nightgown as she began sifting through the clothes on the chair. “Good morning,” she said brightly. “Did you sleep alright?”

Gina watched as her mother discarded one outfit after another. “Not really,” she answered honestly. “I had a bad dream.”

“A bad dream?” Mother asked, moving to the closet. “What about?”

“The Scary,” she answered quietly.

Mother looked at her, eyes of deep amber studying her. “The Scary? You mentioned that once before.” Then her eyes narrowed. “Gina, did you leave your room last night?”

Hurriedly, Gina shook her head. “No, I didn’t. I promise I didn’t.” She felt like crying out of fear. Would Mother hit her after all?

With a sigh, Mother tossed another dress onto the chair. “Gina, The Scary isn’t real, correct?”

She nodded.

“Just a bad dream. All in your head.”

Another nod.

Mother smiled, though Gina hardly felt comforted. “Good girl. Now, head on downstairs and fix yourself some breakfast. We wouldn’t want you to be late for school.”

Gina didn’t hesitate to obey. She didn’t run, but she walked quickly down the stairs to the kitchen. And as she sat eating her cereal, she couldn’t help but think the house felt different this morning. It felt wrong, secretive, and dangerous. She wished she had never looked through the keyhole. If she had stayed in her room like usual, maybe the house would have felt normal. Now she knew it would never feel the same again.