Remembering Room: Skeleton Key

[[Mystical, dark and dreamlike]]

The room at the end of the hall meant everything and nothing to Coraline Parker. She was the only true living heir to her father’s estate, but that was only because her Aunt Meg refused to stay longer than a week. Meg Parker was a sour, willful, dreadfully calculated old woman who was the other half of her father in every way except death— though some would argue, she might as well join him there too because she was far too fearful to do anything remotely bordering on fun.

The Parker Manor was a large house that groaned loudly in brash, stormy weather, threatening to be swallowed by the tepid sea below—while the brewing summer’s heat sweltered and made the wood walls sweat from all their dark harbored secrets.

Months passed and Coraline Parker watched as the manor slowly started coming undone at the idea of being abandoned, and yet, one thing was very, very, very clear, no one was ever to step foot, falter, or pause in the doorway of the room at the end of the hall—or they too might disappear.

“Do not let the shadow touch you where the sun doesn’t shine.” Her Aunt Meg would ramble as she stepped widely to pass in the hallway, mindful to stay very clear of the door at all times.

“Don’t want something to grab your heels…or lick your feet…” she mused, smiling nervously as she, herself pressed up against the floral wallpapered wainscoting. Her head turned to the left, eyes firmly shut as she whispered a protective prayer under her tightly-held breath. If Coraline Parker hadn’t already been sure, she would have thought her aunt actually believed something was alive on the other side of that door, and it very well could have been.

Truth be told, Coraline Parker had never, ever stepped foot in the last locked door nearest the butler’s pantry of her father’s sprawling estate. She never dared to, and she surely didn’t believe in monsters, or ghosts or whatever it was that her Aunt was so afraid of. Besides, the stupid door was a well-kept secret, rumored to have been locked since before the civil war ever started. Hundreds of Parkers had come and gone and not a single one of them had dared to write, or dream, or think of what lie beyond that door, it was forbidden.

In fact, Coraline Parker herself thought little of this door outside of all the hubbub created around it—which did little to quell her growing curiosity as her eyes lingered longer than they should on the door. Its quiet silence crept, and crawled and burrowed into her mind, waking her from her dreams and calling out to her as she slept.

“Coraline, Coraline!!”

The door blended right into the wallpaper and heavily framed portraits of long-dead ancestors. Sconces blew amber-toned shadows across the crystal door knob, creating figures that danced on the floor, projecting distorted faces onto the walls. It was the only reminder of what could be behind the flickering jeweled flower in the middle of the door. Maybe a secret world, an empty room, or a place filled to the brim with dusty spider-ridden furniture long abandoned.

A few of the Parker’s Maids would dust the door, polish the handle and sweep the doorway out in front of the locked door—some as reverence, others in a fearful frenzy. That was about as close as anyone got to touching the door.

The Parker Manor was four stories tall, with nearly three-hundred rooms in total, some completely empty, others left like a time capsule of generations passed. None of these rooms were ever kept locked, or sealed, or painted shut. Just one. Even amidst the hallways that led in circles, or passages that went to dead-end rows of bookshelves, atriums, quiet rooms, praying rooms, sitting rooms, collecting rooms. None of them held as many secrets as the one no one had ever seen.

“Maybe we make more of it than we should, we create the secrets,” Coraline Parker mused aloud as her aunt walked in front of her on their daily walk past the sealed room.

“Shhhh!!” Her Aunt Meg demanded. “Do not speak of the room, or what is inside.”

“I’m just saying, we are making far more of this than we should, it’s just a stupid little room.”

“We will not and must not speak of the room, ever! Especially not when we are near enough to where it can hear us.”

Coraline dropped her shoulders in quiet defiance, it was clear her aunt had lost it. “Then why do you make me trod past here with you.” Coraline muttered. Thinking to herself how ritualistically compulsive her aunt was becoming in her ripe old age of forty.

“You could become a spinster, or a mopey cat lady with a bible living the rest of your life in this aging house afraid of a room…afraid of getting married, or moving, or having kids of your own,” Coraline continued, “or you could just leave, like I plan to. If you are so scared, maybe we should move your room, or the pantry, or use another stair case altogether so we don’t have to do this every single day.”

It was true. The house was far too big to have a black hole situated squarely in the center where one had to practically jump across its lingering shadow, whisper a prayer and douse themselves in sage and clergy water just to pass. It didn’t help that she knew all the secrets whispered about town since she was little. Everyone knew about the secret room of Parker Manor. It was celebrity gossip, idle chatter, even the local ghost and ghouls’ tour bus would stop at the front gates and let tourists gawk at the large house. Their animated guide adding macabre touches, his deeply embellished voice trailing up through the Parker house like somber stories used to scare children off from ransacking the old house in escrow.

“That there is the Summer Home of millionaire William J. Parker, an avid huntsmen and oil-connoisseur who was rumored to have killed himself years ago, leaving his poor family behind to pick up the pieces. His ghost still roams the halls, and if you look just out back, you will see the oldest uninhabited church in town, the size of an outhouse where the family goes to pray, holding silent mass for themselves to rid what secrets lie within the very walls they protect. You see, a secret room is also rumored to be in that house. The top left window overlooking the cliffs, and I think Mr. Parker is in there, hiding, waiting…but no one knows, no one has ever been inside…”

Coraline Parker’s feet touched the cold floor of her father’s house. The words of the tour guide’s latest spiel swimming fresh in her head. It wasn’t much of a true summer in Brightsville. Winter raged for months on end, and even still, the rough wood grain of the polished wood planks felt foreign on her soles. She was alone—for the first time in months. Her aunt had gone away on a quilting retreat, as she did every other weekend. Her father lay cold and lifeless out near the cliffs in a simple, unmarked grave. The word “MIRRINT” etched on the quaint cross stone at his head—the Twelic word for Twin Mirrors—where one equals the other, a doorway, a reflection, a copy or echo of something familiar cut from the same cloth. How fitting.

She was reminded of how her father couldn’t move mountains anymore on Earth as he could in Heaven, or Hell, or wherever he was presently—and this thought made her smile. She felt closer to him in death than she ever had in life. Her father had been dead for quite some time, months. But to her, he had been gone for years. Something changed inside him long before. They’d barely known each other when he dropped dead one frosty summer Sunday, his favorite time of year—fitting for someone who had everything they wanted—but as it were, things weren’t always as they appeared from the outside looking in.

“You have to walk past the door Coraline, at least once while I am gone. Preferably once a day. Don’t forget. Make sure to do what I showed you, exactly as I showed…”

Coraline Parker scoffed at the idea of doing her aunts stupid rituals. She hesitated before closing her eyes to hop across the shadow—but something shifted at her feet causing Coraline to pause. Maybe one of the bulbs in the sconces was burning out, but that was impossible because the light shifted from under the door jam, as though something was moving on the other side of the door.

This must be why her aunt avoided eye contact with the door entirely. Now it made sense. Coraline held her breath before placing a very unsure hand on the jeweled knob. It felt cold and foreign to the touch and surprised her when it gave way to a room with blinding bright windows. She wondered how something so heavily sealed would open so unforgivingly.

The room was preserved but overall clean, appearing to be lived- in. It was much warmer, as though she’d stepped just inside the soul of someone else, someone familiar. Dust covered trinkets, a half-eaten plate of food, warm tea and a book lie opened and marked on a nearby cot. Piles of photographs, journals and other odds-and-ends collected in boxes nearest the attic closet. But who, who was living in this room, and why?

The air teamed with life, specs of wild dust floated freely in the room.

“Coraline, Coraline Parker…is that you I smell?”

A voice called from the other side of the room. A small, hand with long fingers slipped out from the attic closet, clutching the door.

“You really, really shouldn’t have visited. I'm in no mood for guests and I haven’t had the time to prepare the room. I thought we made it very, very clear to never touch the door... having done that, since you are here…. My dear, dear, dearest daughter... I have something for you, on the dresser. Take a look…”

Coraline’s eyes fell upon a small antique tray. The only thing not dusty in the entire room. A silver key in the center, as though waiting just for her— “you can use it to come back and visit me, anytime and maybe, just maybe, one day you will want to stay?”

Coraline smiled, her heart feeling so full and warm it might burst in her chest but that was quickly replaced by a small twinge of fear. She hadn’t spoken to her father in so long she couldn’t be sure it was him she was really talking to.

“Father, why don’t you come out, let me see you,” she whispered, nervously.

The fingers on the door curled, tightening their grip.

“No, not today, my dear, sweet girl. Maybe tomorrow, if you come back around five, I will bring you tea."

Coraline smiled, agreeing to come back.

Five-o-clock came and went the next day, and as promised, Coraline Parker made her way into the sealed room at the end of the hall, fully expecting to see her father sitting on the bed, waiting. Instead, in his place, was a hot cup of tea.

‘Drink my dear, enjoy the full flavor of the cup, every drop.’— a note read.

“Father?” Coraline whispered, but silence met her in the room. She thought about going towards the closet but stopped short as the lights from her aunt’s car illuminated the room, signaling her arrival.

Coraline rushed down the stairs, tucking the key back into her neckline but it was too late.

“Where’d you get that?” Her Aunt Meg’s hand clasped around the ornate skeleton key Coraline had strung along an old silver chain.

“I found it…” Coraline whispered, unsure of what exactly she should say.

“You opened the door…You never should have opened the door. We talked about this, at length…” Her Aunt Meg’s voice screeched from across the table. “Did you go inside? Promise me you didn’t…The room. The room, it changes you. It changes your world, your future, your present. Sucking you in until there is nothing left of you, not even a soul.”

Coraline had never seen her Aunt Meg so out of sorts. Not since her cat ‘Mittens’ had died.

“Oh no, no, no, no, no!! Not again!” Her Aunt Meg was off, running to the study, rifling through drawers and books.

“It was father, your brother. He was in there, he gave me tea, and cookies…” Coraline offered this up as though it would somehow make things better.

“NO!! Coraline, you did not…tell me you didn’t…I can’t undo what you have done. The house will claim you and there is nothing I can do to stop it. It’s what happened to your father.”

The words hung heavily in the air before sinking into the pit of Coraline’s stomach. She couldn’t remember what the voice had asked of her—come to think of it. She couldn’t remember anything at all.

“Dammit. I should have told you, I shouldn’t have listened to your damned father. He wanted to wait and look what good that did….and on the cusp of your eighteenth birthday. You will live here forever now, a prisoner.” Her Aunt Meg sighed, crumpling into a nearby chair in a defeated huff.

“You were too young to remember. The house is cursed… waiting for you in a moment of weakness. I am too old, so naturally, it wasn’t calling out to me as much, but I do what I was told, to keep the peace. For centuries. Eventually I would have told you, but it’s too late. Now you need to make a choice, close the door and let things progress naturally on their own, or stay inside and become a part of the house forever, living in stillness and solitude, even after death. Your dad chose to close the door…you see what happened.”

Coraline Parker steadied herself as she pushed the key into the lock once more, waiting for the house to finally settle in for the night. As she walked towards the attic’s closet door, she paused, whispering to the decrepit walls—“what truly lives in locked away spaces? Do our memories, our spirits, or our souls and demons? Or is it us, envisioning ourselves as memories spiraling out like the lined rings on a tree?”

Light from a candle leaked out from under the door, barely touching the tips of her toes as she waited for an answer that would never come.

The door handle turned on its own, slowly falling open, beckoning her to come inside and the voice whispered quietly from beyond—

“In time, you will remember my dear, dear girl, and until you do, we will wait for you again, and again. Forevermore, through the backwards ticking of time and the still flame of candles unblown. As your reflection softens and features age, and there is no one left in this room but dust moving aimlessly around, until you are gone and the tea runs cold…and another unlucky soul comes forward with ripe curiosity begging for a new beginning.”