The door at the end of the hall

Her parents will about the house she had grown up in had not been very specific, except or one thing. The door at the end of the hallway must never be opened.

She spent three days staring at that door, wondering what her parents had been hiding. What was it that her parents did not want anyone to see? The door, for certain, was different than the rest in the entire house. While the doors throughout the house were all made of cedar, this particular door was made of the darkest mahogany, and had Celtic symbols engraved in the top of the door. Its letters were laid with gold paint.

There was another distinction that she just could not seem to bring herself to understand. This peculiar door that stood before her had no doorknob or handle. Why would her parents build a room and then hide it behind a door that literally could not be opened from the outside? Exactly what kind of past did her parents have? What were they so afraid of?

She did her best to ignore the door while she took the next two weeks to unpack. It had been her parents final wish that she live here after they died. After all…this house had been in her family since her great great great grandfather Silas Bordeaux had come to America from Ireland. The house that Silas ad built would be one hundred and ninety two years old now. Though he had died long before she had even been born, he would be proud to see that the place was still standing.

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Over the next two weeks, she found herself staring at the mystery door whenever she was not busy doing something around the house. She grew increasingly more curious about the door with each passing hour. Eventually, she became fed up and grabbed her tool kit from her car. She tried undoing the hinges, prying at the edges, and even hammered at the wood itself. Unfortunately, nothing happened. This frustrated her to no end. There had to be a way to open the door.

But then, a though crossed her mind. She lifted her eyes to the symbols above the door. They were Celtic for sure. “Wherever you will go, may the road rise to meet you.” She searched the door for a keyhole of some kind but found only the slightest impression of a handprint in the middle of the frame. Without thinking about it, she put her hand into the impression. Almost immediately, she pulled away as if she had been burned.

The door creaked, the sound of a deadbolt sliding could be heard from within, and the door finally swung open. It was dark behind the door, a chill radiating across her skin. A bad feeling grew inside of her when she could hear whispers from the darkness on the other side of the door. And then the one rule from her parent’s letter sounded in the back of her mind. “The door at the end of the hallway must never be opened.”

Her breath hitched in her throat, and slowly but surely, she reached for the door. Her fingers curled around the edge of the frame, and a chill came over her skin. She did not know where the door went to, but it was cold on the other side. The house around her became deathly quiet. She could no longer hear the birds chirping outside in the trees, and some kind of darkness seemed to surround her. She no longer knew where she was, or where she had been. But she knew one thing. She knew she was falling.