I really struggled with this chapter so tell me if it's absolutely horrendous and I'll scrap it.
6
A large, crooked Victorian house; three stories high with a sad jagged lawn outside the gazebo porch.
Hastily up the wide marble stairs, footsteps echoing.
Sarah turns the door knob and finds herself in a huge, bare, high-ceilinged room. The walls are lazily white-washed and blind to the starkness of the place. There are vast dusty French windows at either end of the enormous room but they are carelessly enshrouded by ancient purple curtains. Straggly rays of sunlight whimper through the holes in the rotting velvet, but the room is blind to them.
There is no furniture in the blank room apart from an immense bed sprawling in a corner, with a gild frame and a lumpy mattress flung diagonally over its rickety form. There is also a small round wooden table in the other corner, groaning under the weight of the jewellery plastering it.
Sarah does not know quite what to think. She doesn’t have much time to take in anything, either, because Marian abruptly takes her arm and sits her down on the bed. “You must be shattered, love,” she says. “Go to sleep. I’ll be back in a while, don’t you worry.”
Dazed, Sarah slowly swings her legs over the side of the bed, straightens the mattress and stiffly lays her head on the pillow. The fairy walks to the other end of the room and places her hand on the door knob, casting a glance back at Sarah. Hesitation flickers in her steady eyes. “Um...sweetheart?” she says. “Don’t answer the door to anyone, okay? I’m locking you in, anyway, but just ignore anything that happens.”
Sarah frowns but nods and watches the fairy as she leaves the room, carefully shutting the door. She waits for the grate of the key in the hole before she lets herself drift into sleep.
*
Rat-a-tat-tat!
Sarah jolts from her dreams with a start, sitting up in bed. Her heart starts juddering in the frail cage of her chest and icy rivulets of sweat start running down her back. The knocks continue; increasing in their urgency, shaking the very frame of the door.
The noise pauses while someone swears loudly and bangs their fist against something. Then, Sarah can hear the sound of footsteps retreating back down the stairs.
She breathes out a sigh of relief and lies back down on the mattress, not daring to move, wondering what on earth she has done.
*
In the morning, Sarah wakes up and sees Marian, sitting on the wooden table with nothing but an over-sized checkered shirt on.
When Marian sees her, she beams. “Morning, Sarah! Good night’s sleep?”
Sarah's forehead creases and then smoothes. “Yes,” she begins. “I slept…fine.”
Marian nods. “That’s good.” She holds up a brown paper bag. “Breakfast.”
Five minutes later, the jewelry on the table is coiled in a pile on the floor, and Marian and Sarah are sitting round it eating croissants. Sarah peers at the label on the bag.
“These must have cost a fortune,” she remarks.
“Nah,” says Marian. “I can afford it. I rent out rooms. In this house.” “Do you own the whole thing, then?” asks Sarah.
Marian wipes away greasy crumbs from her lips with the back of her hand and washes down her mouthful with coffee. “Well, there’s other people in the business as well. A while ago…a group of us started it up. Big Victorian houses are quite common with boarders. Keeps us in good stead.”
“Oh right,” says Sarah. “Someone was quite eager to get in the other night.”
Marian swallows. “Oh, that’s just riff-raff,” she says. “Squatters, and such-like. Sorry if you had a fright.”
“It’s fine,” says Sarah.
“I have to go out to work,” says Marian, standing up and reaching into a duffel bag for a pair of jeans. She pulls them on, brushing her hands on the denim fabric and leaves the room. Sarah sits at the table alone for a while, and then folds up the paper bag and puts it into a bin.
You're amazing and totally underestimate your critiquing skills.
