Young Writers Society

Mom wasn't kidding, the is a lot bigger than it looked from the outside. If I could summarize the house in one word, that word would be 'impaired'. The outside paint peels, wood rots, and other little impurities on the house.

I look at my mom, who's beaming at the grand entrance. Yes, it's full of gleaming stones and marble, but it also has too many cracks to count and the floor creaks as I shift my weight. I can also hear my dad talking on the phone from the other side of the house.

Mom makes her way to the carpeted staircase, one of seemingly hundreds. I follow behind her, wearing a backpack and pulling two suitcases behind me.

"Once all of your stuff is put away, help your dad and me around the house. The moving van ended up in Colorado somehow, so it won't be here until Friday."

I groan. Happy Tuesday, I tell myself. And happy late sweet-sixteen, I guess.

I drag everything behind me while my mom goes hands-free. When we reach the top, a couple doors are already open. Mom pauses a moment, a look of confusion n her face, but then continues. I look into every open door. Already, I see two bathrooms, a master bedroom, and three closets. And, unsurprisingly, my room is at the end of the hall.

It's the only door that's not been opened, so Mom does the honors and stands aside for me to walk in. The up- and downstairs are both hardwood floors, but my room has a soft, deep shag carpeting, seeming to be growing like grass. My eyes follow the walls as different shades of blue blend in a beautiful tornado of color. Oak bookshelves line the walls, hanging liflessly.

I look uneasily at Mom, who's standing in the doorway. She looking around with a hopeful smile, then her gaze lands on me.

I sigh. "It's perfect." I'm not lying, it really is perfect. Mom grins, turning and walking out of my room, leaving me to unpack. I hear a couple doors close from the hallway, and assume it was Mom trying to make space for us to walk around in there.

I shrug off my backpack and toss it on the bed, dropping the extra suitcases by the wall. I sit on the bed, testing how bouncy it is. I look up at the ceiling light. It consists of a bright, white chandelier hanging in the middle of the ceiling. It ever so slightly sways, as if being blown by a draft, making my gaze wander to the window. It may look closed, but who knows how old it is.

I stand from the bed, striding to the window in annoyance. I open the blinds and wave my hand around, testing for a socket of air to coldly breeze in. I, of course, feel nothing. I shrug it off as a good thing, at least I won't have to duct-tape the window shut like we had to at my old home.

"Aspen!" My dad calls from somewhere downstairs.

"Coming!" I jog out of my room and down the hall, all of the doors are still open. I pause at the top of the stairs, I could've sworn I'd heard Mom shutting them all. Shaking my head, I decide that it was probably the stairs creaking under her weight.

I go down quickly, cringing from the sound each stair makes. I try navigating myself around to find where he is, finding him standing in a grand living room. Two couches, a love seat, and a one-person chair. A large rug takes up two-thirds of the room, the floor a beautifully grained wood.

A TV sits above the mantle of a brick fireplace. Dad's standing in the middle of the room, where I greet him.

"What?"

He looks up from his phone. "I was just wondering if you were the one going around opening doors."

I peak my head out the entrance of the living room to see part of the rest of the house, finding that the doors are indeed open. I turn back to Dad and say, "Um, no. That wasn't me."

"Hm, I would've thought you were exploring your new home. I guess it must've been your mother."

"I have at least two weeks to explore this house," I say, as I plop onto the couch, my left hand swinging freely off the side. My fingers brush something hard and I force my arm to stop, making my hand explore the side of the couch I cannot see. I find two buttons.

I experimentally press one, nothing happens. I press the other, making the space I'm sitting on begins to shift, my legs being picked up as a section of the couch slides out. I grin. Maybe this house won't be so bad.

Dad leaves the room, back on his phone. I can hear Mom scuttling around, adjusting things to be perfect. I note that the house is so echoey, trying not to let it ruin my mood.

I press the button that had done nothing before, which now brings the couch back the way it had been before. I hop off and hurry back to my room. Everything is as I left it, but something about the room gives me a sense of fear, or dread.

I shudder, beginning the unpacking stage of the day.

* * * * * *

We've lived here for a week and I'm starting to question things. Every door in the house is constantly open, except mine.

We've managed to finish unpacking, which surprisingly made the place a lot homier. Though, I only have one more week of freedom before I have to start school here. My parents already started working.

So I spend my free time wandering around, closing doors that have been opened in my way. Today, I'm standing in the front entrance, hands on my hips as I look around. I spot a dark spot near the staircase I hadn't yet explored or seen. I get on my hands and knees to see it at eye level and realize it looks like some sort of crawl space. It looks like something only a child could squeeze into, so I know I'm too big to fit.

I stand up and run up the stairs to my room, swerving away from open doors. I grab a flashlight and run back to the stairs. Getting close doesn't help with my vision, so I shine the light of my flashlight inside. Old papers litter the floor, some with terrible handwriting, some with a child's drawings. I lay flat on my stomach, crawling with my elbows to get closer in.

I manage to reach the closest paper and pull it toward me. I shine it with my flashlight, it's a picture of a stick figured little girl with brown hair. She's wearing a dress that's assumingly purple, standing next to a much taller figure. There's a taller figure with identical brown hair, I can easily make out that this is probably a father or maybe big brother. There's a third tall figure, even taller than the second one. I can't tell what it is because it's been scribbled out with a black crayon.

I turn the paper over, I can just barely make out, 'Mommy, Daddy and me!' I realize that the third figure was probably the mother. In the bottom right corner, a name is scrawled out, 'Sophia Faye'.

I tilt my head, what happened to the mother? Did she die? Did she leave? But this girl, Sophia Faye, she must've lived here once. Maybe her parents built the home, considering this is the Faye Manor.

Thunderous footsteps cause me to panic and try sitting up. This causes me to bump my head and I lightly curse, crawling backward to get out. I look around, the footsteps stopped.

"Mom? Dad?" I check to time on a nearby clock; it's nowhere near time for them to come home. I stand and brush off my pants, it sounded like someone was going up the stairs in a hurry. But the stairs are carpeted.

I shake my head, going to the stairs and slowly going up.

"Hello?" I receive no answer. I roll my eyes and realize I was just hearing things.

My phone beeps just as I'm laying back down in front of the crawl space. I find a daily text from my mom;

Don't forget to do your chores! Be home in a couple hours ;)

I assure her that I've already done them and go to my room to put away my flashlight and get started on my chores.