The Hectic Attic

For those curious about my NaNoWriMo’09 production, here it is…I hope you like it!
Aline Martins

Synopsis: Where do dreams go?

Jenny is still upset about loosing the best storyteller she ever met, her grandma.
To make things even more difficult, they are moving to her Grandma’s old house, at least -she thinks – she might find someone to tell her grandma’s stories.
But she has no idea what kind of friends are waiting for her in a house where the doors are as huge as giants and the rooms always lead to magical places.

And for my curious friends!

Excerpt

When she got the key, she looked around, and the only thing she thought about was picking inside the room once more. “One more time” she thought “just one more time”.
And she opened the door.

“Granny?” Jenny murmured, taking in shallow grasps of the cold air.

“Do you want to play with Granny?” A said a soft voice with glee.

Jenny stepped inside the room, closing the door slowly at her back. “I won’t take long, and nothing can happen” she thought.

Suddenly, other voices joined the first one, all of them whispering at the same time,
“Jenny, we know you are here, we know you are here”.

“Who are you?” asked Jenny choking, this couldn’t be a joke.

“Jenny, my darling” said a very familiar voice.

“Granny?” asked Jenny.

“Did you come to hear new stories Jenny?” the other voices joined what seemed to be her grandmother’s voice.

Terrified, she tried to run away, but she tripped over something and fell to her knees.
“You’ll never get out of here Jenny,” said one of the voices.

“This is where they send you when they don’t need you anymore” another voice said.

“You don’t want us anymore Jenny, you put us here to forget us, but we want you”, they said in unison.

Jenny thought she could feel cold hands around her wrists, holding her, while she could hear her granny’s voice behind all the others, and it said “be careful, my dear, you should not enter the fairyland without following the instructions”.

The other voices were still around her saying “We want to play, we want to play”.
“Granny?” Jenny shook all over trying to get rid of the cold and the fear that was making her choke as if all the objects in the room had their hands and fingers on her.

But, just when Jenny became convinced life was over, and there was nothing else she could do, a whirlwind escalated and suddenly disappeared.

Jenny was confused, she could not figure out where she was, or if she was standing, floating or lying on the floor, all she could feel were the cold and the weight of the silver key on her hand. She closed her eyes for a while, trying to forget, only listening to the sound of her heart.

When she opened her eyes and looked around, she was not in the attic anymore, but in her bedroom, lying on her bed, holding something so tightly in her hand,something that was hurting her. The key.

by Aline Martins

I spent a good part of my childhood in my grandpa´s house.

To go in, we had to pass through a huge door. I never could understand the reason for such high doors, I used to think giants used to live there before ! When the door was open we could see a long, gloomy corridor, that ended at the stairs.

The living room, noble place of the house! inside you could see the candlesticks, the marble and crystal vases, statuettes and souvenirs from long trips, the huge mirrors, symbols of nobility displayed to visitors. In the room, the arrangement of the furniture did not give chance to doubts. The visitors were forced to sit in certain places and do certain things. There was no place there for mistakes. Everything had its place.

Then, there was a hallway leading into the private part of the house. And there were huge rooms one after the other. It was necessary to cross the first to go to the second …

The nights were haunted, governed by the carillon clock and its beat, useless information, which only served to make the insomnia even more excruciating.

It was fascinating to walk in those rooms. But what fascinated me was a THE FORBIDDEN ROOM, locked all the time.

In other times, when the house was full of children, all rooms were standard rooms. But…the children got married, the hard times came. Without use, that room was transformed into a deposit of old stuff, where neither people nor broom or duster was allowed in. It was forbidden to get in, and the key was always hidden.

To my uncles it was a place for the ugly things, the dust and spider webs. But for me it was the THE ROOM OF MYSTERY. If there was no mystery, the key would not be hidden nor, we would be forbidden to get in. The forbidden room is always the one we want to get in. We are fascinated by the mystery and the forbidden. The reason for this I do not understand, but I know that the human soul is made of it.

Well, I used to steal the key and, quietly, enter the room of mystery. The room was an enchanted place. Even what was considered horrible helped composing the scene: the accumulated dust on the furniture, the spider webs, the smell, everything was there to tell me the time had stopped there. Magic. The objects emerged from a world of dreams. The zither, with mother of pearl inlay: how long have been in that silence? And the paint palettes? covered with old paint. What was the last time a brush had touched it? A gramophone, old records …

I think my fascination for the room of mystery, was due to the fact that, inside, I AM like the room. My soul is a room where the weirdest objects are placed, without order, without any intention of doing so. In contrast to the living room, where each object is placed in a precise order in relation to others, in the room of mystery there is no order, no arrangement: each object is a COMPLETE UNIVERSE, does not depend on others.

For me every person has a living room clean and organized, open for general visitation, but also has a fascinating room of mystery which we only can get in if we steal the key. Some people think that the forbidden room is full of terrible things, corpses, excrement and horrible smell. And that is what they find, because we only find what we’re looking for. But for me, (that little girl in the forbidden place), the terrible things are just ornaments and enchanted things, frozen, asleep, out of time, such as Sleeping Beauty in the dust, with spider webs and wild plants, there, waiting for someone who will give the kiss that break the spell …

“So, this is the room of my mind. Therein lays everything: magic, poetry, insights being brewed. Just like in the Room of mystery, in my grandpa´s house… not many people will like to get in, and stay here, for it was built for enchanted ones”.

Why did I tell you that?

oh! just to say….

WELCOME TO

THE HECTIC ATTIC

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