An excerpt from something I'm not talking about yet. Except my mom read everything I'd written, but then when I asked for her opinion she had reception problems and had to go (In all fairness to my writing, her phone doesn't work more than it works)
The rooms are huge, and the low ceilings give them a cavernous feel, they are full of corners and shadows, with open places where you can see that there are more rooms, and more rooms still, like a house of mirrors, except instead of reflections you are looking at some warped version of reality, in which there are more rooms here than could possibly exist, even in a house this huge. I step over a headless doll. Blocks are strewn across the floor as if a child might be returning to finish his castle. A broken toy drum lies in the corner, a drumstick has been thrust through the leather membrane.
A spider the size of my hand scurries across the room and into the mouth of a lifelike baby doll. The (name deleted) children of the past certainly had an abundance of dolls. Mother never bought me any, though I had a stuffed pink rabbit, once.
I walk, slowly, through tea sets waiting for eternity for a tea party. Ropes of paper flowers and stars and moons have been hung from the rafters. I stand on tip toe to peer at them. The fluttering paper is attached to heavy rope. Odd.
In one of the dormers, a low area where the ceiling matches the slope of the roof above, I find what I am looking for.
Ugly black manacles, and a mattress.
That’s all. I wonder why they didn’t get rid of this, burn the mattress. Otherwise, the room is clean, and empty.
The house groans, and I hear footsteps creaking through the attic. There is a staircase, leading down from this room, a thing of wrought iron, with a flowing design of roses and barbs. I don’t wait for the footsteps to reach me. I run, across the room, stepping once on the mattress. A noxious smell blooms from it, thick as a cloud. I don’t inhale, just grab the banister, iron thorns piercing my hand, and bound downstairs.