Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 65042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
The key left a faint scratch on the tan paint of the dining room wall and it occurred to me that I was ruining my wall for no good reason. But what the hell, I probably wasn’t going to get to keep the house anyway. The mortgage was due at the end of the month and I didn’t even have a third of the money I needed to pay it.
I decided to keep drawing.
I leaned over as far as I could to draw the top of the door and then extended the line downward, all the way to the floor. I hopped off the chair and stepped back to admire my handiwork. There—I had scratched a tall but rather narrow doorway on my dining room wall. Now what?
Nothing, seemed to be the answer, because nothing was happening. I was just about to give up this nonsense and start job hunting when that annoying little voice whispered in my ear again.
How can the door open with no knob to turn? It asked.
Well, good point. Feeling foolish, I stepped up to the door again and scratched out a knob to one side of the center. Then I stepped back again with my arms over my breasts and waited for more nothing to happen.
It did, for the next five seconds. I was about to give up again when I noticed something strange…the scratches I had made in the paint were glowing.
“Shit!” I whispered to myself, raking a hand through my curls. I took off my glasses and cleaned them on the hem of my t-shirt. But when I put them back on, the scratches were still glowing…and the space inside them was beginning to look like an actual door.
I watched, my jaw hanging open, as the door solidified and the round circle I’d scratched became an actual brass doorknob. Holy shit—I’d drawn a door and it had become real! Like really real.
Well don’t just stand there—go through it! commanded the little voice in my head. Go on—go! Before it fades away!
I stood there for a moment, feeling stunned. Then I grabbed the envelope and the scrap of paper off the dining room table and shoved them both into my robe pocket.
I half expected that this was all another dream and that the doorknob wouldn’t turn. But when I grasped it in my hand and twisted, it turned with no resistance at all. “As smooth as butter” my Grandma used to say.
I frowned—why was I thinking of her now when I hadn’t seen her in over thirty years? But the question was soon driven out of my mind because when I pushed, the door swung open and I saw it…
A whole new world waiting just for me.
3
DANNI
I just stood there for a minute, starting at the strange new place. It looked like a quaint, New England town. What I was looking at seemed to be the main street. It was lined with shops. I saw a diner called “Goldie’s” at one end and a place called “The Lost Lamb.” Further down I saw a kind of general store and what looked like a kind of grocery store called “Goodman Kreeches Grocery and Co-op.” There was also a huge white building with a vast covered porch. A sign on it read, “The Red Lion Inn” and there was a wooden cut out of a red lion’s head just under it.
The town I could see through the doorway was incredibly photogenic. It looked like someplace you’d go to get Instagram photos to make all your friends jealous of your New England vacation.
All the trees I saw—mostly huge, old-growth maples and oaks—were decked out in gorgeous patterns of gold, vermillion, and scarlet leaves. The sky overhead was a pale, Autumn blue without a single cloud. But the sunlight streaming down felt like a blessing, not a curse. There was a faint smell in the air like someone burning dried leaves mixed with the sweet smell of caramel that made my stomach rumble. What the hell was this place?
Before I could find any kind of satisfactory answer, a chilly gust of wind swept around my bare legs, making me shiver. I started to take a step back, thinking I needed to get dressed—at least put on some sweatpants to go with the faded Lady Gaga nightshirt I was wearing…but the little voice in my head shouted,
No!
And then I felt as though a pair of hands was pushing me—pushing me forward and right through the doorway into the magical town.
“Oh!” I gasped as I stumbled forward onto the quaint, cobblestone street. “Hey, I didn’t mean to—“ I began, as I whirled around to go back through the door again.
But even as I watched, the door slammed itself shut. Then it began fading away, turning translucent before my eyes. I could already see through it by the time I reached for the knob and then it was too late—the door had vanished completely.