by Gavin Green
Chapter 3
Past
The door was what saved Jane McCarthy from many of the pains of youth, primarily the stern words of her mother. That woman was a constant source of confusion and fear, yet sometimes mixed with compassion. It was like her mam didn’t know who to be from hour to hour.
It would start with her brother Jack, the oldest; her mam would condemn with harsh or snide words about his carefree and rowdy ways, and said that he invited troubles to come knocking. And when Jack had heard enough or simply didn’t want to be bothered, he’d give the good excuses of game practices or matches to attend to and off he went.
Then her mam’s spite would turn to Kate, poor Kate. Jane loved her sister and admired the wit and brains that Kate possessed, and was upset that their mam might worry it out of her.
Over the years growing up, Jane saw how her big sister became a shrinking violet, and was so mad at their mam for making pretty Kate feel undesired and undeserving. Despite feeling sad that she went off to university, Jane was glad that Kate escaped mam’s hard words.
Jane then worried that, being the last and only child still at home, all of the malice that was shared by three kids would then all fall on her. Luckily, her da intervened more with her than with Jack or Kate, or so it seemed.
So, it was partly her wonderful da that came to Jane’s rescue, but mostly it was the door.
A strong imagination is what showed Jane the ‘play room’ for the first time. She was barely eight, and shared a room with Kate, who was just finishing up secondary. One rainy weekend, while Kate was out with her fun friend Alana, Jane was stuck indoors to play. Her da had come in to work on a door hinge that had given while she sat on her bed and played with dolls and stuffed animals.
Jane looked up when her da set the door aside and went to go get more tools, and took notice of the door propped against a wall. Her imagination took over and created an idea in her head of that door leading to another room in the house, one that her mam didn’t know of, where she could hide away.
Jane approached the propped door, letting her fantasies carry her on with the new and exciting idea. With that in mind, she grabbed the door knob. The door seemed to shift, slide upright, and flatten against the wall. Jane was momentarily worried that the door would fall over on her, but she reasoned that her hand on the knob kept it in place. She turned the handle, and it made a curious noise, as if unlatching itself.
Filled with more curiosity than fear, Jane pulled and the door swung open, as if on hinges. There was a room beyond the yawning door, waiting for her.
Jane’s da returned before she could go in and explore, so she impatiently waited until he fixed the hinge. He reset the door and finished up, gave Jane a kiss on her forehead, and shut the door behind him. She immediately jumped off the bed and tried the door again, but it just opened to the hallway, as always.
For over a week, Jane was trying every door in the house, concentrating on a ‘play room’ and pulling them open, but to no avail. She soon decided that normal doors didn’t work, and maybe it was a magic wall up in her room. Fearing her mam, Jane only used a pencil to draw a door on that wall, and could erase it afterwards. With the simplistic line drawing finished, Jane thought of her secret room and closed her eyes.
She reached out blindly and felt a handle. She pulled it and opened her eyes, and the room once again awaited her. It was a small, simple space with no windows or lamps, yet somehow lit. Jane hoped there would be a place to sit as she wandered the little room, and bumped into a chair when she turned – a chair that wasn’t there before.
As Jane’s imagination grew from that thrilling discovery, so did the ‘play room’. Once, at her friend Moira’s house, Jane realized that it wasn’t her bedroom wall that was magical. She and four other friends were playing hide and seek, and Jane found herself cornered in Moira’s bedroom. She hastily grabbed a stick of colored chalk they used for wall art, and drew a small door on the back of Moira’s actual door. With a moment’s concentration, Jane’s play room opened up.
So it was the created door that was the secret, the trick to it. Given a surface and something to draw with, her room was wherever she wanted it to be.
Jane practiced everywhere, just to ensure the reality of her play room, and sometimes just for the fun of it. She also found that, when she tried to exit back into the girl’s loo at school on one fun occasion, the door wouldn’t open when others were just beyond. That built-in measure would save her from explaining something she had no answer for.
Jane also noticed that her cat couldn’t enter, even when she carried it, and figured that no one else was allowed in, which was well enough. But it wouldn’t do to leave drawn doors all over the village, or be caught erasing them. So Jane thought of a better way.
In the months that followed, the play room expanded and filled in accordance with Jane's wishes. It became roughly 15x30 feet in dimension, and shaped like an attic room with the entry at one end. Two dormer windows were on each angle; on one side, the windows showed nighttime, and the opposite showed day.
The views through those windows reflected Jane's moods. In happy times, the 'day-windows' were blue skies with puffy white clouds floating by over rolling green fields, and the 'night' showed brilliant stars over a comforting forest. In sad times, however, the day skies were grey and rainy, the green fields were mud, while the night stars were replaced with dark skies that flickered with lightning, and the forest was gloomy with a thick fog.
The play-room decorated itself with a desk and chair, a huge pillow – easily big enough to nap on – that changed colors at Jane’s whim, stuffed animals, simple pictures on the walls, tables and shelves, and even a small stage for her to practice singing. It seemed only simple items could be in the room; no televisions, stereos, phones, computers, nothing mechanical or with parts, not even things so simple as a box spring for a proper bed.
As a result of studying what would work, Jane’s curiosity in general grew and accelerated. Her rising marks in school left less room for her mam to bark, and so she was left to her own devices more often. Although still able to hear through the door when called, Jane had a truly private sanctuary that conformed to her wishes in simplistic degrees. Unlike Kate, her little sister was spared many hardships with a haven of freedom and safety.
