Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 102361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
“This might have been someone’s nursery.”
The idea is a pang in the chest.
I want to have babies with Brooks. I always did. He’d be such an amazing dad, and I know we’re in our late thirties now, but there’s still time if we get started right away.
“We just got married,” I remind myself as I walk over to run my hand down the white molding around the small closet. “He might not want babies yet.”
But since we don’t use protection when we have sex, and I am not on birth control, we’d better figure out what we want. Although if we didn’t want kids, I think we would be more concerned about preventing pregnancy.
“This was someone’s baby’s room,” I murmur and smile before walking farther down the hall, past another bathroom that needs to be gutted, to the last bedroom.
It’s bigger than the other two and has tacks in the wall that no one ever bothered to remove.
“Probably a teenager who had posters on the wall.”
I glance out the window, which looks out to the backyard, and then turn to look around the room again.
Something feels off.
“Why does this room feel smaller than it should?”
Frowning, I pace back and forth, then glance outside again.
The window is only about a foot away from the interior wall perpendicular to it. However, when I look outside, I can see that the wall should be about six feet away, as the outside extends much farther.
But there’s no door.
I knock around on the wall, and then feel when I hit a solid spot.
That’s not a wall.
“I need a hammer.”
I push my phone into my back pocket and hurry downstairs to where I saw one leaning against the wall by the back door, then head back upstairs with it.
These walls are coming down anyway. There’s no reason I can’t start now.
I take a swing where the solid spot was, and the drywall starts to fall away. It’s brittle. I cover my mouth and nose with my sweatshirt, but soon I’m too hot from all of the swinging, so I shed the sweatshirt, and then grin.
Because I just found a freaking door.
“This is what I’m TALKING ABOUT!” I yell as I dance in a circle. “A secret door! I’m absolutely not waiting around for Brooks. I need to know what’s back there.”
I have to chip away at more of the drywall, but soon, I’m able to shimmy the door open, and when I grab my phone out of my pocket and turn the flashlight on, I see a stairway that goes up.
“There’s an attic?”
I frown and poke my head around the corner so I can shine the light up to see where it leads.
Sure enough, there’s an attic up there, and it looks like it’s full.
“Sold. Going up.”
But there are a lot of cobwebs. I’m refusing to call them spiderwebs. I’m in denial that there could be a whole family of big-ass spiders up there.
No. Just no.
Gingerly, I climb the stairs. They’re not … great. But they’re holding me as I climb, and when I get eye level with the floor, my eyes widen and I let out a low whistle.
“Holy fucking jackpot, Batman.”
There are trunks, stacks of newspapers, old toys, and a stroller that looks like it held a baby a hundred years ago.
I climb the rest of the way and pick up a newspaper, and once I clear about an inch of dust away, I see the date.
August 7, 1964.
But then, in the back corner, are more newspapers, and once I make my way around a ton of stuff, I see that they are dated twenty years prior to that, announcing the end of the Second World War.
“Crazy,” I whisper, shaking my head. “This is a fucking treasure trove.”
I’m giddy at the thought of opening all the boxes, the trunks, and the bags. Obviously, I can’t do all of that tonight. It’s starting to get dark, and I need to go home and take a shower before I cook dinner.
Checking the time on my phone, I see that Brooks should be headed home soon, too.
It’s time to set this all aside for another day, but man, it’s cool. I direct the light to the other side of the attic. It must span the entire house, and every square inch is full of stuff, with just little paths here and there for walking. I’m standing on old two-by-fours, and as I start to make my way back to the stairs, the wood beams give out beneath me.
“Ahhh!”
I scream as I fall through the floor. Pain shoots up my leg, the crash is almost deafening, and I lose my phone. But I don’t fall all the way through.
My hips catch on something, with my legs hanging down through the ceiling below me. I cough because of all the dust and God-knows-what that just got kicked up. My heart pounds, I have tears in my eyes, and my leg is on fire.