Friday Flash - Something In The Attic

Here's my attempt for this week's Fiction Friday challenge on the Write Anything blog, also submitted to the Friday Flash collection. Prompt #166 was;

A covert trip into an attic reveals something unexpected.

I also used Joely Black's first flash prompt, too - The Staircase. Enjoy!

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The staircase stretched up into darkness. Evey stood at the foot of the stairs, her little hand on the bottom step. She heard water running, somewhere up there in the dark. She planted her other hand on the step, trying to gauge the height.

"Evey? What are you doing?"

Her mother came around the corner into the top floor corridor. She carried a basket of fresh laundry balanced on one hip. Evey could smell the mandarin-scented fabric softener.

"You were going to try those stairs, weren't you?"

"No." Evey tried her best wide-eyed innocent look.

"You don't fool me for a second, miss. Why don’t you go and play outside? Your brother is trying out the new climbing frame.”

Evey screwed up her nose at the thought of Adam. Two years older, he liked to tease her by pulling her hair, or telling their parents every time she disobeyed one of their rules. She didn’t mean to be naughty; she was just curious.

“Alright, so you don’t want to play with Adam. Run along though – you know you’re not allowed in the
attic.”

Her mother stood at the foot of the stairs. Evey sighed. She toddled down the corridor. She hid around the corner, hugging the wall until she heard her mother walk down the stairs at the other end of the house. She streaked back down the corridor to the stairs. With no one to stop her, she hauled herself up the staircase towards the attic door.

The door stood ajar. She curled her little fingers around the jamb and pushed the door open. She gasped as she stepped into the attic for the first time.

The attic seemed so much larger than the rest of the house. A complex maze of trestle tables held a huge model of a rolling landscape. Water pooled in valleys between the mountains, and tiny trees dotted the hillsides. Snow dusted the mountain peaks, and miniature buildings clustered in towns and cities. Sand covered vast expanses of the landscape across the middle of the model.

Evey toddled over to the model, and stood on her tiptoes to peer at the icy landscape nearest to her. She thought she could hear faint traffic noise from the other side of the model, but low-lying mist obscured her view from this perspective. Shafts of light burst through holes in the ceiling, illuminating parts of the landscape. Other areas lay in darkness. Tiny lights flickered in the shadows.

“Evey! What are you doing in here?”

Her grandfather hobbled out of a door to her left. His gnarled hand gripped the apple-shaped knob of a walking stick. Pale grey eyes peered over the golden half-moon spectacles balanced on his bulbous nose.

“What is this?” asked Evey. She turned away from the model, still gripping the edge.

“This is a very special model. I look after it, you see.”

“Did you make it?”

“I did. But you really shouldn’t be in here.”

“Is the water real? What’s the mist? Why are bits of it dark? Can I really hear cars? Where did you get everything from?”

“Oh Evey, you do ask a lot of questions. Can’t you just accept things as they are?”

“Adam says I’m too curious.”

“You are! Yes, the water is real. Everything else is as it should be. It’s all part of the model.”

“Uncle Lou has something in the basement. Is it like this?” asked Evey. A memory of darkness, and heat, and strange noises, flitted through her mind. She didn’t like the basement.

“I don’t know what your Uncle Lou has down there. He and I don’t exactly see eye to eye these days,” replied her grandfather. “But you shouldn’t be in the basement any more than you should be up here.”

“But I want to look at the model!”

“I know you do, but you can’t. It’s bad enough that you’ve seen this much. Now run along and play outside, and don’t mention this to your brother. I don’t want him poking around in here as well,” said her grandfather. He ushered her away from the model and towards the door.

“Why not?”

“Because there are some things that are just not yours to know. Not yet, anyway.” He smiled, a twinkle dancing in his eyes. Evey found herself smiling back.

She looked at the model one last time. Her eyes skipped across the wide pond between the two largest landmasses. She wanted to dip her finger into the water to see if it was cold.

“Go on. I’ll see you at dinner.” Her grandfather made shoo-ing motions with his hand.

Evey toddled out of the door. She climbed down the stairs, pouting as her grandfather closed the door. She set her face in determination. One day she would get back into the attic. One day she would see that model again.