We did a writing exercise at school, where the teacher gave us a picture and set a timer. We would write for 10 or 15 minutes about whatever came to mind with that picture. It’s a practise I’ve revived recently and found sparks my creativity. Let me know if you decide to join in!
Image Credit: ‘Beyond the Clock’ by Azenor on Deviant Art. Find it here.
Clara and her mother arrived at Grampion House in the early afternoon. Her mother was nervous. Clara knew this because she kept twitching Clara’s braids straight and reminding her to be good. They rang the doorbell and her mother looked anywhere but at the door. At long last, it swung open. A stern-faced man in a suit with a gold pocket watch looked at them with barely concealed disapproval. Surely, this couldn’t be her uncle?
“Mrs Sena, Miss Sena, the master has been expecting you. Please come in,” he said, stepping aside.
Clara stepped in out of the heat of the day and the London dust, and gasped. Her mother gave her a ferocious look, but she couldn’t help it. It was enormous. It was magnificent. It was unexpected.
Her shiny leather dolly shoes clicked on the chequered marble floor, smooth and cool. Plum velvet curtains were drawn on either side of the door, which the butler shut behind them with a snap. Wide stairs with gilded rails rose up to a landing lined with paintings and cabinets and benches, for you to sit and admire the art. There were paintings and cabinets everywhere, in fact. The walls of the entrance way were papered with some kind of floral design, but it was barely visible beneath all the pictures in their heavy gold frames. Large and small, they covered almost every square inch. There, a lady in a frilly dress with a white parasol. There, a ship with sails unfurled. There, an English garden scene. And that was not the half of it. On tables and in glass cabinets below the picture rail were arrayed an incredible assortment of things: a globe, a carved box, papier-mache flowers, the bones of a bird, an old radio, and more. Clara couldn’t swivel her head fast enough to take it all in.
They were shown into the library, where Clara’s uncle waited behind a heavy, wooden desk by the window. The walls were lined with books from floor to ceiling, comfortable chairs had been set in front of a marble fireplace, and tea was laid on the table. Clara’s mother fidgeted with her hat.
“Emily, how good to see you. And little Miss Clara, too. What a pleasure it is to meet you.”
Her uncle was a large man with a shiny, bald head, a smiling face, and giant hands with long, dexterous fingers. He fiddled constantly with the tiny mechanism of a music box while he spoke. He prodded at the cogs with a tiny screwdriver – with surprising gentleness for such a large man.
“Thank you for seeing us, Paul. I wouldn’t have come… Well, I’m sure you know that I never want to ask you for favours.”
“Nonsense. I’m glad you came. It’s been far too long and this distance between us grieves me, Emily.”
He came out from behind the desk, setting down the music box with which he had been toying, and took his sister’s hands in his own. She looked like a tiny bird beside him. He gazed down at her sorrowfully with liquid brown eyes.
“I have been longing to meet my niece. And what is all this for, if I have no-one with whom to share it? Hmm?”
“Thank you, Paul.”
“I hope we will be good friends now. That we can put the past behind us entirely and start again.”
“Yes, I would like that.” Her mother’s mouth tightened for a second and Clara thought that that she wouldn’t like that at all. If anything, she seemed even more tightly wound. It was strange because her uncle seemed perfectly kind. Clara could not understand why her mother was so uncomfortable.
They sat down to tea. Clara was given her own china plate, decorated with delicate orange birds, and allowed to put several tiny sandwiches and small cakes on it herself. She even had her own cup and saucer (though her mother poured her milk, and not tea). Her mother gave her warning look as she handed over the plate, and Clara focused all her attention on sitting up straight and not dropping or spilling anything.
The grown-ups seemed to talk for hours. Clara soon finished all of her sandwiches and grew bored of listening. She carefully put her cup and saucer and plate on the table – quite beaming when she managed to set them down without a clatter. Her mother was focused on her uncle, hands twisting in her lap until the knuckles were white, and she didn’t notice. Clara sat back down. Oh, she was bored! She began to swing her legs, bouncing the back of her shoes against the legs of the chair.
“Clara,” her mother warned in a low voice. Her uncle started, seeming only just to remember that she was there.
“You must be very bored with all this grown-up talk, Clara. You seem like a good girl. Perhaps you would like to explore the house? Your mother and I have a great deal to catch up on and might be some time.”
Her mother looked doubtful, “She’s very young, Paul. I would hate for her to damage anything. You know how children can be.”
“Nonsense! Children should play and, if things get broken, they get broken. I shan’t at all be angry. I understand how these things are. But I am sure that Clara is a good girl and will be very careful.”
“Very well,” her mother said with tight lips, “You may go and explore the house, Clara. But please, be careful. Do not touch anything. Don’t pick anything up. Don’t climb on anything. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, mama.” Clara replied dutifully, but inside she was dancing. All of the house to explore!
Her uncle opened the door to the library and watched her skip out onto the marble floor with an indulgent smile. He shut the door behind her. The butler was nowhere to seen. Clara stood there for a minute, admiring the paintings and things on the tables all around. She tapped the square heels of her little shoes on the tiles to make a noise. She opened the lid of the little, carved box she had noticed earlier; it was empty inside. And then she became curious about what was behind the other doors. She didn’t quite dare go up the stairs, but surely no-one would mind if she just peeked behind a few doors? She opened the one closest to the front door very carefully, sticking her head around to check that it was unoccupied before she entered. Inside, was a grand, blue and white sitting room with sofas and small tables and a piano. She lifted the lid of the instrument and admired the keys. She decided against pressing any of them; her mother was sure to hear that and scold her. She would be made to sit back down. She made the figurines on the shelves dance with a flick of her finger and a wish, which she was never supposed to do – and so only did a little. Behind another door was a bathroom with a heap of fluffy towels and little cakes of pink soap. Another, a dining room with a long, polished table and sideboard. And another, steps leading down into the basement where Clara could hear pots and pans clattering.
The most interesting room of all was behind the very last door, at the back of the house. This door led to a sort of workroom and, behind that, the conservatory. Inside, the wooden floor was covered with red and black, swirled carpets. A long table was littered with piles of books and notepads and pens. The books had strange names that she couldn’t read. There were labelled seeds and bones and dried herbs in the cabinets on one wall. Opposite those cabinets, glass doors led out to a warm room with glass walls and a domed roof, which was so filled with potted plants as to almost be a garden. Enormous ferns and tall flowers, trees which stretched almost to the roof, low shrubs, and sweet-smelling grasses. It was so vast and full that you couldn’t see the end. Paved paths wound between the rows and Clara meandered along them, marvelling. She looked up at the sky through the domed roof and saw little blue and yellow birds hopping amongst the tallest branches. She walked and walked, but it was as if she was in a maze and would never reach the end. Around one corner, she found a courtyard with benches and a silvery fountain shaped like a hand. Around another, a deep, green pool with lily pads and flowers, where frogs croaked and a stork (an actual stork) bobbed for colourful fish.
She walked on and on, getting quite lost, until at long last she came to a window. A vast, tall, round window, it was shaped like a clock with Roman numerals all around the outside and black iron hands that clicked as they turned. Through it, instead of gardens or the city streets, as one might expect, Clara could see the sea. And a strange sea it was. Grey and choppy, it seemed that clouds rested on top of the waves. It was like a sea at the very end of the world, she thought. A sea somewhere not quite here. And, as Clara watched, a ship sailed by on the fluffy clouds that floated atop the waves. Then, the hands clicked, and the clouds cleared, and a city with tall buildings and smoky chimneys appeared on the horizon in its place. The hands clicked again, and it was gone. Then there were only the grey waves cresting, falling in a splash of white foam.
Clara didn’t know how long she stood at the window, waiting for the city to reappear or another ship, but this was where her uncle found her.
“I see you have found the Window into Other Places, Clara. How very clever of you,” he said, coming to stand at her shoulder and looking out at the strange view behind the window.
“Yes, sir. It’s very strange. We are in London and nowhere near the sea,” she said, quite truthfully.
Her uncle smiled, “There are many strange and wonderful things in this house, Clara. The Window may be the strangest; and then again, it may not.”
“How does it work, if you please? Is it a magic trick?”
“Oh no. It’s quite real, I assure you. I can’t explain how it works,” he said, “but it does. Perhaps it’s best to think of the world more as a series of rooms, rather than one big room with everything and everyone in it; that goes some way to explaining it, I believe. And we must remember, the things we are told exist, or don’t exist, are just one version of the truth. A more ingenious mind can find others. Take magic for an example. What is magic? Is it not just science that is not yet understood? How narrowly we view the world today – and how much more there is to discover.”
Clara looked doubtful, “Magic?”
“Isn’t it?” He said with a smile, “well, perhaps you’d know best.”