1988, London
I stood outside professor McGarry's house, yearning to knock on the huge wooden door.
An icy cold breeze whipped through my hair causing shivers to go down my spine. My hands stayed in the air for mere seconds and dropped. The thought of knocking was easy but I just couldn’t do it.
Everyone said professor McGarry was a strange man, and he didn't seem like a normal person. He wore an oversized hat that covered half of his pale white face and you could hear the sound "flop, flop" as he walked by, wearing his old boots.
Everyone also kept saying how unfortunate I was to have to be a maid at his house. I felt like the unluckiest person in the world right now, standing in front of his house.
There was also rumours about a secret door, hidden somewhere in his house, but no one had ever seen what it looked like or what was in it. That made me anxious to find out.
I finally had the courage to knock. After a few seconds, the sound of his floppy boots came from inside. The door opened. Professor McGarry stood there. I thought he was looking at me but I never knew because his hat was covering his eyes.
“What do you want?” he asked in a deep voice.
“G... good afternoon p…professor McGarry” I said nervously “I’m your new maid.”
He lifted an eyebrow and said slowly: “Come in then.”
I looked around his house: Huge paintings hanging on the white walls, small statues stood in random places. He had a luxurious living room and a dining room that can fit two elephants in. And also, a big kitchen. Wow, this is really nice, I thought, until I walked into a long hall way.
This hall way was dusty and dirty. Spider webs hung from every corner and the dust looked like huge grey clouds. I felt like I had walked into a mysterious mist, I couldn’t see the end. He showed me to a room, I walked in and shivered as I rubbed my hands.
Try to be optimistic, I told myself, this is not too bad.
The next time I opened my eyes, it was in the morning. The warmth of sunlight hugged me as I climbed out of bed, ready for my first day.
The professor said I needed to cook all the meals and clean the hall way.
“But don’t go too far,” he warned, “It’s unpredictable.”
I swallowed hard, what could that mean?
After breakfast I started cleaning. I scrubbed the walls and mopped the floor. It was hard but I managed to do it.
As I went deeper and deeper into the mist, it felt like I was being pulled by the mysterious power, closer and closer to the end.
A figure of a white wall slowly appeared as I moved closer. A huge painting of an old man was hanging there. Clouds of dust covered it and some paint were coming off. I carefully moved it and a wooden door appeared. It was covered with dust. Was this the secret door? I reached and slowly and opened it.
It was a small room filled with old photographs. The room was even dustier than the hall way: spider webs hung everywhere, dust and dirt covered the frames and glass of the photographs.
They were photos of a man, a woman and two children. They smiled happily in every photo. The man was wearing a similar hat to the professor! Could it actually be him? I felt the photo frame between my fingers. No one had ever heard about this woman and the children who lived with him. I wondered if they were his wife and his children.
There were so questions unanswered. Who was that women and who were the children?
I guess there were much more secrets about this professor than I thought.
