The Room Without a View

      The Room Without A View

Suzanne Marsh

The wooden spiral staircase seemed as if it took forever to climb to the top. John Henley reached the top first, followed by his frat brother Mark Townsend. Rumors had been circulating for a number of years about a hidden room at the top of the staircase. Magnolia University located in the heart of South Carolina, where the fragrance of Magnolia blossoms hung heavily in the air.

John, and Mark once they reached the top of the staircase wondered how they were going to locate the hidden door, they wanted to know what was hidden there. It had been rumored that the had hidden runaway slaves, an Egyptian Mummy, or perhaps a witches coven. As part of the initiation into Zeta Sigma Phi they had to find the room and enter it, then report back on their findings.

Once at the top, they began pulling out books on the shelves rapidly, hoping one would reveal the hidden door. After pulling out two dozen books, they pulled out: “The Consequences of Curiosity written by Hamish Macintosh. Slowly as they tipped the book down, the eerie sound became louder, it wasn’t a squeak or a grinding but something in between. Mark, at once was excited, had they actually found the room? This was just too cool.

Slowly a panel creaked open, there was a wooden door, the interior captivated them. They knew from rumors that Magnolia University had been built as a plantation in the early 1700’s. They were not sure they could justify finding the door and not looking to see what was really inside. Fear, began to permeate the air, as they stared blankly at each other:

“John, we have to open that door, we have to see what is inside?”

“Mark, I know, it does not feel right to open something that has remain closed for over two

hundred years.”

“We have come this far, we need to enter the room, I brought my cell phone so we can

take pictures, John. We have to have evidence that we were actually in the room remember?”

John remembered, but fear was niggling at him, a fear he did not comprehend. They debated for several minutes, the door remaining closed:

“Mark, let’s get this over with open the door, take a couple of quick pictures then get out of

here before that head librarian decides to go looking for us.”

“Miss Harkness won’t set foot on those stairs; she I don’t think could climb them even if

she wanted to. She to heavy.”

“True, John, very true. I guess now is as good a time as any, open the door.”

The door creaked open; their eyes began to adjust to the dank, dark room. Mark’s cell phone illuminated only bits and pieces of a room, that appeared to have no real purpose, until they noted a bed and highboy dresser. The room was thirteen by forty foot, and rather strangely shaped, it reminded John of a parallelogram. Their eyes became accustomed to the darkness, as they strode into the room.

John’s cell phone produced enough light to walk around the room. The two young men saw a grown that Mark thought must have belonged to the original owner’s wife. It looked frayed around the edges, made of red gingham. It appeared to be a secret room that could be used for witchcraft, or so it appeared. They noted bottles of herbs, mushrooms, mosses and dried flowers, all of could have been used to heal the slaves on the plantation. They came upon something that stopped them in their tracks, a skull, crystal ball and tarot cards. They went back to the red gingham dress, it would not have been worn by the lady of the plantation, it would have been worn by a slave. The question was who was the slave, why was this room hidden? Mark and John began to look in earnest, at the different items, there were precious stones, one appeared to be a large opal, another a ruby. This find could make them rich if they did things correctly. First, they had to determine who the slave was. Most enslaved folks were from Africa, where they had different belief’s than the whites. Did the enslaved person attempted to harm the mistress, or the master or worse the children.

They began to examine items on a wooden table, there were chains attached to the underneath part. Chains, for what they wondered. There were several canvases covered with dust, they pulled the covers off. To their astonishment they saw a portrait of a beautiful blond-haired woman, with three little children and a handsome man holding the smallest child. There was also a tall willowy black woman, with a sweet face, in her hand was something that appeared to be an amulet. They stumbled on some loose boards, since they were exploring, they decided to pull them up to see what was there.

They found the skeletal remains three children and two adults. They were ready to flee but something held them there, made them continue to search for more clues as to who these people were and what happened to them. The wind began to howl, like a wolf baying at the moon. Things began to move around the room for no apparent reason. John, was just about out the door when Mark spoke:

“John, I think these are the folks in the painting, but where is the enslaved person?”

“Mark, are you crazy, we need to get out of here NOW!”

“John, I am not leaving until we figure out who these folks are, how they died and give the

a decent burial.”

“Okay, you bury them, and I will go find Miss Harkness and inform of this ah discovery.”

“Fine, just leave the door open, I will wait for the two of you to come back.”

“Mark, are you sure you want to stay here with skeletons? Especially with those objects

whirling around every so often.”

“John, go, I’ll be fine, I don’t believe in witchcraft or Voo doo or any of those strangely other

unexplainable things.”

John did not need a second invitation, he was out the door, and down halfway down the stairs, when he heard a blood curdling scream, it tore through the entire library. John scrambled back up the staircase with Miss Harkness right behind him. John threw open the door of the hidden room, there stood Mark, his face covered in blood:

“John, get the hell out of here, that enslaved woman just attempted to kill me with a dagger.”

John fell to the floor as Miss Harkness screamed. They rushed over to Mark, but he was dead. John and Miss Harkness, glared at the portrait:

“I have seen that portrait before, downstairs in the entryway to the library. That enslaved

woman was accused of witchcraft, according to records she was whipped, then tortured

finally burned almost to death yet survived. I wonder if it was she who murdered your

friend.”

The police were summoned, the remains removed, the portrait taken from the room, finally Mark’s body was removed. To this day no one can explain Mark’s death, or where the enslaved woman was when the police searched the room.

The room had no view, it was isolated from the rest of the plantation house, eerie from the point of the students at Magnolia College.