Read A White Room for Free Online Page A

are you doing?”
    “You want to stumble in the dark?”
    I shook my head. “It’s daylight.”
    “There are no windows in the hallway, and I would prefer we left the doors closed unless someone is in a room.”
    “What?”
    “It’s a big house, and we don’t want to lose each other. This way I’ll always know where you are.”
    I shuddered. “Yes, but what a horrible way to live.”
    “I’m sure you’ll find it quite convenient once you get used to it.” He glided down the corridor. “Besides, it’s only in the hallway.”
    I didn’t follow. I stood in the gloomy passageway with a heavy feeling in my abdomen and an urge to whirl around and run home. “What about gases? The rooms have to be aired to prevent toxins from building up.”
    “You can air them daily if you must.” He stopped at the first door on the left.
    “What about the cost of oil?”
    “Let me worry about the expenses.” He motioned for me. “Come along then.”
    I stepped forward, hesitated and then went to him.
    “This is the parlor.” John opened the door on the left to an oversize room. The bay window faced out front. Cobalt wallpaper darkened the room, which brimmed with outdated bric-a-brac. Little figurines, jars, bowls, and statuettes crowded every table, shelf, and ledge. Such clutter had been stylish in my mother’s day, but I intended to be liberated from it. I crept in and approached a bowl resting on a silver stand with four swirly legs and two twirling arms that rose over the basin and down slightly, as if intending to plunge into some life-giving liquid. My fingers followed the metal curves around and around. Most of the bowl was a tempting yellow, but it also had pink at the bottom left. The shade drifted upward like smoke, fading from pink to mauve to indigo and finally to yellow. I supposed it was intended to mimic a flower, but the edges of the bowl rose at two spots and formed what resembled the ears of an owl. I touched two circular indentations buried in the yellow like eyes. There was a beak, too, where the silver stand came to a point in the middle. It was as if someone had plucked the head off an owl and mounted it on a metallic forest.
    My eyes dropped to the table that the bowl rested on, and I realized that the knickknacks distracted the eye from tangled table legs and bizarrely designed chairs of various sorts, none of which matched. Everything in the parlor was like that! The cabinets had winding appendages like tentacles. They burst out at all sides and darted back in toward the body but failed to make it before twisting all the way around and zapping back out again. Inanimate objects had hidden eyes built right in. Faces were embedded in every hunk of wood that could be found. The arms of chairs were carved with animal heads, paws, and claws. They gaped and smirked. Beady eyes peeked out from every crease and corner. Some were meant to be creatures, but others were just ambiguously lifelike. These peculiar things transformed the room into a murky woods filled with unknown beasts, and I felt lost in it all until I spotted another means of escape.
    On the wall to the right, opposite the bay windows, I noticed a second parlor door. “Where does that lead?”
    “You’ll see.” John motioned for me, and I weaved between the furniture to get back to him. He shut the door and led me down the hall. “The sitting room.” John opened the door, and I nearly leapt, shocked by the bright pink wallpaper. The room was littered with ornamental chairs and tables, along with a writing desk and a prairie cabinet. It, too, had bric-a-brac and ruffles sprinkled over every tabletop, shelf, and ledge. Thousands of white and pink doilies drowned every table and chair and the little pink sofa, too. It reminded me of an ocean of pink goo. I was certain that if I were to sit in it, I would suffocate in a warm flesh-colored swamp. Everything in this room must be sold, I thought.
    John closed the door. We turned left and