The Woman in the Wall

The Woman in the Wall Read Free Page A

Book: The Woman in the Wall Read Free
Author: Patrice Kindl
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floor. Then I cut a door in the inner wall to connect the passage with the little chamber I had carved out of the cloakroom.
    For those of you who are confused, or who skipped the last paragraph, feeling that it was too dull to follow, let me summarize: I now had a very small room under the stairs connected to a passageway through the library. This passageway could only be entered through the basement.
    All that remained was to make the library look untouched. Working rapidly, I installed the built-in bookcases from the old wall onto the new wall and replaced the books in their proper order. Finally, as the sun rose in the eastern windows, I swept up the floor, re-laid the carpet, and put the furniture back in place. As I staggered off to sleep in the back of a clothes closet, I felt that I had put in a good night's work.
    My family never noticed. There were so many rooms in that house, there simply wasn't time to sit in them all, let alone memorize their exact dimensions.
    The next day I quickly finished up the various jobs I had begun all over the house and tidied things up again. My mother and sisters were cranky from lack of sleep and hot water, so I kept well out of their way. When everything was back to normal, I crept into my secret room. As it happened, my family chose to sit in the library (a favorite place for homework) that evening, and I found that I could hear them chatting and moving around the room with perfect clarity. Inside the wall I smiled. It was a small, secret smile; the smile of a snail curled up snug and safe in its shell.
    It was pitch-black dark in there. I have good night vision, but it was too dark even for me, so I drilled tiny holes in the walls to let in some light. Later on, of course, I electrified my room, but back then I didn't mind the gloom. I didn't mean to live there, you see. All I wanted was a really secure hiding place.
    And I had one. Was there ever such a wonderful little room! So long as I was enclosed in those four walls, I was strong and secure; I could do anything. No one could harm me, no one even knew where I was.
    While I spent my time fitting out the room and making it comfortable, I could forget about the psychologist, about school, about the future. With much pushing and shoving, I managed to wrestle a big squashy armchair down to the basement and up through the trap door, down the passageway and into the room. Once I had added a footstool, a big cozy quilt, and a small but sturdy table, my little room was as neatly filled as an egg.
    I spent as much time there as I could, contentedly sewing by candlelight. Often I would pause and look about me, smiling a little at my own world within the walls of my own beloved house. Some nights I even slept there, curled up in the quilt in the big old armchair.
    In my room I almost felt that I had become a part of the house. I could hear its heartbeat, the rumble of its pipes, the creak of its timbers. Sometimes an overwhelming love for the house would well up inside of me so that I wanted to cry. It loved me too, I could tell. We were necessary to each other; I protected it against the ravages of time and creeping dry-rot, and it sheltered me and gave me strength.
    I loved it because it was strong, but I also loved it because it was blind and mute and deaf. It had no eyes to see me or ears to hear me or tongue to scold me. It did not judge me, it only held me close in its arms and rocked me gently to sleep through the long silent nights.

Three
    The day the psychologist was to come arrived.
    "Anna, where are you?" my mother called, her voice sharp with anxiety. When I appeared she caught me by the arm and gripped me firmly, as though she thought I might run away.
    "Now, Anna, I want you to stay right here where I can keep an eye on you. Sit in this chair by me ... no, maybe you would be better off in the red chair. We want to get some contrast between you and your surroundings."
    Unhappily I hoisted myself up onto the red

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