The nostalgic scent of mildew laced with cold air greeted me the moment I half-descended into the basement. Everything was precisely as it had been in my childhood days, which I found rather unsettling.
You are probably imagining a wide-open basement, as most are. Not so here. Although the basement extends the entire width and length of the house, it is partitioned into separate rooms by doors with frosted glass panels. The stairs nearly run into the front of the house, with just a short space at their termination that opens to a broad room on the left, and a series of smaller rooms on the right.
I peered into the left-hand room and found the same old array of broken furniture and knick-knacks, lazily half-covered with plastic sheets. I would go through this eventually, but it was the right that intrigued me.
As a child, I once or twice came down to this basement because of its solitary, cool atmosphere, finding it a suitable respite from social games and summer heat. I say “once or twice” because an event occurred which made the place a permanent horror to my child’s mind, and nothing could compel me to enter it thereafter.
Having won a game of checkers with my sister in the sitting room, I leapt up and raced down the basement steps in an aimless burst of energy, probably subconsciously overstimulated and excited to be alone. But as I neared the bottom step, my pace slowed. It is difficult to confront a dim, cold place with exuberance.
Making my way to the right, I paused to stoop and pick up some of the stone figurines lying in the dust. The entirety of that space, even now, was littered with little stone men about four inches high: what could be taken for a great-great relative’s toys. I still remember how I felt crouching in the shaft of misty light filtered through the high windows, holding the grainy bodies in my hands.
After inspecting and kicking these around a bit, I walked on and found my attention caught for the first time by the nearest door. I picked my way through the figurines to it. Due to the frosted glass, I could not really see inside. The door itself, coated in cracking, peeling white paint, did not seem to have been opened for a very long time.
Taking courage by imagining myself as a soldier -- like the stone men -- I placed my hand on the brass knob. I tentatively turned it, then began shoving at the door, as something behind it made this a Herculean effort for my child’s physique.
Yet before I could push the door more than a few inches, it pushed back so suddenly that I stumbled to the floor. The door shut with a loud bang, and I heard the key turn in the lock. Trembling with fear, I scrambled to my feet and ran through the house yelling for my father.
When he went to investigate, he found the door indeed locked, and nobody seemed to have the key. Nor could my able father pick the lock, but rather than force the door, he opted to assume that my imagination had spiralled out of control. That was the last said about it, and the last time I entered the basement.
Until now, over twenty years later. And here I stood, towering over the same stone figures, breathing in the musty cool, face to face with that door. Even if a thief or homeless person had been hidden here, they are long gone now, I thought. Gathering my courage once more, I tried the knob.
It was locked. Of course I tested my house key, but it did not fit. I am not my father. As the lock required a key even were I to break the door's window and reach down from the inside, I determined to break it.
I aimed a kick beside the knob, achieving only a faint jolt. Undaunted, I continued banging away, even trying a running jump, and after about an hour of sustained attacks, heard the wood crack, and at long last, saw the door open.
My sense of triumph was immediately replaced with trepidation. This room, about which I had experienced so many fearful fantasies of monsters and villains, would finally be revealed. I placed a slightly trembling hand on the door, gave a hesitant shove.
Nothing barred its way. It swung wide as though inviting me to share in a secret.