The Staircase of No Return

Claire works as an archivist in a library, but an unexpected inheritance changes her life

Everything started with a tiny package that Mr. Thomson, the local lawyer handed to her in his office.

“Thank you, Ms. Holloway, for stopping by my office.” he said. “I have to ask you something. Do you know a certain Margaret Elwood? She died some time ago and apparently you are her only heir. You inherited an old Victorian house in a small town near Sheffield. This package was held in the bank’s safe with instructions that it was to be opened today.”

She was speechless with surprise. The name, Margaret Elwood, was vaguely familiar to her from a family tree she had seen once, but without any solid memory or stories. When Mr. Thomson handed her the package, she didn’t know what impact it was going to have on her life.

Claire worked as an archivist at the library in her hometown. When she was notified of her unexpected inheritance, she took leave to find out more about the old house and its last owner.

A few days later she drove up to the house. It was an old Victorian house, three stories of peeling white paint and shuttered windows, set back from the road like it was hiding from the world. It was on the edge of the small town, standing like a memory of better times.

The gravel crunched beneath her feet as she got out of the car. The wind brought the smell of rain and rusted metal. The key from the package, now deep in her coat pocket, felt heavy and cold. As she was staring at the crooked gable, she thought, somewhere inside, she would find the answer to a question she hadn’t yet asked.

The house was in a state of elegant decay, untouched for years. As she entered the house, she stumbled upon a bunch of letters; all addressed to her. They had no sender on them and when she opened some of them, she only found blank papers inside as if the letters had not been written yet.

First, she decided to take a walk around the neighbourhood and ask around about Margaret, but, to her surprise, townsfolk were reluctant to talk about her. Some insisted she never lived there, others said she vanished decades ago, and her nearest neighbour, an old woman across the street, looked at her as if she had seen a ghost.

“Sorry my dear.” she said “For a moment I thought Margaret had come back. When she moved here an eternity ago, she looked just like you, but I haven’t seen her for ages.”

The next day, she went to the registry office at the town hall, but she found no official death certificate of Margaret. Apparently, the town archives had no record of her.

Back in the house, she searched every room, every drawer hoping to find evidence that Margaret had lived there. “How could someone have lived here without even existing according to the town archives?”

As she suspected, she found nothing personal in the entire house, except for a half-finished diary in the attic. The texts were mostly illegible, as if the diary had been tossed about in the sea, but with a handwriting disturbingly similar to her own. There was a photograph tucked between the pages of the diary, that seemed to show her, although aged, among other residents of the neighbourhood.

It was all so confusing: the striking similarity, Margaret’s disappearance and recent death. She could not make sense of it all. She knew there was still something she needed to figure out to make it all come together.

There was a bench in front of the house, surrounded by bushes and overgrown by creepers. She sat down and enjoyed the peace and quiet of the garden. It felt like she was sitting at the end of the world, far from all the noise of civilisation. The trees swayed gently in the abating wind, a squirrel was jumping between the branches, and in the distance, crows were chasing each other above the trees.

As Claire was sitting there, a thought grew stronger within her: she felt she would love to live there. She had always wanted a house like that. Everything was so strange, yet familiar, as if she had lived there in a previous life.

The walls of the house were completely overgrown with bushes, but her curiosity wouldn’t let her sit still. After having fought her way through with an axe, she made an unexpected discovery behind the house. It looked like the house was built on century-old castle ruins. At places, the ruins rose several meters above the ground. At one side there was an old wooden door in the wall.

As she pressed down the rusty handle, the door cracked open. When she peeked inside, she could discern a dark passage through the thick cobweb. Worn stone steps were leading down into the cellar. Something kept her from entering. She did not know why, but she felt that once she entered the passage, it would change her life forever and she wouldn’t be the same person again. However, at the same time, she also thought she might solve the mystery of Margaret’s disappearance.

Over the next days, Claire dreamed of the passage. In her dreams she heard soft scratching beneath the floor. Driven by her growing obsession, eventually, she decided to descend into the cellar.

As she entered the passage, it started playing tricks on her senses. The walls seemed to be undulating at the light of her torch. The echoes coming back from the walls were out of sync with her footsteps. Halfway down to the cellar she found a broken locket that she lost years ago. But how did it get there?

All of a sudden, she felt she couldn't go any further. As she looked around, she noticed a sign on the wall. It said "You can't go back." She panicked. She felt trapped. Yet, something was still driving her forward.

Just as she reached the bottom of the passage, she found herself at the foot of a second flight of stairs leading upwards again. She felt relieved. She hoped that she would eventually find a way out or at least get closer to the solution. At the top of the second flight of stairs, there was a much newer wooden door.

As she opened it, she found herself on the ground floor of a house. Was it the same house? The air smelled of apple-wood from the fireplace and the wallpaper was also different.

She walked out of the house and saw that it was in perfect condition. The garden also looked much tidier than before. A car from the ‘70s parked in front of the house, not the one she had arrived in. There was no cell phone reception either.

Suddenly, she caught sight of her neighbour, actually, her much younger self, waving at her from across the road.

“Good morning, Margaret! What a nice sunny day. How are you today?”

(Wordcount 1169)