To Dance With A Fetch (Excerpt 2) Little Door

As Lyla is filling the cabinets and shelves with cups and plates she feels drawn to a little door that is just around the corner. It sets off from the kitchen in a small recess of the room with a door that leads to the basement as well as a threshold to the long hallway that runs from the foyer to the sunroom. For some reason Lyla’s eyes are drawn to the odd little door that seems to be begging for her attention. It is about three feet tall and she doesn’t recall seeing it when she did her final walkthrough before the purchase. She pulls another glass out of a packing box and runs a dry dish cloth over it to remove any dust that may have collected during the move. But again her focus goes back to the little pantry door. Since she is not able to stifle her curiosity, Lyla sets the glass on the granite countertop and walks over to the little door.

“Hum, this is really a funny place for a pantry, but what else could it possibly be?” She unlatches the lock and opens the door. To her surprise she sees a tall thin wooden ladder hooked to the wall. “What in the world is this?” As those words leave her lips she glances up into the closet to find that this is a way to access the attic. The light colored wooden rungs of the ladder grow darker as they ascend into the dimness of the space two floors above. “Well that’s quite handy; I don’t think I’ve ever seen this before in a home. Usually you get stuck crawling through a hole in the ceiling of a tight closet or something.” she mutters to herself as she waddles into the little area.

Lyla’s inquisitiveness is at a high as she enters the narrow passage and flips the switch on the wall. She can see that the attic is now dimly lit and she proceeds to climb to the top of the ladder all the way to the top where she steps onto a large landing. The attic space is vast and only part of it is finished with an unstained wooden floor. Off from this area she sees boards lying across beams veering off in various directions. The space feels muggy and damp and the summer rainstorm is even more intense here in the peaks of the house yet it feels solid and secure. She is surprised at how spacious this middle section is and the fact that it’s tall enough for her to stand straight up in it with room to spare. It doesn’t appear to have been used in the past, not even for storage, because there are no boxes or debris lying around.