The Secret Door

Hidden doors are always a nicety to have in a house. Added to the mystery they provide to your abodes, they also allow for some personal space.

I had only heard of hidden doors and secret corridors until one day I discovered one such hidden door behind a closet in my house. It was as if it came straight out of a kid’s chronicle where the wardrobe opens to reveal a clandestine universe.

One day my mother wanted to clean the closet in the storehouse and for that, she would have to first empty it. We had stuffed all woolen garments and blankets in this closet when we had initially moved into this house about two years back. Since the closet was in the storeroom, seldom would it be used, therefore we had decided to stuff things that would not be required on a daily basis, such as woolen clothes and blankets.

I lent mother a helping hand by keeping all the woolen stuff on a cot nearby so that she could start wiping the interiors that had not been touched for the last two years. Since the closet was really big, I took charge of cleaning the upper shelves while she focused on the lower ones. The upper part of the closet was high and wide and could comfortably accommodate an adult. I took a piece of cloth and comfortably seated myself inside the huge upper shelf and started wiping its edges. As I did, a lot of dust and muck came off the surface and I felt proud that I was able to contribute in some way to giving a luster to the closet that had been untouched in years. After cleaning the sides, I switched to the interior front-facing part of the shelf. As I ran the cloth across the surface I felt some unevenness on it, something like an obstruction on the otherwise smooth surface. I ran the cloth again in the opposite direction this time and felt the unevenness, in the form of a narrow vertical partition running from the top to the bottom of the front-facing part of the shelf. Now I was curious to know what that partition was and how it had come about there. I put my right-hand forefinger in the gap and tried to shove it. It did not budge. Then I inserted four fingers, excluding the thumb, of each of my hands into the gap and applied full force to try and pull it open. Lo, behold the partition gave way and the front-facing part of the closet opened with a slow, creaking sound like a build up to a daemon's evil shriek that was daring me to glance up at the pitch black silence that lay ahead. The rush of adrenaline had made my palms sweaty and my hair stand on end. My heart pounded as I put my hand inside as deep as I could to feel nothing but never-ending space. It was completely dark and eerie. I realized that my mother had left the room in the interim and I called out to her as loudly as I could, driven by both a sense of eeriness as well as thrill at having found something completely unusual in my own house.

Mother came running and looking at the bewildered expression on my face asked me what the matter was. I asked her for a torch light and showed her the open shelf. At first, she thought I had damaged the shelf while cleaning it because of which possibly it had fallen apart. Then, I narrated the sequence of events and asked her to flash the light inside. As she did, what was revealed behind the door from the darkness stunned both of us. Here was an approximately ten feet wide and seven feet high store room that could possibly house a human in hiding if he wanted to escape from danger. It could easily be used as a book case or even a mini granary if required, such was the size of the secret chamber. I even exclaimed that possibly it was added there to conceal valuables like money and jewelry from burglars. Whatever was the purpose, we had no clue as to why this secret door, that no one could easily identify, had been integrated in the closet. That is how beautifully it was camouflaged and whoever had got this idea had brilliantly executed it. At least I was happy that now I had a place to hide my toys and electronic devices from my brother who would never know that a secret door like this existed. Of course, I would have to first convince mother to keep this secret.

My mind was already on its way to transforming this mini storehouse into a second home for myself.