The Red Door

Part One: Summer 1929, Chapter 5

Chapter Five

"Mollie, Mollie," My teacher, Miss Yates, repeated as I day dreamed at my desk. I finally looked up at her and the rest of my class stared at me, giggling. I looked down at my desk, back to the picture I had been drawing, as Miss Yates walked toward me.

"Who is this picture of, Mollie?" she asked quietly as she looked at the drawing on my desk.

"Marjorie," I told her. She nodded.

"Please see me after class," she said, while my classmates giggled more.

As soon as the classroom cleared I approached Miss Yates as she had asked. She asked to see my drawing, and I reluctantly handed it to her.

"Who is Marjorie?" she asked kindly.

"She is my schoolmate," I told her, though we both knew that there wasn't anyone by that name in my class.

"What about the other pictures you've drawn? Are they your schoolmates, too?" she asked, pulling out the three other drawings that she had confiscated that week.

I nodded.

"What are their names?"

I pointed to each drawing. "Henry. Eleanor. Victor."

She was quiet for a moment.

"Mollie, how do you know these people?" she asked, genuinely concerned. I shrugged my shoulders, not quite sure how or why I'd come to know these people from my dreams, and I was too embarrassed to tell her.

She asked me to have a seat while she wrote out what seemed like the longest letter. She placed it in an envelope, sealed it, and handed it to me.

"Please give this to your mother or father," she said.

Howard was waiting on the steps when I left, drawing in the dirt with a stick. I walked right past him, not wanting to talk about the letter in my hand, and what would likely happen when I gave it to my mother. But he didn't ask, and I was thankful for that.

The day after I gave my mother the letter she was waiting outside my classroom just as Howard and I were about to walk home. I heard Miss Yates invite her to have a seat as I waited quietly on the other side of the wall just inside the door.

"Hello Mrs. Cutright, thank you for seeing me," Mrs. Yates started.

"Certainly," my mother said, in a sweet voice.

"I wanted to talk to you about Mollie," Mrs. Yates continued, "She is a very bright young girl, the most advanced in her class, but lately...she has been demonstrating some...odd behavior, and it seems to be affecting her concentration in class."

"Oh, dear," my mother said, in a concerned tone I hardly recognized.

"She has been talking about other students, students that we don't know here at Academy, but she insists that she goes to school with them. Do you know what this is about?"

"No, I know nothing of this," she said sternly.

"Well, she mentions particular names often, like..." she paused and I could hear her unfolding pieces of paper, likely my drawings that she kept.

"Marjorie, Victor, Henry, and Eleanor. Do you know anyone by these names?"

"No," my mother said, dragging the word out. I peeked around the door frame and I could see her adjusting in her chair. My heart raced at the thought of how she would choose to punish me for this.

"I don't mean to upset you, Mrs. Cutright. Like I said, Mollie is a very smart young girl, but these other students she is talking about seem to be distracting her. I just thought you should know."