Glass

The small stuffy room seemed to drip with heat from a lazy summers day and she gazed upon the garden where the birds sang cheerfully. She could just make out her grandfather at the end of the garden cutting some wood off the old oak tree that sprouted its mossy branches as high as the eye could see. He had his 'party host' apron on and looked humorously like a house wife. He was tall and broad shouldered with a light tan and a dazzling grey mane. Somehow for 70 he still managed to seem so youthful. Her nan was whisking egg whites in the monochrome kitchen, whilst the fresh fish and mango sat plated up on the sideboard beside the glass door.

She heard footsteps up the stairs and a light tap on the white crimson door. It slowly creaked open, "Morning, let's just put this here..."

Sasha's nan lightly placed a cup of tea on the sideboard beside the bed.

"Thanks nana," She said scooping up the tea, then regretting it because of the heat.

"That's ok love breakfast will be ready shortly," Said her nan with her hands on her hips, facing out to the colourful yonder beyond the window pane.

"Ok, I'll be down in a bit."

Her nan smiled giving her one of those funny winks she'd done since Sasha was a kid. Sasha laughed as the door shut a little, she looked about the creamy white room that once belonged to her mother and uncle. There was one of those old fashioned tv's in the corner with a really thick base and tiny screen, it didn't work properly, but was slightly interesting. She looked at the old toys that sometimes unnerved her but it seemed sweet that they had once belonged to two war babies in the Battle of the Blitz.

She was curious, she'd never really explored this room seeing as she'd just moved in. She carefully opened the brass wardrobe door to the right of the bed and slowly opened it with little intent on finding anything that should amaze her. However, inside she found something that left her, how would you say, a bit miffed?

A tall stern piece of furniture was pushed to the back of the wardrobe with a satin cloak placed over it. Dust seemed to cling to it as though no-one had removed the cover for a long time. Just as she went to pull it away she heard a voice from downstairs saying, "breakfast!"

She tiptoed down the stairs finding her Granddad adorning some furry slippers and dressing gown still wearing the apron shovelling some toast and halibut into his mouth, he loved anything exotic.

"I saw something in the wardrobe upstairs, with a cloak over it, I assume some kind of mirror?"

"Oh, I thought I locked that cupboard."

Sasha felt a little muddled, she brushed back her hair with her finger tips and picked up a plate seemingly in awe. Her granddad looked up, "Its probably not the best idea to look at that mirror, I know thats made it sound even more interesting but it's problematic."

"Oh Eric, now she'll want to know everything."

"Everything?"

Her nan, Jean, looked to her grandfather shaking her head. "Oh go on then Eric, you tell her."

"Well when I was a boy, I used to live in this strange house during the war in London. See we lived in a place called Battersea, and we were used to the bombs but they hit my mates house one day and so my mum insisted we leave."

He went on to tell the tale of how they had moved to an old Tudor house called Willows Peak in the country side, near the coast and how it had belonged to his beloved aunt, a women that used her breasts as shelves. It seemed by Willow's Peak the seasons never changed, it was only ever autumn there because the house was surrounded by a deep forest with leaves smothering the ground in reds and oranges. As a boy, Eric and his one brother would build tree-houses and use them as a 'Lookout Zones', he would lug around a pair of rusty binoculars in an alarming green colour that had once belonged to his father during WW1.

He had been doing some pretty heavy working hours in the tree house when a young Eric discovered something that caught his eye. It was coming from what appeared to be a window beneath the earth under the house. He only noticed it because when he focused his binoculars on this strange enigma he could make out the top of a window frame covered by leaves. It was some kind of basement, and as he neared the window he dug away the leaves and saw a little room with many objects covered in sheets. Eric discovered that the door to this room was hidden at the back of their bomb shelter, aka the cupboard, just in case there was an attack on the country countrydwellers. The room had wooden walls with dark brown beams and tiny pointed windows. He removed one of the crimson white sheets to find something quite alarming a dazzling embezzled mirror. But not embezzled in a modern tacky way with fake diamonte, but with real ruby red stones like a tapestry in a church. As he stared into the mirror something very unusual met his eye...

"What was it?"

He smiled placing some more sections of halibut into his open mouth. "You'll have to go and see."

As Sasha raced upstairs Jean turned to him with a disapproving look, "Eric, I don't think this is a good idea, remember how it effected you, you spent years staring into that thing wishing for something that didn't exist."

Eric nodded scratching the stubble on his chin, "Maybe it was never meant for me."