Whispers From The Attic
Whispers From The Attic
Flash Fiction | 4 Minute Read
Since 2020, I have been sharing writing prompts and exercises on my YouTube channel NV Rivera. This week’s story was written based on one of those prompts (Writing Prompt 12: MagicRealism Bot: Thank You, Chuck!) and inspired by the many late nights I spent in my classroom in a beautiful old school building many of us call “the castle on the hill.”
This story is a 4 minute read.
WHISPERS FROM THE ATTIC
When the shadows of the student desks grew long and then got swallowed in the dim, Marley knew she had stayed too late. She had told David she’d stop doing this. She had to stop spending all her evenings in her classroom grading, planning, and stressing out. There was more to life than this. Sure, teaching was a noble profession and, with the dwindling staff at the school, she knew her kids needed her, but David was right. Her husband needed her too.
“You here again? Don’t you have a boyfriend?” It was Jill, one of the night-shift janitors for the school. Marley was one of the few staff members the night-shift actually knew. It wasn’t exactly a good thing, but it had its perks.
“Yeah -- husband, actually,” Marley said, closing her laptop, blinking away the dry eye.
“I’m gonna go.” “Good idea, being it’s Friday and all, but I did wanna give you something I found in the attic. Thought you might think it was cool or something.” A hint of sadness washed over Jill. “But, y’know, it can wait--”
Marley couldn’t help but perk up over a potential attic find. She was used to Jill offering her a new student desk or finding her a brand new locker for storage, but a potential academic artifact? Those were few and far between. The school was so old and full of history, secrets, and curiosities. Marley always wanted to explore the attic and rumored secret passageways the building hid. “N-no, Jill,” Marley laughed at her own excited stutter, “What is it?”
Jill raised an eyebrow, then shook her head, “You teach Literature, right?”
“Yes, English Language Arts, grades nine and ten, ” Marley’s smile brightened.
Discussing course content meant there was a vestige of ancient academia coming her way. Jill turned to her cart and bent over to shuffle through her cleaning supplies. When she stood up she was holding an old, dusty hardcover book that looked like it might’ve been a resident of the forbidden section of the Hogwarts library. Marley gasped. “What is it?”
“Some old book,” Jill said. “Says something about literature, so I thought that sounded like your kind of thing. Didn’t know if I should wipe it down or leave it be.”
“Leave it be! Leave it be!” Marley said. She missed the days of chalky fingers in her classroom, and as a result, was not as grossed out by dust in school buildings as she should have been. She clutched the book and said, “thank you so much for thinking of me.”
Jill frowned, “There isn’t anyone else, I checked.” She looked back out in the hallway, as if she hoped someone else would come claim Marley’s prize. “I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ll come back to clean up in a bit.”
Marley placed the book on the desk and pulled her phone out to text David. She loved him dearly, but he wouldn’t take kindly to her bringing this treasure home. Perhaps if it weren’t Friday, perhaps if she were coming right back into the building tomorrow, perhaps, then, she could slip the dusty thing into her locker and explore it in the morning. But it was Friday and she knew she couldn’t wait two full days before learning of its secrets. She came up with a plan: let David know she’d be a little bit later, promising there’d be no school work for the entire weekend. It would be a hard promise to keep, but it would be worth the sacrifice.
As she typed she heard a whisper of a sigh. She looked back toward the door of the classroom expecting Jill to be standing there. The doorway was empty. She walked over to see if she was out of sight but in need of help. Jill was nowhere to be seen, probably in the next classroom already.
Marley sat back down, awaiting David’s reply.
Her phone buzzed. She was reading David’s response,”K. C u soon,” when she heard, quite clearly, “I am weak.”
She looked up.
“Jill?”
“I am weak.”
Marley stared at the book on her desk and suspected she needed that weekend off of work more than she wished to admit when she thought the voice might have been coming from the book.
“I am weak.”
Marley gasped and then pushed the phone aside, clearing everything else off of her desk. Then she sat back down and pulled the book to the middle of the surface and brushed off the cover.
“Ahhhhhh,” the book sighed.
Marley read the cover The Lost Art of Teachers Literature.
That didn’t make any sense, so she brushed the cover again, sure the dust was covering some letters or maybe even a word. The words swirled around as if it wasn’t an ancient book, but instead some form of new tech with a super sensitive touch screen. When the words settled into their new form, Marley read the cover again. This time it said The Lost Teachers of Literature Art.
“O-pennnn…”
Marley looked back at the doorway wondering if she should call Jill back in to see or hear this.
“Pleeeaseeee”
She couldn’t resist. She opened the cover and disappeared.
A couple of hours passed before Jill returned to Marley’s classroom. She rolled her cleaning cart up to the side of Marley’s desk. She picked up Marley’s laptop and phone, placing both carefully inside Marley’s messenger bag. Then she hung the bag on the side of the cart with Marley’s pocketbook and jacket which had both been slung over the back of the teacher’s chair. Finally, she picked up the ancient book, put it back on the bottom shelf of her cart and rolled it out of the room.
Back in the attic Jill put the book, the bags and clothing inside a leathery, aging trunk marked in large swirling calligraphy “Lost & Found.”
Then she closed the top and heard the voice she never told anyone about, say, “Thank you.
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One question I was asked about this story was concerning Jill’s motivation to do this to Marley. I have to be honest that has been a mini-prompt all its own inspiring backstory, world building and new horrors from the attic and this school building. Do you read this story wanting to know more? Are you curious about Jill, the school, the trunk or anything else, or does this tale satisfy you all on its own?
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