“Goodnight princess. I love you.”
“ I love you.”
“See you in the morning.”
“See you in the morning, Papa.”
Persephone waited until the latch on the door clicked shut. Then, ever so quietly, she crept across her bedroom floor, unnecessarily low to the ground and in shadow. Veiled in the corner, swathed in shadow, a cardboard box, -No! A spaceship, a dream house...No! A castle, sat eagerly, awaiting a plaything. Persephone lifted the flap and was snatched inside. She groped about for her pink unicorn flashlight and switched on the amber muted glow of the magical alicorn atop its head. Next she opened her chalk box and selected a deep violet piece of gypsum. There on the wall in front of her was her unfinished scene, beautiful, begging for final fulfillment. All that was left was the door, her gateway to a land of beauty. She started drawing the head jamb and then moved down each side to the floor. Finally she carefully constructed the latch and with pale fragile fingers she anxiously grasped for it and heard it click in her mind.
The gaunt wan complexion of a creature resembling not quite a man, of considerable age and minuteness, flickered in the candlelight. His deft hands, skeletal and nimble, caressed the oaken frame he had just completed. His head hung at an unnatural angle and his spine had long ago abandoned the exacting lines of geometry he employed in his creations. Each splinter had been meticulously and purposefully placed. This door would provide such a tasty meal. The flesh that rested behind its sealed postern made his hideous, starving features, form what could only be interpreted as a grin. Suddenly, his head turned, his eyes peered into the black nothing beyond the candle. His fingers splayed out feeling and searching the air around him for prey. The Doormaker heard a latch, a new latch, crude in construction, but delightfully innocent, being turned.
Persephone huddled, the front of her body covered in blood. The barren ground around her offered no comfort. Dark shadows shifted around her and she felt ashamed, terrified, starving. Around her were doors. Neverending doors. Each one more terrible than the last. None of them her precious violet door, her way home. The Doormaker delivered only the doors HE created. Each night a new door, a new hell. How had she become this. What did this mean. Her feeble child's mind could not solve the riddle. Abruptly the horrible little creature appeared standing next to the frame of a new large door.
“Are you hungry, pet?”
“Go away! Leave me alone!” She was starving.
“This one has a particularly delicious snack for us inside.”
“I don’t want to! I won’t!” Her appetite thought otherwise.
“In you go little one...feed, then bring me what is left over.”
Persephone slowly, painfully, made her way to the new door. She fought with every muscle in her body, but her hand reached out of its own accord and turned the latch.
“Goodnight champ. I love you.”
“I love you.”
“See you in the morning.”
“See you in the morning, Papa.”
Egmont closed his eyes as he heard the latch to his bedroom door click shut. He opened them again when he heard the latch of his closet door click open. Peering over the blankets and into the dark he thought he saw the face of small girl. She looked sad...and hungry.