Wardrobes, Alleys, and Attics

          Every child has a magical place that is all his own. For Lucy Pevensie, it was the wardrobe in Professor Diggory’s house. For Harry Potter, it was Diagon Alley, the doorway to the wizarding world. For my son, it’s the old tobacco barn in the field behind our house.          

          For me, it was my Grandma’s attic.

          This special room wasn’t actually an attic; rather, it was one of two spare rooms at the top of the wooden stairs in my grandparents’ house in Elizabeth City, NC. On one side of the stairs was a spare bedroom, complete with red and white paisley curtains, matching bedspread and area rug, and the closed-in smell of a room undisturbed.

          On the other side of the stairs stood the gateway to worlds unknown. This room, which I have always referred to affectionately as the “attic,” appeared to have been a cross between a spare room and a playroom. As a little girl whose comrade-in-arms was a stuffed tiger named Tony, this room held treasures untold: games, puzzles, books, stuffed animals, a clothesline strung up from one wall to the next, a secret closet, and the most fantastic toy of all – a wooden giraffe.

          There was no limit to the power this room had on my imagination.

          The source of the light spilling in through the side-by-side windows was actually the gleam from the top of a castle some distance away. The thin layer of dust on the wooden floor came from fairies. The children’s books in this space were ancient texts of wisdom and magic that required proper respect and could only be read in revered silence.

          My trusty tiger, Tony, managed to move from kingdom to kingdom by ziplining across the clothesline while I rode the wooden giraffe, who was grander than any noble steed. The room was spacious enough that crossing the divide created by the clothesline meant moving from the land of wizards and princesses to the shadowy world of ogres and trolls.

          And just like Lucy, I had my own great closet of mystery. Tucked into the corner of the room lay the doorway through which other realms existed. The old-fashioned key lock, complete with key, meant secrecy, magic, and the unknown. Stepping inside as an adult would not have been possible, and not just because of height. There was definitely a pulse inside that closet that allowed only true dreamers to cross. Mountains of clothes created barriers of winged monkey guards which had to be fought and defeated. The overpowering smell of moth balls was a spell meant to daze and confuse. If I managed to survive the battle and save myself and Tony from the poison of the dark sorcerer’s curse, then we could reach far back into the dying realm where the sky sloped inward and narrowed to a finite point. At that point was another smaller door, and opening it allowed me to travel the cosmos.

          I have never truly been able to shake the mesmerizing spell of that room. I carry that place with me even today. And while Narnia and Diagon Alley are places most people would like to visit at least once (yeah, me too), I truly believe they would pale in comparison to the real life magical world of my Grandma’s attic.