Writing exercise April 15

Using a picture prompt

                                     painting by Kaoru Yamada.AI Generated

 

 Prisoner in the Attic

Sarah was sixteen when her parents inherited a house on the Yorkshire Moors—a house that had been in the family for hundreds of years. Without hesitation, they committed to renovate the crumbling estate and transform it into a bed and breakfast. No one bothered to ask Sarah’s opinion.

On the day they moved in, she felt nauseous. The house was isolated, surrounded by desolate moorland. It smelled old and damp. To her, this wasn’t a fresh start—it was a jail sentence.

While her parents buzzed with excitement, sketching out plans for their new life, Sarah wandered from room to room, her heart sinking with each step. Climbing a worn staircase to the bedrooms, she felt a growing sense of dread. How was she meant to survive in this place that felt more like a prison than a home? 

Another narrow flight of stairs led her to the attic. She pushed open the door at the top of the stairs—and paused. For the first time that day, she wasn’t feeling despair. The room was small, furnished as if untouched for a century. A coating of thick dust covered every surface and the air was heavy with the same musty scent as downstairs, but here, something felt different. This would be her escape. 

Determined to make the space her own, she set to work. She would transform the room making it bright and cheerful.  First to go would be the depressing paintings on the walls. As she took the pictures down, one frame, already loose, slipped from her hands and broke apart when it hit the floor. As the canvas came free, so did something that was tucked behind it—a notebook—its pages yellowed with time and filled with graceful handwriting. 

On the first page, just one sentence: “I’m being held prisoner in my own home.” Sarah sat on the dusty chair and began reading the journal. 

The entries began in December 1924 and the writer was Sarah’s age. Her mother had discovered she was pregnant and confined her to the attic room to keep the scandal out of sight. 

“I write only at night, by the light of the moon,” the girl wrote, “If they find out, they’ll take this from me too.”

She wrote about her view of the snow covered moors and the rolling hills in the distance. She wrote about the world she remembered beyond the window and wondered if the world remembered her. 

The entries continued regularly to the spring of 1925. But in May they were brief. She wrote about her changed body, and her fear of being unattended when the time comes.  At the end of May, just one entry; her baby girl was gone—taken away by her mother. And she was left alone, certain she would not survive.  

Her final line—“The moon is full tonight, and I am empty.” 

Sarah closed the notebook, suddenly realizing the young girl, who called this her home, must have been a distant relative. She promised her that the world would remember the attic prisoner.