She turned a corner of the passageway, and there it was: the black iron door. It was real; it was in front of her, massively hinged, and with a thick bolt drawn across.
Maud was not going to open the door; of course she was not. But a little silvery voice deep inside her mind whispered that it would be better to know what the frightening thing was. Wouldn’t it be better to confront it once and for all, to stare it in the face and banish this nightmare for ever?
No! It would be the worst thing in the world! But she saw with horror that her hand had developed a life of its own; it reached out to the immense bolt and drew it back. It moved smoothly and almost soundlessly, and the door was open. It swung slightly inwards.
The first thing Maud was aware of was that the spider light was far thicker beyond the door than anywhere else in Latchkill. At first she was aware of a huge relief, because there was nothing so very terrible in here: a long table with plates and mugs on it, and a window high up in one wall. Maud frowned, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the light trickling through.
When they did she thrust a fist into her mouth to stop herself screaming, because what she saw was impossible and terrifying and must be a nightmare after all. Such things did not exist!
Drawn up to the long table were six or seven chairs, and seated on each of the chairs was a grotesque figure, bulky, repulsive, immense. Giant bodies and giant faces. Giant hands resting on giant knees, all sitting round their supper.
They had heard the door open, because the huge huge heads with the overhanging brows turned to look at her.
‘A new little girl,’ said one of them in a clogged kind of voice.
‘A little girl-nurse to see us,’ said another. ‘Isn’t that nice?’ It got up from the chair and came lumbering towards her, massive hands outstretched.
Of course this was what was beyond the black iron door, this was what had always been behind it, this was what mamma had warned her against.
‘…the dangerous thing about spider light, Maud, is that it hides things–things you never knew existed in the world. But once you have seen those things, you can never afterwards forget them…’
The spider light room tilted and spun. Maud gasped and tumbled dizzily back into the dark corridor, slamming the door and drawing the bolt back with a hand that shook violently. Then she ran, without looking back, through the passageways until at last–oh merciful God, oh thank you, Jesus!–she saw a door half open, and beyond it Latchkill’s grounds.
The nightmare of the black iron door went with her as she ran. It’s real, thought Maud, going through the thick shrubbery and the leafless trees, gasping when a low branch caught her cloak and half dragged it off. It exists, that door and that room–they’re both there, at Latchkill’s heart. But how could they be in my dreams all those years ago? Don’t think about it yet, though; just think about getting safely outside.