The House In The Cellar

Once there was a boy and girl, Lowra and Dorrance who were deeply in love; in fact they were engaged to be married.

But then one day an old witch named Eudora became so infatuated with Dorrance that, wanting to bewitch and control him,  she tricked him into pricking his finger upon a phonograph needle and stealing away his soul, trapped it upon a wax record.

And then Dorrance forgot all about Lowra, in fact Dorrance, without even telling Lowra, married Eudora.

When Lowra heard of Dorrance’s marriage to the old woman, she was shocked and heart broken.

“It doesn’t make any sense”, she sobbed to herself, “Why would he become engaged to me only to marry that old woman?”.

Her friends and her family, all those who knew her advised her to simply forget about Dorrance but Lowra couldn’t rest not knowing why Dorrance had left her.

And so she disguised herself as a maid and a got a job working in the witch’s large old house.

She was afraid at first that Dorrance might recognise her and reveal her identity but then, to her astonishment, when she confronted him, she realised that Dorrance didn’t remember her at all.

“I’m sorry, Miss”, he said as if talking to a stranger he had never seen before, “But the only woman I remember ever having loved is my wife Eudora”.

“But how could you forget someone you have known since the age of sixteen; someone you loved so much that you hid an engagement ring in the petals of rose and gave it to her”, she asked.

“I don’t know”, was all Dorrance replied, seeming bewildered and afraid.

And so Lowra said no more about it but then, that night, while she was cleaning the hall outside the witch’s room she heard Dorrance calling out her name.

Going to the door, she peered through its keyhole and saw that Dorrance was lying in bed, the witch snoring beside him, and talking in his sleep.

“Lowra”, he said, “Please forgive me. You’re the only one that I ever loved, that I will ever love but the witch, Eudora has stolen my soul; trapped it upon a wax record which she keeps locked in her cellar”.

But then she saw the witch waking up and, hearing what Dorrance was saying, place her bony hand over his mouth.

“Shhh!”, she said, “Someone might hear you, my darling”.

Fearing that she might be caught, Lowra tip-toed quickly back to her room.

But then the next night, she decided, determinedly, that she must go down into the cellar of the witch’s house and see if what her husband had said was true.

And, quietly, creeping downstairs, she took the key to the cellar from the kitchen and, opening the door, went in.

To her amazement within the cellar she saw the inside of the house above but it was all upside down and she was upside down aswell, walking upon the carpeted floor that was where the ceiling should be and then walking down, she went upstairs to an exact copy of the witches room.

And when she went into the room, instead of Dorrance in bed, she saw a gramophone record sitting on the bed and heard Dorrances voice repeating over and over again, “Love you…love you…love you…”, the record jumping where it had become scratched.

She moved the gramophone needle on and heard Dorrances voice continue to speak,

“so much my Lowra”, it said, “If only I could get out of this spell that I am under but the witch placed my soul upon a wax record, locked it in her cellar and so I am her slave. If you can hear me Lowra, please know that I love you and if, somehow you manage to find my soul in the witches cellar, please beware of the Spider. It is the soul of the old woman”.

Then, looking down at the ceiling below her, to her horror, Lowra saw an enormous spider crawling over it towards her.

“What do I do? What do I do Dorrance?”, she said to the record, “Please help me?”.

“If the spider catches you”, said the voice on the record, “Remember, just like the upturned house, everything is wrong here; everything in the Witch’s cellar is the opposite of what it is in the world above, flowers kill, water burns”.

And hearing this, Lowra looked around and saw a vase full of roses and taking the roses out of the vase she threw them at the spider and the roses just like daggers pinned all eight of the spiders legs to the ceiling, then she threw the water from the vase at the spider and the creature burst into flames.

But then, not wanting to stay in the witch’s cellar one moment longer, Lowra picked up the record from out of the gramophone and held it to her chest and as she walked back towards the cellar door, she noticed that there were lots of gramophone records in all the rooms, all scratched and repeating the same phrase over and over and so she picked them all up then she went quickly back out of the cellar door, back into a right way up world.

But as she was leaving the cellar, suddenly, the witch came down the stairs and pointing a bony finger at her and hissing, said,

“I knew that someone was in my cellar, I felt a strange pricking and a burning in my soul”.

Then, reaching under her skirt and drawing out a long dagger, the witch rushed towards Lowra with it.

Panicking and trying to cover her face, Lowra let go of all the gramophone records and they fell to the floor shattering into hundreds of pieces.

But the moment that they did, all the souls that had been trapped upon them rushed out of them and, grabbing hold of the witch’s feet, dragged them down her throat so that she swallowed herself whole, disappearing into nothing.

Only one soul remained and that was the soul of Dorrance that flew back upstairs and into his body then, bursting with Joy she saw him coming down the stairs.

No one knows what became of the witch after that, whether she went to heaven or to hell but Lowra and Dorrance were soon after married and both lived happily ever after.