Pencil Marks

Text 1: Small Marks, by Idris Fenwick

An original short story extract.

Nia carried the last box into the hall and set it beside the open front door. Without the rugs and pictures, the house had developed an echo. Each footstep returned to her from the bare rooms, neat and hollow, as if the building were repeating a word she could not understand.

She walked through the rooms once more. In the kitchen, a pale square marked the place where the clock had hung. In the sitting room, sunlight exposed scratches beneath the window: the tracks of toy cars, chair legs, a dog that had dreamed of running. Upstairs, the bedrooms waited with their doors open. No beds. No voices. No reason to knock.

On the landing, Nia found the pencil marks beside the cupboard. Dates and names climbed the wall in her father’s careful handwriting. Nia, six. Nia, nine. Nia, thirteen and furious about it. She placed two fingers against the highest line. The new owners had said they would paint everything before moving in.

A car stopped outside. The estate agent called her name from the pavement, briskly, then again. Nia pulled the front door towards her. The latch clicked, small and ordinary, the same sound it had made every school morning. She gave the keys away. As she reached the gate, another key entered the lock behind her, and the house opened for someone else.

How does Idris Fenwick use language and structure to present Nia’s sense of loss as she leaves the house?

You should use relevant subject terminology to support your answer.