Symbols Incidents Around the House Josh Malerman

The Closet: Threshold of Terror in Incidents Around the House

What Is the Closet?

In Incidents Around the House, the closet refers physically to the built-in storage space in eight-year-old Bela’s bedroom. It first appears in Chapter 1 when, after her parents say goodnight, “Other Mommy comes out of the closet” and Bela greets her with excitement. The closet is a mundane domestic feature, but from the opening scene it becomes the entrance point for the supernatural entity Bela calls Other Mommy.

The closet recurs throughout the novel as both a literal location and a psychological symbol. In Chapter 15, Bela’s mother empties the closet, piling clothes on the floor to eliminate hiding places. Bela observes that the empty closet “looked small to me. How come it felt like there was no end to it before?” This moment underscores the closet’s dual nature: an ordinary piece of furniture that, when filled, could contain an infinite, terrifying darkness.

Other closets appear later—the closet where Frank Doherty dies, closets in Evelyn’s house with closed doors, and the foyer closet where Bela hides in Chapter 51. The closet motif extends beyond Bela’s room to suggest that the threat Other Mommy represents can inhabit any such threshold space.

Where the Closet Recurs

The closet appears at key moments in the narrative:

  • Chapter 1 (opening): Other Mommy emerges from the closet. Bela is excited, calling it a friend.
  • Chapter 4 (breakfast aftermath): Bela finds Other Mommy “waiting by her closet.” The entity sits beside her and asks, “Can I go into your heart?” The closet becomes the staging area for the first demand.
  • Chapter 15 (emptying): Mommy empties Bela’s closet and bathroom to remove hiding spots. She declares, “See? Nowhere for anything to hide.” The empty closet still whispers the question in the wind.
  • Chapter 27 (Frank’s death): Frank Doherty is found dead in his own closet. Mommy’s friend dies in a space identical to the one in Bela’s room, linking the entity’s actions to closets in general.
  • Chapter 31 (Evelyn’s house): Bela notes that Evelyn’s guest rooms have closed closet doors. She does not open them, showing her learned fear of any closet.
  • Chapter 51 (climax): Bela hides in the foyer closet while Grandma is attacked upstairs. She later finds Grandma’s body and, after emerging, agrees to let Other Mommy enter her heart. The closet then becomes a portal, and Bela finds herself “in the space where Other Mommy came from, a vast room.”

Each recurrence deepens the closet’s role from a simple hiding place to a site of death, refuge, and ultimately, transition.

How the Closet’s Meaning Changes

The closet’s meaning evolves through Bela’s changing relationship with Other Mommy and her family’s responses.

1. Safe Hiding Place for a Friend

Initially, the closet is where Bela’s secret friend lives. In Chapter 1, she is “so excited to see you again.” The closet is a cozy, magical space—the kind of place where a child imagines a companion. The entity’s first words are friendly: “Hello, there. Who are you?” (from Chapter 27 flashback). The closet is a source of comfort and wonder.

2. Source of Unease and Demand

In Chapter 4, the closet transforms when Other Mommy sits beside Bela and makes her first request: “Can I go into your heart?” Bela does not answer but feels the shift. The closet is no longer simply where Other Mommy lives; it is where the demand originates. Bela begins to sense the closet as a place she must avoid. In Chapter 11 (party scene), she refuses to open her closet to get party clothes, saying, “I don’t wanna go in there right now.”

3. Empty but Still Threatening

In Chapter 15, Mommy empties the closet, hoping to eliminate the threat. Yet even empty, the closet retains its power. Bela sees the pile of clothes and worries it is “big enough to hide someone.” The wind blowing through the open window mimics Other Mommy’s question. The closet’s physical emptiness does not purge the entity; instead, it reveals that the entity is not contained by physical space.

4. Closet as Death Site

By Chapter 27, the closet is directly linked to death when Frank Doherty is found dead in his closet. Bela fears this is a “present” from Other Mommy. The closet is now a place where people die. The family flees to Frank’s house, but there Bela senses Other Mommy in the closet again, reinforcing that no closet is safe.

5. Final Gateway

In Chapter 51, Bela hides in the foyer closet to escape Other Mommy. But the closet becomes a trap: she discovers Grandma’s body and then, after saying yes to Other Mommy’s request, finds herself in a vast room—the space from which Other Mommy came. The closet is no longer a boundary; it is a passage to another realm. The meaning has cycled from friend’s home to death chamber to portal.

Connections to Characters

  • Bela: The closet is the center of her secret world. Her feelings about it mirror her feelings about Other Mommy—from trust to fear to reluctant acceptance. When she agrees to let Other Mommy in, she steps through the closet, surrendering her own space.
  • Mommy Ursula: Mommy tries to control the threat by emptying Bela’s closet. Her aggressive act of cleaning shows a desire to erase the supernatural through domestic order. She also stands guard at closets, as when she tells Bela to sleep with the door open.
  • Daddo Russ: Daddo speaks directly to the closet in Chapter 12, ordering “any ghost to leave” and later fixing a loose hinge. He treats the closet as a physical problem to be solved with words and repairs.
  • Grandma Ruth: Grandma dies near a closet (the foyer closet where Bela hides). Her death links the closet to ultimate loss. Earlier, she used the metaphor of a house with rooms for the heart, warning Bela not to let painful feelings become “immovable statues.”
  • Other Mommy: Other Mommy is defined by her origin in the closet. She emerges from it, curls out, and speaks from between closet doors. The closet is her territory; she uses it as both a hiding place and a launching point for possession.

Connections to Themes

  • Loss of Innocence (link): The closet represents the secret childhood world that is invaded by adult fears. Bela’s initial excitement gives way to terror as she learns that some friends are dangerous. The empty closet symbolizes the stripped-away innocence.
  • Family Unity Under Siege (link): The family’s attempts to address the closet—emptying it, talking to it, fleeing from it—show their struggle to protect Bela. Their failure to seal the closet reflects the theme that unity alone may not defeat a supernatural threat.
  • Consent and Bodily Autonomy (link): Other Mommy’s repeated question, “Can I go into your heart?” is a request for permission. The closet is where that request is first made. Bela’s eventual consent in Chapter 51 underscores the theme of bodily autonomy violated by choice.
  • Reincarnation as Possession (link): The entity explains that if Bela lets her in, she will take Bela’s body and Bela will go “where I come from.” The closet is the border between worlds; crossing it means entering a state of possession.
  • Fear of the Unknown (link): The closet’s darkness hides what Bela cannot see. Early on, she imagined Other Mommy hanging upside down. The unknown that lurks in the closet is the source of terror, and its power grows the more it remains unseen.

Study Questions and Answers

Question 1

How does the closet’s portrayal shift from a hiding place for a friend to a gateway for terror? Use evidence from Chapters 1, 15, and 51.

Answer: In Chapter 1, Bela greets Other Mommy emerging from the closet with excitement: “Hi, I say. I’m so excited to see you again.” The closet is a friendly, magical space. By Chapter 15, after Mommy empties it, the closet looks small, yet the wind carries Other Mommy’s question, showing the threat is not removed. In Chapter 51, Bela hides in a foyer closet and later finds Grandma’s body; she then agrees to let Other Mommy into her heart and steps into a vast room. The closet transitions from home of a friend to a death site and finally a portal to another world.

Question 2

In what ways do the adults’ attempts to reclaim the closet (emptying it, ordering it to leave) backfire? Discuss Mommy’s actions in Chapter 15 and Daddo’s in Chapter 12.

Answer: In Chapter 15, Mommy empties Bela’s closet and opens the window to “clean” the room. Instead of eliminating the entity, the wind whispers Other Mommy’s question, and Bela still senses her presence. The empty closet becomes a stark reminder that the threat is not physical. In Chapter 12, Daddo tells the closet “to leave” and fixes a loose hinge. Yet Other Mommy remains; Daddo falls asleep beside Bela, and the entity continues to haunt. Both attempts treat the closet as a container that can be sealed or cleansed, but the entity’s power transcends the physical space.

Question 3

What does the final closet scene in Chapter 51 reveal about the nature of Other Mommy and the meaning of the closet as a border between worlds?

Answer: In Chapter 51, Bela hides in the foyer closet while Grandma is attacked upstairs. Other Mommy emerges from that same closet after Grandma’s death and asks again to enter Bela’s heart. When Bela agrees, Other Mommy disappears and reappears on the bed crying, and Bela finds herself in a “vast room.” This reveals that the closet is not merely a hiding place but a threshold connecting Bela’s world to the entity’s origin. Other Mommy’s crying suggests she too is transformed by crossing the border, and the closet becomes a passage rather than a barrier.

Question 4

How does the motif of closets in other houses (Frank’s, Evelyn’s, Grandma’s) reinforce the idea that the threat is not confined to one room but follows Bela?

Answer: In Frank’s house (Chapter 28), Bela senses Other Mommy through creaks and smells, and the entity is present in a closet where a man died. In Evelyn’s house (Chapter 31), all closets are closed, and Bela cannot relax knowing the entity could be inside any of them. In Grandma’s house (Chapters 22–23), the foyer closet opens, and though it is only the dog, Bela’s panic shows she now fears all closets. These instances demonstrate that Other Mommy is not tied to Bela’s original closet but can inhabit any threshold space, emphasizing that the threat is pervasive and inescapable.