"It's how they used to do it in the old days," I whispered. "It was normal to bury your loved ones in sealed coffins within the home. In the basement."
Even when I said the words more pronounced, they still made no sense.
Who the hell would bury their dead in their house?
We snuck through the kitchen, careful not to touch anything for fear of the inevitable clang that would result. Clayton reached for the big key ring that hung near the old service levers. Skeleton keys and modern ones hung from the brass holder, and Clayton slowly moved his fingers through each one, careful not to make them rattle.
He separated three possible options that matched the look of the 'broom closet' door's lock.
As he wiggled the first key into the lock, the rest of them jingled and clanked, causing Hattie and me to stiffen and grit our teeth.
I examined the door as Clayton tried the next key. It had an antique look about it, like it had never been replaced or restored since its early days. The paint had all but worn off it, and the softened, old wood looked like it held centuries-old secrets.
And it did.
As Clayton shook the next key into the hole, the ring dropped from his nervous fingers and clanged to the ground. The clatter was enough to wake the dead, and we froze in terror, listening for any waking movement.
After a moment, Clayton reached down and picked up the ring in a slow, gentle motion.
"Sorry," he muttered. "Slippery feller."
I rolled my eyes, nearly ready to pee myself.
He fiddled with the keys for another moment, and then there was a pop.
His eyes flew wide as he stared at us in amazement.
"Shit," he whispered.
Then he glanced at Hattie apologetically for his unfiltered language.
She grinned and pressed forward, urging him to open it.
I followed up right behind her, and Clayton pushed against the door until it broke from its swollen seal.
"Put your flashlights on," Clayton said. "And close the door behind you."
I clicked on my hand-held flashlight and swung the beam in every direction. Dark walls surrounded the cold stone stairway leading deep into the earth. A musty smell wafted up at us, itching my nose.
"Do you really think the academy records are kept down here?" I suddenly questioned our mission as my nerves chattered my teeth.
"No clue," he whispered, moving deeper into the darkness below. "If not, at least we can check this place off the list."
"Maybe he meant downtown, you know, when he said down in the archives."
It was a stretch, but at this point, I was willing to believe it.
Clayton huffed. "Yeah. No."
Hattie remained silent, moving down the stairs between us. Her flashlight remained pointed at her feet as she moved on the uneven steps with caution.
"Are you okay, Hattie?" I was sure she'd be frozen with fear.
"Yes. I'm good," she said, as if we were walking through a sunny meadow.
Her unaffected attitude made me check myself. What the hell was I so afraid of? If Hattie was good, then I should be good too.
But I wasn't.
I was scared to death.
Not of the catacombs, or the coffins, or ghouls hiding in the shadows.
But of what I might find in the written records of the archives.
With only a few more days until the Fire Festival, anything could happen. The Ring of Fire was predicted for the same day, and my inner flames were already twitching in response. Between the solar eclipse and my role as marshall, I had a feeling my fire element was going to take on a mind of its own. And with this added stress of searching for the archives, I'd likely make it worse.
"Whoa, check this out," Clayton called back to us.
He shone his flashlight on the tile floor, exposing a pentagram pattern.
Hattie and I landed on the floor with him and lit up the surrounding area.
"What is it?" Hattie whispered.
Clayton lifted his light to a marble table at the far side. A huge crucifix hovered over it, causing my heart to skip a beat.
"It's a chapel of some kind," he said. "Like a church. That's the altar there."
My muscles twitched from my anxious nerves. It just didn't seem right for there to be a chapel down here in the dark, damp cellar.
"Look," Hattie said. "There's another stairwell over there. It goes deeper."
Her words made me want to turn around and bolt back up the way we'd come.
How could it go deeper? The thought chilled my bones as much as the frigid air around us.
"I don't know..." I hesitated, too terrified to even look.
"Come on," Clayton said. "We have to."
I squeezed my eyes shut. Why was I the only one crapping themselves?
And before I knew it, we were moving down the narrow, tunnel-like stairwell. It was like descending down the gullet of an evil entity.
As we reached the bottom, a chill ran through me. Every step echoed around us and our rapid breathing filled the space that was left.
"It's just a dead-end passageway," Clayton said, flashing his light forward to the end.
I studied the walls around us and focused in with my flashlight. Words engraved in a stone slab in the wall jumped out at me, and I backed up to read them.
"Here lies... husband and wife... hung for crimes against the governance, thee who harbor witches...." My voice choked as I tried to read the faded words. "I, I think I found a crypt."
Clayton and Hattie closed in around me and read the inscription as well. They blasted their lights all around the surrounding walls, and several stone coffins with similar engravings filled our eyes.
"It's the catacombs," Clayton confirmed. "They actually exist."
He pressed his fingers into the ancient carvings and stared in wonderment.
I replayed the engraved words in my mind, imagining what might have happened to the original residents so long ago.
"Isn't it ironic that the owners of Hazeldene were killed for harboring witches?" I paused, hearing my own words. "And now the house continues to do so, almost in honor of them."
Clayton paused. "That's actually really creepy."
I nodded slowly, absorbing the notion fully.
"I wonder how that came to be," Hattie said. "Someone must have had to donate the manor or give it over to the academy founders somehow. I wonder who it was." She gazed along the walls, running her fingers over the engravings, wise beyond her years.
I stepped back, not wanting to look too closely at any more ancient coffins for fear of becoming possessed or haunted. I leaned against the cold stone behind me, and with the slightest press of my weight, it shifted with a hollow rumble.
"Shittt." I froze in place, careful not to disturb the stone any further.
Clayton jumped over and moved his light around the broad edges of the huge granite slab.
As much as I tried to not hear his next words, they formed in my ears anyway.
"It leads to a hidden passageway," he exclaimed.
My body begged to turn toward my escape route and run, but my curious mind sprang to life, stopping me from my stealthy exit. And then I focused on one thing only—entering the secret passage.
I imagined it to be full of stacked skulls and femurs piled all around. Or maybe there would be mummified bodies lined up in pristine rows. My imagination teased me with its roaming ideas.
"Let me look first," I said to Hattie, holding her back in case there might be something frightening within.
"You don't need to protect me," she snipped. "I'm not afraid of dead people."
I shot a glance at Clayton. I wasn't sure if I was more set back by her snarky tone or by her lack of fear.
"Well, I just want to be sure it's safe."
"Stop trying to protect me so much, Shaye. I'm older now, you know." Her nose crinkled as she heard her own words.
Clayton came between us and shined his light into the dark crevice. Push
ing the stone slab further open, he made room for me to peer inside. With both our lights, and Hattie wedging between us, the space lit up before our eyes.
Staring at bookcases filled with leather bound journals, and a long table in the center of the small room with an enormous open ledger on it, my mouth gaped open.
"The archives," I gasped.
"Holy crap." Clayton squeezed through the opening, holding the stone in place for us.
Hattie and I got stuck on each other, trying to push through at the same time, and the instant need to want to strangle her raced through me.
She was becoming an irritating little imp, but at the same time, I couldn't help but want to keep her safe and out of harm’s way.
A gas lantern sat on the heavy wooden table, along with a box of wooden matches. I struck one on the side of the box and lit the mantle. Yellow light glowed all around us, displaying the array of record keeping items.
An old fountain pen lay at the ready next to the open ledger. The record-keeping book was enormous, likely needing two arms to open and close it, and as I peered closer, I read some of the hand-scrawled writing.
"Their arrival has sparked a surge in the delicate balance, causing visions among the Higher Order, as well as manifestations within the lower ranks."
My lip pulled up.
"It's like a summary of what's been going on around here, maybe," Clayton muttered.
"What does it mean?" Hattie asked.
"Not sure yet," I murmured.
I flipped the book closed with a heavy thud, and then opened to its first page.
"Hazeldene House," I read aloud. "Established 1603."
The blotchy black ink was faded and absorbed into the thick parchment in streaks.
"It's older than I thought." Clayton leaned in closer.
"There's newer writing here," I continued, pointing further down. "In Dedication of Shane Hazeldene and Brynn Douglas, this home is hereby granted to the Academy of the Mystical Arts."
I paused, soaking in the names of the donors. I wondered who they may have been.
Clayton pointed to the bottom of the page. "Look. That date's not that long ago. Like, six years."
"Let's see what else is written in there." Hattie bounced in her shoes.
I flipped a few pages in and found various signatures and dates. A few more pages, and the recognizable names began to stand out.
"Look, it's Ms. Reed's name. And Ms. Harrison." I tapped the page.
"And the Chancellor's, before she was chancellor," Clayton added.
"They truly established this place into what it is today." I flipped more pages, searching for other names we might recognize.
With no particular order of last names or anything other identifying factor, it became a mish-mash of black ink and squiggly lines.
Until Clayton's name popped out at me.
"Oh my god." I pointed to the page.
"Clayton Xavier James the Third," he read aloud. "I don't know if I want to look any further."
"You have tooooooo," Hattie whined.
Clayton took a deep breath and hunched in closer.
"Juvenile hall, threat to others, expelled from public school." He stopped reading and turned the pages back. "I don't care. I was a different person then. We're here to learn about you."
He glanced at me from under his brow, but I caught the look of despair in his eyes. Thoughts of his past clearly hurt him still, and seeing such words on the page cut him deep.
I regretted him seeing them.
And had an inkling I'd regret seeing mine as well.
I turned the pages a few more times and Josie's name appeared.
"Oh read it!" Hattie exclaimed. "I want to know her story!" She squeezed in closer to have a better look.
And I quickly flipped the pages back.
"It's not our business," I said, as much as I was dying to read all of it. "We have to respect the rules of the archives, and people's privacy."
"To some extent, anyway," Clayton added with a huff, knowing we'd already broken so many of those rules.
My fingers hesitated, wanting so badly to go back to Josie's page, but I pressed on.
Turning pages forward and back, until I found what I was looking for.
I stared at the page, frozen with apprehension. Then spoke aloud.
"Shaye Millicent Murphy."
I pulled my eyes away from the page, taking a deep breath.
I'd never known my middle name before. And what was funny was, I wasn't sure I liked it. It was weird that such a trivial thing struck me so hard.
"What else does it say?" Hattie pressed.
I skimmed, searching for who-knows-what. "Sent by her parents for training... the height of the witch trials threatened her safety... honing her skills would protect the family... the curse must be monitored at all times...." My voice faded as the words sunk in.
My parents had sent me here.
That was the part that resonated with me so profoundly.
They had sent me here for good reason. For training, to protect the family.
But then the other parts of what I'd read soaked in deeper.
I looked at Clayton with a lost stare.
"What witch trials?" I babbled. "And it says something about the curse." I pressed my eyes shut and lowered my head. "Josie was right."
"Screw Josie," Clayton blurted.
But his supportive response didn't make the truth go away.
"No, Josie knows. But how would she know about my curse? It's confidential."
I stared off into oblivion, confused beyond belief.
But the part that I came back to was the fact that my parents hadn't abandoned me. Curse or no curse, they had sent me here for good reason. And I realized that that was all that mattered to me.
A huff of air fell out of my chest as I allowed myself to release the burdened weight I'd carried for so many years.
Hattie hopped over to the book, and turned the pages to the final few that had writing on them.
I watched as if in slow-motion, unable to process anything beyond the fact that I hadn't been orphaned. My parents were still out there, waiting for me.
I blinked as the epiphany raced through me.
"It's here! My name!" Hattie called out.
Clayton and I leaned in, looking where she was pointing.
"Where?" I murmured, seeing an unfamiliar name at the end of her finger.
"Here," she said. And as her finger ran along the writing, her full name became visible.
She stood tall and read aloud, "Harriet Gertrude Murphy."
Time stood still.
And then I coughed, allowing my breath to move through me again.
Murphy?
Did she just say Murphy?
My eyes shot to Clayton's, and he stared back at me, equally stunned.
Hattie's finger kept moving down the page as she tried to read the fancy script.
"What does it say about me?" she pressed.
I swallowed hard.
"Um. Let me see."
I took a look over her shoulder, and read her name in my head.
Harriet Gertrude Murphy.
Maybe it was just a coincidence.
Murphy was a popular last name.
It was okay that her name sounded a whole lot like mine. No biggie.
I said my own name in my head.
Shaye Millicent Murphy.
And then I cringed from the inescapable resemblance.
Shaking off the weird vibe in my gut, I focused back on the page.
I skimmed the first paragraph under her name, and murmured aloud.
"Unexpected arrival... disheveled and confused... sleep-like episodes with sporadic talk of portals, witch hunts, and someone lost." The words blurred into each other through my misting eyes.
My voice stuck in my throat. As I looked to Clayton for answers, the tears in my eyes spilled over from the look on his face. He stared at Hattie in confusion, as if he were seeing a ghost.
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br /> And then a bang rattled its way into the secret room. The sound caused us to jump out of our skin, and I slammed the book shut.
"What was that?" Hattie gulped, shimmying in between us.
Then loud, clomping footsteps echoed through the damp chamber, coming closer with each daunting step.
"What do we do?" Hattie panicked.
"There's nothing we can do," I stated. "We just need to accept whatever's about to come our way."
My words rang more true than I'd intended.
I was the one who had to accept what came my way. The information I had read about Hattie shook me to my core, unsettling every nerve. And right now, it was enough to blow my mind to smithereens.
"Is someone down here?" The searching voice moved through the catacombs into the archives.
I closed my eyes, wishing we could disappear into the numerous books on the shelves.
"You left the keys in the door," the voice continued, rattling the key ring.
I glared at Clayton with my lips pressed together.
He bared his teeth and lifted his guilty shoulders to his ears.
"We're in here," I surrendered.
There was silence at first.
Then movement shuffled along by the secret door.
"You found the academy archives, I see?" Ms. Harrison's head poked in, and she glanced at the three of us. "Something woke me out of a dead sleep. Now I know what."
She eyeballed the massive ledger on the table, and then looked at me.
I nodded, admitting that I'd looked inside.
"We only looked at our own records. No one else's. I swear."
She held her eyes on me for another moment, then shifted her gaze back to the book.
"I believe you." Then she moved to the lantern and turned it down until the mantle went dark. "Let's get you out of here before anyone else notices the breech."
My eyes widened. She was going to cover for us.
But why?
We shuffled around the heavy table, and squeezed out of the secret room. As the four of us gathered in the catacombs, Clayton pushed the stone slab back into place.
"The Ring of Fire will mark the time for you to learn all," Ms. Harrington said to me. "You must wait for the Fire Festival to reveal what you seek. But your impatience and impulsivity have got the best of you once again." She pressed her lips together in a subtle reprimand. "What have you discovered from the records?"
Mystic Coven: Fire Festival (Supernatural Academy Graduates Book 1) Page 18
