She was concerned, at first, that there would be no glasses or a corkscrew. This was a professor’s house, however, and whoever emptied the display cases in the basement apparently had no interest in the crystal or china in the cupboard. He had a fine collection, and she remembered that Mary Jane told her he entertained people from all over the world in this very farmhouse. For a moment she envied the exciting life he must have lived, the thrill of the adventure and the rewards. She didn’t admire his demise, though, providing there was one, of course.
In either case, there was no way she giving back his lovely collection of Mikasa crystal goblets.
Danielle returned to a warm and comfortable glow from the stone fireplace. The room was soft now, less imposing, and the shadows seemed to lend a little secrecy to their meeting this night.
“So, tell me about Mr. Wilde’s crazy theories.” She held out a sparkling crystal glass to the figure that stood directly in front of the blaze.
“I did say I would, didn’t I?” He laughed, and the sound of it was very pleasant. He obviously felt at ease in what was more clearly his element than hers. “He talked about The Balance.”
The wood on the fire popped like all dry tinder did, and occasionally a colorful comet left the bower of flame to hit the grate, but no other enlightening words were forthcoming.
“Ok, so tell me what the balance is and what it means.”
“It means exactly what it implies, of course. Jake felt it was an ancient magic which represented the perfect line between light and darkness. He said his lost civilization practiced the pristine spirituality that encompassed all life and death, and perhaps it gave them the ability to call upon a power beyond anything we have ever known.”
“You really can’t hold your liquor, huh,” she said in a joking tone, but her playful words didn’t seem to penetrate the serious look on his face and she knew he meant everything he said.
“The last time they found him at the base of the foothills in Peru, he was raving about Cloud Walker and Shadow Walker magic.” Britton was speaking openly now, and she realized it was impossible for him to discard the obvious contempt in his voice for the missing professor.
“I sat at his bedside every day until he was strong enough, but he never divulged anything to me that did not come from his delirium and sickness.”
“And now that he is gone there is no way we can discover his meaning…” Danielle’s voice trailed off in sadness, but a part of his statement nagged at the back of her mind with familiarity.
“I’m sure he left clues.” Britton’s accent briefly changed from old school Oxford to street wise Pip. “We just have to look. It’s a pity his library is in such disarray.”
“His library?” she asked immediately, an instant vision of the wooden slats behind the walls coming to the forefront of her vision. “How do you know about that?”
Britton looked uncharacteristically confused for a moment, and he instantly sat his empty goblet on the table in front of him.
“Mary Jane mentioned to me that you said the room was in a state of disrepair. This is the entire reason I brought my bag of tools.”
Danielle carefully regarded his array of equipment. A hammer, a crowbar and more than one bottle of wine protruded from the canvas. Try as she might, she could not recall the fact she had specifically mentioned the library to the real estate agent and she was uncomfortable with the way their conversation had turned.
“I think, Mr. Majers, that we should call it a night. We’ve had a lot of excitement in the past few days, and I find I am exhausted.”
“If you wish, Danielle,” he said her name with familiarity and confidence, something which made her a little more uneasy than it should have. “But I came here this evening, ultimately, to offer you a proposal if you would listen.”
Her heart dropped instantly, and a multitude of comical images sprang to mind. She saw a house in the country, ten kids and apple pies on the weekends…
Well, Danielle already had the house on her own, children weren’t a part of her plan for the moment and she had no idea how to make an apple pie. With a bit of a grin, she automatically dismissed that type of fanciful proposal.
“Indulge me, Mr. Majers,” she finally answered the professor, knowing pretty well what he must be after at this point if it wasn’t her.
“I have discovered a specialist located at the Museum Larco who is willing to take a look at the artifact you discovered in your garden. The only thing you need to do is sign it over to me, and I’ll convey the item directly to his office and we’ll know more within twenty-four hours of its arrival, on the outside.”
That sounded reasonable to Danielle. In fact, it was the entire reason she had brought the mask to Professor Majers to begin with, of course. His proposition was everything she might have hoped for, and more, when she’d been searching for answers a day or two ago.
So, with all of this splendid resolution, why was she so reticent to release the item? Why did she feel as if she were giving away a part of herself along with the black case and the mystery inside?
Certainly there was the event with Anna, as well as her own wary feelings toward the Professor of Antiquities, but those issues could spring from any number of things, and she did not feel comfortable enough to classify her strange feeling of attachment to the mask on such weak prospects.
Nonetheless, she understood one thing quite clearly and it was the fact she was not ready to let go of the item she’d dug up in her back yard. Her reasons were her own, and she was willing to take her own time to figure them out.
“I would love to know more, don’t get me wrong. I understand I’m the one who came to you for help at the start, but I don’t feel as if I’m really ready to hand it over to someone I’ve just met.”
There, she said it, and she was glad that she stood her ground and left no opening for argument. If she had done that more often at the gallery in the city she might have had a much more successful career and maybe even a decent love life.
“As you like, my dear, I completely understand.” His response was totally unexpected, though not as shocking as his following statement.
“I will book you a flight to Peru, along with myself, so that we may visit the museum curator together.”
“Peru?” She stated the name of the country as if it were some kind of distant planet in an unexplored galaxy somewhere.
“That is where the Museum Larco is, of course.”
Chapter Six
She could tell from the arrogant glimmer in his eye he knew she was totally blindsided. He watched her response closely, and there was no way she was going to let the smug look on his face win the day.
“I’ll start packing, then?” She smiled widely, and the tables were turned that quickly as she was able to see her own response register on his face.
“I’ll have my assistant phone you with the arrangements, then.”
“If you can get her to, that’s fine.” Danielle grinned from ear to ear, remembering the pretty redhead from their initial meeting.
Considering all her misgivings during the course of the evening with Professor Majers, she was quite surprised she’d called his bluff and agreed to jet off to a foreign city with the man. Try as she might to justify those perfectly good reasons to cancel, Danielle had to admit to herself that she wanted to go more than anything in the world. Something inside her soul longed to see the last city that Jake Wilde lived in and maybe find the other pieces of the puzzle. This was her new beginning, and she deserved to indulge in a little unexpected adventure when it presented itself.
Britton’s dust trail was already at least a hundred yards up the road before she had barely said good night, and judging from the stiff farewell upon his departure, he wasn’t thrilled she had agreed to accompany him.
His odd behavior was the least of her worries at the moment.
What she wouldn’t give for an Internet connection right now and a little Wikipedia wisdom on a few things like what city s
he was probably going to fly into when she hit South America.
Danielle was never afraid to step up to a challenge, but she liked to have a little knowledge going into certain situations. Entering foreign countries was unsurprisingly high on the need-to-know list right now.
I have an entire library in the other room, and it’s probably full of all that kind of information!
Danielle realized that if the previous owner specialized in Peruvian Ancient Civilization, there was a good chance almost every book on the shelf could tell her something; if she could get in there, anyway.
Britton had taken his toys when he left, so prying the door open was not an option for now. And though he had thoughtfully removed his bag, the empty wine bottle and cork sat on the table with nothing to offer.
She sighed and picked up the debris of her disastrous encounter.
A quick trip to the kitchen showed her the trash can was full and it didn’t seem willing to take any more additions.
“We’re just batting a thousand tonight,” she grumbled under her breath, pulling the trash bag out of the receptacle with one hand as she braced her feet on the side of the plastic tub for leverage.
It slid from the confines with as much resistance as possible, and Danielle tossed the empty bottle in the bag before she closed it up.
She flipped the switch in the cubby at the top of the basement stairs and made her way carefully past the coats. A few more bulbs had burned out since the last time she was down there, and she wondered what type that fixture took and who the eight-foot giant was that changed them on a regular basis. She had been all over the house, for the most part, in the past few days and had yet to come across a ladder.
The back door was securely locked and the trash bin sitting faithfully inside, waiting to be filled with more dangerous items. Danielle swung the rather heavy bag up and over, cringing when it hit the empty bottom with the loud clang of glass crashing together.
She leaned against the wall in the darkest corner and prayed she hadn’t been so distracted that she tossed the wine glasses in with the green bottle. Just as she began to consider a little dumpster digging, the wall subtly shifted beneath her weight. It was such a slight movement that she wasn’t sure it happened, but she jumped away like her back was on fire nonetheless.
“Okay,” she said to herself in an effort to steady her nerves. “What would Jay and Grant do on Ghost Hunters? They’d remain calm and try to figure out what caused the event… The key word is ‘calm’ of course.”
She placed the palm of her right hand on the center of the wall and gave it a little push. The shadows were pretty thick in the back part of the basement to start with, and it was much darker now thanks to the recently burned out lights. It seemed, however, that she could see a small line along the edge of the wall which appeared slightly blacker than the rest of the gloom.
One more shove revealed a tiny opening, and she realized at once it was a cleverly hidden door. Danielle was surprised she hadn’t noticed it before, but with the absence of light in the abandoned basement she really had no reason to look for such a thing. She gingerly slid her foot inside the pitch black space and came up against what felt like a stair step immediately on the left. That was about as far as she was willing to go in the dark by herself, and she looked around for something to wedge into the opening in the event it decided to close while she went looking for her ghost hunting gear. She saw the flashlight sitting next to the breaker box and pulled the trash bin in front of the strange door to keep it from closing while she grabbed it.
With the light in hand, she pushed the false wall inward as far as it would open. There was no space at the bottom except to accommodate the door, so she had nowhere to go but up.
The stairs were extremely steep and it almost felt like climbing a ladder as she slowly made her way. She couldn’t see the top from her lower vantage point, but the walls inside were made up of the same unfinished wooden slats she’d seen in the demolished section of the library.
Danielle knew that a lot of very old homes in the South had hidden servant staircases which led from the kitchen to other parts of the house to ensure easy access and low visibility from the hired help. She had no problem believing this farmhouse had been around since the Civil War at least, and she could have probably been convinced that no one had been in the secret passage for that long as well if it hadn’t been for a set of conspicuous footprints in the ancient coating of dust on the narrow steps.
“Cool,” she said as she swept the beam of the flashlight back and forth in front of her before each step to make sure there were no cobwebs waiting to wrap her up. “Creepy, but still cool. I didn’t buy a house, I bought an adventure.”
She finally reached what had to be the top, only to observe a space about the same size as the niche at the bottom. It appeared to be a dead end, but that was the way it looked in the basement as well, so she wasn’t buying it.
Danielle had three walls to choose from, so she figured she might as well give them all a go. With an out-turned hip she gently bumped the one at the top. It seemed solid enough, so she did the same to the slatted plaster on each side.
When nothing happened, she turned around and held out one hand each on opposite side of the small space to brace herself. Kicking backward like a mule, she thumped the wall with more force than she had planned and almost pitched headlong down the treacherous steps. The flashlight fell from her right hand the moment she lost her balance and the decline was so steep it only hit one step before it clattered on the bottom, flickering in protest at the rough treatment.
It was unbelievably dark where she was now, but she was too angry about the fact she’d dropped her light to be nervous. She sat down at the very top, thinking it would be best to slip down one step at a time until she could get back to the basement.
Keeping her eye on the distant beam below, she braced herself with her arms as she began to let herself down to the next step on her backside. The walls were close, and the sleeve of her thin shirt caught on one of the splintered pieces of wood. She instinctively looked to her left to pull it free.
Thankfully her eyes had adjusted as much as possible to the darkness after the loss of the flashlight, and she was actually able to see a sliver-thin ray of pale light emanating from a crack at the bottom of one of the walls. Instead of going down, she curled up at the top again with her back opposite the strange illumination and pushed as hard as she could with her tennis shoes planted firmly above the slit.
This door was very heavy, but it gave a little with her newfound effort. The prospect that she might have found a shortcut from the kitchen to the trash receptacle was intriguing, so she put everything she had into it and the opening grew large enough for her to see inside.
Papers lined the floor, and the loose pages fluttered a little in the wake of the massive book case she had just leveraged open.
Danielle was in awe as she rose to her feet and slid past the shelves that were easily eight inches thick. Once inside the library, she saw that all the walls were lined with identical book cases. Even if she had gained entrance by the foyer door, there was no way she ever would have been able to tell there was a hidden passage behind the particular set of shelves she had just stumbled upon.
It was pretty easy to see why the main door was impassable from this vantage point, too. The book case closest to the entrance was removed from the wall and set forward just enough so it came up against the hinges of the foyer door, almost as if someone had pulled it out enough to see there was solid wall behind it.
The saddest story this scene had to tell was the destruction of the books, however, and Danielle was devastated to see so many old tomes ripped to pieces, and the artwork that was surely original in each one destroyed.
A handful of copies remained untouched, or at least deemed harmless enough they couldn’t contain needed information. She flipped on the nearest light switch and revealed such timeless collections as Frommer’s Guide to just about everywhere a t
ourist might safely want to go, with the obvious exception of Peru, and what appeared to be every paperback book in Piers Anthony’s Magic of Xanth series. She also noted a collection of books on things like the Ancient Lore of Atlantis and King Arthur, as well as a surprisingly diverse gathering which dealt with all kinds of prophecy from Nostradamus to the Mayan Doomsday predictions.
“This professor is interesting, to say the least. You have to like a guy who reads Piers Anthony.” Danielle smiled to herself, trying to step over the pages and shredded bindings that layered the floor as she inspected the few volumes that held their positions of safety on the shelves.
Her hand hovered over a pretty thick spine entitled A Complete World Atlas and Basic Encyclopedia. It was different than most of the victims that had fallen to the slaughter in that it resembled a high school text book with the shiny, plastic coated cover and cartoon-like drawings of foreign countries on the front.
She aimlessly flipped through and stopped on Holland, which displayed an enchanting collection of Dutch Girl etchings and red tulips. It did have a very easy-to-understand map at the beginning of that chapter though, and lots of helpful tips on what kind of food to order when visiting.
Deciding it would have to do, she’d begun to close the geography book when she impulsively turned to the inside of the front cover where the words ‘Jake Wilde 10th Grade, Mr. Carson’s Class’ were scrawled in faded pencil on the interior of the white hard-bound cover.
“I’ll bet you were a heartbreaker.” Danielle sighed, impulsively holding the heavy volume close to her chest.
“Now, for the classics…” She reached up and took A Spell for Chameleon from the Xanth collection nearby. It was still early, and the window seat in the corner could become very inviting if she removed the debris from its thick cushions.
Through Ancient Eyes (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Page 6
