by Sophia Sharp
When the kettle started to whistle, I pulled it from the range quickly so as not to wake anybody. I poured the boiling water into my cup and waited a few minutes for it to steep. When it was done, I took the teabag out and headed back up the stairs, cup in hand. Just as I reached the first step, however, I felt a cold draft blow against the nape of my neck.
Frowning, I looked in the direction of the draft Was there a window open somewhere? For some reason, I felt an obligation to investigate. It beat trying to fall asleep, in any case.
I walked toward the draft. After turning a corner, I saw a small door half-open farther down the hall. That was where the breeze was coming from. The elder Arthur never gave us a tour of the cabin, but I was sure his bedroom was upstairs. I was curious about what was behind the door.
I came in and found a tiny office. There was a desk with some papers on it, and an old, weathered chair nearby. There was also a small window on one wall. Sure enough, it was open a crack. That was where the breeze was coming from. I pushed it down and gave a satisfied nod. It wasn’t much of an adventure, but it was a task accomplished.
I was halfway out the door when the draft hit my neck again. Hadn’t I just closed the window? I looked over my shoulder, and saw that it was closed. Where was the air coming from?
Just then, I noticed the most intriguing element of the whole room. Carved into the side wall, very much disguised as part of the wood, was the thin outline of a secret doorframe. The door itself was slightly ajar, which was the only reason I could pick it out in the moonlight.
I debated going back to bed and pretending I had never seen the entrance. But, my curiosity was piqued. I walked to the hidden entrance slowly, and felt the draft again. A little flare of excitement stirred within me. I knew I shouldn’t be trespassing, but I was curious. What could be in there?
Gently, I pushed the small door open. It swung in and hit the back wall with a loud thud. I froze. In the silence, that sound was deafening. It seemed as if everybody would have heard it. My pulse quickened for a moment, but I did not hear anyone moving on the second floor. The bang hadn’t awakened anybody.
I stuck my head gingerly into the doorway. It was dark, of course, but the moonlight streaming through the window in the office gave enough light for me to see the first few meters. The entrance was actually the start of a stone stairway that twisted down.
“Hello?” I called out softly. My voice echoed down the stairs. “Is anybody there?” I was sure the elder Arthur was asleep, but I didn’t want to risk meeting him down there. As it were, I was already pretty much trespassing in his house. But the thrill of discovery spurred me on. I waited a few more seconds. When nobody answered, I started down the steps.
I walked down slowly, carefully. I had no idea what I would find at the bottom. The space reminded me a little of the caves on Traven Island – cold and dark and made of stone. The farther I went, the colder the air became. I was sure I would find a window, or some other type of opening, when I got to the bottom. I wrapped my hands around the cup of tea for warmth.
I didn’t know how far the winding stairs would go. I was a little surprised to find them end little more than a full turn down. There was absolutely no light down here, so that finding came courtesy of a near catastrophic stumble after I tried to place my foot on a lower step that didn’t exist. I caught my balance against the side wall just in time.
I debated using my crystal to illuminate the room. But doing so felt like cheating. Either way, I was sure there would be a light switch somewhere along the wall. Searching for it would provide part of the excitement of discovering this hidden space.
My fingers ran up and down the cool wall. It was made of smooth, round stones about the size of my head. I could feel the rough cement mortar between them. My hands didn’t find a light switch. I moved one step farther to feel around there.
Suddenly, my fingers brushed against a different sort of material, a smooth, rectangular recess in the wall, with a single protruding element in the middle. The light switch! I flipped it on, and felt a surge of pride as a light behind me flickered on. I turned around, eager to see what I had discovered…
A terrified scream was ripped from my throat. My fingers went limp, and the cup in my hand shattered against the floor. Boiling water spilled everywhere, scalding my feet, but that barely registered.
I was not alone in the room. Arthur Eliot senior was there with me. He was… dead. His body hung suspended from the ceiling. By the neck. His eyes were half-open, but only the whites showed. His neck was twisted at a horrible angle where it had broken. His tongue poked grotesquely from his mouth.
I screamed again, scrambling back, away from the body, away from the horrific discovery. The elder’s body swayed gently in the breeze. One way and then the other, one way and then the other, like a huge pendulum. Those haunted eyes seemed to stare accusingly at me. Blood vessels pooled in his neck, where the noose had tightened. I saw the stool he had leapt from overturned on the floor not far from his feet. My back came against the wall, and I sank down, shaking uncontrollably. That tortured face would haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.
I heard footsteps running from upstairs, and prayed the others would hurry. Arthur Eliot senior was dead! He had killed himself! What would possess him to do such a thing? I couldn’t comprehend it. It was beyond comprehension! Another scream formed in my throat, but it died when voices came from above.
“Tracy!” Liz yelled from the top of the stairs. “Is that you?”
“Here,” I answered unsteadily. “Hurry!”
A horde trampled down the stairs. Liz was the first to arrive, followed by Ashley, then Rob, then Madison, then Eve and, finally, John. They all ran down together, and stumbled to a stop when they saw what was here. Arthur was the last in the room. For a moment, a stupefied silence filled the air.
“Oh, shit,” Eve swore.
“Oh, my God!” Liz exclaimed. She clasped her hands over her mouth. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God,” she kept repeating like a mantra.
“…Father?” Arthur cried out. “Father? No!” He ran to the body, and vainly attempted to lift the heavier man. It was a pitiful effort that only resulted in him falling over. Rob came to place a hand on my shoulder, but stayed only a second as John called for him to help bring Arthur’s father down. Ashley didn’t say anything. She simply sat on the stairs and started to cry. Madison was the only one to remain calm. Suddenly, I remembered that she had experienced something very similar when she was younger. She sought me out, crouched down, and put her arms tenderly around me in a hug. “You found him,” she whispered in my ear, “and now we’re truly sisters.”
I pressed myself closer to the girl, and buried my head in her chest. Ashley’s sobs in the background continued, and I felt like crying, too. I was scared. We had dealt with the death of Liz’s kidnapper, but that was more of an accident. This was deliberate. This was a man I actually knew! Why? Why would he do that? There was no reason, no explanation that I could find, except that… except that somehow, we had pushed him to the brink. We were the only recent change in his life.
Those accusing eyes burned into my skull. The look on Arthur senior’s face when I first found him, the way his body just hung there so peacefully, so completely at odds with everything it represented. It was an image that would torment me for eternity. The draft, I only now realized, came from a tiny window near the ceiling that he had left open. It was funny what your mind picked out in times like these.
“There’s a note!” Liz said suddenly. I lifted my head from Madison’s chest and looked up. Liz was standing in the center of the room, only a few feet from where Arthur senior had hanged himself. She bent down and picked up a small envelope that the rest of us had overlooked. She held it reverently, and carried it to Arthur, who took it from her slowly. Tears glistened in his eyes.
After examining it for a moment, Arthur eased the envelope open. He took out a single sheet of paper and read it silently. A foreboding quiet shr
ouded the room. Arthur finished reading, flipped the paper over, and, finding nothing on the back, wordlessly handed it to John. John read it and passed it to Rob. One by one the letter made its way around the group. When it came to me and Madison, she took it and held it out for both of us to see:
To My Son,
Do not mourn for me. Is death not the greatest achievement of freedom? Does that not make it the richest moment of meaning in our petty lives? Freedom is what I have always sought. But, I could not find it on this earth.
To My Guests,
I am sorry for what you have found. I did not intend for things to end this way. I had little choice. My home has been under surveillance for many years. Your arrival has not gone unnoticed. You have demonstrated forbidden knowledge of the crystals; others who will come for you to keep that knowledge secret.
There are things I learned from the Village Council. The information they gave must not die with me. Find the ones who can do what you do. Seek their counsel. They will answer your questions. But be forewarned: the crystals lead to neither peace nor freedom. Make haste to close this chapter of your lives. It is something I could never do.
You must hurry. Time is not on your side.
35.65, -83.16
“What does he mean, ‘those who will come for you?’” I asked, feeling a swell of disquietude stirring within me. “Arthur?”
“My only guess,” he answered solemnly, “is the same government force which disbanded the research group has been watching my father. It seems they kept tabs on the researchers.”
“Even now? Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“The note says they’re coming,” Rob said. “I don’t think we should stick around to see if they’re friendly or not.”
“What are the strange numbers on the bottom?” Madison asked.
“Coordinates,” John answered confidently. “It seems Arthur Eliot left us with one last parting gift. There’s no doubt in my mind that’s where we’ll find his village.”
“You think so?” I asked. “Arthur? What do you think? You knew your dad better than any of us.”
Arthur chewed his lip, his gaze altering sadly from the body of his father to the rest of us. “I don’t know what else it could be,” he said, “other than—”
He cut off as a low rumbling sounded in the background, like a plane flying too close to the ground. I looked at the others in confusion. A plane? We were in the middle of the woods. There were no flight paths anywhere near us. Slowly, the rumbling started to build, growing louder and louder.
“What is that?” I asked, uncertainly. I realized the noise had been on the edge of hearing for some time, but all of us had been too absorbed to notice it earlier. It seemed to come from everywhere at once.
“It sounds like…” Rob started to say, but the sentence died in his throat as the very ground we were standing on began to tremble. My eyes went wide. I was seized by sudden paralysis. The trembling became stronger; the rumbling became louder. The sound came from all directions. The deep bass shook the foundation of the cabin.
“Earthquake!” Madison yelled. My head shot up. I saw dust falling from the ceiling. “We have to get out!” She grabbed my hand and started to run up the stairs.
“No!” Arthur exclaimed. We froze in our steps. “Wait! Something’s wrong.”
The sound continued unabated. The walls continued to tremble… but none of it got any worse. I closed my eyes, focusing on the noise. The rumbling had a choppy quality to it. Like something beating at the air. Like…
“That’s no earthquake,” Arthur exclaimed as I realized the same thing. “It’s a helicopter!”
“What the hell’s a helicopter doing here?” Eve screamed over the noise.
“They’re coming for us,” I said simply. We were trapped. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to run.
“Who?” Ashley cried out.
Abruptly, all the noise cut off. The rumbling stopped. For a moment, there was silence, broken only by the buzzing of the incandescent bulb in the room. Then a loud zap sounded, and the electricity died.
“What’s going on?” Madison demanded wildly. Enough light streamed through the window for me to see the dim outline of her shape. I opened my mouth to respond, but was cut off when a booming loudspeaker tore through the night.
“YOU ARE TRESPASSING ON GOVERNMENT PROPERTY,” a voice blared through the air. It was a deep voice, used to giving commands. “WE HAVE THE BUILDING SURROUNDED.”
I looked around frantically. Fear was clear on their faces. Arthur senior’s warning had not been for naught. Somebody was here. Our arrival had been noted.
“SURRENDER YOURSELVES AT ONCE. YOU HAVE TWO MINUTES TO VACATE THE PREMISES. COOPERATE AND YOU WILL BE UNHARMED. RESIST AND FORCE WILL BE USED.”
“We’re trapped!” Ashley exclaimed. “What do we do?”
I did the only thing I knew. I linked to my crystal.
The blue light burst from my neck, coating everything in its brilliant glow. The connections seared into place, and immediately I knew the most intricate details of everything around me. I felt the dimensions of the room, the makeup of the stone walls, the whole cabin above. Everything was clear, existing in my mind as a perfect replica of the surroundings. I knew the stairs that led up to the cabin’s first floor, knew the hidden entrance door I had stumbled upon to get here. I started to feel out using the connections, prodding toward the outside of the cabin, to see who was coming after us – and stopped. Something tickled the back of my mind. There was a nagging feeling I had overlooked something.
I shrunk back through the connections, focusing on the entities closer to me. What was it that poked at my unconscious? Wait—I had it. The wall! There was something peculiar about it. With the overwhelming amount of information the crystal gave me, it was easy to overlook a detail if I didn’t know just where to focus. I shifted my attention to it, feeling through the smooth stones one by one, and found… another hidden passage! It led to a path that went deep underground. I didn’t know how far it extended, but it was our way out.
I released the crystal. “There’s a way out!” I exclaimed, and pointed to the wall, right at the spot. Without waiting for anyone to act I bolted up the stairs to close the door leading here. I remembered how hard it was to pick out from the wall. The light was still on in the office, but I didn’t have time to switch it off. I closed the door and ran back down.
Everyone was crowding around the space I pointed out. They were feeling at the wall for the door.
“ONE MINUTE!” the voice blared from outside. I spun around. No! We needed more time!
“It’s right here,” I cried as I ran through everybody and put my shoulder against the wall. The stone didn’t budge. I tried again. It didn’t move. I knew the door was there! The impression of it was still imprinted in my mind. I pushed against it. Nothing happened.
“Hurry!” Ashley urged.
I nodded, and embraced the crystal again. I had to know how it worked. I felt around the seams of the entrance, and found… some kind of heavy mechanism in place. Behind the door. A contraption of metal gears and rods. The mechanism went from the door, through the middle of the wall, up into the ceiling, and to a hidden lever that was right where… right where Arthur had hanged himself. I released the crystal.
“There!” I cried out, pointing to the spot. “There’s a lever there. It opens the passage!” Rob wasted no time running over. He jumped, but couldn’t reach the ceiling. He looked around. His eyes landed on the stool. He hesitated only a second before grabbing it. He put his arm into a discreet gap in the ceiling tiles and yanked something down. A grinding sound of rock grating on rock resulted. The door dislodged slightly from its hold.
“THIRTY SECONDS!” the voice blared. “TWENTY-FIVE SECONDS…!”
“Quick!” I hissed. It wouldn’t take long for the men outside to scour the cabin, to realize we were hiding. It wouldn’t take long for them to find this space. I cursed myself for leaving the
light on upstairs. It was a dead giveaway.
“TWENTY SECONDS. NINETEEN. EIGHTEEN…”
I could hear boots pounding on the floor above. So much for the promise.
“The door’s stuck!” Rob vexed. He was trying to pull it open, but the stone slab wouldn’t move. “Help, help!”
“TEN SECONDS!”
Everyone grabbed an edge of the door. “Heave!” Rob commanded. We did, and felt it move ever so slightly. “Heave!” Again, it moved a tiny bit. Inch by inch, we pulled the door back. I could feel the men in the back of my mind. Without the crystal, even. I knew they were there. I knew they were looking for us. I did not want to know what would happen when they found the door to the basement.
“…ONE! YOU GIVE US NO CHOICE. FORCE WILL BE USED.”
“Heave, heave!” Rob insisted. I pulled with as much strength as I could. The stone scraped against the floor, moving just a little. A little more. A little more. And… there! We had made enough of an opening to slip through.
“Go, go!” John screamed. He pushed Madison in first, and then Ashley. Eve refused his help. Liz was next. John stopped for her. It happened so fast, but I thought he squeezed her hand just before she went through. All the girls were gone. “You next,” he said to me. I nodded, and went in. Rob came in after me. John was last. “Is that everyone?”
“No,” I said. “Arthur. Arthur!” I could hear the men beating at the door upstairs. Arthur was still in the basement. I looked through the slit, but couldn’t see him. “Arthur, come on!”
