by J. M. Miller
I leaned down to him and pressed my lips softly to his, reveling in the way he made me feel. It had always been so different with other guys. They usually tried to be quick, with no couth and no care. Ben was in my skin, in my head, and already close to getting into my heart. As our lips moved together, I threw my knees over his legs and straddled his lap.
“Oh,” he said quietly against my lips. “This feels unbelievable, but let’s not get carried away.” He lifted me by the waist and flipped me onto the bed beside him.
My body knocked the basket over, spilling some contents onto the tan comforter. I rolled back up to a seated position and laughed. “Is it your jaw again?”
“No. My jaw is fine.”
“Then I think you’re getting ahead of yourself. That was only a kiss, nothing more.”
He pivoted his body and looked at the basket’s items as I scooped some up. “Were you testing me?” he asked, his focus still on the items.
“Yeah, just testing,” I agreed with smile. I wasn’t going to hit the sheets with him after having just kissed him yesterday. Even though my body was screaming to be closer to him, I had never done anything that quickly before and I doubted I’d try to start setting records now, especially in the middle of the day with my brother and father downstairs.
“In that case, feel free to test me whenever you’d like,” he said, then flipped a couple of pictures between his fingers. “These are the pictures you found yesterday?”
“Yeah, I was looking at them earlier. They were all taken before I was born.”
“What’s this?” He picked up the skeleton key.
“A key to something. And this is a handkerchief,” I replied, holding up the frail, embroidered material. “I think the initials are for Charles Stockton.”
Ben eyed the yellowed handkerchief. “CS. It probably was his. And this …” He held up the key. “This is another secret I’m pretty sure I know about. C’mon, we’re going back downstairs.”
When LJ found the basket yesterday, it gave me hope something else would turn up. I scoured the barn’s loft after she’d gone home. It was an area that Pop and I had foolishly neglected before. I searched for a couple of hours and found nothing but the usual clutter. So this morning I knew I’d have to search the basement better than before, but I had no idea I’d find a trapdoor that led me to LJ’s skeleton key discovery. That key could be the one needed to open the blocked door that I never passed through as a kid, and that door might be blocking more secrets than a hidden tunnel way.
The excitement of the discovery also brought apprehension. The thought of having LJ with me if I were to find something was unnerving. She didn’t know anything. It didn’t matter whether the curse was real or not, she didn’t know about any of it. Despite ignoring me for most of the week, she seemed fine, especially yesterday, which made me question the curse again. But there was still that miniscule chance it was all real. That was enough motivation to keep focused on the search, when now all I really wanted to focus on was my new favorite mental image of LJ wearing nothing but my T-shirt to bed.
I helped her down into the trapdoor and waited for her to clear a few ladder rungs before I followed. Like I’d done on the way up, I ran my hand along all of the support boards again on the way down. Still nothing out of the ordinary.
“I guess that could come in handy if I want to do some late-night laundry,” she said, walking over to the washer as I closed the trapdoor.
“As long as the machines don’t need to be fixed,” I joked, sliding a box back in place.
“Well, ha ha,” she said impassively. “Are you blocking the ladder again?”
“No, I’ll leave enough space for you to climb between boxes in case you decide to partake in a little late-night assault and battery.”
“Okay, no more washer bashing. I promise. Anyway, I’ll probably only use it to hide from my father, or freak Gavin out.” She tossed the damp clothes into the dryer. “So, History Buff, do you think that coffin-sized hatchway was part of The Underground Railroad? Could the Stockton’s really have hidden slave refugees in that little of a space?” She turned the dryer on and helped me move the last box.
I stared at the wall opposite the ladder, examining an empty bookcase and a several stacks of boxes that concealed every inch of gray concrete behind them. It was facing west, toward my house. “I’m positive that’s what it was used for, but it wasn’t the only area,” I answered.
“Are you talking about the hiding spot you never shared with me last week?” She stared at me, confused. “What are you looking at?”
I shifted a few boxes to get closer to the wall then peeked behind the bookcase. Bingo! The other door. “Help me move these boxes, okay?”
“Okay,” she replied. “Where?”
“Let’s add a row to the side wall. We’ll leave some here, to keep this camouflaged.”
“To keep what camouflaged?” she asked.
I moved the last box then slid one side of the antique bookcase toward me, revealing a narrow oak door settled deep into a cutout in the concrete wall. “This.”
“No way!” she yelled and quickly covered her mouth.
“I’ve been on the other end of this. When I first moved here, I did a little exploring. As you can see though, this end was blocked, probably for a long time.”
“So wait. You’ve been on the other side? Does this go to your house?”
I nodded. “The door on my end was unlocked, this one wasn’t. I never found the key.” I smiled at her and held the key between us.
“Do you think it’s safe? It’s underground. What if it collapses if it hasn’t already?”
“I guess we’re going to find out,” I said, adjusting the bookcase, leaving just enough room to slide behind. I squeezed into the small cutout and inserted the key, turning it until the door latch relented. “And we’re in. C’mon.”
LJ moved beside me as I pushed the door open into the blackness. “Oh.” She took a tentative step backward. “I’m not sure I can do this, Ben.”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and turned on a flashlight app, beaming the LED down the tunnel. “Do you have yours?”
“Yeah,” she said, pulling her phone out and doing the same.
The lights were bright enough to see at least twenty feet in front of us, yet LJ grabbed a hold of my arm as if she were suddenly blind. “Are you okay?” I asked, leaning closer to her hair. I inhaled her almond scent, but it was quickly trumped by the heavy smell of wet dirt.
“Those wooden support beams are really old, right?” Her hand tightened around my bicep nervously.
“I think that if they haven’t given out yet, they’re pretty solid,” I replied, walking to the first wooden beam dug into the side of the dirt wall. Hundreds more lined the entire passageway. “It’s okay if you don’t want to do this.”
“No,” she said, breathing out a long steady flow of air. “God, this place has really highlighted my best traits,” she added sarcastically before pulling in an audible breath. “I can do this.”
“You’re sure? It’s really not that big of a deal.”
“No, I want to. I get to walk through a tunnel that nobody has set foot in for years, possibly decades before you did as a kid. That’s a pretty big deal.”
“All right.” I smiled at her excitement.
We swept our phones’ lights back and forth along the slender path. Spiders and centipedes hurried along the support beams to escape our intrusion on their eternally darkened lives. LJ walked at an angle beside me while I knocked down large spiderwebs. I tried to keep my pace fast enough to ease her fear, but slow enough to search the walls, ceiling, and floor without raising suspicion. She didn’t seem to notice. Her breaths were slow and steady as she tried to keep calm. I admired how she faced her fear, no matter the severity. It took a lot of courage to do, yet she probably wouldn’t see it that way. Moving here had stripped her whole world and possibly any strength she’d had in her previous life.
&n
bsp; There were several root systems and a few extra beams on the ground, but nothing else. It was another dead end for my search. This tunnel had no light at the end of it, just the other slim oak door. LJ moved behind me and grabbed my waist as I turned the knob. I walked into the dirt room of the basement, shoving a few broken chairs aside so we could pass through.
Her eyes scanned the cramped area, noticing the old furniture pieces, all broken in some way. “Your basement looks too much like mine,” she joked, lifting a spindled leg that had been detached from its dining chair.
“Yeah, unfortunately,” I agreed, moving toward the larger oak door. “The main part is a little better.”
We walked through the other door into the workout area. She moved to the heavy bag and took a fake swing. “That wasn’t as rewarding as cleaning a toilet.”
“There’s something wrong with you if you honestly prefer cleaning.” I grabbed the bag and settled in behind it, arching my eyebrows, daring her to take a real swing.
She cocked back and threw her hardest, letting out a little grunt when her fist connected. It was a decent hit for a first try. Her grunt was cute, and sexy, but I wouldn’t tell her. I didn’t want to kill the exhilaration I saw in her eyes. “You’re right,” she said, backing up from the bag. “That did feel good.”
“We’ll have to do more another time.”
“What’s with the bed? You don’t sleep down here, do you?” she asked, smoothing her hand over the bed’s bare mattress.
“Not usually. I’ll crash down here sometimes when I don’t want the sun waking me up on the weekends.”
“Can I see your room? Wait, is your grandfather here? It probably wouldn’t be good for him to see us coming upstairs when we didn’t use the front door.”
I moved toward the stairs and she followed. “No, he’s not here. He told me earlier that he had to go shopping. You can come up, but I’m not sure if it’s a good idea for you to see my room.”
“No way are you wiggling out of that,” she said with a laugh. “I showed you mine, embarrassing psycho tendencies and all. So, you’re up. And don’t even make the excuse that it’s dirty; you’ve already warned me about your lack of cleaning habits. Just don’t expect me to clean it for you now that you finally have me over here.”
“Okay, suit yourself,” I agreed as we entered the main hallway. “I’ll show you the rest first.”
We walked past the bedrooms then entered the dining room and living room where she inhaled deeply. “Pipe?”
“Yeah, Pop used to smoke. He quit a while back but the house won’t let it go.”
She moved to the fireplace and looked at the well painting above the mantle. “Here too?”
“Pop and Janine were pretty close.” I shrugged and moved toward the kitchen, not wanting to discuss the well. It was bad enough that I still hadn’t found any new information; I didn’t want to fumble through another conversation about it with her.
“What was the deal between them? Did they have a relationship?”
“I thought the same thing for a while, and I think my grandfather loved her in a way, but I don’t think they were ever involved. I’m really not sure why. My grandmother died a long time ago so I don’t think that would have been a reason. I guess they were just close friends,” I replied. “Do you want some water or something?”
“No thanks,” she said, running her fingers along the cracked gray countertop. She looked out the kitchen window at her house. “My grandparents died before I was born. My grandmother was Aunt Janine’s sister. I never thought any of them were close. The pictures from the picnic basket tell me that my mother had a closer relationship to Aunt Janine than she ever told us.”
“Maybe your dad knows more about it,” I suggested, moving out of the kitchen and into the hallway. “Maybe he took some of those pictures?”
“I’ll have to ask him about it, eventually,” she said with an exhausted sigh.
“You haven’t talked to him yet, huh?”
She shook her head lightly when we stopped in front of my bedroom door. “I will. It’s just hard to accept him like I did when I was younger, especially when he can still forget me at school.”
I ran my hand down the side of her arm. “He made a mistake. He’s not going to be perfect.”
She nudged closer to me and I wrapped my arm over her shoulder. “I know,” she said with another sigh. “You’re one of those annoying guys who knows everything, aren’t you?”
“Uh, no. I definitely don’t know everything. And another courtesy warning, I definitely don’t know everything about cleaning,” I said, remembering all of the junk I’d left lying around this morning. I inwardly cringed when I opened the door for her.
Her head swiveled around, like she was studying everything. She walked delicately past the desk that had my laptop, a few books, and my riding gear thrown on top. Then she navigated around a pile of clothes to get to the window. Her fingers peeled back the dark sheet to look outside. This time the view was the grounds behind the event house.
“Sorry about the mess,” I said, picking up the pile of clothes and tossing them into my closet.
“Don’t worry about it,” she replied, letting the sheet slip from her fingers. “It’s your room, not mine.” She looked down and grabbed an empty beer bottle from beside my bed, tipping it toward me with her head tilted. “Nightcap?”
“Sometimes,” I admitted with a grin then took the bottle from her and tossed it into the trash can by the desk.
“So what is it? Problems sleeping?” she asked, taking my hand in hers and staring up into my eyes.
I turned my head toward the ceiling, unsure of what to tell her, then took a breath and dropped my face to look at her again. “When I have a lot on my mind, I’ll have a couple. Do you drink?”
She licked her lips, smiled, and leaned closer to me. “I’ve been to my share of parties. Do you prefer to drink alone?” she asked, pulling my hand to her waist then running her hand up my arm.
I stared down at her, watching her chest rise and fall shallowly under her brown tank top. God, she is beautiful. Specks of light glinted on her shiny black hair, like they were moving to the beat of a song I could listen to forever. Her eyelashes fluttered with a blink. I slid my hand under the rim of her shirt, gripping her waist tighter, feeling the softness of her skin under the tips of my fingers. I closed my eyes for a moment and breathed her scent in now that it wasn’t masked with the smell from the tunnel’s damp dirt. “I’m usually alone.”
Her eyes squinted, considering my answer, then she ran her other hand up my chest while her inquisitive eyes remained focused on mine. “I’m guessing it’s by choice, otherwise I’d have a hard time believing it.”
“Now you’re the one who knows everything.”
She tipped her chin higher, elongating her neck. “Is there something I should know? Are you a reclusive hermit who likes to prey on girls afraid of dark basements?”
“Not quite,” I said with a laugh, then placed my other hand on her waist, pulling her closer yet. “I used to hang out with some people who started traveling a road I refused to take. It’s a road both of us are familiar with. Unfortunately, someone paid the biggest price, and I decided not to be around any of it anymore.”
“I heard about that,” she said calmly.
“You did, huh? I’m actually surprised. It hasn’t been the latest news for a while.”
She moved to sit on my bed so I sat beside her. “When I fainted Monday, some people thought the Tylenol I took was something else. The nurse questioned me then explained the school’s self-medicating issues.”
“Ms. Mitchell,” I said. “She would know. What did she tell you?” I asked leaning back onto my elbows.
She folded her leg and pivoted her body to face me. “She told me about Harper and how you were close to her. I’m really sorry.”
I sat up again and looked over at my desk to the tiny frame with an old picture of Harper and me standing together in fron
t of the middle school. Her brown hair was short the first year we’d met, chopped above her shoulders. She was giving me bunny ears for my grandfather’s amusement behind the camera.
I looked back at LJ. “Thanks. She was the good friend I’d needed when I first moved here. She pulled me into her group, who had lived here their whole lives. I was floored by that. Not many other people were willing to talk to the new kid. Even before we started going out in eighth grade, we’d bike to each other’s houses or get dropped off. If we got bored, we’d steal a couple of beers while we hung out here, or at her parents’ house. No big deal. I look back on the progression now and I should’ve known, you know? I’d seen so much of it in my own life that I should’ve recognized it earlier.
“Freshman year started and that’s when I finally noticed. She wasn’t as lively; she was growing more irritable around me. Emily came to our school that year and Harper scooped her up, not knowing or not caring that she was a popularity leech. Around the same time, Harper started hanging out with a group of seniors that were known for their parties. The rest of our crowd did too─Emily included. Things just got worse after that. The last time I saw her alive was our freshman homecoming dance. She begged me to go to that stupid dance, and the whole night I got to watch her trip out on some hybrid drug that she even tried to push on me. She knew my history and she didn’t give a damn,” I said, shaking my head. LJ leaned forward and ran her hand over my arm. “Later, we were out in the parking lot, waiting for some friends to drive us home. Emily begged Harper to go to an after-party. I was already pissed by then so I gave her an ultimatum: go and we’re done.
“Just like that it was over and they were off to the party. Emily called me three hours later and told me Harper had taken even more pills at the party and was rushed to the hospital. I talked to the cops and her parents the next day. After hearing a rumor that the party host was the one who gave her the pills, I hunted him down. He was a senior from another school. I’m pretty sure I broke his nose and at least one of his ribs before he took off. He landed a couple of useless hits, but was more concerned with getting away, possibly because he was carrying. I’m grateful I was scrawnier then; otherwise, I might’ve killed him. And the messed up part was I knew it wasn’t his fault. Harper did it all to herself. But I couldn’t handle that. The funeral was the following week. There wasn’t enough evidence to bust anyone for her death. The school sat up and took notice after that.”
