Hidden

by Shalini Boland

  ‘Couple of lightweights. Come on then. How about I buy you lunch in return for some driving lessons?’

  ‘Deal,’ said Travis. ‘But I’m warning you, I’m starving.’

  *

  Wednesday was the beginning of term at King George Comprehensive. Ben was about to start Year Eight and was pretty laid back about it, but Madison couldn’t help stressing.

  She woke up at six, an hour before the alarm was due to go off, and jumped out of bed. She dug out the most conservative clothes she owned – a pair of skinny black jeans and a red and black top, which she belted on the hip.

  That week she’d bought Ben a new rucksack, pencil case and pens and had even taken him to have his hair cut in town. He liked his dark locks fairly longish, but she’d thought they could do with a bit of a trim. She’d laid out his uniform the night before and now she paced around the kitchen, too nervous to sit.

  ‘I’ll come with you this morning. Make sure you’re okay,’ she said when he wandered, bleary eyed, into the kitchen an hour later.

  ‘You can come if you like, Mads, but it’s not a problem if you don’t.’ He yawned and tried to smooth down his hair, which stuck up at odd angles. ‘This is the fourth - or is fifth? - new school, so I’ve had enough practice of first days.’

  ‘I know, Ben. Hopefully this will be the last first day if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Yeah, that’d be cool.’ He sat down and poured out a massive bowl of Shreddies and milk, shovelling it into his mouth like he hadn’t eaten for weeks. Maddy took a small bite of toast and watched him. She would have the place to herself today (apart from Esther, of course, but their paths rarely crossed). It would be weird without Ben. Would she be lonely? She didn’t know.

  The school run went smoothly. Morris drove and Maddy sat in the back with Ben. They dropped him near the entrance and he walked into the large modern edifice without a backward glance. Maddy was surprised at how contemporary the building was. She had expected a traditional country school, but apparently King George (or KG as the locals called it) had won some multi-million-pound lottery funding a few years ago and was now a ‘state-of-the-art academy for the new millennium’ or something like that. It was all glass, steel and primary colours with light wood cladding, quads and atriums. Much more inviting than the mouldering red brick they’d gone to in London.

  Maddy couldn’t settle when she got back to the house, so she decided to go for a walk down to the river near the edge of the property. But before she was even halfway there, a cool wind started up and a hefty black rain cloud moved in. Maddy shivered and reluctantly headed back towards the house. As soon as she got through the door, she ran upstairs to get a jumper. She was freezing and she was bored. What could she do?

  Wandering into the kitchen, she broke off a few grapes and shoved them into her mouth a couple at a time. They were sweet and delicious and so she broke off a few more. She hummed a few bars of a TV theme tune and opened the fridge, had a quick scan and closed it again. Maddy knew she wasn’t really hungry and she wasn’t in the mood to read or watch television. Out of the window, the first few splats of rain landed on the glass.

  She wondered how Ben was getting on at school. For a moment, Maddy almost felt jealous of him and then she shook her head. No, she definitely did not want to go back to school, no matter how bored she might get.

  Her eyes rested on the little door at the back of the utility room that led down to the cellar. Maybe a little exploration would be interesting. She turned the iron key and pushed open the wooden door. It threatened to slam shut behind her, so she went back into the utility room, picked up a heavy box of washing powder and put it on the top step to wedge the door open.

  She’d already had a quick peek down here the first week they arrived, but hadn’t looked around properly. She pressed the light switch. Nothing happened. She turned it off and on again a couple of times … nothing. The bulb must have gone.

  As she looked upstairs in the cupboards for a replacement, she came across a large black and red torch instead. And so, holding the powerful torch out in front of her, she slowly descended the curved stone steps.

  The darkness made her blink and stare. She could hardly see her fingers in front of her face. The torch didn’t have a wide enough beam to give an accurate impression of how big the space was. It smelt musty and reeked of stale alcohol. Her foot crunched over something and she shone the torch down onto the stone floor. She saw glass - a smashed glass bottle.

  There were bottle fragments all over the floor, with puddles of sticky liquid - alcohol. The smell was pungent. The bottles must have smashed recently - the party! She realised someone, or a few someones, must have come down here and had a laugh smashing up bottles. Great. Now she’d have to clear up more mess.

  She’d get another light bulb so she could see properly. Maddy shone her torch up at the ceiling and saw the remains of a strip light. It was smashed to pieces, with bits of broken bottle sticking out of it. God, what a bunch of idiots! It would take more than a new light bulb to get that working again. She noticed a couple of long shallow windows at the top of the far wall, which, from the outside, would be at ground level. They were so filthy they might as well not have been there for all the light they let in.

  As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw that the cellar was a cavernous space with piles of crates and boxes stacked against each wall. Maddy walked towards the far wall, crunching over more glass and picking her way past boxes, piles of papers and other stuff. A narrow corridor lay to the right of the room and she walked down it, brushing away cobwebs which floated into her face. It was like being on a cheesy ghost train at the fair. There were some smaller rooms off the corridor and she peered in. All empty. She turned around and walked back to the main space.

  Picking a crate at random, she tried to open it, but found it nailed shut. She went for a cardboard box instead and rested the torch on a crate so it shone directly at the box. It was covered in an inch-thick layer of dust. Just looking at it made her sneeze. She pulled back the cardboard flaps to reveal scrunched up newspaper. Maddy smoothed out a corner and saw a date – 1923. She opened it out to reveal a wine glass. Not very interesting. She put it back and opened another box – just an old patterned china tea set. She was curious about the large crates though.

  She went upstairs to look for something to prise them open with. There was nothing in the kitchen or utility room, so she braved the horizontal rain and pelted round to the side of the house where she’d noticed a couple of outbuildings. Both were locked so she went back to the house, drenched, freezing and frustrated. Pulling her sopping wet jumper over her head, she charged up the stairs and bumped into Esther on her way.

  ‘Oh!’ Esther gave a small scream. ‘You frightened the life out of me.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m just going to get changed.’

  ‘Hmmm, you need to be careful on those stairs. We could’ve come a cropper with you charging around like that.’

  Maddy took a deep breath to stop the sarcastic reply that hovered on her lips. Instead, she asked Esther if she knew where the keys to the outbuildings were. It turned out there was a set hanging in the utility room by the back door.

  Maddy pulled on a dry pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and raced back downstairs, barely missing Esther on the stairs again.

  ‘For goodness sake, I need danger money working here!’ she called after Madison.

  ‘Sorry!’ Maddy yelled back up the stairs.

  She skidded into the utility room, shrugged on her parka and slipped her feet into her old trainers. A large bunch of keys hung on a hook by the door. Maddy grabbed it, hunched her shoulders and headed back outside into the deluge. After a couple of goes she got lucky and managed to open the door to one of the stone outbuildings.

  All manner of garden implements hung in orderly rows on the wall and a metal shelving system housed other useful objects - tins, pots, bottles and boxes. She picked up a large garden spade and thought it might just do the jo
b, but then she spotted a long black crowbar hanging on the wall.

  ‘Bingo.’

  Maddy and the crowbar made short work of the first crate and she lifted off the splintered lid. Something large and square rested on the top, wrapped in a thick piece of cloth. Maddy lifted out the heavyish object and unfolded it from its grey shroud. It was a painting, a portrait of a young girl from long ago in an ornate gilt frame. She had a beautiful face with long dark hair pulled back in a loose chignon. She stared confidently out of the frame and Madison stared back at her for a few moments. She set the painting down carefully on the floor, leaning it against the crate.

  Delving further into the box, she pulled out several other portraits of different people. Maddy looked at their faces in the torchlight and shivered. If this was her ancestor’s house, maybe these were paintings of her family. She could ask Mr Vasey-Smith if he knew anything about them. For now, she’d take the paintings upstairs where there was decent lighting to study them properly. Perhaps their names were written on them. Wow. She wondered what she’d find in the other boxes and crates.

  But right now she was hungry and actually quite tired. She returned the paintings to the crate except for the one of the girl which she brought back upstairs. She looked down at herself and realised she was filthy, covered in dust and grime. God, she’d have to change clothes again for the millionth time. Esther was a moody old cow but at least she did look after Maddy and Ben, what with doing all their washing and stuff. Maddy knew that when she put her dirty clothes in the basket at the top of the stairs, the next day they would be miraculously clean, dry and freshly folded, ready for her to wear again.

  Morris dropped Ben back home at four fifteen and Maddy was dying to know how he’d got on. She took his wet coat and bag and ushered him into the kitchen where they sat in front of the large cream range.

  ‘So? How was it? Did you make any friends?’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ he replied.

  Maddy pushed the fruit bowl towards him.

  ‘Not fruit, Mads, I need something proper,’ he pushed the fruit bowl back at her.

  Maddy stood up and opened the larder. She took the lid off a dark green tin with flowers and fruit on it. Inside, sat a round fruit cake. It smelt delicious. She tipped it onto a wooden chopping board and hacked off a large slice.

  ‘Excellent,’ he said and started scoffing it.

  Maddy cut herself a smaller slice and nibbled a corner.

  ‘Come on, Ben. How did it go?’

  ‘Mmm, fine,’ he said, through a mouthful of cake. ‘Lessons were pretty boring, but I met a few people. Seems okay.’

  Maddy knew she wouldn’t get any more information from him for now, so she didn’t quiz him any further.

  ‘Gonna watch some TV, Mads. Okay?’

  He took his cake, dropping crumbs all over the floor and made his way to the games room and the huge forty two inch plasma screen which Maddy had purchased for him the previous weekend, along with some games consoles, a couple of laptops and various other gadgets suddenly vital to life.

  Maddy spent the next few days down in the cellar. It took ages to clear up the broken bottles from the party and then, when she’d cleared away every last shard, she started going through the crates. It was dirty work. Everything was covered in a century of dust and cobwebs, and every so often, fat black spiders would scuttle out to startle her.

  The contents of the crates were fascinating. She came across more paintings, this time of landscapes which looked very much like the local scenery. She found bundles of postcards from all kinds of foreign places, sepia photographs and hundreds of letters. She would take some upstairs and read them later. The handwriting was beautiful, all flowing swirls and flourishes, not at all like her messy, spidery scrawl.

  Then, she came to the clothes - amazing vintage suits, silk dresses, bustle gowns, voluminous white undergarments, rigid corsets, bonnets, lace scarves and heavy wool coats. There were dainty dancing slippers, high lace-up boots and beaded capes. They had all been stored carefully and were in surprisingly good condition. She lifted out a gold silk brocade dress, nipped in at the waist and billowing out to the ground in waves. She held it up to her body, feeling slightly ridiculous.

  Maddy had never been a ‘pretty dresses’ kind of girl, but could feel herself becoming seduced by the luxury and sumptuousness of these other-worldly garments. She imagined her predecessors drifting around the house in their finery, like something out of a Jane Austin novel.

  They’d studied the story of Mansfield House at school last term and Madison had wanted to slap the heroine in it. Fanny, her name was. God, what a drip. Maddy would never have put up with half of what she had.

  Her English teacher tried to explain how different it was in society for women and girls back then, but Maddy just thought they were pathetic to just want nothing more for themselves than marriage to a rich husband. But then again, she knew quite a few girls who were like that now and this was the twenty first century. She knew she was lucky she’d never have to make the decision between independence and financial security - She now had both.

  Ben would be home from school soon, so Maddy clumsily folded up the dress and stuffed it back into its crate. She picked up the torch, preparing to go back upstairs, but from across the room something beckoned.

  A gleam of light, a glint of something metallic. She shone the torch at the far wall, but could see nothing unusual, so she walked closer, waving the torch around. There it was again. An elusive golden glint in the wall. She couldn’t get close enough to look properly. Stacks of boxes blocked her way.

  A few were light enough to shift but she had to get her full weight behind the larger ones. They scraped stubbornly across the stone floor. It was no good, she was trying to do this too quickly and there wasn’t enough space. She’d have to be more systematic but there was no time now. Ben would be home any minute wondering where she was. Maddy shone the beam at the glinting spot, just to make sure she hadn’t imagined it. Then, satisfied, she made her way back upstairs.

  When Ben arrived home, she told him about the hidden treasures in the cellar.

  ‘What, some old clothes?’ He made himself a jam sandwich.

  ‘Not just old clothes. Anyway, they’re amazing and they probably belonged to our ancestors. And there was this shining thing in the wall. I don’t know what it was though. I’m going to check it out tomorrow.’

  ‘Cool,’ he said with a mouth full of sandwich. ‘Some of my mates are going to see the new X-Men movie in town after school tomorrow. Can I go? Dan said his mum’ll give me a lift home afterwards.’

  ‘No, I’d like you to help me sort all the stuff out in the cellar.’

  ‘What? Oh ha, ha, very funny. Can I go then? To the cinema?’

  ‘Yeah, Ben. Course you can.’

  *

  Friday morning, and Maddy ignored the bright autumn sunshine. Instead, she descended into the dingy cellar. Now she had the whole day in front of her, she could approach things more methodically. She shone her torch across the boxes until the light caught the glint of gold on the wall. Or rather, it looked like it was in the wall. No, she couldn’t quite work it out.

  She dragged and heaved the crates over to a large clear space on the right hand side of the cellar. She hadn’t opened them all yet, but there was plenty of time for that. It took her over an hour to move them and now her hands were black with dirt, her arms ached and sweat trickled down her back.

  Esther would wonder what on earth she was doing to get her clothes in such a state every day. Well, let her wonder. Finally the far end was almost clear and Maddy was able to get up close to the wall.

  A chunk of mortar had broken away from the brickwork, revealing a gap. Through it, Maddy saw the glinting thing. She slid in her fingertips and felt cold, smooth metal. There was something there, behind the wall.

  Chapter Twelve

  1881

  *

  Beneath the surface, the roar of the river instantly mu
ted and Alexandre opened his eyes to bubbles and foam. He swam downwards and the water cleared. The rock he had clung to was indeed a stone column of some kind and he saw another one, huge and cone shaped. Then, Alexandre’s eyes widened.

  There below him was the cave, just as Havva had described.

  Could it really be the one from the ancient legend, or did this just conveniently fit the description? Set into pure white rock, four gigantic fairy chimneys rose up – two above the cave and two on the river bed, like unwavering guardians turned to stone.

  One of them must have been destroyed, for Havva Sahin had spoken of five fairy chimneys in the legend. The mouth of the cave sat low and wide. Alexandre remembered the words of the story and could not help but imagine the thousands of villagers waiting with their families, ready to walk unknowing to their doom.

  His lungs began to ache so he shot up to the surface and swam back to the river bank, ending up much further downstream. Sliding out of the water, he sat, trying to regain his breath. Isik joined him and Alexandre told him of his discovery.

  ‘I am going back down,’ he gasped. ‘I am going to go into the cave.’

  ‘Wait, my friend. You need to rest and you need to eat. Lunch was a long time ago and your energy must be low.’

  Alexandre did feel a bit shaky. He sat down and acknowledged Isik was probably right.

  Dry, fed and rested, Alexandre returned to the cold river and dived down as before.

  The cave was not deep and he found a narrow crevice at the back. Alexandre squeezed through and wriggled out into another water-filled space. He swam upwards, praying he would hit air soon. His lungs were empty. He finally sprayed up out of the cold water and sucked in a long gasp of air.

  He found himself in damp swirling darkness, a faint wash of light pulsing somewhere above him. Alexandre suddenly felt very uneasy. He could not see beneath the surface of the murky water. His mind turned to slimy river creatures and mythological monsters. He had to get out of the water before panic overtook him. He swam until he reached the edge and pulled himself onto a rocky shelf.