The Restorer

by Amanda Stevens

  TWENTY-SIX

  Was I dead?

  I lay sprawled in complete darkness, dazed, breathless, the taste of blood in my mouth.

  “Amelia!”

  Devlin’s voice penetrated the fog. With an effort, I sat up, rubbing the back of my head, gingerly testing my arms and legs.

  “Amelia, can you hear me?”

  “Yes. Yes! I’m down here!” I said excitedly and quite unnecessarily. “I can’t see anything. It’s pitch-black.”

  “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

  I shook my head, clearing away cobwebs. And other cobwebs.

  “I think I’m okay.” I got up slowly, aware now of the sting in my palms and my knees, the bruised ache along my right hip bone. A sharp pain at the base of my skull. And still that metallic taste of blood in my mouth where I bit my tongue.

  I felt in my pocket for my cell phone. That would have provided a little light, but I’d left it in my bag. Wobbling forward in the dark, I touched the wall. It was cold and damp, a little slimy. I drew back my hand in disgust.

  As my mind cleared and my senses regrouped, panic set in. What was this place? And how the devil was I going to get out?

  I lifted my head and stared up into Devlin’s flashlight beam. It flicked over me, raked the space around me, then came back to me.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” he called down.

  “Yes. Nothing’s broken, apparently.” I took a breath to steady my nerves. The air smelled musty, like a dank cellar. “Can you get me out of here?”

  “Yes. But you’ll have to hold tight while I call for help. Just hang on, okay?”

  The light momentarily vanished.

  “Wait!”

  Devlin reappeared over the edge of the vault. “I have to make a call. Get some people out here…”

  “I know. It’s just…”

  “I’ll drop my flashlight down to you. Be ready to catch it.”

  I moved into place.

  “On three. One…two…three…”

  The light fell toward me, beam straight up. I caught it, fumbled it, then finally had the metal case in my grip.

  “I’ll be right back,” Devlin called down. “Just hang tight.”

  He was gone an eternity.

  But now that I had the flashlight and the relief that I’d managed to escape serious injury, some of my excitement returned. Turning, I brandished the beam across the space, taking stock of my surroundings. More brick walls. More brick floors. Cobwebs glistening like cotton candy from every corner.

  On the wall facing the opening, large symbols had been painted on the brick. I saw an anchor, a compass, a broken wheel. All common gravestone symbols.

  Below the images was another opening, just large enough for a person to crawl through. I wondered if it led to a tunnel and eventually to freedom.

  As I angled the light through the hole, something skittered across the floor and disappeared over the edge of the bricks.

  I jumped back, breathing hard.

  A rat. Just a rat.

  Scurrying away from the opening, I moved the light back over the symbols. God only knew how old they were or how long it had been since anyone else had seen them.

  It was an exciting find, but the place was starting to get to me. There was something about that hole—apart from the rat—that worried me. If it led to freedom, it could also lead someone here to this chamber. To me. I felt like a sitting duck.

  I’d been backing steadily away from the opening, crisscrossing the light over the rest of the space, but now I froze as my legs bumped into something that clanged as it scraped against the floor. Whirling, I splashed the light over the object, and then let out a breath of relief. Someone had set a folding metal chair in the center of the room.

  An odd place for it, I thought. And it made me think that maybe it hadn’t been so long after all since someone else had been down there.

  What would one see from that seat?

  I stepped behind the chair and played the light along the facing wall. Nothing there.

  Slowly, I moved the beam up the wall and over the ceiling. The chamber was supported by old wooden beams, and as the light penetrated the gloom, I once again saw the gleam of something metallic.

  I steadied the light on the ceiling until I realized what I was looking at. A series of chains and pulleys had been suspended from a ceiling joist. Bolted to the ends of the chains were leg irons.

  The shackles open… And now blessed sleep.

  “Devlin?”

  No answer.

  “John!”

  I heard a scrambling sound, then his voice. “What is it?”

  “Can you see this?” I moved the light up and down the chains, then angled the beam over the pulley.

  “Not from here, I can’t. What is it?”

  I drew a breath. “Chains with shackles hanging from the ceiling. A pulley. Some other kind of device.”

  He said something then that I couldn’t understand.

  I stared and stared at those chains. “This is where he brought them, isn’t it?” I hated the tremor in my voice, but it would have taken someone far stronger than I not to react. “This is where he did it.”

  Devlin must have sensed I was very close to the edge. Who wouldn’t be? He said in a soothing tone, “He’s not there now. No one’s down there with you. You’re safe.”

  I could process nothing beyond the frantic drumming of my heart. “I need to get out of here.”

  “We’ll have you out in no time. Take a deep breath and try to relax. You’re an archaeologist, remember? You live for this stuff.”

  “Not anymore I don’t.”

  “Stay calm. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  I did as he advised and drew a deep breath. “Just…don’t leave me, okay?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “You’re my eyes right now. Tell me what else you see.”

  I knew he was trying to distract me and I appreciated the effort enough to play along. “The floors and walls are brick. The support beams are wooden.” I turned in a slow circle. “There’s an opening in the wall facing you. I think it leads to a tunnel.” Another way out, another way in. I shuddered. “Someone has painted symbols on one of the walls.”

  “What kind of symbols?”

  “Gravestone art. I think they may have been used in the same way that quilt patterns and song lyrics were used in the Underground Railroad days. A broken wheel by land, an anchor by sea…”

  “What else?”

  “You wouldn’t believe how thick some of the cobwebs are.” I aimed the light toward an area I had yet to explore. “They’re like cotton gauze in the corners, but they’ve been cleared away in the center of the chamber.”

  The beam probed through the fibers, into the darkest recesses of the room. I felt something on my arm and extended it in front of me. A spider as big and thick as a fist inched its way up my shoulder.

  I was so startled and my nerves already so fragile that I screamed as I flung it away. Stumbling back, I tripped over the chair and lost my footing. The flashlight banged against the brick floor and went out.

  I held my breath as the cold darkness settled over me. Then a loud thud sounded behind me and I whirled.

  “Amelia?” Devlin called softly.

  He was in the chamber with me. He’d just dropped twenty feet into total blackness when he heard my scream.

  Whoa.

  “I’m here.” Maybe it was my imagination, but I could have sworn I felt warmth emanating from his body, pulling me like a magnet. Arms outstretched, I moved toward him. When we made contact, he put his hands on my shoulders and brought his face down to mine.

  “Are you all right? What happened?”

  “I saw a spider on my arm and panicked.” Already I was reacting to his nearness. “Did I happen to mention that I have a mild case of arachnophobia?”

  “And yet you thought it a good idea to crawl through a bunch of spiderwebs?”

  “I norma
lly have it under control,” I said. “But the hairy ones always make me lose it.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “Anyway, thank you for leaping to my rescue. I can’t believe you did that.”

  He was silent for a moment. “When you screamed…”

  The slight hesitation in his voice quickened my pulse. He’d thought I was in danger and had come immediately to my aid, without regard to life or limb. That was…powerful.

  It was also his job, but I chose not to look at it that way. My first assessment was more in keeping with my romantic views.

  “I dropped my flashlight,” I said, because I needed to say something and I couldn’t share what was really on my mind at that moment.

  “Did it break?”

  “I don’t think so. I heard it roll over that way.” Which was not at all helpful since he couldn’t see where I pointed.

  I heard the sound of striking flint and then a flame danced between us. His face looked pale and a little ghoulish in the flickering light. I’d never seen a more beautiful sight.

  He peered at me through the shadows. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. I completely overreacted. It was stupid.”

  “Not so stupid. Not in this place.” He glanced around. “Where did you drop the flashlight?”

  “Over there.”

  “I see it.” He bent to pick it up, then held the lighter out to me. “Here, hold this.”

  I obliged, lifting the flame high enough so that he could see to unscrew the glass, tighten the bulb and then put the housing back together. A battery adjustment, a couple of taps against his palm and the light sputtered on.

  Releasing the thumbwheel, I let the flame die and handed the lighter back to Devlin. It was ornate and heavy and looked quite old, from what I could see of it. “I didn’t know anyone used these anymore.”

  “It belonged to my father. I’ve carried it around for years.”

  “For good luck?”

  “It’s just a keepsake,” he said. “Nothing more.”

  But as he pocketed the lighter, I was reminded of the amulets he said Mariama had worn to bring good luck and the stone from Rosehill that hung from my neck. We all had our gris-gris, our placebos. Even Devlin, whether he would admit it or not.

  He held the flashlight shoulder-high, sweeping the beam up and out as he surveyed our temporary prison. I followed the light as it played over the symbols on the walls, the cobwebbed corners and finally up and down the chains.

  Devlin walked over and stood staring up at the ceiling where the pulley was secured to a wooden beam. He tracked the ropes with the light until he found the end wrapped around a metal spike that had been hammered into the brick wall. The shackles were bolted to the chains, which in turn were secured to some sort of device that could be raised and lowered with the pulley.

  Devlin released the rope. The chains dropped and I jumped as the metal yoke crashed against the brick floor.

  Terrible images flashed in my head as Devlin lifted the device with the pulley and tied it back into place. Then he walked over to examine the floor beneath the chains. The bricks looked darker from where I stood. I felt queasy as I watched him squat and touch his finger to the surface. Then he rose and resumed his search.

  The silence stretched on forever.

  “What do you suppose he used the chair for?” I finally asked. “Do you think he sat there and…watched them?”

  “That or he had an audience,” Devlin said, so matter-of-factly that my blood turned to ice.

  He moved the beam back over the walls and I rotated with him. The cobwebs were so thick in places, the strands so tightly articulated that the light couldn’t penetrate.

  Devlin swore and I saw his hand jerk. I thought at first he’d seen another giant spider…or worse, the killer. But the light was trained upon the wall, almost all the way to the ceiling. Through a gossamer cocoon, I saw it, too.

  A human skeleton shackled to the wall in the darkest corner.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The skeleton was bound at the wrists, not strung up by the ankles as Devlin had described earlier. I had a feeling that was important, but I was too shaken at the moment to try to make sense of it.

  There wasn’t much else to see through the webs. Bits of clothing. Tufts of hair clinging to the skull.

  “It’s been down here for years, by the looks of it.” Devlin shifted the light from side to side, trying to get a better look. “I’m surprised it’s held together so well. Maybe there’s more ligament and tissue than what we can see from here.” He sniffed the air. “But no smell.” He took out his phone and checked the display. “No signal, either. We’ll need to get a forensics team down here. And get Shaw back out.” He was speaking quietly, but his voice echoed eerily in the chamber.

  I had remained silent for a very long time because I didn’t trust myself to speak. If I opened my mouth, I was very much afraid I might start screaming.

  Devlin ran the flashlight back and forth across the chamber. “What I want to know is where all those flies went.”

  I hadn’t even thought about that. Now I looked at him aghast. “You don’t think there’s another body down here somewhere, do you? Or someone still alive? Someone…” Someone who is taking a long time to die.

  A week ago, I would not have been able to imagine such an atrocity. Now I felt a creeping certainty as I stared at that hole in the brick wall, that dark, menacing gateway.

  “I’ll have to go in there and find out,” Devlin said, and I thought I detected a note of dread in his voice.

  “Right now?” I didn’t even want to contemplate what lay beyond that gaping rift.

  “If there’s even a remote chance someone else is down here, yeah. Right now.”

  “But…shouldn’t we at least wait for backup? You said help would be here soon.”

  “It may not be soon enough. Sometimes even a minute makes all the difference.” The quiet way he spoke made me think of his wife and daughter trapped in that sinking car. “I’ve got to find out what’s in there.” His voice was hard, resolved. No talking him out of it.

  “Then I’m going, too,” I said, though in truth, I was operating more out of fear than altruism. I didn’t want to stay behind in that chamber of horrors. I’d take my chances with whatever lay beyond that wall. With Devlin.

  I thought he might argue and I was fully prepared to stand my ground, but then his gaze lifted to those chains and he nodded. “I think that might be for the best.”

  Shining the light into the aperture, he crawled through and I went in after him.

  On the other side, the space opened up enough to stand upright. The walls here were also brick and slick with slime. When Devlin aimed the flashlight straight ahead, I could see nothing but endless tunnel.

  The space was so narrow we had to move forward in a single file. When I glanced over my shoulder, the darkness behind me was complete.

  “I’ve been thinking about the timing of all this,” I said softly, as I moved along the passageway behind him. “Hannah’s mother said the last time she saw her alive was last Thursday. If her body was buried sometime after I left the cemetery at four on Friday and when the storm hit at midnight, then she could have been down here while I was up there photographing headstones. I could have walked right over where he had her hanging. If only I’d heard something…seen something, I could have called the police—”

  Devlin glanced over his shoulder, his face grim and shadowed. “Don’t do that. There was nothing you could have done.”

  “I know, but it’s a hard thing to think about.”

  “There are a lot of hard things in this world,” he said. “You don’t need to beat yourself up over something that’s out of your control.”

  I wondered if he’d managed to take his own advice, or if he still played those terrible what-if games in the middle of the night, when sleep would not come and his ghosts would not leave.

  We fell silent as we trud
ged along the tunnel. It seemed to me that we were descending, but I couldn’t be certain. The claustrophobic confinement and the utter darkness behind us were a bit disorienting.

  And everywhere, more cobwebs. I couldn’t imagine how many spiders it had taken to spin them over the years.

  “I can feel them in my hair,” I said with a shudder.

  “What?”

  “Spiders. They’re everywhere. Must be thousands. Millions…”

  “Don’t think about it.”

  “I can’t help it. You know why I’m arachnophobic? I was bitten by a black widow when I was ten.”

  “I was bitten by a copperhead when I was twelve.”

  “Okay, you win.” I ran fingers through my hair, trying to shake loose the unwelcome visitors.

  “I didn’t realize it was a competition,” Devlin said. “Should we compare scars?”

  I appreciated his attempt—feeble though it was—to lighten the mood. “Where were you when you were bitten?”

  “My grandfather has a cabin in the mountains. We used to go up there for a week every summer when I was a kid. I had an old bike I kept around to take out on the trails. The snake was lying across the path late one afternoon. I didn’t see it in time and ran over it. The body coiled in the spokes and when I tried to nudge it loose with my toe, the thing struck. Nailed me on the shin right through my jeans.”

  “Was it bad?”

  “Not as bad as you might think. My grandfather kept antivenin in the cabin. He gave me an injection and some antibiotics for the infection.”

  I started to ask if his grandfather was a doctor, but then I remembered Ethan had said that Devlin came from a long line of lawyers. He was, in fact, the black sheep of the family, because he hadn’t followed the traditional path.

  “You didn’t have to go to the hospital?”

  “No. A little suffering builds character, according to my grandfather. I was pretty sick for a couple of days, but that was about it. Your black widow was probably a lot worse.”

  “Not that it’s a competition.”

  “Right. Where did it get you?”

  “My hand. I moved an old headstone and disturbed her home and her babies. My fault entirely.”