Anna lowered her belly to the floor and wriggled forward until her shoulders were clear of the opening. She reached down to Donny, who took hold of her under the arms and pulled her forward. She carefully eased herself out, trying to fall as softly as possible. Leaning heavily on Donny, she curled one leg out of the pipe, hoping to catch herself on it when she dropped.
It might have worked, except Donny, walking backward while looking up at her and supporting her weight, tripped over something in the gloom. He fell back with a wet splat, and she tumbled out on top of him. He grunted, the impact knocking the breath out of him. The reek that immediately followed took what was left of Anna’s breath away.
The stench of rot was so intense she could taste it. Donny tried to push her off, but his efforts seemed weak. Anna rolled to the side, her stomach clenching. If there had been any food in her, she would surely have vomited. Donny retched behind her. Anna staggered to her feet, grabbed Donny’s arm and dragged him away from the horrid smell.
When the room stopped spinning and her equilibrium returned, she saw what had tripped Donny. A fat, speckled harbor seal lay sprawled across the stone floor. Its head and one of its flippers were missing.
“Joseph do that?” Donny choked.
“It didn’t do that to itself,” Anna nodded.
Donny took her hand and pulled her away from the dead beast. They worked their way around the curved wall. The key had dimmed even more since they fled the flooded cistern. It now only illuminated a few feet on either side. At one point, they found a crack in the stones, running up the wall and as far as they could see across the floor.
“Explains why there’s no water here,” Donny muttered.
“If this is another cistern, there should be a house above us, right? Or at least a basement?”
“Hope so,” Donny said.
It scared Anna how tired he sounded. “Are you doing okay, Donny? Is your ear okay?”
“Yeah…” he said, trailing off. He took a few steps before adding, “I’m glad you came back for me.”
Anna felt herself blushing all over, and was glad for the deep gloom. The knowledge that she might not have gone back for Donny filled her with intense shame.
“Sorry I almost didn’t,” she said, squeezing his hand.
“Almost never accounts for nothin’,” Donny said.
Anna was still trying to figure out what that was supposed to mean when Donny said, “Hey! Here we go.”
He held the key close to the wall. Iron rungs set into the stones led up to…well, she couldn’t see where they led, but wherever they went, It’s got to be better than here.
Chapter 22
This time, it turned out Anna was right. At the top of the ladder, the key’s failing light revealed a tiny room, just barely big enough to house the cistern’s opening, three stone walls and a low ceiling. The fourth wall was wooden and held a short door. The reek of the dead seal permeated their clothes and nostrils, but it was better up here.
“This is just like the cistern alcove in the other basement,” Anna whispered. “Except this one has a door.” She reached for the latch.
Donny stopped her with a hand on her arm. “What if someone’s out there?” he whispered.
Anna covered the key with her hand. In the pitch-black silence, they strained their ears, listening. Nothing stirred beyond the door. Nothing moved below in the cistern. Several minutes passed.
Finally, Anna whispered, “Let’s go. Let’s find the stairs and get out of here.”
She turned the latch and eased the door open. Donny put his face up to the crack and peered through.
“Give me the key,” he whispered.
She handed it to him, and he slipped it through the crack, staring into the opening. Then he drew back, looking up at Anna.
“What?” she whispered. “What do you see?”
“I think it’s preserves.” His voice seemed to tremble.
“What?”
“You look,” he said. “I might be seeing things.”
Anna cautiously pushed the door outward and slid the flickering key through the crack. As her face neared the opening, a new smell overpowered the stench of rotting seal, still an odor of decay, but this smelled more like vinegar and compost. Shelves lined the wall beyond the alcove. Broken glass jars slumped on the shelves and littered the stone floor.
“I can’t see much…” she said, “looks like it used to be preserves, maybe not anymore.”
She opened the door wider and crept through. Glass clinked and snapped underfoot. Wind sighed through the ruined house above. Silver moonbeams spotlighted patches of basement, accentuating the blackness of the places it didn’t touch.
To her left, crude shelves lined the wall. Directly in front of the door stood a heavy oak hutch, the kind of thing Anna’s mom had used to display her fine china, though this hutch was bare except for cobwebs and dust.
Thick posts on either side of the hutch supported the beams overhead. At the opposite end of the basement, across from the alcove, the support posts had collapsed. Floor joists and floorboards hung down, almost touching the basement floor.
“What do you think?” Donny asked.
“I can’t see any stairs. We might be able to climb up that.” She pointed to the sagging floor.
“No, I meant the preserves.” He stood behind her squinting at the glittering shelves.
“I don’t think they are preserved, Donny, can’t you smell it?”
“Let me see the key.”
Anna looked to the moonlit opening above the sagging floor, then back into the dark cistern alcove. “Make it quick.”
Donny snatched the key and ran it along the lower shelf. Anna stuck close to his little circle of light as he moved away from the alcove door. He searched the bottom shelf all the way to the far wall. Most of the glass jars had either fallen off the shelf or had ruptured from their contents fermenting. He found a few jars intact, but whatever produce these once contained had now become an unappetizing black sludge.
Donny started working his way back toward the alcove, searching the second shelf. Anna wanted to grab him by the scruff of his neck and drag him out of the basement. The moonlight and wind reminded her of her frantic dash for freedom, the night she escaped Saint Frances. She wanted out, out of the darkness and stench and echoes and stale air and the soaking wetness. Freedom is right there! her mind insisted, grab that little snot and drag him out of here!
But, he needed to eat. She needed to eat. Especially if they were going to rescue her girls and Donny’s sister. “Hurry it up, Donny,” she said, hearing the strain in her voice.
“Hey! Look!” he said, loud enough to make Anna jump. Her heart spiked so hard she saw flashes.
Anna wheeled around to face him, feeling dizzy and a little faint. She intended to scold him – harshly. But, when she saw what he held, she forgot all about the moonlight and wind, at least for the moment.
Strawberry jam, half a quart, still sealed. She hadn’t eaten today, hadn’t had anything other than fish stew, toast and porridge for five years. Anna slumped against the shelves, staring at Donny’s treasure.
If you eat that, it’s probably going to kill you, the other Anna stated flatly.
That’s the best way to die I’ve discovered yet, she answered.
Donny popped the lid off the jar. When he saw the crazy way she eyed his jam, he said, “Easy now, Anna, small bites, chew it completely, otherwise you’ll get sick.” He stuck two fingers into the jar and scooped a huge red glob into his mouth.
“Shut up, mom,” she said. “Give me some of that, or next time, I won’t come back for you.”
“That’s not something to joke about,” he said, handing her the jar, but he was grinning.
Anna crammed a glob of jam into her mouth. She had intended to say she wasn’t joking, but the sweet intensity of the strawberries obliterated every other thought from her mind.
She slid from her slump to a sitting position on the floor. Broke
n glass poked her bottom, but she barely noticed. It was as if the last five years of summers had been distilled into that single bite of strawberry jam.
Judging by the dilapidated state of the house, the berries had probably grown many summers before Anna had even been born. Whoever had put up these berries was probably long dead, but, God bless you! she thought, God bless you, whoever’s aunt or grandma you were.
Then the sugar high hit. Her stomach twitched and tightened, but didn’t quite cramp. Her head buzzed and her body tingled all over. Donny reached to take back the jar and Anna threw her arms around him in a ridiculous bear hug. Donny startled, then shoved her back, coming away with the jam.
“Geez, Anna!” he said, stumbling back. “I swear, if you try to kiss me, I’m not gonna give you any more jam.” He sounded as scared as he had ever been.
Anna giggled. She sounded foolish, was acting foolish, but she didn’t care. Something about the supreme decadence of that much sugar, of that much pure summer joy. She remembered what it felt like to be just a child – not an orphan, not a worker, not a head girl – to be somebody’s daughter, somebody’s niece.
“I’m not going to kiss you, I promise.” She laughed again at the comically worried expression he wore. “Help me up. Let’s see what else we can find.”
Donny offered his hand, making sure he stayed far enough away that she wouldn’t try another surprise hug. She didn’t. Together they scoured the remaining shelves. After a few minutes, Donny relaxed again, cheered by the sugar and Anna’s lightened mood. They passed the jam jar back and forth, as they searched, until it was empty.
“Do you think we should have saved some for later?” he asked.
“Of course,” she replied, giggling.
Donny started giggling, too. “We’ll save the next one we find.”
They found one more jar of jam, not strawberry, something dark like grape or blackberry. Donny wouldn’t let Anna open it to find out.
“This’ll be to celebrate, once we get my sister,” he said, then reconsidered. “Or for extra energy if we really get in a fix.”
“We are in a fix,” she said, still giggling. “You’ve never been in a fix like this in your whole life.”
“Well, it could be worse.”
“Donny!” she laughed. “How could it possibly be worse?”
“It’d be worse if we were completely out of jam,” he said and stuffed the jar into his coat’s oversized pocket.
“I guess that’s true,” she said.
“‘Sides, you’re gonna get sick if you eat any more right now.”
“Why would I get sick?” she asked.
“When was the last time you ate jam?”
“When I was nine, before I came here.”
“‘Fore you were old enough to remember how sick you get if all you eat is sweets,” Donny said.
“You’re cute when you try to talk like your dad,” she laughed, but she did begin to notice that her giddy lightheadedness wasn’t as pleasant as it had been a few minutes ago. It had taken on more of a dizzy feel. Her stomach felt…squishy, and her tongue and the roof of her mouth felt chapped.
Donny scowled at her and turned back to the shelves. Anna decided to help him search, and she decided not to eat any more jam, at least for now. The next two shelves held nothing useful except a can of sardines, which they gobbled nearly as quickly as they had eaten the jam.
The real prize awaited them on the top shelf. They almost missed it because the shelf hung six inches above their heads. Neither could see what it held, even on tiptoe. Donny tried to climb up the lower shelves, but the first one he put his weight on snapped in half, dumping glass across the floor. They both winced at the clatter, suddenly remembering that they were being hunted.
“That’s enough, Donny,” Anna said. “We really need to go, now.”
“There’s something up there…”
“I don’t want to be down here any longer,” she said. “We have a chance, right now. We need to go while we still can.”
“Come here, let me boost you up,” Donny said. “Grab the case up there, then we’ll split.”
Anna looked at the moonlight frosting the far wall of the basement, looked at Donny, then back to the moonlight.
“C’mon, hurry up,” he said. “I don’t wanna be down here either.”
Anna returned to where he waited. He made a stirrup with his hands and she stepped into it. She held onto the shelves for balance as he hoisted her up. On the top shelf sat a rat-gnawed leather case. It was roughly a cube, about one foot on each side. Anna grabbed the handle, but it snapped off as soon as she tried to lift it. She wrapped her arm around the case and stepped down.
“Was there anything else up there?” he asked.
“Just some hand tools, a hammer and a saw…no food.”
“What’s in there?”
“I don’t know,” Anna said.
She set the case on the floor, flipped open the brass latch and lifted the lid. When she let the lid fall open, the hinges broke off and the lid dropped to the floor. Inside, crumbling red velvet lined the box. Something brass glimmered in the velvet nest. It stared at them with a single glassy eye.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Looks like one of them pagan idols they keep digging up down in the Amazon,” Donny said.
But, as he held the key closer, they both cried at once, “It’s a lamp!”
Chapter 23
Along with the lamp, the case held a striker and a waxed cardboard tube of carbide crystals. Anna and Donny managed to wring enough water from their wet clothes to activate the crystals – Donny tried spitting on them but found he was running low on spit. Anna refrained from spitting – and within a minute, the lamp blazed.
The darkness disintegrated like funeral crepe in a firestorm. Both children shielded their eyes against the sudden brightness, then laughed with delight.
“Wow!” Donny said.
“You should have found that first,” Anna said, “would have made the rest of the search a lot faster.”
“You didn’t want me searching at all, remember?” Donny shone the light across the shelves.
“I just wanted to get out of here, that’s all,” she said. “And I still do. But I am very glad you found a lamp.”
“And the jam?”
“Yes, Donny, and the jam, and those horrible little fish. Now let’s go.”
Donny stuffed the tube of carbide crystals and the striker into his pockets. He moved toward the drooping floor and the patches of moonlight. “When we get to the orphanage, I’m gonna tell your friends that you ate fish heads,” he teased.
“I’m going to tell your sister that you peed your pants when Joseph grabbed you,” Anna replied, moving quickly toward their intended exit.
“I did not!” Donny blurted, racing after her with the lamp.
Beyond the sagging floor joists, the rock wall of the foundation had crumbled in a ‘U’ shape. The fallen stones formed a natural ramp out of the basement. Anna easily clambered over the rocks into the star spangled, moonlit night. The wind lifted her hair and blew through her soggy, tattered dress. Moon-frosted pine boughs danced and swayed in the restless night air.
Anna held her arms out, looking up, wanting to scream for joy, wanting to wrap her arms around the night and embrace it. Donny was running up the rocks behind her, bellowing that she better not tell his sister lies about him. It felt so good to be out of the pits and pipes that she really did think about kissing him…at least it would shut him up. But, on second thought, that wouldn’t work, her lips were smiling so hard she’d never be able to pucker.
“Anna, I did not…” Donny began, then sucked in a gasp so hard his ribs popped.
She snapped her eyes from the heavens to Donny, “What…”
He stood frozen behind her. Terror gripped his face. He held the lamp at eye level. Slowly, very slowly, he extended his other hand toward her, motioning with his fingers for her to come to him. Anna turned
and faced forward, to the ground this time instead of the sky. Surrounding the sagging house, six pairs of yellow eyes glimmered. Half a dozen wolves stood within twenty feet of the foundation. Saliva dribbled from their open jaws. Lamp light glinted off their wicked fangs.
Anna lifted a hand toward Donny, stepping backward. Her foot missed its mark by several inches and she would have tumbled all the way to the basement floor if Donny hadn’t caught her. They stumbled together back down the broken foundation and scuttled across the floor to the far corner.
As they reached the back wall of the basement, one of the wolves padded down the broken foundation, hackles bristling, shoulders rolling as it walked. The beast stopped halfway down the stones. It lowered its head to stare at them below the sagging floor, tongue lolling to the side, panting, watching.
“In there,” Anna breathed, pointing to the alcove door.
Donny inched along the wall until his back was against the door. Anna crept with him. She grabbed something off the floor, whatever she could find, to throw if the wolves advanced. With his back to the door and one hand shining the lamp at the wolves, Donny cranked the door’s latch with his other hand. He stepped forward, pulling the door open about a foot. “Go!” he whispered.
Anna slipped into the alcove. Donny followed, keeping the light on the wolves until he shut the door behind him.
“They were waiting for us,” Donny said, bewildered. “How’d they know?”
“I didn’t even see them,” Anna said, slumping against the back wall of the alcove. “If they had wanted to eat us…” Anna silenced mid-sentence, then whispered, “Donny, cover the lamp!”
He flipped the cover over the lamp’s lens, expecting darkness. No such luck. From below, buttery yellow light shone out of the cistern.
Donny and Anna crept to its edge and peered in. From this vantage, they saw most of the floor – and wished they hadn’t. Lamp’s, like the one Donny now held, illuminated the space. The dismembered harbor seal lay where they had seen it. What they hadn’t seen before, in the dark, was the macabre menagerie that surrounded it.
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