by J. G. Kemp
“And there’s paper all over the place,” added Julee, “and the drawers are all opened up and clothes are scattered everywhere. Why would someone just leave it like that? This place is weird. It kinda gives me the creeps.”
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Elliot gasped. The sound had come from the back of the house, from behind the swinging doors that looked like they led to a kitchen.
“Henry?” Ben wondered aloud. He popped up, jogged across the room, and disappeared through the doors. A moment later, his head poked back through them. “Come on! Henry’s found something,” he hollered and disappeared again.
The girls followed, and as Mary passed through the swinging doors, she remembered sneaking into the kitchen at her Uncle Edwin’s, with her sister, searching for food to hide in her bedroom, for when she would be locked inside it for days at a time.
There was Henry and Ben, looking inside the cabinets that lined the walls. The room was a kitchen. There was a long countertop and empty shelves and a sink overflowing with dishes. Copper pots and pans hung from hooks on the ceiling, and against the wall was a wood-burning stove, its doors left open, with white ash piled inside. A big knife lay on a wood cutting board on the counter. At the back of the kitchen there was an open door which led outside, the one through which Henry must have entered.
“Henry said there’s another house, down the hill out there,” said Ben with excitement.
Henry slammed one of the cabinets closed. “No food, of course,” he muttered. “What kind of ridiculous house is this anyway?” He leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms and stood, motionless.
“Well… shouldn’t we see if anyone’s there… at the house?” asked Elliot.
Henry scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Yes, that’s the plan, of course.”
Elliot looked down at her feet and tucked her hair behind her ears.
“Hey, come on troop,” said Ben, who smiled at Elliot and then turned and led the way out the back door.
As Mary stepped outside, the mountain came into full view. It seemed to get bigger every time she saw it, and its green color seemed to get brighter. It was so vibrant; it reminded her of the moss that grew between the rocks under her treehouse, or the slime that grew in the fountain in front her uncle’s house. A small set of wind-chimes, attached to the house just beside the door, rang clear, soft tones in the gentle breeze.
From the back door, leading towards the rock wall that surrounded the house, there was a narrow stone path. They walked along it, past the garden rows that were a jungle of shrubs and ivy, until, when they were half-way to the rock wall, the path opened up into a small oval patio. Around the border of the oval, at even intervals, were twenty-four knee-high stones, long and thin and buried so that they were sticking straight up. They were marked with the numerals one through twelve on one half of the oval, and one through twelve on the other half, and right in the middle of the oval were twelve stepping stones—two rows of six squares each—that were marked with the months in a year.
“I wonder what this is for?” asked Elliot, who was bending down, and running her fingers along the number nine carved into one of the stones.
“Looks like a druid monument or something,” said Ben, “like Stonehenge.”
Mary had seen something like this before, in one of the books in her uncle’s library. “I know, it’s a sundial!” She stepped towards the row of stones marked with the months of the year and stood on the stone labeled August. “You stand on whatever month it is, and your shadow is like the hour-hand of a clock—it points to the time based on the position of the sun.” Her shadow landed between the II and III. “It’s about 2:30.”
Ben nodded admiringly. “That’s awesome,” he said.
“Yeah,” agreed Elliot and Julee in unison.
Henry looked at his watch. “It’s 2:43 and 18 seconds, 19, 20, 21, 22.” He smirked at Mary and then briskly turned and continued along the path.
They all followed him to the rock wall, where there was an open gate, and the beginning of a dirt trail. From here, Mary could see down the opposite side of the hill they had climbed from the dock. Her eyes followed the trail, down, through a forest of dark green trees and into a valley where there was a long thin lake made by a dam at one end. The trail crossed over the top of the dam and ended at the base of a tremendous cliff, and there, clinging to the cliffside, was a tall stone tower. Beside the tower, built directly into the rock, were a pair of massive doors.
“It looks like a castle,” marveled Elliot.
“Yeah, and look at those doors,” added Julee.
“Do you think anyone’s home?” Elliot wondered.
Ben plucked a stick of grass and put it in his mouth. “I dunno.” He shrugged. “Let’s go find out.”
Chapter 7
The Trail to the Tower
Ben marched in front, down the trail, towards the tower on the cliff. Henry, a few paces behind, kept looking at his shoes and frowning. The ground had nearly dried but there were still a few puddles. Mary imagined each drop of water, called forth by the heat of the sun, rising into the air and drifting off with the breeze. She took a deep breath and savored the fresh air. Julee and Elliot walked alongside her.
“He sure is… excited,” said Elliot. She gestured to Ben walking up ahead. “He doesn’t seem afraid at all.”
“Who Ben?” said Julee. “Yeah… he’s like that.”
“Hey Julee, how do you two know each other?” asked Mary.
“Me and Wild? Oh, we went to the same school last year. Well, part of last year, he didn’t come until the end. And, we live in the same area, so we got to hang out a lot this summer. His mom and my foster mom are friends too.”
Mary listened to the crunch crunch of their feet on the dirt trail.
“If there’s no one down there,” said Elliot, “do you think they’ll come looking for us? Maybe one of us should go back to the dock, in case a boat comes. What if a boat comes and we’re not there and it leaves without us?”
Mary’s heart jumped. What if someone came—and took her away? Or what if someone was down there, in the tower, and they sent for a boat? She couldn’t leave, she had to go back to the house, back to that door.
“Well,” said Julee, “I’m used to goin' along with Ben. We explore old houses a lot, ya know, all the empty ones in Port Oceanside. I think he has like a map in his head or something. We never get lost. He always knows where to find the alleys and the holes in fences and things. My foster mom says he’s wise beyond his years. I’d trust Wild anywhere.”
Elliot looked nervously at Mary.
“Hey Julee, we’ll catch up with you,” Mary said and motioned for Elliot to stop.
“Okay.” Julee shrugged and then started jogging ahead, her backpack jingling. “Hey Wild, wait up!” she shouted.
Mary spoke earnestly. “Elliot, I think my grandma sent me here. It has something to do with that house.”
“You mean… you weren’t suppose to go to the Institute?” Elliot looked confused.
“I was but… I don’t know. Just before I got on the boat that attendant gave me a journal and said it was from Caroline’s Corner, and my grandmother’s name was Caroline, and inside the journal it said: it’s time you learned the truth, follow the clues. My uncle said my grandma was dead, but the handwriting in the journal is exactly the same as my grandma’s handwriting.”
Elliot thought for a moment. “You did look strange when you opened that package,” she said, “like you’d seen a ghost.” She looked Mary in the eyes. “It’s time you learned the truth about what?”
“I’m not sure yet, but I think it has something to do with my mom.” Mary looked away.
“Oh,” said Elliot, “where’s your mom?”
Mary shrugged. “I don’t know. She left me and my sister when I was 5. I don’t know where she went.”
“Oh,” said Elliot, “well… follow what clues… like The House of A
ndromeda?”
“Yeah.” Mary nodded. “I need to get back there.”
“Well, why don’t you just tell the others?”
Mary thought. “I need to know more first. I can’t tell them. Not yet anyway. But if there’s someone in that tower, or a boat comes, I can’t go to the Institute, I need to get back to that house.”
Elliot nodded slowly and suggested, “well, what if there is someone down there, and they have a clue, or know something about your mom?”
Mary considered this for a moment. “Well, if there is someone there, and they call, to take us to the Institute, and I run off, you’ll know why.”
“Okay,” Elliot nodded eagerly. “And if someone is there, and you disappear, I’ll just say you… forgot something and needed to go back.”
Mary smiled, and she and Elliot resumed walking. Elliot was so much like her little sister, Mary thought.
Soon, they reached the forest that Mary had seen from the top of the hill. It wasn’t like the forest by Uncle Edwin’s house, made of trees with big broad leaves that changed color and fell before winter. The floor of that forest was soft and springy, covered in layer upon layer of fallen leaves from seasons before, and in the daylight, it never felt dark underneath the big oaks and elms and maples.
This forest was different. The huge evergreen trees reached high into the sky and blocked out more sunlight; they were spaced closer together, and when Mary looked up through them, it didn’t look like stained-glass windows, but like the inside of a tent, with no hint of the blue sky above. The forest floor was covered in fallen pine needles, and moss, and ferns which grew knee high. It felt mysterious and ancient, Mary thought, like she should whisper, or not talk at all. She walked silently, behind Elliot, gazing through the layers of branches, marveling at the the great width of the trunks. It was much cooler in the forest, and she felt goosebumps on her bare arms.
“Oops,” Elliot blurted out as she stumbled forward. “Watch out for this big tree root, it blends right in with the trail, you can hardly see it.”
Mary carefully stepped over the root and then looked up and saw daylight, and water, through the trees ahead. The forest ended at the shore of the lake, but the path continued on, along the top of the dam, to the stone tower. Henry was staring up at it, while Ben and Julee were leaning out, over the edge of the dam, looking at the valley below.
“It must be hundreds of feet down,” Ben whispered as Elliot and Mary arrived.
The place had an eerie feeling to it, Mary thought. They were dwarfed by the huge cliffs on one side and the forest trees on the other. The roaring river resounded in the valley, far below, and the wind whistled against the barren stone towers that stood before them. Mary was no longer worried about someone being at the house, she knew the tower was empty—she could feel it.
No one shouted. Unlike the House of Andromeda, overgrown with ivy and weeds, this place was lifeless—barren and empty and lifeless. There were no ferns or grasses or bushes or moss, just stone and dirt, and the remnants of birds’ nests in cracks under the eaves and on the metal bars which covered the windows. A solitary magpie hopped from shingle to shingle high up on the roof.
“This place gives me the creeps,” whispered Julee.
“Yeah, me too,” added Elliot.
“I wonder what’s in there?” Ben pointed to the massive doors they had seen from on top of the hill, the doors built right into the cliffside. Upon their rusted red surface was imprinted a symbol, two enormous letters, ‘K & W’, almost as big as the doors themselves. The door imprinted with the letter ‘K’ was cracked open. Mary could almost feel the cold darkness of the cave within, seeping out of the crack, day and night, into the world.
“Yeah… I don’t wanna find out,” whispered Julee.
“Me either,” added Elliot.
Henry scoffed and rolled his eyes. “What are you afraid of, new kids?” He turned towards the tower and shouted, “Hellooooo!”
hellooooo… hellooooo… hellooooo… his voice echoed around them, again and again off the bare cliff face, before fading away into the valley and the rumble of the river below.
They waited… there was no answer.
Henry walked briskly towards the tower, his hard shoes clicking on the stone and echoing, like the ticking of a clock. He approached the door and twisted the door handle—it was locked. He scoffed and then looked towards the massive doors; and standing proudly, he strode towards them, slipped through the crack, and disappeared into the darkness.
Chapter 8
The Forsaken Cave
Soon after Henry had passed through the doors, a light turned on behind them, and he popped his head out. “See, what are you afraid of?” he gloated and disappeared behind the doors again.
“Cool… go Henry,” said Ben. He trotted forwards and slipped through the crack also.
Julee and Elliot looked at each other nervously and then they both looked at Mary, as if they were waiting for her decision.
“Come on,” Mary said, “it can’t be that bad, it’s probably just a cave.” And she marched towards the doors confidently, with Julee and Elliot behind.
Upon entering the cavern, the first thing Mary thought of was the mess of books and journals she had seen in the Forbidden Room, except this mess was not one of paper. The disaster before her was one of twisted metal, shattered glass, and splintered wood. Something violent had happened here. There were broken tables and chairs, bookshelves laying face down on the floor, frayed wires dangling from the ceiling, and shards of glass that reflected the artificial lights above. The cavern was huge.
“Computers!” Henry shouted as he jumped over a pile of glass and began lifting one of the collapsed tables which covered a flat black screen and a jumble of wires. “Help me!” he strained under the table’s weight. Ben hopped towards him and helped stand the table upright, and as soon as it was steady, Henry crawled underneath and began collecting the computer parts and placing them on the table top. “When I fix these computers,” he said excitedly, “we can use them to contact my father, and get to the Institute.”
Ben considered the computers and rubbed his chin. “They look pretty old,” he said.
“I can make them work,” Henry declared, as he dumped a pile of cords on the table.
“Do you want some help?” asked Ben.
Henry glanced up at Ben’s vest and cargo pants and hiking boots. “No, I don’t need your help,” he scoffed and returned to work, hurriedly untangling cords.
He’s like a young version of Uncle Edwin, thought Mary. She rubbed her arms—it was cold and damp in the cave. She looked up and saw stalactites hanging from the ceiling. The sound of the river outside mixed with a drip-drip-dripping sound echoing from somewhere in the depths.
“I wonder how deep this goes,” said Ben. He had walked to the back wall of the cave and was standing in front of a door made of thick metal bars. “Helloooo!” he shouted into the darkness. His voice bounced off the walls of the cavern and echoed back, again and again, from deep inside. “Sounds like it goes pretty far.”
“It looks like a jail,” said Julee warily.
“Yeah,” added Ben, “and it’s locked too. Look at these strange symbols.” He pointed to a large black lock on the door. The lock had a series of 12 unusual symbols instead of numbers. He grabbed onto the thick bars and tried to shake the door—it didn’t budge. “There’s no way you could break through that,” he said, “I’ve never seen bars so thick.”
“I wonder if it was meant to keep something out… or keep something in,” said Elliot.
Mary stared through the bars, into the darkness. She imagined large glowing red eyes staring back at her, and a forked tongue flickering, and the thick scales of a massive serpent, heaving up and down slowly, with each silent breath, patiently waiting for its cell to open.
“This place gives me the creeps,” Julee said, staring at something on the floor that was metal and had frayed wires s
ticking out of it. It looked like a severed robot arm.
“What do you think happened here?” asked Elliot who was standing next to a twisted pile of broken cages, the kind made for mice or hamsters. “I wish I hadn’t worn sandals,” she muttered as she tiptoed over a pile of glass.
“Look, someone was sleeping in here,” said Ben. “There are cots and blankets and pillows.” He picked up a pillow and fluffed it and threw it back on the cot which was pushed up against the cave wall.
“Ahhhhh” Julee screamed and covered her mouth. Something had scurried across the floor. “It went under there.” She pointed towards an over-turned bookshelf.
“What was it?” asked Ben.
“It looked like… a green mouse,” Julee replied.