by Anita Higman
No one. An empty hall. No sneaking footsteps.
I shivered and continued on my way, poking my head into various rooms. A guest bedroom, a music room filled with strange instruments, a storage room. The library began to feel like a hazy mirage, leading me deeper into the unknown.
I turned a corner and peered into a doorway on my right. Inside the room was the guy I’d seen lined up with all the servants last night. The one who smirked at me, like he knew something I didn’t.
As I watched through the gap in the doorway, he polished the top of a chest of drawers with a rag, unaware of my presence. Casting a quick glance around the room, he opened one of the drawers and began to rummage through it. Then he pulled out a silver chain strung with a ruby locket, appraised it, and slipped it into his pocket, ever so quietly.
I stifled a gasp. I guess not all of Ivan’s servants were as straight laced as Miss Easton. Should I tell Ivan that one of his workers was stealing from him?
My thoughts galloping on ahead of me, I stepped back to make a silent escape. The floorboard creaked under my foot. Quick as a snake, the young thief’s eyes met mine through the slit in the doorway. The second he started after me, I whirled around and sprinted back down the hallway, this time knowing that the second set of footfalls was no longer in my imagination.
Chapter Five
Anne
Glancing over my shoulder, my hair flying in my face, I saw the boy rounding the corner at a brisk jog, his face grim. Before he spotted me, I ducked into a room on my left.
And I found myself in the library. Go figure.
Panting, I squatted behind a massive leather armchair. I heard his footsteps slow as he advanced down the hall, searching for me.
And what would he do if he found me? Threaten me? Hurt me? I hadn’t even been here a full twenty four hours and already I was being hunted down like a rabbit.
The footsteps paused outside the library’s entrance, and I held my breath, listening.
Then the boy kept walking, his steps growing fainter.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I stood and leaned against the back of the chair. My breakfast roiled in my stomach and I brought my hand to my brow, smoothing out my furrowed worry lines, identical to my mom’s. Suddenly, I saw a shadow block out the lamplight coming from an end table near the entrance. My gaze snapped toward the door.
The boy thief stood there, arms crossed. But he didn’t look angry. Just smug. Like he’d caught a little rabbit in his snare.
I hugged myself. “Um, hi.” Really? That’s what I say to the thief who chased me through the house?
He didn’t respond, didn’t even budge an inch. Just stood there watching me, leaning against the doorframe. Once again, he didn’t wear any sort of uniform, just jeans and a white T-shirt.
I began to fidget, running my fingers over the creases in the leather chair.
Finally, he said, “What all did you see back there?”
I opened my mouth but no words came out. Should I play dumb? It was probably too late for that. Should I try to be tough and scare him off? I doubted I was capable.
So I just said, “Stealing is bad.”
A smirk spread its way across the guy’s face. “Is that so? Are you gonna run off to your new daddy Ivan and tattle on me?”
A bit of anger colored my fear, bolstering me a bit. “Excuse me?”
He leaned forward, his curly black hair falling over one eye. “Speaking of stealing, I bet your mother is here for no other purpose than to see just how deep Mr. Helsburg’s pockets really go.”
My pulse spiked. “Hey! You don’t even know us. How dare you accuse my mom of being a gold digger.” Flying to Mom’s defense chased away any remaining remnants of fear. I slapped the back of the chair. “And who are you to judge us? Thief.”
The boy waggled his head. “For your information, Mr. Helsburg asked me to get the locket out of that room so he could give it your mom as a gift tonight.”
My righteous indignation sputtered out like a dying flame. “Oh.”
He smiled that smile again.
I walked around to the front of the chair and sank down into it, suddenly exhausted. “Well then why did you chase me like a blood hound down the hallway?”
Shrugging, he said, “I wanted to make sure you didn’t get the wrong impression from what you saw. Which you did. And besides, chasing you was fun.”
I scowled at him. “You’re sadistic.”
“Eh. I’ve been called worse.”
There was a moment of quiet between us. I swung my feet to the metronome beat of a grandfather clock. “So…do you think you could help me get back to the guest house? I’m not quite sure where I am.” I hated asking this punk for help, but I wanted to check on Mom and there was no telling how long it take me to get back on my own.
He rolled his eyes. “I suppose I must. I’m here to serve you after all.” He did an exaggerated bow, gesturing toward the doorway.
Growling under my breath, I stood and tromped past him. As we left the library, I turned to him and asked, “What’s your name anyway?”
He glanced at me through narrowed eyes, like he was wondering if I would somehow use his name against him. “Wyatt. And you’re Anne Knight.”
“How did you know?”
He took the lead, directing me down the hallway. “It’s the staff’s job to know.”
“Well, that’s creepy.”
“You have no idea.”
I shuddered, deciding to let that comment go. He was probably just messing with me. Right?
The boy Wyatt turned out to be a pretty good tour guide, I had to admit. He pointed out the different rooms as we went, giving some interesting facts about the history of the house. But when I asked him how long he’d been working at Belrose, he gave me a vague answer. I figured it must be a requirement for all of the abbey’s staff to be evasive and cold.
An ornate oil painting nestled in an alcove caught my attention. It featured a stern looking woman in all black, her hand on the shoulder of a boy seated in an armchair. He looked a few years younger than me. The faces were so realistic I had to stop and stare. “Who are these people?” I asked Wyatt.
He pointed at the boy. “That’s Ivan when he was about thirteen.” His finger shifted to the woman. “And that’s his mother, the late mistress of Belrose Abbey.”
I studied her severe, lofty expression. “Man…she looks like…”
“A bucket of sunshine?”
I sputtered a laugh. “Something like that. Do you know what she was like?”
“Not really. Ivan doesn’t talk about her with much affection. I think she was pretty tough on him. Miss Easton practically raised him since Ivan’s mother was always busy running the abbey.” Wyatt gave me a sidelong glance. “Speaking of Miss Easton, I should warn you that she thinks Ivan hangs the moon. So don’t be surprised if she doesn’t think your mom is good enough for him.” And with that, he turned to lead me farther down the hall, his warning ringing in my ears.
As we were nearing what I thought to be the abbey’s entrance, I saw a huge, intricately carved door that Wyatt hadn’t pointed out. “Hey, what’s that room?”
He stopped and glanced at the door, a mischievous gleam sparking in his eyes. “Oh, that’s just Mr. Helsburg’s office. Would you like to take a look?”
“Sure, I guess. If it’s allowed.”
Without responding, he pulled out a pocketknife and stuck it in between the frame and the door, right next to the knob.
“Hey! What are you doing? If you’re breaking in, it obviously isn’t allowed.” Where did Ivan find this guy? Juvie?
The lock clicked and the door swung inward, revealing a dark room. Wyatt reached inside and flipped on the light. “Come on. Just a peek. Don’t you want to find out a bit more about your almost-stepdad?”
The concerns I’d had about Ivan during breakfast resurfaced, tugging at me. What if Mom were making a huge mistake by marrying this guy? Maybe in her desperation to provide
for us, she’d plunged into remarrying too hastily. Did she even know anything about his past? Maybe I should do a little investigating, just in case.
I sighed, resigned. “Fine.”
Wyatt smiled, but this time it seemed almost genuine. Instinctively, we both glanced over our shoulders to ensure that we were alone. Then we crept into the room and closed the door behind us, my heart pumping, my hands slick with sweat.
The oak paneled office was richly decorated with giant tapestries, shadowboxes full of expensive-looking artifacts and weapons, and paintings with gold frames. A colossal desk dominated the room, boasting claw-footed legs and a chair that could easily be mistaken for a throne. Wyatt walked over and plopped down in the chair, propping his feet up on the desk. I shook my head, wondering how it was he hadn’t been fired yet.
I perused the room for a while, looking at the books on the shelves, studying Ivan’s memorabilia, opening the occasional drawer. Trying to get a better sense of who the man was.
When it seemed as though I had looked over everything—except for the locked file cabinets—I looked at Wyatt, who was still leaning back in the chair, his eyes half closed.
Placing my hands on my hips, I said, “Well, aside from Mr. Helsburg having a penchant for Faberge eggs and jeweled daggers, I didn’t learn anything new. Unless he likes to hide things in drawers with false bottoms, like in mystery novels.”
Jokingly, I opened a drawer I’d already gone through, took out the cigars that were inside, and pressed on the wood underneath.
It sank a little.
No way.
I pushed again, harder. Like a seesaw, the opposite side of the wood panel came up and I was able to grab it and pull it out of the drawer. I stared at the thin piece of wood for a second, dazed.
Wyatt had left the chair and walked over to me, his eyes wide at my discovery. For once, he was at a loss.
Then the both of us, as one unit, peered down into the drawer and saw what was resting there—a letter, yellowed with age.
Before Wyatt could snatch it, I picked it up with trembling hands, gently took the small note out of the envelope, and began to read it aloud. “My Dearest Celeste…there have been times I’ve felt trapped in this life. It’s as if I’ve been locked away in an attic room ever since I was a boy. I’ve grown up never knowing there was a vast and lustrous world outside that door. Then someone came along, an angel, with a key. She opened the attic door, and the boy, who’s now a man, saw the world for the first time. A life that he’d never known existed. You are the key, Celeste. But more than that, you’re life to me. The world I’d never imagined.”
As I read the letter, the blood drained from my hands, leaving them cold and numb. These words matched the speech I’d heard Ivan give my mom on the balcony. So it had been rehearsed. With another woman.
While I’d been reading, Wyatt left my side and sat on the arm of a chair. His face had grown pale and it looked stark against his ink black hair. His expression seemed almost…sad.
Before I could try to figure out his mood shift, I heard approaching footsteps echoing through the hall. Whoever it was would be here within seconds.
We leapt into action. Wyatt ran to the door, locked it, and flipped off the lights while I stuffed the letter back into the drawer and replaced the false bottom and cigars. Then Wyatt grabbed my arm and pulled me into the far corner, behind a floor lamp.
My heart slamming against my chest, I ripped my arm out of his grasp. “You think a lamp is gonna hide us?” I rasped.
“No, but this will.” Wyatt pushed his palm hard against the wall, opening a human-sized slit in the oak paneling. A shadowy passageway lay beyond.
I gasped.
A key clinked into the lock of the office door. It had to be Ivan.
As the doorknob turned, Wyatt pulled me into the passage with him, and clicked the paneling back into place, throwing us into total darkness.
Chapter Six
Anne
The air was close in the passage, like it was wrapping its blackened fingers over my eyes, mouth, and ears. Wyatt fumbled for my hand in the darkness and grabbed it, strong and warm. Normally I would pull away, but in the darkness I didn’t mind it so much.
“Come on,” he whispered, “there’s a light switch farther down.”
Our hands still clasped, he led us deeper into the passage, his other hand making a quiet hiss as it slid along the wall ahead of him to guide our way. After half a minute or so, Wyatt found the switch and turned it on. Lightbulbs positioned every twenty feet along the ceiling flickered and buzzed to life. In the sudden glaring light, a few black spiders scurried away along the wooden walls and floorboards. I looked up to see Wyatt squinting at me. I pulled my hand from his.
Pointing forward, he said, “Let’s keep going. The passage exits into the boardroom.”
As we forged ahead, I asked, “How did you discover this secret passageway?”
“A few years ago Ivan left out the blueprints of the abbey on his desk.”
We both ducked under a low hanging beam. “Let me guess. You broke in.”
“Anne, Anne. Always accusing. You should learn to have a little faith.”
“Says the boy who can jimmy a lock within seconds.”
I expected Wyatt to have a comeback, but he only laughed.
Pulling my long hair back into a ponytail, I said, “So did you discover any other secrets from the blueprints?”
Wyatt glanced back at me with a smirk. “Surely you can’t expect me to tell all my secrets. We’ve only just met.”
I rolled my eyes. “So much for a little faith. I guess you’re not going to tell me what you know about Ivan Helsburg.”
“Depends on what you ask.”
A little farther ahead, the passage widened. A stretch of several shelves hung on the wall, holding flashlights, batteries, tools, and other odds and ends. Veering to the side, I went to inspect the shelves, now determined to investigate whatever I could. That love letter had definitely raised a red flag.
As I poked around the dusty miscellaneous, the floorboards groaned under my feet and Wyatt paused.
“Hey,” he said, his voice suddenly filled with concern, “watch where you’re standing. I think that flooring might be rotten.”
I turned to face him. “What?”
Just as he was reaching for me, the boards beneath me gave way, splitting open and swallowing me whole. A scream escaped from my throat, high and piercing, as I fell into a pitch black abyss. My feet landed hard on a stone floor, twisting my ankle, before I collapsed heavily onto my side.
“Anne! Anne, are you okay?” Wyatt’s stricken face leaned over the edge of the gaping hole.
I groaned, bending my ankle slightly to test it. The joint moved but it was stiff and smarting. “Yeah, I’m all right. Nothing broken.”
“Let me try to find a rope or something.” Wyatt disappeared and I heard him rummaging around above me. I hoped that part of the flooring didn’t buckle too.
As the shock from the fall began to wear off, I strained my eyes in an attempt to see into the darkness of the room I’d tumbled into.
There was a stone wall to my right, but the blackness drank up the rest, leaving me to wonder what lay beyond. The room smelled musty and ancient and it had a clinging chill that gave my bones a shiver. I felt something skitter over my hand and I yelped, pulling my arms into my chest. Had that been a rat or a really, really big roach? I wasn’t sure which I preferred.
I craned my neck up to the hole. “Wyatt! Any luck with that rope?” My voice wobbled.
The rummaging stopped and Wyatt appeared again. “I’m sorry but I couldn’t find any rope. Do you think you could search for something down there that could boost you up? Like a table? Then I could grab your arms.”
“I can try. Although I don’t know if I’ll be able to push anything too heavy.”
Wyatt bit his lip. “Well, if that doesn’t work, I could string my clothes together to make a rope.”
My face flushed. “Uh, I think I’ll try your other idea first.”
A shadow of a smirk passed over his face. “Okay. Hey, head’s up.” He tossed a flashlight down to me, and I caught it and snapped it on.
What the light revealed made me recoil.
Etched in the stone of the close cell-like walls surrounding me were hundreds of tally marks, grouped into crooked batches of five. Counting something. And there were disturbing carvings. Pictures of disembodied heads with faces twisted in pain and crude drawings of people enduring violent deaths—all with eyes made of X’s.
Had someone actually been imprisoned down here? I could hardly believe it. And it seemed as though the prisoner had been driven mad. Could the tally marks be the number of days someone spent here? For my mother’s sake, I hoped that whatever had happened here occurred long before Ivan was master of Belrose.
My breath coming quicker, I stood, wobbling a bit as I shifted weight to my good ankle. There, in the corner, I saw a large wooden chest. If it wasn’t too heavy, maybe I could drag it over to the opening and stand on it.
Glancing up at Wyatt, I said, “I found something that might work.” I tried to keep the fear out of my voice.
He nodded, looking worried. My brave face wasn’t fooling him.
As I limped toward the chest, a giant rat—gray and mangy with a tail like a worm—scrambled out from behind it and slipped through a crack in the stone. I squealed, clutching at the collar of my shirt, the beam of my flashlight trembling.
“You okay?” Wyatt called.
“Yes,” I bleated.
Taking a deep breath, I gritted my teeth and covered the rest of the distance to the chest. Without allowing myself a moment of hesitation, I threw open the lid, hoping it was close to empty so it would be light. After seeing the horror of the etchings on the walls, I guess I had expected a collection of rat bones or knives or something demented in nature.
But instead, there was just a lone wooden toy at the bottom. A delicate sailboat, oddly preserved.