by Elen Chase
When we got to our destination we walked to the cottage, and the landlord showed us around and gave us the keys, wishing us a happy weekend. The weather was warm, the air clean, and the cottage was comfortable and well furnished. It had two double bedrooms with balconies and a large bathroom on the second floor, while on the first there were the kitchen and a big living room, connected to the entrance. As soon as the landlord left, Chloe said, "So, what are we gonna do with the bedrooms? I suggest Drew and I take one room and you guys the other."
"Eh?" I hadn't thought about that at all, and I had no intention to share the room with her for sure.
"You’re gonna sleep with me, Chloe, the boys will take the other room," said Sara, with the same serious tone of earlier.
"Ehhh... I don't like sleeping with other girls, especially an old lady like you. What do you think, Dan? Do you want to keep me company?"
"Do as Sara said, Chloe. This is not funny for any of us," replied Dan.
"You guys are so boring. But at least I'm choosing the room," she added with a smile, and climbed up the stairs to the second floor. Sara took a short breath and followed her, avoiding even looking at me.
When Dan and I were alone in the living room, he asked me, "What were you thinking?"
"I don't know that myself, Dan. I'm sorry."
"Sara hates Chloe, it's been like that for a long time. She's sharing the room with her to keep us from an awkward situation. You better appreciate that."
"I wasn't even sure they knew each other, but I should have asked. I'm sorry, really."
"Okay, it doesn't matter now. I'm way more worried about the villa. Look, I'm going to look for it first, this morning. I'll let you know if I find it and its conditions, and we'll go back there together later. Clear? I don't want you to come with me or wander there on your own."
"Why are you so fixated on this?"
"Because I won’t let you get hurt again," he said coldly. His tone of voice stopped me from replying. There was something strange in him that morning, but, after all, he was just trying to look after me.
Chapter 16
During the morning, while Dan was outside looking for the villa, I put our luggage in the room, and then took a walk in the nearby woods alone, since the girls were busy. Chloe had taken a professional camera out of her bag and had ran off saying she was going to take some pictures before the light changed, and Sara had sat on the terrace of her room reading a book, still avoiding me. I went back in a couple of hours and found Sara preparing lunch in the kitchen. I entered the room and sat at the table, hoping she would tell me something. Since she wasn't reacting at all, I talked to her first.
"Sara, I'm sorry. I didn't know before that you and Chloe didn't get along, but I should have guessed it. I was an idiot to invite her here with us."
She slowly turned her head to me, and without a word sat down next to me. Then she cleared her throat and told me, "Andrew, do you know how old I am?"
"Uh? We're about the same age, right?"
She smiled and quietly shook her head, "I'll be twenty-eight soon."
"Eh? Really?"
She nodded and said, "That's why she made that comment about me being old. It might be a joke for her, because she’s young and doesn't understand the situation I’m in at all. But for me, it's a burden. Just like Dan, I had to start working as a prostitute when I was very young, because of a debt left by my parents. They basically sold me to a sort of mafia organization. Then I was lucky, because Mama heard about me from some friends, and asked those people to let me work for her instead, giving them a percentage of my earnings and leaving something for me too. She gave me a house to live in, and just like for all her other workers, she really was like a mother to me. The sum my parents owed was unbelievably high. I’ve been working for fifteen years and I haven't repaid it all yet. I didn't even finish high school, and I never had the chance to make friends or find a boyfriend. My personality probably doesn't help either in that sense, but who’d want to get close to somebody in my situation? That girl, on the other hand, has everything. She’s strong, confident, beautiful, and yet she came to the brothel to work for us. I couldn't believe it. How could she think of giving up her freedom to shut herself in that place? That's not fair. I'm not doing this job because I like it!"
"Sara, I..." I didn't know what to say. I suddenly remembered her surprised expression when she asked me about my home and her curiosity regarding Uptown. I never knew how fortunate I was to be born into my family.
If you were leading such a comfortable life, why did you come here?
I consider myself lucky enough for being able to spend those years with you in Uptown.
"I'm sorry, Andrew, this is pretty childish of me, I know. I'm just envious of her in the end. That's not her fault. She is just young and blessed with talent; I can't blame her for not knowing how this world can be cruel."
"I am the one who is supposed to apologize. I am so ignorant too. I might have hurt you too, both you and Dan."
"Andrew, I like your honesty. It doesn't matter if there are things you don't understand, I think you’re fine the way you are. You brought Dan back to us, and since you came here, we’re finally smiling again. I'm truly happy to have met you. I was so worried about him, you know. Seven years ago, probably because he reminded me of myself when I first got to the brothel, I immediately got curious about him. Yet he was so strong, compared to me! He never cried, and he never said he wanted to stop. I admired him so much I eventually fell for him, even though my feelings never reached him. But he was always trying to keep his distance from everyone. Since you're here, I can feel him opening up even just a bit, and I'll never thank you enough for this."
"I haven't really done anything."
"You're a good boy. I wish you were my little brother," she said, smiling.
After our conversation, I started wondering whether Dan had found the villa, so I went out, determined to meet him mid-way; there I saw him walking back with Chloe, and they looked dead serious. I felt my stomach contorting for a second, looking at how close they were.
"Chloe, can you wait inside? I have something to tell Drew," said Dan when they got to the door. She nodded, always with a somber expression, and went back. Dan looked pale, as if he had just seen a ghost. Was it because of the villa? Or because of Chloe? Either way I didn’t like it.
"I found the place, but it's not what I was expecting."
"What do you mean?"
"You were right, there is no surveillance. But that's because the villa’s burned down."
The pain in my stomach got even worse than before.
"Burned down? Burned to what extent? You mean it's not there anymore?"
"No, it's still there. It seems the structure itself resisted the fire. But I doubt anything on the inside did. Anyway, we can go there whenever you want," he concluded in a sort of whisper. Looking better at him, I noticed he was sweating.
"I want to go as soon as possible. But what’s wrong with you?"
"I'm fine, just tired of walking."
"I can go alone then."
"No, I'll come with you. But I need to rest a little, let's go after lunch."
"...okay." I now hated the thought of waiting. I wanted to go check that place as fast as I could, but at the same time a part of me was so worried about him that I decided to be patient.
Right after we finished eating, I went out, waiting for Dan. Chloe started talking to me, and I was in such a hurry I was irritated by her presence.
"Drew, where are you guys going?" I admired and hated at the same time how that girl could ask the right questions with the worst timing ever. Since I had told the girls we were really just going on a vacation, she must have found it strange that we were leaving alone.
"There's something Dan promised to show me in the woods," I replied coldly, hoping she wouldn't ask more.
She looked at me again, like she was reading my mind. "I met him in the woods before, when I was coming back. He doesn't l
ook too well."
I knew there was something strange with him, but I just couldn't give up on going to that villa. "I'll keep an eye on him. Thank you, Chloe."
Dan arrived as soon as I said that, and we left. We didn't talk at all while walking. I was too nervous thinking of the villa, and he didn't say a word either. We got there after almost a thirty minutes’ walk. The first sight we got of the villa was from high ground. The property was huge; a three-floor main residence and a guesthouse on the outside, reachable by walking by what once was a garden maze, now a black route of dead hedges. Already from that distance, I could tell a fire had occurred. The exterior walls were pitch black, and all around it there was only scorched earth and burned bushes and trees. It was clear the fire had covered a large area, even outside the boundary of the property. A tall railing, running all around the perimeter, was the only thing outlining what was once the garden. We walked closer to the railing, which was visibly damaged by the fire too and surrounded by the yellow tape of the police, and we found a hole where there was supposed to be the main gate. It was big enough to go in with a car, so I guessed that nearby there was a path to go back to the main street by car, even though it wasn't visible from where we were. We passed through it, walking over the burnt ground. The more we moved closer to the entrance, the more we realized the extent that the fire had been pitiless; no door or windows, everything was completely destroyed. With my heart pounding from anxiety, I entered the hall. The inside walls were damaged, on the floor there were the remains of furniture, lamps and glasses, and part of the ceiling had fallen off.
"Be careful where you walk," Dan told me, looking around the hall.
"I want to search this place completely," I said, concentrated.
"That’ll take a lot of time."
"I can come back here tomorrow if necessary."
"Fine. But we can't stay here late today either, it's dangerous to walk in the woods after sunset."
"Got it. To make it quick I think we should split up. I'll go search the third floor, you start from here. We'll meet mid-way. I'd like to examine the guesthouse too, but today it's impossible. I'll leave it for later."
"Alright," he said. It was really probably all useless, but I had to try, at least to put my mind at ease. I was glad Dan was supporting me, instead of just telling me that we were wasting our time.
There were two staircases for the upper floors, climbing on the sides of the hall. Both led to the second floor, which I skipped to get to the third by the staircase on the left. Second and third floor reminded me of a hotel. Aside from the stairs I had taken, there also seemed to be a space for an elevator at the center of a long hallway separating the left and the right wing of the building. I walked through it, passing by different rooms that basically looked all the same, with little difference in dimensions. I decided to start my search from the closest rooms to the stairs I had gone up by, since I was expecting to find another staircase at the end of the corridor, to go back down. The first room, just like all the others on that floor, seemed to be a bedroom. I could tell in each one of them there had been a bed and a private bathroom. I moved fallen beams and tried to find any clue. After the first two rooms, I felt a sense of desperation that almost made me want to cry. Was I really going to find something? I followed the corridor through all the rooms of the floor, until I arrived at what looked like the end of it. Something seemed off, and I soon noted that there were no stairs going down, unlike on the second floor. Then a strange hole, in the wall that was supposed to mark the end of the passage, showed me that the floor wasn't actually over yet. I looked inside to find that behind it, a whole space was hiding from my sight when I first got up there. I had no way of knowing how that place was before the fire, but I was sure there was supposed to be an entrance to that section of the building. Following the crack on the wall, I found, hidden close to the corner of the last room, a heavily damaged security door. I passed through it without hesitation. There I found that the corridor kept going on. There were no stairs, but at the very end of it, there was another room. That side of the building was just a bit less damaged than the rest of the place. Rather than being burnt from the inside, it looked like the flames had reached it from the outside while everything was burning. The room was a mess like the others, but part of the furniture was still in its place. The remaining of a big closet and a vanity table suggested that it was a girl's room. It could be Shallie’s, I thought. I searched it thoroughly, looking in every angle for a trace left by her. After a while with nothing to be found, I was starting to lose hope. I fell on my knees and tried to think clearly. I know her. If she was here, she would leave a trace. I imagined her waking up in that room, sitting at that table, opening that closet. And then? How did she spend her day there? Was she always locked in? The security door suggested so. In such a hostile place, alone. I tried my best not to throw up the lunch from the disgust I was feeling. What would she do in that situation? I would go crazy. But she was strong. She wouldn't give up hope, for sure. She would hold on to something precious. Something to look at to feel at ease. If she had with her such thing, she wouldn't keep it where anybody could see it. She would hide it somewhere safe. Where? I lifted my head and looked at the room. Under the bed? No, only I could do something so obvious. It couldn't be on the shelves, or the bathroom, or the closet, none of it. Where? Somewhere to reach easily, yet well hidden. The bed slats!
I remembered she would often tie things to their hooks, and I would never find them. It was a strange habit she had. I ran to the bed and moved the black ashes of the mattress to uncover the bed slats. The wooden panels were completely destroyed, but the inside steel structure was still there.
What am I doing? I asked myself while searching, my hands black and scratched from all the beams, the ash, and the steel I had been moving all day. There is no chance for that to be it, it's almost impossible. Even if she was here, the trace she left could be somewhere else. Maybe she left no trace. Maybe she wasn't here at all.
Yet I was right.
I had been right all along. Shallie was there. She was there. Tears fell down my cheeks and my heart was about to explode, as I took in my hand the golden heart shaped necklace I had given to her on our graduation day.
Chapter 17
I have no idea how much time I spent sitting on the floor in that room, with the necklace in my hands, just looking at it over and over again. I took my eyes off it only when I heard Dan's voice calling my name.
"Drew?" he said slowly from beside the door. "Hey, I searched everywhere for you," he added, coming closer to me. I showed him the necklace, but no word would come out of my mouth. He looked carefully at it, saying, only in the end, "It's hers." I nodded and went back to looking at it. He put his hand on my shoulder and captured my attention again. He was pale and sweating. "Since you took forever, I searched both the first and the second floor. On the second there was nothing, but I found something behind the hall. Do you feel like seeing it?"
"I do," I answered, even though at that point I was scared of what it could be. "Are you alright?" I asked.
"Don't worry about me. I might have caught a cold, but I can handle this much." He gave me his hand to help me stand. "You're hurt," he said, his eyes on my hands.
"It's nothing," I replied, and we went down to the first floor. On the right side of the hall, in the library, Dan had found another small staircase hidden behind a burned down secondary door, leading to an underground floor. It looked like a secret passage. It was dark, macabre and disturbing, and we had to use the torch of our watchpads to see where we were going. Judging from the pungent smell and the terrible conditions of the stairs, which were cracking with every step we took, it seemed like the fire had started from there. At the bottom of the stairs we found ourselves in a big circular room, completely destroyed and pitch black.
"What is this place?" I asked, already imagining it could be the place where the sect held its “meetings”. The thought of Shallie dying there was driving
me crazy.
"Look," said Dan, walking deeper into that dark room on a path he had probably created by moving the rubble before, while searching the place. I found it hard to breathe there. The stench was way too strong. It wasn't just the smell of something burned; it was also bitter and stale, and I immediately thought of people dying in that place. We walked to the center of the room, to a long rock table with a seven pointed star inside several circles excavated in the middle.
"It's an altar," I said.
"It looks like it. I already took a picture of this symbol, but I thought you'd want to see it in person."
"Yes, what do you th— " Dan interrupted me by pressing his hand on my mouth and making a sign to shut up. As soon as he did that, I heard a noise coming from the upper floor. Somebody was there. Was it one of the girls? No, this place was too far from the cottage. We exchanged a worried look and Dan promptly grabbed my arm and dragged me under the stairs, where we hid behind some fallen beams. After a few seconds, we heard a man's voice getting closer.
"Yes, somebody will come to take it away the day after tomorrow. It's been too long already, the boss is losing patience," the man was saying, probably talking on his watchpad. He came down, passing right above our heads and causing the dust of the cracking stairs to fall on us. He lit the room up with the torch, and remained silent for a time that seemed too long to me. That's not a good sign.
"Hey, bad news," he said to his interlocutor, "somebody's been here."
Blood froze in my veins and all my energy ran off my legs. He was talking about us; we moved the rubble to make a path to the altar.
"Shit!" screamed the man, kicking the remaining of a broken lamp to the wall, right next to us. The vibration caused by the impact spread all over the room, startling me. A sound of surprise was about to get out of my lips, but again Dan covered my mouth just in time, preventing me from revealing our position.