by A. L. Knorr
The door opened a few minutes later and Basil invited us inside. I followed Ryan in and took the same seat I’d been sitting in the morning before. Ryan plopped on the couch as the headmaster went behind his desk and sat down.
A steaming cup sat on Basil’s desk. He liked his morning brew strong, the aroma of it filled the whole office. If I hadn’t been so nervous it would have made my mouth water. Coffee wasn’t available through the vending machine in the first-year lounge.
“How are we feeling this morning?” Basil asked as he pulled the cup and saucer toward him.
“Better, thanks,” said Ryan.
“Fine,” I replied. “Did you have a chance to review the CCTV?” I kept my eyes on Ryan but wasn’t rewarded with so much as a glimmer of fear. So, he knew we’d been recorded then.
“I have.” Basil took a sip and set the cup down with a little tinkle of china on china. “What it looks like is that you,” he looked pointedly at Ryan, “baited Saxony from the moment you walked into the gym.”
Then the headmaster swung his eyes to me. “Whereas you lost control of your temper and used your fire-power against a fellow student, which you know is against the rules unless it’s during sparring and its monitored. Is that about the size of it?”
“Could you hear anything that was said?” I glared at Ryan, irritated that he’d had the forethought to whisper.
“Only a few words here and there, not much to go on. Regardless, both of you need to atone.”
Only then did Ryan’s brow wrinkle. “Why me? I’m the victim here.”
“Don’t make me laugh,” I said, nowhere near laughing myself. “You started it and you know it.”
“You threw me thirty feet, at least. You could have broken a bone.” He looked properly outraged.
Basil raised a hand. “That’s enough. It’s not yet nine in the morning and the two of you have already worn me out. You’ll be serving your time together.”
“What!?” My heart withered. “You can’t be serious.”
Ryan’s expression closed up like the teeth of a Venus Flytrap. I couldn’t tell if he was horrified or secretly pleased.
“I am serious.” The headmaster folded his hands on his desk. “You will learn to cooperate. Find some common ground. Of all the students I have under my roof this semester, no one seems to have more bad blood between them than you two, though I cannot imagine why.”
“What’s our sentence then?” Ryan asked, voice flat.
“As it happens Mrs. Fairchild has come down with the flu.”
Who?
“The cleaning lady?” Ryan looked aghast.
I looked at him in surprise. “You know who he’s talking about?”
“I notice a lot of things that other people miss.” Ryan gave an arrogant smirk.
I rolled my eyes. They got a lot of exercise around this particular Wendig.
“You will clean the library,” said Basil. “Dust the books, hoover the carpet, polish the furniture. Also, you’ll dust and polish the contents of the cases in the victor’s hall and will ensure everything is put back in its rightful place when you’re through.”
My heart sank like a brick thrown into a pond. “This is going to take all day.”
“I’m not finished. Barring the bookshelves behind me, since Fairchild did them before she fell ill, everything in my office needs a thorough going over. You’ll clean the windows, the picture frames and the bell jars to a streak-free shine. If you break so much as a pencil, I’ll see to it that your penance includes the exterior of the villa as well. There’s a nasty crop of thistles in the back garden I’m of half a mind to have you weed out, so be thankful I’ve stopped short of that. Do a good job, and I’ll leave the weeding to the gardener.”
“Are we supposed to skip our classes to get this done?” Ryan looked as sick as I felt.
“Certainly not. You’ll be skipping dinner.”
My jaw dropped. “You’re going to starve us?”
“Nonsense. I’ll have cold beans and toast prepared, which you can take at five-thirty after your last class. That should fuel you nicely for your evening’s work.” Basil looked rather pleased with himself.
“We won’t get it all done in one evening.” I sent pleading eyes at the headmaster.
“Then you’ll repeat the schedule tomorrow and the next day, if necessary. For however long it takes you to do work that I’m satisfied with. You are dismissed. Should I hear so much as a peep of complaint from any of the professors about either of you this week, I’ll have you hoover every hallway, lounge and bedroom in the place. That’s over ninety rooms and will take you the better part of a week so I suggest you move about the villa like a couple of well-behaved ghosts.”
At 5:30, Ryan and I sat at one of the tables in the cafeteria, looking at a pile of brown beans sliding down over two slices of soggy toast.
“I didn’t think he was serious about it being cold.” I watched as Ryan took a first bite, wincing as he did so. “Is it as bad as it looks?”
Ryan swallowed after barely chewing. “Worse.”
I sighed and pushed the plate away. It was too early to be hungry anyway. Even if I had been, this plate of prison slop would have killed my appetite. Getting up from the table, I shoved my chair back in. “I’ll meet you in the library.”
“Why start in the most boring place of all? He never told us where to start.” He looked up, mouth full of another bite.
“What do you suggest?”
“Chaplin’s office, of course.”
I turned away. “Fine.”
I found cleaning supplies in a closet around the corner from Basil’s landing and carried a vacuum (a dinosaur from the seventies) and a pail full of dusting equipment and sprays over to the headmaster’s door. Setting the lot down, I knocked and waited for an answer. When there was none, I pushed inside, dragging the equipment behind me. Setting the pail on the coffee table, I looked for an outlet. By the time I’d found one and moved the furniture off the rug, Ryan appeared in the doorway. His gaze swept over me then down to the vacuum and back up again.
Sweat beaded on my forehead, my hair coiled into frizzy spirals and hung in my face as I disentangled the hose from around my foot.
“Didn’t happen to find a French maid’s outfit in the closet along with that relic, did you?” He sauntered into the room. “It would make this a lot more enjoyable.”
Snatching a rag and a spray bottle from the bucket, I chucked one and then the other at Ryan’s face. His hands flashed up like the greased rotors of a race-car, snatching them out of the air. Genuine surprise blossomed across his face.
“That was meant to be a compliment.”
“Either learn what a proper compliment is or keep your remarks to yourself.”
Ryan shrugged and strolled toward the shelf with the glass bell jars on it. Aiming the nozzle of the cleaning liquid at the row of jars, he let loose a series of sprays. Droplets spattered up the silk wallpaper behind the shelving.
“Not like that,” I said. “You’re going to wreck the walls. That’s antique silk. Take the jars over to the coffee table one by one, clean them there and then put them back.”
“Spoken like a true monarch,” Ryan said with a cheeky grin. But he did take a jar over to the table and began to clean it properly.
Little was said after that. I vacuumed the carpet and Ryan wordlessly helped me move all the furniture back into place. Tucking the ancient hoover back into its closet, I returned to tackle the picture frames. Now that the sound of the vacuum was over, I fished my iPod out of my pocket. As I tucked the earbuds in and the soothing voice of Billie Eilish filled my ears, I found it easier to forget who I was sharing this punishment with.
I finished cleaning the frame of an oil painting of the villa done in 1902 and moved on to a smaller frame that held three black and white photographs. This one had a glass covering, so I fetched a rag and spray bottle to clean its surface.
A brass label at the bottom of the frame had
been engraved with the words, ‘Tunguska Event, Russia. 1908.’
A handwritten paragraph had been placed in the bottom right hand corner of the frame, which read:
Photographs taken by Russian mineralogist Leonid Kulik in 1927. No impact crater was found.
The photographs were black and white and a little out of focus. One was of a forest that looked as though it had been swept across and flattened by the hand of a giant, all going in one direction. The second showed the gnarled roots of a tree that had been ripped out of the ground. The third was not a photograph but a black and white map of Siberia with a little red dot and a set of coordinates: 60° 53′ 9″ N, 101° 53′ 40″ E.
I wondered what had leveled the forest and why it was of interest to Basil. Being careful to mist the center only so that the spray didn’t touch the wallpaper or seep under the frame, I began to polish the glass covering the collection of curious images.
When a soft creaking sound penetrated through the music, I turned and removed one earbud. My stomach dropped into my shoes.
Ryan stood at the entrance to Basil’s secret chamber, which was wide open, his impertinent head already inside. His body soon followed as he disappeared from view.
“What are you doing?” I hissed. “He told us not to do the bookshelves.”
Ryan’s head popped back out, eyes bright and color high in his cheeks. “Come on, Cagney. He won’t be back for hours. Not until after dinner. I’m just looking.”
Throwing down my rag and setting the misting bottle on the desk, I went over to the bookcase. Ryan poked about in the hidden chamber, running a finger along the bookshelves inside, reading the titles.
The chill of fear weaved its way up my spine. “Get out of there. Right now. Do you want him to permanently assign us to housekeeping? Or get us expelled for good?”
Ryan ignored my pleas. “I don’t know why he’s got a secret room for old books. There’s nothing interesting or forbidden in here. It’s just outdated history titles. Antique encyclopedias, old National Geographic magazines.” Ryan pulled on the tops of the books and let them drop back down in disgust. “Science textbooks from the thirties and forties. It’s just junk.”
As he hooked the edge of one of the textbooks, there was an audible click.
I put a hand on Ryan’s shoulder and squeezed. “Listen.”
The soft whine of an elderly hinge issued from the rear wall of the room—which was little more than a closet—as a second door swung inward. Cool air puffed out and filled my nose with a dank smell as the secret door within the secret library groaned its way open.
Heart pounding, I pushed forward to stand shoulder to shoulder with Ryan and peer into the dark opening.
A tight spiral staircase only wide enough for one person at a time disappeared into the gloom. The aroma of damp earth and stale air wafted past our faces like the kisses of some long-trapped spirit. We shared a wide-eyed look.
“Well, well, well,” Ryan’s voice oozed. “A secret door behind a secret door. No wonder this little room is full of garbage. It’s a decoy. What is my dear godfather hiding down here?” He followed this with a toothy smile that gave me the shivers, and not in the nice way his twin did. This Wendig looked like the disturbing Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, a fable I’d never been fond of.
“Ryan, stop,” I whispered as he set a foot on the top step and braced his hands on the stone wall. “This is a bad idea.” Plus, I wasn’t interested in committing another infraction against Basil with anyone who grins the way he just had.
“You know you want to.” He took a step into the hole.
“I don’t, actually. What if he comes back to check on us?”
Ryan shot me a look of boredom. “Really, Cagney. I didn’t expect you to be so dull. Stand watch if you’re so frightened, but I’m telling you, he won’t be back until after dinner. He eats with the staff every evening at seven but before that he has a one to one.”
“What’s a one to one?” My mind groped for a way to distract him, convince him to come away and close the room, but he took another step down, dragging my hopes along with it.
“What does it sound like, you loon? It’s a private meeting with a different professor every day.” He took another step.
“How do you know his schedule so well?” Now only his head was visible.
“What do I keep telling you? I don’t miss anything. Now either stay here and fret until I get back, or come find out what’s worth keeping behind two secret doorways.” With that, he completely disappeared into the dark.
My stomach churned at the thought of getting caught, but there was no way I was going to let Ryan explore Basil’s secret place without supervising him. What if he stole something valuable? Worse, he’d probably try to pin it on me. He might even get away with it. I’d known about the first secret door already and, as far as I was aware, I was the only student who did.
Cursing Ryan under my breath, I pulled closed the first secret door so that if anyone happened by the office, it would appear we’d taken a break. The small room fell into darkness save for a narrow beam of dim evening light from a high, dusty window.
Clenching my teeth, I followed Ryan into the dark.
Twenty-Five
Once a Cheater
Fire blossomed from Ryan’s hand as I hit the last step. A moment later, as I stepped onto the uneven floor, I lit my own torch. The orange glow of our fires illuminated a room with a closed door in the corner, opposite the spiral stairs we’d just descended. Two skinny windows let in the soft moonlight of a dreary English evening and the artificial orange glow from an exterior lamp.
In the center of the room was a large wooden table with things scattered across it. Along the far wall were rustic cupboard doors and an industrial sink. The floor was hard packed dirt and the walls were whitewashed stone. An easel with a half-finished painting sat under a gooseneck lamp. On one side of the table, the corner closest to the painting, sat paint pots and brushes. Sketchbooks, graphite and charcoal sat in art supply cases left sitting open.
Ryan wandered one direction around the table and I went the other so that our fires lit the room in a balanced way.
“What a let down. It’s just an artist’s studio.” Ryan poked at a neat stack of small plastic buckets sitting on the table. He picked up a bag of what looked like gray flour and read the small label stuck to the side. “Plaster of Paris. I don’t get it. What’s he doing? Making papier maché puppets?”
He pulled a rectangular vessel with thick edges and a lumpy sphere-shaped recess. “What is this?”
“It’s a mold.” I recognized what it was thanks to my elementary school art classes. “You pour wet plaster into the cavity. When it dries, you’re left with the shape of whatever the mold is in reverse.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “I know what it’s for and how it works, smartass. I mean what does it make? The shape doesn’t form anything recognizable. It looks like a tennis ball with a parasite.” He ran a finger around the edge of the cavity.
I shrugged. I was more distracted by the room itself. While it did look like an artist’s studio, something wasn’t right. “With all the beautifully lit rooms he has access to in the villa, why would he want to make art in a dark basement?”
“Obviously he doesn’t want to have to explain what he’s doing down here.” Ryan picked up another mold and inspected it.
“Don’t touch things, Ryan. Do you want us to get found out? We shouldn’t be down here in the first place.”
I stopped in front of the half-finished painting and held my fire as close as I dared to illuminate it. Basil had sketched out with graphite what looked like a crude explosion. Chunks of flaming matter flew in every direction from a central point, flattening trees in an outward spiral. It reminded me of the black and white photographs I’d just cleaned upstairs, the ones taken in Siberia.
“We should get out of here.” A prickle swept over me as I turned back to Ryan. I froze when I saw him.
Ryan’s face was ghostly in the fire-light and his eyes were fixed on something on the table in front of him, the whites visible.
I suppressed a shiver. “What is it? You look like you’ve seen a spook.”
He looked up as if waking from a dream. “N-nothing. I agree. Let’s get out of here.”
He turned for the stairs and was halfway up before I’d even crossed the room. My heart skipped a beat as an irrational panic took hold that he’d close the entrance and lock me in. I’d had this feeling from time to time ever since Venice.
Bolting after him, I took the stairs up two at one leap, quite a feat for a spiral staircase as tight as this one. I barely noticed when my knee knocked against a step.
Ryan didn’t lock me in. He even held the door open as I flew into the headmaster’s office like I was being chased by a banshee, heart drumming wildly.
Sounds of conversation from the hall had us sharing a look of fright. I grabbed the dusting cloth and spray bottle I’d left on Basil’s desk and turned to face the next painting while Ryan closed the secret door then dashed to the window where he was supposed to have been cleaning the radiators before he’d snooped in Basil’s bookshelves. My heart had barely found something of its normal rhythm when the headmaster appeared in the doorway, looking pink-cheeked.
“How are we getting along? My it does look tidy in here.”
I gave him a weak smile.
“Fine,” droned Ryan, sounding like he was on the edge of dying from boredom. I made a mental note at how well the man could conceal the terror he’d so obviously felt a moment before.
Basil strode to his desk and picked up a stack of mail. “Don’t let me keep you from your work. I just came to fetch something. He picked up my iPod and earbuds and turned to me. “Are these yours, Saxony?”
“Oh. Thank you, yes.” I held my hand out and when he passed them over, I tucked them into the front pocket of my hoodie.