There Can Only Be Six

by Andrea Levesque

  “Harper, shut up. Let’s just enjoy this for five minutes.” Valentina dropped my arms and paced over to the other side of the room, her excitement palpable. Her smile didn’t fade once as she shook her head again in disbelief. “We figured it out.”

  Valentina looked back up at me across the room, and I suddenly remembered I was wearing nothing but a sheer tank top and my underwear. My heartbeat wildly in my chest. “We did it, Harper, you and me.” She said, her eyes full of intensity.

  Before I could react, she crossed the room in a couple of long strides and shoved me up against the wall, her lips on mine. I felt my back smack hard into the thin wood, but Valentina’s hand landed behind my head just in time to cushion the impact. Something shifted slightly behind me, but I was too caught up in feeling Valentina’s skin on mine to care that we were undeniably damaging this old house in the process.

  We couldn’t be pressed together any closer if we tried, but that didn’t stop me from slipping my fingers into her hair and pulling her to me. I felt her hands slide under my tank top, and my skin burned under her touch. One of my hands fell from her hair and ran down her body, soaking up every inch of skin I’d been trying so hard to keep my eyes off since meeting her.

  I pushed away from the wall, my arms still entangled with Valentina’s. Just as her fingers started pulling up my tank top, leaving sparks of electricity in its path, a light chime came from the kitchen. We both froze, our lips slipping away awkwardly.

  “The phone!” Valentina said, eyes wide. She dropped her hands from the hem of my shirt, and we both charged for the kitchen. As we ran through the threshold, I saw a light forcing its way through grains of rice. Both our hands went for the phone, knocking the bowl off-kilter and spilling rice all over. My phone slipped out and clattered onto the table, the little apple logo flickering momentarily before the screen went black.

  “Shit!” I swore. My hands went to my temples, and I threw my head back, the beginning of a headache coming on. Valentina picked up my phone and pressed buttons repeatedly, hoping the phone would turn on, but nothing happened.

  We both slid into the wooden chairs and sat in silence. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore, the disappointment of both our failed chance at escape and, more importantly, our interrupted romantic moment finally getting to me. I slipped to the ground and started picking up grains of rice piece by piece until, finally, Valentina joined me.

  When the phone made its way back into the newly reformed bowl of rice, I called it a night and spread out my quilt in the living room, hoping Valentina would join me. It would take her a few more hours to forget about the phone and take her place next to me on the quilt, but I was fast asleep by then.

  FIFTEEN

  “What time is it?” I grumbled, rolling over onto the quilt. A banging around the kitchen woke me, but it was still dark when I opened my eyes.

  “4 am.” Valentina’s voice carried from the other room.

  I moaned. “We fell asleep barely a few hours ago, V. Isn’t it a little early?”

  When she didn’t answer, I sat up and rubbed my eyes, then noticed my clothes sitting neatly folded nearby. Valentina must have left them for me. Warmth flooded my chest.

  I grabbed my jeans and slipped them on, then shuffled into the kitchen, my cardigan tied around my waist. Valentina was pressing buttons on my phone, and my instinct was to reach out and grab it from her until I realized what she was doing.

  “Anything?”

  “Still dead.” She dropped the phone back onto the table and pressed her hands to her face. “Like we are.” Valentina was dressed in her clothes from the day before, and I thought about how I’d almost had a chance to undress her last night, how she’d started undressing me before we got interrupted. Would we have another chance like that, or had the moment passed?

  I picked up my lifeless phone, which was basically just a hunk of plastic at that point and put it back in the rice. I reached out to pull one of Valentina’s hands from her face, and she let me.

  “We have two hours, Harper. Two.” She dropped her other hand and looked at me with pleading eyes. “And since no one has come to get us, clearly no one knows we’re here.”

  I turned and peered out the window. “Looks like the storm is starting to let up. That’s good. Maybe the ferry will start running again later.” Or maybe that girl Mila will come back for me, I thought. Valentina pulled her hand from mine. The gesture stung, and I bit my lip to hide my feelings.

  “Doesn't matter.” She said, “Until we can use this stupid phone, we’re not getting off this stupid island.”

  I stood up and glanced around, hoping an idea would pop out at me. Maybe I should revisit that morse code thing again…

  “Ah, man,” I complained. “We did a little damage last night,” I said, walking over to the wall she’d thrown me up against. A little thrill ran up my spine at the memory, and I glanced back at Valentina with a smile on my face. Her head was in her hands again, and my face fell.

  “Okay…” I said, my fingers tracing over the ripped wallpaper. “But, it’s fine, though, since no one lives here, right? I don’t think anyone will care that we broke their wall.” I listened for a response, and when I didn’t get one, I closed my eyes, my chest tightening.

  I leaned my forehead against the wall with a sigh. Feeling the thin wall shift below me, I pulled back instantly, my eyes wide. I pressed my hands up against the space my head had just occupied, then moved them around wildly, catching bits of peeling wallpaper and feeling underneath. When I felt a gap beneath one freshly splintered piece of wallpaper, I followed it until it stopped. I froze then stepped back so I could see the entire wall.

  “Uh, V?”

  “Mm…”

  “I think there’s a hidden door.”

  “What?” She jumped up out of her seat and rushed over, eyes wide and hands moving like they wanted to grab onto something.

  I pointed to the peeling wallpaper. The area I’d slammed up against last night must have caved in a little because it tore at some of the old wood and paper that had clearly been plastered there for hundreds of years.

  “Look,” I walked up to it and traced an imaginary rectangle around the area. There was a tiny split in the wallpaper, cleverly hidden with busy floral patterns. I knocked on the wall. “And it’s hollow. There’s definitely something here.”

  Valentina’s hands moved all around the area, but when she fell short, she spoke. “There’s no door handle.”

  “Maybe it’s only on the inside.” I offered. “Or maybe there’s a latch hidden around here, or-”

  “Okay, Nancy Drew,” Valentina said as she started throwing herself up against the door.

  “V.”

  Her body slammed up against it again and again, and I felt the wood shake. The image reminded me of her brother, eager to save me from the air duct back at Wellsley Prep. But where Adan’s face was filled with fear, Valentina’s was full of excitement.

  I did the only thing I could do. I joined her.

  With both of our weights pushing against it, the door gave, leaving Valentina and me tumbling down a set of concrete steps and into total darkness.

  “Ah!” She yelled underneath me. We both lay there briefly, our bodies vibrating from the collision.

  “Sorry,” I said, rolling off her and trying to adjust my eyes.

  I heard Valentina shuffling, and I tried to help her up. “What is this, a basement?” She asked, her voice reverberating deep into the space.

  “Creepy,” I said, grabbing her elbow to assist her.

  “Ah!” She screamed again and pulled away.

  “V, your arm. You’re hurt.”

  I felt her shuffle further into the blackness for a moment as she said, “No, I’m fine. We just need to figure out what’s in here. Maybe there’s a light…”

  “Valentina, let’s bandage up your arm first,” I said.

  “No, we-”

  “V,
the flashlights are upstairs. We need those.”

  Valentina couldn’t argue with that, so we jogged up the handful of stairs, and I looked for a first aid kit while she grabbed flashlights. When I couldn’t find one, I urged her to sit down, despite her protesting.

  “Harper, stop. We need to figure out what’s hiding down there.” She said, clutching her arm.

  “I’m not sure I like how you said that,” I muttered, picturing basement monsters and evil spirits, as I pulled her arm towards me gently to examine it.

  She shrunk back from me, then winced. “There’s something down there. I can feel it. It’s a room or something. Didn’t you hear the way your voice echoed?” She stood. “I’m fine. I’m checking it out, do whatever you want.”

  “V,” I said firmly. She stopped. “I do want to go down there with you. Like, immediately. But you have to stop talking to me like that. You have to stop telling me what to do, giving me ultimatums, and you have to stop putting this mystery before… other things.” Before me, I thought. “Before yourself,” I said instead. “Sit your ass down. If there is something down there you’ll need to be in tiptop shape. It’ll only take a second. Sit.”

  Valentina hesitated, then sat down. I slipped my cardigan from around my waist and silently arranged it on her arm like a sling. It would have to do for now until we could get an actual doctor to look at it.

  “There,” I said. “All done. Now let’s check out this super-secret basement.”

  Except, it wasn't a basement. Valentina and I stood at the bottom of the stairs, flashlights illuminating a wide brick tunnel. Our jaws hung open as we examined the space, appearing never-ending from where we were standing.

  “The ghost stories…” I muttered, incredulous. “They’re all true.” Valentina looked over at me. “Not the ghost part. But the people talking behind walls? The mysterious footsteps reported by tourists who claimed there was never anyone there?” I gestured in front of us. “They were there, just behind this wall. It’s got to be the Order, and whatever their dealings are, it’s gone on through here for years. Incredible.”

  “We have to follow it,” Valentina said. “We have to.” She added quietly, though I wasn't sure it was even directed at me.

  I turned my head in her direction. “Grab your stuff.”

  A half an hour later, Valentina and I trekked through a dark tunnel in the early morning hours in full gear. Well, full gear for us meant our winter coats and boots and a single backpack full of water, extra flashlights, and my phone still sitting in a bag of rice. I carried it, just to be sure her hurt arm didn’t take on any added strain.

  “This had to be built by Malloy,” Valentina said, her flashlight bouncing as she walked.

  “There’s no way Malloy built an entire underwater tunnel by himself, Valentina. That’s crazy.” I said. We’d been walking for a while and clearly weren’t anywhere near the end of the tunnel. The space was big enough for at least three grown men to stand side to side without hunching. The bricks were paved into a perfect circle that spanned the distance of this thing, and though there was clearly some kind of shiny sealant painted over the bricks, I was certain there was at least one more layer built over the outside of this to keep the water out.

  “Oh, come on, Harper. You buy that an actual pirate buried treasure on Rose Island, only to be found by our relatives' hundreds of years later, but you don’t buy that the pirate made an underwater tunnel?” She pointed her flashlight on the emblems imprinted on either side of the tunnel that showed up every ten feet or so.

  “Look, there’s the rose emblem for the Rose Island lighthouse. And there,” she pointed to the other side of the wall. “Is the compass. Clearly, the two were merged at one point to make the rose compass emblem. The Order couldn’t have made this, or they’d use their own crest. This predates that, to before the rose compass even came together.” Her voice lilted with emotion. “This was clearly Malloy. Plus, who said this was built in a day? Maybe he worked on it for years.”

  I zipped my coat up a little higher. Despite being protected from the elements, it was freezing in here. “But, why?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Probably something to do with the treasure.”

  I laughed. “And I’m sure you plan to find out.”

  We continued walking for a while, unsure how much time had passed without a watch or a phone. We talked for some of the time, and for the rest, we walked in comfortable silence. Eventually, the repetitive sounds of our footsteps were drowned out by a loud whooshing sound in the distance.

  “Do you hear that?” Valentina asked, and without waiting for an answer, we took off toward the end of the tunnel. Morning light spilled in, and I could just see where the tunnel ended, and something else began.

  “Sea caves,” Valentina whispered, the sound almost imperceptible against the crashing of waves outside the cavity of earth we stood inside. We came to a stop right where the tunnel merged into a never-ending branch of hollow rock.

  “Sea caves?” I asked. The taste of salt hit my tongue and burned my nose as I spoke. “The tunnel led to this?” We stood at the intersection between a man-made cave and a natural one. It became colder than it had been in the tunnel, the slight gusts of wintry wind blowing in through the cracks in the mountains of rock around us. Valentina flashed her light around, but the small bits of sun dawning filtered light in through the openings in the cave.

  “We’re meant to follow it.” She said.

  “How do you know?” I asked, my boots digging into the back of my ankle.

  “Look at it.” She waved ahead of us. “We’ve hit the mainland. These caves are clearly at the very edge of the coast and expand down it. Wait, I think I know where we are.”

  “You do?” I asked, watching over my shoulder as Valentina shoved her hand into my backpack and pulled out the bag of rice.

  “Come on, come on…” She muttered, pulling my phone out of the bag and hitting the on button. “Think about where the door was facing on Rose Island and where the sun comes up. The door was facing south, and this tunnel was basically straight. So we must have gone south until we hit the mainland. Which means we’re back in Newport.”

  “We are?”

  “Yes. There’s got to be something at the end of these caves.”

  I shrugged. “Well, we made it this far.” We started walking and then stopped again.

  “Phone is still dead. Here.” She said, sticking the phone back in my backpack.

  We stepped cautiously onto the mix of stone and sand that made up the path, careful to avoid the pools of shallow water cropping up along the way. If I had a good sense of time, I might have said we walked for another half an hour. But I didn’t, and as far as I was concerned, it could have been an hour until the sea caves came to a stop, leading us directly to a heavy metal door.

  “An underground bunker,” Valentina whispered, her eyes raking around the area.

  “Awesome.” I smiled. “And let me guess, it’s probably a secret. What do you think is on top of the bunker?” I asked, my backpack weighing me down.

  “I think I know.” She said, shrugging off the makeshift sling and using both hands to grip the wheel on the door. As she moved to turn the wheel, I grabbed her arm to stop her.

  “V, what if there’s someone in there!” I thought about the door connected to the Rose Island lighthouse and how freaked I would be if someone had barged in there during my stay.

  Valentina grinned. “I’m counting on it.” She said. With that, she pulled the door open with a grunt, the metal making a squealing sound as it moved. I cringed, hoping her arm was okay, but knowing Valentina was even more stubborn than I was.

  Inside was a large room, dimly lit with vintage wall lights and no windows. It was furnished with a large bookshelf filled with books and a sturdy looking desk suitable for an ivy league school Dean. The aesthetic felt like a scene out of the Titanic, and the display inspired the lighting of a cigar or a chat a
bout how women just don’t behave like they used to. Still, the room was quite large, and right in the center of the cement floor was the ever so familiar rose sitting inside a compass. The crest of the Order of the Six.

  SIXTEEN

  “Yes!” Valentina whispered under her breath, stepping eagerly inside the secret bunker. I walked inside and watched as Valentina trampled up the spiral staircase in the back corner, pulling on yet another latch, and listened to stone grinding on stone as a body-sized hole opened above her head, offering her access to the room above.

  “V, what are you doing?” I shouted, but she didn’t answer. She was already through the hole by then, and it wasn't thirty seconds before she was running back downstairs.

  “I was right. We’re at Castle Hill. I don’t know how I missed it when I checked this place out yesterday. The coordinates were leading here. To this-”

  “Secret room.” I finished with her. “And let me guess, this is where the induction ceremony takes place.” My eyes scanned the room, landing on a rack of burgundy robes.

  “Yes, this is it!” Valentina walked up to me and snaked her arm around my waist. “But… no one is here. We’re too late. The ceremony is over.”

  Clapping resounded from an adjacent room. A chill flashed up my spine as a tall, brooding man dressed in his best waltzed through a black curtain I hadn’t even noticed. Jack Cunningham.

  “Actually, you’re early. And yes, you’re the only ones here.” He said.

  “In that case, I’d better see if I can get this phone working and call Adan and Nina.” I zipped open my backpack and set it on the ground, the Malloy brick tumbling out in one smooth movement. Oops, I thought.

  “And,” Cunningham took a few more steps toward us. “I see you’ve finished my riddle.”