I shake my head. “I don’t want to be afraid of all of this,” I repeat, my voice still quiet. “But tonight I am and I think it’s a good thing that I am.”
And with the admission, all my insides begin to tremble. The shakes work their way from my insides out. Ian wraps an arm around me and gathers me into his side. My head settles into the space between his cheek and his shoulder and he crushes me to him. I cling to him.
Here it is.
I will give myself this night. I will embrace the fear and the immense new world I’ve been shot into. I will let everything that’s happened in the last three weeks sink into my heart and shake it with everything that it is. If tears want to come, I will let them come.
Tonight I will be afraid.
But come morning, when the sun rises, when I can walk out into it and feel that, for now, I am human, I will dominate that fear.
I will embrace it all, and I will win.
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT THE PAINTING in Henry’s—my—bedroom. It’s a huge, nearly floor-to-ceiling masterpiece of a village with a river that runs through it. A still life, I suppose, a landscape? There are no people in it. Just the buildings, old, ancient. There’s a small boat tied to the side of the canal. But it isn’t the lack of life in the painting that’s bothering me.
It’s how it seems off. Not quite set right on the wall. Like it’s just barely angled away from it on the left side.
When I woke in the morning, I did feel better. But I just laid in my bed long after the sun came up, just being. Not really thinking. Not really feeling. Just existing.
I hadn’t really realized my eyes were fixed on the painting until I started to feel annoyed with it. And eventually I realized it wasn’t the painting itself that I was annoyed with.
Climbing out of bed, I pad over the wooden floors to it. Preparing myself for the heaviness it must weigh, I grab either side of the frame to straighten it.
But the second I touch that left side, it swings just slightly toward me.
All the blood in my body falls to my feet as a cold draft wafts out from behind the painting.
I pull on the left side, swinging the door wide open.
Behind the painting lies the opening of a narrow passageway.
The walls are lined with old wood and stone. There’s no light to lead the way, but what little spills in from my bedroom shows that it cuts sharply to the left and then drops.
The discovery of a hidden passageway is amazing. It’s every little kid’s dream. But I know the history of this house and what lurks in the dark in this town. I’m both fascinated and petrified about where this passage leads to.
I grab my cell phone and turn the flash on for a light. With the cold air licking over my body, I start into the dark.
It does indeed cut immediately to my left. This wall is an outside one, with windows looking out over the river just to the side of it. It’s impressive there’s room enough to house the passage. It runs for two yards, and immediately drops down into a set of steep stairs.
Down, down, down I go. The darkness makes the stairway seem longer than I think it actually is. The air grows cooler, the moisture in the walls thicker.
I level out into a tunnel.
Dirt walls, dirt floor, and dirt ceiling make me fairly sure that I’m underground. Wooden beams brace the tunnel every ten feet or so, but they don’t look particularly stable, like they’re beginning to rot out.
When I suddenly step in a shallow puddle, I understand why.
I’m probably ten feet underground. This secret tunnel is not far from the river at all. I’d bet it floods in the winter and spring when the rains raise the level of the river.
I walk and walk. It feels like forever. A mile? Two? Maybe it’s only been a hundred yards, but in the dark, knowing how unstable this tunnel is, it feels ominous and unending.
And then I see another set of stairs, leading up, and a sliver of light.
A small wooden door covers the entrance. I have to push and shove. The sound of branches and leaves scrape from the other side, before I finally burst out and into the thorny shrubbery that waits for me.
The doorway is well hidden between two ancient and huge trees with thick underbrush growing around it. I tumble out, scraping my arm on a branch.
Climbing to my feet, I brush myself off and look around at where I am.
The fence, which serves as the border of the Conrath property, is directly behind the trees I climbed out from beneath. The tunnel leads directly from the Estate, which I can barely make out in the distance, to just outside the property line.
There’s an empty field dotted with trees between where I am and where I can see the next houses, closer to downtown, and me.
I look back down at the entryway and something carved into the still open door catches my eye.