“Let me know next time you’re setting up. The thing’s upstairs,” Eli said, gesturing and turning for the steps. “Third floor.”
“Cool. I’ve never been up there.”
“It hasn’t been used since I was a kid. We would play up there in bad weather, and once or twice we got to bunk up there, tell ghost stories. Just storage now, really.”
“So, we’re hauling something down?”
“No. Just moving a piece. Big-ass armoire. Double armoire,” he added as they topped the stairs. “In here.”
“Nice space, bad wallpaper.”
“Tell me.”
Mike scanned the room, landed on the armoire. “Big mother.” He crossed to it, ran his fingers over the carved front. “A beauty. Mahogany, right?”
“I think.”
“I’ve got a cousin who brokers antiques. He’d piss his pants at a chance on this. Where are we moving it?”
“Just out a few feet.” At Mike’s blank look, Eli shrugged. “So . . . there’s a panel behind it.”
“A panel?”
“A passageway.”
“Fucking A!” As he punched a fist in the air, Mike’s face lit up. “Like a secret passage? Where does it go?”
“All the way down to the basement, from what I’m told. Just told. I had no idea. They were servants’ passages,” Eli explained. “They made my grandmother nervous, so she closed them up, but she just blocked off this one, and the one in the basement.”
“This is very cool.” Mike rubbed his hands together. “Let’s move this sucker.”
Easier said, they discovered. Since they couldn’t lift it, and trying to shove it from either side proved impossible, they realigned, both on one end, then both on the other, walking it out a couple inches at a time.
“Next time we get a crane.” Straightening, Mike rolled his aching shoulders.
“How the hell did they get it up here?”
“Ten men, and one woman telling them it might look better on the other wall. And if you tell Maureen I said that, I’ll swear you’re a dirty liar.”
“You just helped me move a ten-ton armoire. My loyalty is yours. See here? You can just see the edge of the panel. The ugly wallpaper mostly camouflages it, but when you know it’s there . . .”
He felt around the chair rail, sliding his fingers over, under until they hit the release. When he heard the faint click, he looked at Mike.
“You game?”
“Are you kidding? Game is my middle name. Open her up.”
Eli pressed on the panel, felt it give slightly, then open an inch in his direction. “Swings out,” he murmured, and pulled it fully open.
He saw a narrow landing, then the drop of steep steps into the dark. Automatically, he felt the inside wall for a switch, and was surprised to find one.
But when he flipped it, nothing happened.
“Either there’s no electricity in there, or no light. I’ll get a couple of flashlights.”
“And maybe a loaf of bread. For the crumbs,” Mike explained. “And a big stick, in case of rats. Just the flashlights then,” he said to Eli’s stony stare.
“Be right back.”
He grabbed a couple of beers while he was at it. The least he could do.
“Better than a loaf of bread.” Mike took the beer and a flashlight, shone the light upward in the passage. “No lightbulb.”
“I’ll get some next time.” Armed with the flashlight, Eli stepped into the passage. “Pretty narrow, but wider than I figured. I guess they’d need the space for carrying trays and whatever. The steps feel sound, but watch it.”
“Snakes, very dangerous. You go first.”
Snorting out a laugh, Eli started down. “I doubt we’ll find a detested butler’s skeletal remains or the dying words of a feckless housemaid carved into the wall.”
“Maybe a ghost. It’s spooky enough.”
And dusty and dank. The steps creaked underfoot, but at least no rats gleamed out with red eyes.
Eli paused when his light played over another panel. “Let me think.” And orient himself. “This should come out on the second-floor landing. See how it forks here? That one should come out in my grandmother’s bedroom. That’s always been the master, as far as I know. God, we’d have killed to have these open when we were kids. I could’ve snuck around, jumped out and scared the shit out of my sister.”
“Which is exactly why your grandmother sealed up the doors.”
“Yeah.”
“Thinking of opening them again?”
“Yeah. No reason to, but yeah.”
“Cool is its own reason.”