Spellbound by Jacqueline West

Author:Jacqueline West [West, Jacqueline]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2011-07-11T17:00:00+00:00

15

A RICKETY WOODEN LADDER dwindled down from the trapdoor into the darkness. The shelf where Aldous McMartin’s ashes had been stored waited beside the ladder, bare now but for a thick coat of grit and the dusty lace of spiderwebs. Below the shelf, Olive could glimpse packed dirt walls with wooden braces running up to the tunnel’s ceiling, like the rafters in a mine. The only mine Olive had ever been in was at an amusement park, where you could ride little miners’ carts up and down underground hills through stalactites made of sparkly Styrofoam. That tunnel looked very different from this one. Just kneeling at its entrance, Olive caught the sensation of something waiting beneath the old stone house—something real, something so big that its gravity was pulling her in.

Half of Olive wanted to slam the trapdoor and run back upstairs. The other half wanted to hurry down into the tunnel and explore before anyone could stop her. But both halves knew that if she turned back now, she would regret it. The question of what waited beneath the trapdoor would dig at her relentlessly, like an itch in the middle of her back, just out of reach. After a long moment, Olive reached into the hole and set the camping lantern on the shelf where Aldous’s urn had stood. Then, cautiously, she lowered herself onto the first rung of the ladder.

The wood creaked beneath her. She eased onto the next rung, feeling the old wood bend and settle. While she could still reach it, she grabbed the lantern, then jumped the last few feet to the floor. The drop was farther than she’d thought. She landed hard on both bare feet, stumbled forward, and managed to catch her balance just in time to keep from falling flat on her face—or on the lantern, which would have been worse.

If the basement was cold, the tunnel below it was frigid. Olive’s shorts and T-shirt suddenly felt much smaller and thinner than they had before. Her bare feet, pressed against the freezing dirt, were already turning numb. She shivered, holding both arms tight against her rib cage. The air in the tunnel was damp, tinged with a faint sick-sweet scent of decay. Olive stood between the packed dirt walls, in the changeless chill, and realized that this must be what it feels like at the bottom of a grave. But graves were only six feet deep. This was much deeper. And darker. And colder.

The lantern made a pale splotch on the walls and floor around her. Beyond that splotch, there was only darkness. Olive took a step forward. The splotch of light moved with her, and the darkness resolved itself around it, pouring into the spots that the light had left behind.

She glanced back at the trapdoor. In a Sherlock Holmes story, the trapdoor would slam shut, and she would be stuck down here, with no one near enough to hear her screams. The thought made Olive’s skin crawl. But the trapdoor was still open.

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