I snap back to reality. I look down, I’m on the floor, my knees covered in dirt. I remember after that night me and my mother didn’t talk much, I avoided her even more than I had before.
“Hey, you okay?” Maida asks, looking concerned, she reaches her hand down to help me up. I attempt to dust the dirt from my knees but it’s damp and it spreads further.
“I’m fine, this place just bought back some stuff.” I say, my head aching.
“I think I figured out where we need to go.” Maida walks briskly to the side of the staircase and opens a small door underneath it.
“I’m pretty sure this leads downstairs. We just have to find out how.”
I look around, shining the light around the small space. “It’s so cramped in here, I don’t even know where to look?” I reach above, pull the light cord but there’s no power, unsurprisingly. I pull all the junk out from the corner of the room and throw it out into the foyer. Once the room has been cleared, beneath our feet I can see part of the floor has been cut.
Maida looks down at the floorboards. “Is that a trapdoor?”
I try to pull the metal handle but it’s stuck, Maida helps and we’re both able to lift it. We lean the small wooden door against the wall and look into the gaping darkness below. Maida grabs her torch from me and shines it down into the darkness, there’s just a narrow staircase leading to the unknown.
“So, who’s going in first?” She asks.
I take the torch from her. “I’ll do it.” I say.
“I won’t fight you.” She laughs.
I shine the light down and begin my descent. I swallow the fear and keep going, I’ve never been a fan of the dark, let alone tight spaces. It’s pitch black down here, the light doesn’t make much of a dent. I hear Maida following, her weight making the wooden stairs creak softly. She’s really close behind me, I turn around. “You’re breathing on my neck.” I tell her.
“Sorry, this is freaking me out.” She walks around so she’s next to me instead. She’s holding another torch. I don’t know where she got it from. She begins to scan the room with the small beam of light.
“What is this place?” I can see a long bench to one side. Some chairs and tables.
“There’s a bar over here, it looks like an old speakeasy.” Maida says. A piano is on a stage at the back. “This is so cool.” She begins to walk off on her own, no longer scared but curious. I look behind the bar, a mirror is hung there, I look at my dark reflection framed by old bottles of whiskey and gin. Some of the bottles are still on the bar, half full. I pick one up and look at the old label, it's too faded to read. The bar is ornately decorated, surrounded by carved wooden edges, painted gold. Red leather bar stools sit in front, the leather worn and cracked. The ceiling is covered with white pressed metal flowers.
The piano rings out giving me a fright. Maida sits behind it and begins to play a song out of tune. She plays something I’m not familiar with.
“You play the piano?” I ask.
“Yeah, my parents made me get lessons.” She says.
“I don’t really know where to start looking.”
Maida stops playing. I clap and watch as her shadowy figure takes a bow. “Thank you, you’re too kind!” She raises the top of the piano and looks inside. “Well, there’s nothing in there.” She slams it back down. I watch as she checks out the stage area, I’m still looking around the bar. I stare at the mirror again, maybe there’s something behind it. I can’t find anything. I open up an old metal cash register, it makes a high pitched clanging noise. The tray slides out, some money has been left in there, not much. I reach my hand under the shelves to see if something is stuck there, like I’ve seen in movies, nothing but spiderwebs. Yuck.
“Any luck?” Maida asks from the other side of the room.
“Nope. You?” I ask, hoping she’s found something.
“Not yet.” She says, sounding defeated.
I give up on the bar and walk towards a set of of doors with circular windows. They’re obscured by chairs that have been stacked haphazardly in front. I get closer, weaving through the tables that fill the room. I stand before the stacked chairs and lift them one by one, moving them off to the side. Once the doorway has been cleared I push open the swing doors with trepidation and look inside. I shine the torch’s beam through the dark, it’s a kitchen, The plain wooden counters and white walls are a stark contrast to the lush interior of the other room. Some knives sit in a knife block next to an old stove. Round trays are stacked neatly beside a large ceramic sink in one corner. The tiled floor is made up of black and white diamonds, some tiles have jagged cracks traversing them, other tiles are missing altogether. A white door sits at the back, ajar. I pull it open, it’s full of metal shelves, with a few bottles strewn about and some cans and jars. I pick up a can, it has no label and it’s rusted around the edges. I place it back and keep looking around, continuing to shine my torch around the room. An old cardboard box sits in a corner, I attempt to pull it towards me with my feet but it’s too heavy. I lean down and move the box aside, a spider rushes out and I jump back. I gingerly grab the box again and look inside, spiders are no longer a threat but I remain vigilant. I shine the light inside and look at the contents, it’s full of bottles of wine. I take them out one by one and place them at my feet.
I lift the box up and tip it out on one of the kitchen counters. I start to sort through the items, there’s some torn and faded newspapers, they don’t look important, a few empty glass bottles without labels and a small metal box which is quite heavy for its size. There’s a lock on the box but it doesn’t look too sturdy. I grab a large knife with a thick wooden handle and turn the handle downwards to strike the lock. It only takes a few hits until it breaks. I pull the lock off and drop it onto the bench top. I open the box and look inside, it’s just some knickknacks, some sort of time capsule. There are a few coins, stamps, some photos. I flick through the photos, they're black and white with creases in the corners, a little boy looks out at me in two of them, I turn one around the name O. A. Taylor is written on the back in ink, big wobbly block letters, the writing of a child. My grandfather. This must have been where he grew up, before the house I lived in was built. The photos have no date. The last photo captures people in the other room, little Osbourne is seated up on the bar, dead centre. A weird place for a kid to hang out, I look more closely at the photo, something looks off. I look at the bar again, it looks different to how I remember it.
I take the photo and walk back to the other room, I stand in front of the bar again. I compare the photo with the view in front of me. It takes me a minute but eventually I realise what’s different, the front of the bar is open in the photograph. I look around and see a keyhole at one end. The key wasn’t in the metal box, where is it?
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Have you seen a key anywhere?” I ask Maida who’s rifling through papers in a piano stool.
“Nope, haven’t seen a key.”
I look in the cash register again, lift up some bottles to see if some had thrown a key in one.
“There’s some sheet music for a song called The Key to Perdition. That’s the only key I’ve found so far.”
“I’ve never heard of that. What’s it from?”
“I’m not familiar with it either, must be one of those old songs that nobody remembers. Actually, this song looks really weird, the notes are all over the place. It would sound terrible.”
“Really? Play it.”
She laughs. “Okay. You asked for it.” She closes the stool and sits in front of the piano, placing the sheet music on the stand. I walk over and shine some light on the page. She begins to play, she’s right it sounds awful. I’m just about to tell her to stop when I hear a click.
“Did you hear that?” I ask.
She stops playing. “The bad music? Yes Elena, I did hear it.” She says sarcastically.
“There was a click, it sounded like it was somewhere near the tables.’ I walk over and look at them, I glance at the photo again, you can’t see them in the picture. I crouch down, hoping a different perspective will help. I look at the base of the tables, one is much thicker than the rest, I walk over and inspect it. I lean down and see that there’s a recess in the base, I shine the torch in there but can’t see anything. I reach my hand in and pull out some cash with a money clip, a small jewellery box and a key. I grab all three and place them on the table top. I put the key in my pocket and look at the cash, it’s not much. I pick up the small box and flip the lid open, it contains a ring. I try to put it on but it’s far too small.
“What did you find?” Maida asks from the other side of the room.
“Some money, a ring and hopefully the key we're looking for.” I answer.
I put the ring back and grab the key from my pocket. I walk back to the bar and put the key in the lock, I turn it and it works. The outside of the bar slides down, revealing shelves and drawers behind it. This would have been a great place to hide things. There are a few bottles, a used cork that sits alone and next to it a small black book. I pick it up. It doesn’t look all that old, it’s clean, the pages crisp and white.
“Did a song on a piano really just unlock a table?” Maida walks over. “That can't be a thing.”
“Which in turn unlocked a bar. Rich people.” I shrug.
“I wish I had the kind of money where I could build a hidden underground room with secret nooks and crannies. I have a new goal in life now.”
“Become rich and build a house with secret rooms and passages?”
“Hell yes. What’s in the book?”
“Not sure.” I walk to a table and take a seat, the wooden chair feels rickety. I usher Maida over and she takes a seat next to me, she picks up a matchbook off the table and lights the small candle that sits in the middle. I put my torch down and open up the book a little, it cracks down the spine. The light from the candle creates an eerie glow around it.
I scan the pages. “It looks like my Dad’s writing. It’s just a bunch of numbers.”
“Let me have a look.” Maida takes the book from my hands and flips through it. “Do you think it’s about the missing money?”
“Maybe?”
Maida looks at the back and begins to peel the cover off.
“What are you doing? Don’t destroy the evidence.”
“It was loose on one side. Look.” She puts the book closer to the light. I lean over and take a closer look at the writing. In case of my death, Moby Dick, 789201 - HT
“Do you know what it means?” Maida turns to me.
“Yeah, I think so. I think I know where we have to go next.”
“Where?”
“Home.” I blow out the candle and flick the torch back on, shoving the book, the ring and the cash in my pockets.
We go back upstairs and Maida quickly checks out the rest of the house. I sit outside on the front steps and wait for her. I don’t like being in there now that I can remember the night we broke in so vividly. I used to come here and visit my uncle with my father almost every week, the place looks haunted now. Dead.
I look out at the dense forrest surrounding the house, if there had been foul play it’d be easy for them to get in and out undetected, nobody would see someone hiding in the tall pines. That forest always gave me the creeps as a kid, you’d never know who or what was lurking in there. Maida comes out the front door and interrupts my train of thought.
“You ready to go?” I ask her.
“Yeah, definitely, it’s getting way too cold.” She wraps her arms around herself and we walk back towards the road. When we get in the car, we blast the heater and thaw out. Maida takes it slow on the icy roads, our drive taking much longer than usual. I look out my window at the blackness filling the space between the trees.
“This place is really creepy at night, isn’t it?” Maida interrupts the silence.
“Yeah, it’s so dark. You’d get lost in there.” I say.
“I wonder if the Ridgemont Butcher’s out there tonight.” Maida says in a creepy voice.
“Nah, it’s probably too cold.”
“That didn’t stop him before.”
My mind wanders and I wonder if less people get murdered when the weather is bad, or if that’s something that doesn’t really matter. Before I know it, we’re back home and walking through the front door. We pull our dirty shoes off and go back to our rooms. Maida says she’s too tired to do anything else tonight. I don’t mind some alone time, for once I know exactly what I have to do.
I walk up to my room and turn the lock on the door, I go to the bookcase once again and grab the old copy of Moby Dick from the shelf, I pull down the unnamed book to open the door and walk inside. It’s cooler in here than the bedroom, I continue down the small passage and turn on the light. I place the book down on the table and take a seat. I open it and turn to the first page. Somebody has written a note in the front, To Hamilton, on your 8th birthday - Love, Mother.
I keep flipping through the pages, one by one. I scan them closely, slowly, making sure I don’t miss anything. I get to page 72, a note falls out onto the table. I glance down at the small scrap of paper. Behind Homer - HT
He must mean the fake Winslow Homer painting. I unhook the painting from the wall and put it on the floor. The safe behind it features an old school dial. I pull the small black book from my back pocket and refer to the numbers hidden in the back. I move the dial to match the combination. As I reach the final number there’s a thunk and the door unlocks. I pull the heavy metal door open and peer inside. Papers are neatly stacked on one side, on the other sits a small wooden box. It has no lock, I pick it up and turn it around in my hands, the varnish shines under the fluorescent lighting. Someone has written on the bottom in marker. This box belonged to my Aunt June - HT. The lid is intricately carved, featuring a slew of flowers and vines. I open it, it’s filled with jewellery, what looks like costume jewellery. Jewels this big couldn't be real, there's a pretty silver bracelet, I slip it over my wrist and admire it. I go back and grab the stack of papers, they’re heavy. I look through them one at a time, there are deeds for the shops my father owned, the house, some apartments in the city and some letters from different banks. I get to the end of the pile, the last document is a will.
The Last Will and Testament of Hamilton Alfred Taylor.
I look at the date the document was signed, three days before my father died. I begin to read through the pages, this isn’t the same will that was read out after he died. I remember that day vividly. After my father died the mixture of my mother’s behaviour, the media attention and the shock of his death made the whole experience blur but I could remember that day. My mother went dressed in black, my brother and I sat on either side of her as his will was read. I sat there staring at an ugly abstract painting on the wall for most of the event. My brother and mother had been left almost everything but I didn’t really care. My father being gone just made me want to leave Ridgemont more than ever. I remember sitting there and thinking I could quite happily leave and never see my family again.
I look back down at the will, I don’t want to think about bad memories. I skim the document and stop when I see a sentence that doesn’t make sense to me. I bequeath the entirety of my estate to my one and only child, Elena Amelia Taylor upon my death. I read the words again and again, that can’t be right. Why would he leave me everything? Why would he think my brother wasn’t his son?
I put the will under the pile of papers and put everything back in the safe, including the things I found at my uncle’s house. I memorise the combination so I can get in there again later. It seems like it’s the safest place to leave everything. I leave the tiny room and take a quick look through the peephole to make sure nobody else is around. I unlock the bedroom door and get into bed. I know I won't sleep, there's too much to think about.