 CHAPTER 3 (section 4) copyright © 2001, S. Y. Affolee “Adrian.” She clutched the shelf, white knuckled, and afraid that she would fall. Where was he? The kittens mewed confusedly and she looked down. They had nudged around the fallen books. One of them had pushed open the cover to ‘War and Peace’. Instead of pages and pages of dense prose, she saw that the book was hollow. Unfortunately, nothing was inside it. Crouching, she went through the rest of the books, opening and flipping the pages. The rest were actual real books. In frustration, she swept all of them down onto the first floor. Pages and covers rained down, making large clattering noises. She didn’t care if they were all first editions. She didn’t care if they were torn up in the process of their bruising fall. “Simone! Simone! Can you hear me?” She looked up abruptly at the shelf and surged to her feet, trying to cram herself into the shelf. The faint voice seemed to have come from the other side of the shelf. “Adrian!” “I seem to be in this small alcove. Probably where the prowler went on that tape.” He coughed. “I can’t see anything. Can you find a switch of some sort?” “I’m trying.” She moved her fingers along the shelf panel, only coming across smooth wood. “I can’t find...ow!” She snatched her hand away from the panel and glared at her index finger. A bit of wood had lodged itself into her skin, a drop of blood already welling up. With her other hand, she picked the offending object out and sucked her wounded finger. “Simone? What happened?” “Just a splinter. Wait, I think I found something.” She peered onto the wood panel and could faintly make out a small knob or button. With an uninjured finger, she managed to depress it. The shelf quickly slid open and a blast of air from within the revealed dark crevasse tried to suction her inside. But instead, something else pushed outward causing her to stumble and fall onto the balcony floor. The shelf immediately slid back closed, but in its wake, it left Adrian and a kitten with a large pile of dust on his head. “I think we should go back and see what’s there,” said Adrian excitedly. “Hold on for a moment,” Simone replied, holding up a hand. The kitten who was about to shake himself suddenly froze at the sound of her voice. She managed to get herself up and reached up to brush the dust pile off the feline’s head. Adrian and the kitten sneezed at the same time. “We’ll have to figure out a way to leave that thing open so we can get back out.” “I’m pretty sure there’s a mechanism to open the shelf on the other side. We’ll just need some light to search for it.” “I like the idea of leaving the shelf open as a precaution.” He shrugged. “You can if you want to.” They went back down to the ground floor to find two flashlights among their equipment. The kittens had decided that they had enough fun following Simone and Adrian and crawled into the box that had once held the guages and cameras fall asleep. He grabbed the books that she had carelessly thrown from the second floor and shook his head. “Desperate, weren’t we?” he teased. “Not funny,” she responded. She picked up the new age book that he had avoided. “This doesn’t seem like the thing a history buff would touch, let alone read.” “Well, you’d never know.” They tramped back up and he waited until she had depressed the hidden switch to shove the heavy books into the revealing crack. The sliding shelves sprang back closed, but was stopped by the pile of books. “It looks well oiled, as if someone had maintained it recently,” Simone said, examining the shelf to see if there was any mechanism that she had missed previously. “It’s probably operated by a strong spring.” She noticed the air again, tugging at their loose hairs. “And where is the wind coming from?” “We’ll see, won’t we?” Adrian switched on his flashlight and squeezed through the crack that they had created. Simone followed more easily as she was smaller. She switched on her own light when she was on the other side. Their twin beams illuminated a small cubicle that was probably the size of a walk-in closet. “I think there’s a vent and a fan over in this corner. It’s pretty silent, and I bet this was pretty well maintained too.” “Look over here.” She aimed her light at a discrete panel on the wall just on the other side of the shelves. There were two switches. “One of them must operate this hidden door.” She flipped one of the switches and watched as the shelves moved again out and then inward, hitting the blocking books. “I...” “Don’t tell me ‘I told you so’ or I’m going to give you a concussion with this,” she warned waving her flashlight. “You’re too short to reach my head,” he said unconcerned. “Well, what does the other switch do?” “The only way to see is to try it.” She flipped it and a corner light near the fan turned on. “Ah. The obvious.” She switched off her flashlight. “There doesn’t seem like there’s anything much of interest in here.” “Unless you count the trapdoor,” Simone said pointing upward. On the ceiling, there was a faint outlined square with a rope dangling from it. “You do the honors since you’re so much taller than me,” she snickered. Adrian just smiled, cocky. “It will be my pleasure.” He yanked on the rope and the door swung up, letting a narrow folding stair fall downward in front of them. A cloud of dust came up, making him cough almost violently. Simone just waved a hand in front of her to clear the air. “I wonder what’s up there.” “Well, if you look at the house from the outside, you’ll notice that the tower, where the study is located, is about three stories tall. There must be a room up there.” She rolled her eyes. “Thank you for that brilliant deduction.” They headed up the stairs, Adrian coughing as he went. The thin light beams from their flashlight pierced the darkness like spears through a thick dense fog. The room seemed normal, at least in height. Simone managed to find a wall and next to hit, heavy drapes which she pushed aside. It was a window, and the late morning sunlight that suddenly streamed through it caused them to blink and place a hand over their eyes until their vision adjusted. The room’s roof sloped upward into a conical point, but the room itself was hexagonal, three of the walls having windows that were narrow and slit-like, much like windows from a medieval castle. In the natural light, the room was a dusty brown and mostly wooden panelling. A pile of cardboard boxes were stacked in one corner. There was also a simple desk with no drawers and a severe high backed chair. A carving of some sort hung above the desk. The desk itself was blanketed in blank sheets of paper. There was also a small pot that contained black crayons and wax pastels. Simone went through the papers, stacking them as she went. Adrian went through the boxes. There was nothing of interest on the desk, but in a fit of something unidentifiable, she picked up a sheet of paper and a crayon. She placed the sheet over the hanging carving and began rubbing, making an imprint of it. When she was finished, she stared at it. The replica gave more detail than the dim natural light spilling over the carving. It had been an emblem, or more of a crest that looked like it belonged to a family. There was a shield and on the borders of the two sides stood a stylized lion and unicorn, glaring at each other. The shield itself had a picture. It was some sort of pedestal impaled on the ground. At the top of the pedestal was a griffin with outspread wings. On the top of the pedestal was engraved some sort of four legged monster. There was also a banner at the bottom with a long motto in Latin. Limine quod caeco obscura et calignine monstrum gnosiacis clausit Daedalus in latebris. Simone had absolutely no idea what it meant. She had never studied Latin. “All of these boxes are empty,” said Adrian disappointed. “But look what I found on the floor.” It was a card of some sort. It pictured a woman standing in the middle of the field, blindfolded. Around her, evidently at each of the compass points were swords standing upright, their points plunging into the ground. The back of the card was crisscrossed in generic white and red stripes. “What is it?” “A tarot card, I think,” Adrian replied. “The four of swords. It usually means truce, peace, calm. But it can also mean solitude, exile, and resting before a large ordeal or event.” “Tarot,” Simone mused. “Isn’t that the name of a deck of cards that are used in Western divination?” He nodded. “Nowadays, people buy them and just fiddle with them for fun. You know, those crazy card readings for nine ninety-nine a minute? Scams and commercialism. A long time ago, when people were more superstitous, they used to take it more seriously.” “How do you know so much about it? I mean, you know the meaning of this card and everything.” He glanced up sheepishly. “Well, it just goes to show what having a black sheep grandmother will teach you.” “A black sheep grandmother?” “Yeah. She was into all sorts of weird things. She converted to wicca at the ripe old age of sixty-eight. The rest of my relatives were embarrassed to be around her after that.” “Too bad. She sounds like someone I’d like to meet.” “You might meet her someday,” he said mysteriously. “What have you got there?” “Oh this?” She brought up the sheet with her rubbing. “I thought it was interesting so I just got a crude copy made. Do you know what this says at the bottom?” “Limine quod caeco obscura et caligine monstrum. Gnosiacis clausit Daedalus in latebris,” he muttered to himself as he took hold of the sheet. His eyebrows furrowed in concentration. “It’s been a while since I’ve taken Latin. Only three years of it in high school.” “Well, you’re a smart boy. I’m sure you can figure it out eventually.” “Wait. I think it says, ‘In the dark lairs of Cnossus with their hidden threshold and thick darkness, Daedalus shut up the monster.’ That’s a strange motto.” “Impressive translation,” Simone remarked. “Guess your high school Latin paid off.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s not all that strange. Maybe it’s from some piece of literature like Ovid.” “Maybe.” Simone took one last look around the small attic room. “There doesn’t seem to be much else in here. Perhaps the prowler already took what he needed.” “If that’s the case, he wouldn’t be coming back any more. Our job will be finished.” |