The Grotto's Secret: A Historical Conspiracy Mystery Thriller (26 page)

112

The unbooted soldier lifted the bucket of water beside the fire and threw it over Madre’s feeble body. María heard her mother’s flesh sizzle and burn as the warm water absorbed the heat from the red-hot tongs. Closing her eyes, María tried to stop believing the scene in their little family home.

All the memories of Madre delivering babies on their kitchen table, and healing sick people came flooding into her mind.

The laughter and merriment after the babies bellowed for the first time filled her ears. The smell of Madre’s baking and the taste of a fresh pie filling her hungry belly. The sounds of Padre’s booming voice as he came home laden with gifts of livestock, cloth and strips of leather.

María opened her eyes. Through slits, she surveyed the room, taking note of anything she could use as a weapon against these soldiers. A flush of adrenaline tingled through her body.

Madre moaned as another bucket of water was tossed at her. She opened her eyes and looked directly into María’s. The cloaked soldier lifted his boot off Madre’s neck and shoved her into a sitting position.

María’s expression boiled in anger. Her mother’s mouth moved silently. She leaned closer in time to hear her croak, ‘María. The promise.’

María’s nostrils flared. ‘I will never fail you, Mama. Never!’

Suddenly, with the agility of a leopard, María sprang up.

113

Taking a deep and ragged breath, Kelby left the safety of the car. The imposing Victorian hall had clearly been built for spectacular living and entertainment. However, the building now seemed to sag in the agony of abandonment.

A pile of logs rotted nearby, giving sanctuary to night creatures. Debris of branches and dead leaves covered the paved slabs leading to the door.

Three floors with ornate window frames rose into turrets and chimneys. A large bay window surrounded the main door. At the ends of each winged flank were pillar-covered doorways. Many of the windows were cracked. Brambles climbed up, fighting to get inside the broken glass.

Kelby took a deep breath, lifted the huge door knocker and rapped on the door. It echoed inside the building, reverberating along the long hallway and disappearing out the other end. She waited. No answer. So she knocked again.

Still no answer.

After waiting for about five minutes, she tried the door knob, but it was jammed.

Blowing out her pent up tension, she sneaked along the house, peering into each window she came across. An eerie stillness hovered over the house. It seemed to loom over her like a demonic ghost waiting to strike.

Swivelling her neck, she glanced over her shoulder at the car. Hawk wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

Damn. I should wait for him
.

Kelby shivered and wondered what on earth she was doing with no clue as to what she would look for or find. But a strong instinct drove her on.

Suddenly the image of Gary giving her the framed sign with Winston Churchill’s words came into her mind.

Never, never, never give up.

Taking a deep breath, an image sprang into her mind. The photo where Gary threw Annie up into his arms, caught her and cuddled her just as Kelby snapped the precious memory into her phone. With that image of her two most precious people, a new feeling crept into her. For too long she had lived with regret: first the loss of her parents, then her first business going belly up leading to her failure to conceive, Gary’s leg tragedy and finally his passing.

He’d never let remorse get him down, saying loss of hope is temporary. When her business collapsed, he urged her to pick herself up and move forward. And she had. Now the sensation stiffening her spine was a new awareness. She had to accept her past without sorrow. Without her parents or her brother, she could face her future without fear.

Renewed perseverance zipped into Kelby.

At the end of the right wing, she stepped up to the covered door and tried the ornate doorknob.

The door creaked open.

Sweat dampened her armpits as she peered inside.

‘Hawk. You there?’ Even though only a whisper, her voice raced down the hallway and found an exit at the far end. It blasted out of a broken window and disappeared.

This time, she bellowed, ‘Hawk, where are you?’

Again, her voice floated down the hallway and bounced around between the walls. With her heart thudding against her ribs, she stepped inside and peered around. It took her eyes a few moments to adjust to the dim interior.

Silence stretched along the corridor.

Thankfully, light spilled into the hall from the many windows, showing the decay and ruin. Once she was inside, the cold, desolate building clawed at her, as though relieved to finally receive a visitor.

As she stepped gingerly along the hallway, an earthy odour rose from the damp floorboards. Broken ceiling beams scattered her path. A painting lay on the floor as though the person hanging it had suddenly forgotten it. Unable to resist, she reached and touched the chipped and flaking walls. Saddened such a beautiful building had been left this way, Kelby imagined how it had once been, alive with the sounds of children playing, racing down the hallways and families chattering as they went about their daily routine.

That’s how it should be now
.

She could see lots of doors leading off the flaking hallway. Peering into each room as she passed, Kelby realised they were abandoned consulting rooms, filled with discarded books and papers. A few had windows swinging open on their hooks. One had birds nesting in what looked like a dentist’s chair.

Feeling overwhelmed, Kelby tiptoed into the next chamber and gasped.

From the far side of the room, two white ghostly apparitions watched her.

114

Olaf ran through the underground maze. Sweat poured off his head. It rolled down over the dragon and soaked his t-shirt. This tainted tunnel … it reminded him of another dark place. He had to get out.

Scuttling along the damp passage, Olaf placed his hand on the wall to keep himself steady. The smell of this place overwhelmed him, and once again he was in the forest where he had been abused.

That terrible wilderness still sired nightmares.

Fleeing. Over the forest floor littered with logging debris. At each turn the brush reached out to grab him, their woody talons thick with spikes and impaling thorns.

Stumbling. On overgrown roots and wind-toppled deadfall. Slashed by the oak thicket.

Tumbling. To the mossy undergrowth. Crashing to his knees. Unsure if the roots tripped him up or the dragon chasing him.

Plunging. Into a cavity surrounded by eroded roots. And debris. A rabbit carcass strewn about by its predator.

Explosions bursting in his head. That voice puncturing the heavy, oppressive air.

Sweltering. Heat consuming him. Sweat drenching him.

The dragon shooting bolts of flames into him.

For a long moment, Olaf lay curled up on the tunnel floor. Hugging his knees. Trying to rid himself of the pain. The shame. The fear.

Slowly, the same fear turned sour in his mouth. He spat it out, coughing up a lump of phlegm.

Flexing his bicep helped to remind him he had beaten the dragon. He glanced sideways at it bulging. Hard and high. He arched his arm a few more times and rose to his feet.

He had a job to do.

Grit and dirt crunched under his feet as he left the tunnel and exited the clinic, and the bright glare from the overcast day pierced his eyes. He had fired up the lover. Now the giant and the devil waited for their turn.

It only took a spark to flare up a fire storm.

115

Unable to run, Kelby stared at the two ghosts. Terror prickled her neck. Every hair on her body stood on end and her pulse accelerated into a frenzy.

The ghosts didn’t move. Neither were they floating. They seemed too chalky with definite shapes.

Weren’t ghosts invisible with only an aura of white?

Her breathing calmed. Taking the plunge to discover more, she stepped closer. They still didn’t move. Another step closer.

Kelby blew out her relief. They were only garden statues with ivory dust sheets thrown over them. This was getting out of hand. If only she could find what Gary meant by ‘42A’. And if only Hawk would come back from where ever he’d gone. At least he was here somewhere and she’d find him any minute.

The next room she entered had once been a reading room. It still maintained a small semblance of dignity, with books lining carved shelves on either side of the room. Journals, covered in thick dust, lay scattered across the floor, while a coffee table waited to once again carry an afternoon tea. Outside, a row of barren trees shuffled their branches, looming in to see what the intruder was doing.

Across the corridor another room contradicted the decaying tranquillity of the reading room. Three wrought iron hospital beds on either side of the room shrunk back into the walls as though afraid of receiving new patients. This room had the stench of death.

Kelby’s imagination ran wild with images of patients suffering unknown agonies. She bolted back into the hallway.

An amber glow lured her into a room a few doors further on. The mansion’s kitchen looked as sad and forlorn as the rest of the house. Shafts of light shone through smashed holes in the glass windows and pooled onto the dust-covered floor.

As Kelby stepped carefully over smashed jam jars, she imagined the baker had thrown cinnamon in the air and it had filtered down to cover the entire kitchen. With each step the stench of mould and damp earth rose up to assault her nostrils.

A rusted ladle still perched in a roasting tin sat on the stove as though the chef had rushed out the door and hadn’t come back. Ageing pan lids and burnt copper pots adorned the cooker set back into the wall, now crumbling around it. In the corner, cupboard doors swung off their rusting hinges spreading their shadows across the table, already littered with kitchen debris.

As she stood beside the rotting oak table, memories of her mother rammed into Kelby’s mind. With unexpected clarity the smell of an apple pie steaming out of the oven took over the mildew stench. Kelby recalled apple pies with golden crusts sitting on a powdered counter where her mother rolled pastry.

As fast as it had arrived, the memory faded. She stood for a moment, struggling to retrieve it, desperate to remember those little details about her mother.

When she turned and glanced at the kitchen once more, it took on the bruised hue of decomposing flesh. Kelby swung around and tiptoed between the glass fragments. Out in the hall, she leaned against the wall. It was sad such a terrible place had reminded her of her mother, but she was heartened that some precious memories still remained inside her.

Still unable to find what she’d come for, Kelby suspected Gary’s note indicated a room number. But none of these rooms bore signs. She fled, too afraid to look into any more rooms.

At the end of the long passage, a large arched landing area proudly showed off a carved flight of steps. For a moment, Kelby admired the stained glass skylight which sent shards of splintered colour down the dark stairs.

With a knot of dread unravelling in her stomach, Kelby peered down the curling staircase to the lower floor wondering if Hawk had ventured that far.

‘Hawk?’ she whispered.

Now convinced Gary’s number indicated a room, she had to see if she could find it below. Picking her way between rotting floorboards, she crept into the basement of the derelict building. Each stair proved to be perilous as it squeaked and croaked under her feet.

Some had rotted away, others had holes where wood worms had eaten through the once solid oak. At the bottom of the creaking stairway, the musty odour became stronger, clinging to her nose.

Half way down another long corridor she passed a broken and rusting wheelchair, minus one wheel and the seat eaten by rats. The sharp stench of urine and musk grew stronger. She was heading deeper and deeper into the bowels of the mansion.

When Kelby thought she could take no more of this stinking place, a faded sign on the wall indicated an arrow.

And a number. 42A.

116

Leaping into the air, María kicked the uncloaked soldier leaning over her mother. He fell back, more overcome with surprise than hurt.

The unbooted soldier dropped the bucket and reached to grab her. María darted under his arms and spun back. She grabbed the bucket, dumping it over his head. Using the point of her carved wooden-soled clog, she stomped with all her strength on his toes.

‘¡Ai-yee!’ her war cry echoed around the room.

Then, with both hands, she barrelled towards the unbooted soldier, uttering another war cry. Her lithe body smacked into his. The force shoved him into the fire. His frightened yelp echoed inside the bucket. She spun around, grabbed the hair-matted dagger and hurled it into the flames.

The uncloaked soldier dropped her mother and scrambled to his feet, cursing.

María dived to her knees and grabbed two of the quills still drying on the edge of the hearth. With the instinct of a killer, she spun back to face him.

And plunged the quills into his eyes.

The man’s screech filled the room. He gripped the quills, trying to pull them out, but tottered around like a drunk in a dark cobbled alley. He stumbled into the unbooted soldier who had wrangled the bucket from over his head, then he banged into the wall and passed out.

Beside the pile of clothing still to be packed away, María spotted her ink stained chemise.

The unbooted soldier came at her from behind.

Without thinking, she ducked, grabbed the ink stained chemise and tossed it high over her shoulders. His head caught in the loop of muslin that descended over the two of them. She yanked on it, jerking him into her back as the chemise suffocated him. Even though she had no chance against all three, she had to maim at least one. When the others came at her, she’d fight to the death.

The leather jerkin, still holding the tongs into her mother, let them go and jumped up. With her lips pulled back, María bared her teeth at him. He lunged at her with his huge leather glove.

María instinctively took a deep breath a second before the glove clamped over her mouth. She struggled against him for a long moment. She had to save Madre.

Nothing else mattered.

Without air to fuel her, María’s strength ebbed away. The grip she had on the chemise behind her slackened, and the unbooted soldier’s head came free. He grabbed her hands and twisted the chemise around them. In front of her, the leather jerkin held the glove over her mouth with his other hand on her throat.

María took one last glimpse of her mother’s bloodied breasts and looked into her eyes.

Then her beloved kitchen went black.