We both crept back to the door of the closet, and Nova raised her phone again in a trembling hand, shining it into every corner of the tiny room. Shelves full of cleaning products, a floor polisher, a mop dangling limply over the edges of a bucket.
“What the hell?” Nova whispered. “Where’s it coming from?”
As we stared, mystified, into the tiny space, we heard my name again, faintly, and there was no doubt it was coming from the supply closet, but how? Nova, her expression determined, stalked back into the closet and began shoving things aside.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“We both heard it, Wren. It’s coming from this room. There has to be… ha!” Nova turned to me, triumphant, her finger pointing into the corner of the room. Low on the wall, below the bottommost shelf of cleaning products, was a vent. It was small and about two foot by two foot square, set flat into the wall. As we moved closer, dropping to our knees in front of it, we heard my name again, more distinctly this time; and there was no arguing the point anymore: the sound was definitely coming from that vent.
Nova and I threw each other one wary look before scooting forward in tandem to examine the vent. I ran my fingers along the edges, probing.
“There are screws missing here,” I said, pointing to the top and bottom right corners.
“See if you can open it!”
I bit my lip. “This just doesn’t make sense. Why in the world would Bea come to this theater, open a custodial closet, and climb into a vent?” I asked.
“She probably didn’t. There must be another way to… wherever that vent leads. But do you really want to keep wasting time searching the building for it?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know what to do! I’m just afraid that…” But my voice died in my throat as the flashlight beam reflected off something on the ground, next to my left knee. I plucked it from the floor of the closet with trembling fingers, and held it up. Nova shone her flashlight on it so that we could both see it properly.
It was a bead. A shiny, cobalt blue bead, from the end of one of Bea’s braids.
“Wren!”
My mind was churning, so full of Bea that it took me a moment to realize that it was Luca’s voice I was hearing. It sounded panicked. There was no more time to deliberateor reason. It was time to do something, and damn the consequences.
I dug my fingernails between the vent and the wall, and tugged. I put more force into it than was necessary, and fell onto my backside with a huff of surprise as the vent cover swung easily out from the wall. Nova trained her light on the opening, and we saw a silver metal vent extending forward, disappearing into darkness.
“Hecate preserve us; we’re climbing down that thing, aren’t we?” Nova muttered.
“We sure are,” I replied.
A grin flitted over Nova’s face. “After you,” she said.
I was too anxious to retort. Besides, I was the one who had enlisted her help, not the other way around. It was my name echoing up from the gloom. I should be the one to go first. I heaved in a deep breath and, before I could talk myself out of it, shoved my head and shoulders through the opening of the vent. I slid in easily, though there wasn’t much room on either side of me. It was also stiflingly hot. I didn’t think I was claustrophobic, but I was definitely about to test that theory. I scooted forward on my stomach in a sort of army crawl, my hands clasped in front of me.
“Here.” Nova’s arm snaked in beside me, and handed me the phone. I took it gratefully, holding it out in front of myself, and swinging it right to left in the narrow space to get a better look. The vent itself was coated in dust except for a wide, shiny stripe down the middle.
“Someone’s been down here recently,” I said. “The dust has been disturbed.”
“We must be on the right track then,” Nova said. “Keep going!”
I inched forward, alternating my elbows to propel myself. Once I had managed to get my whole body inside, I heard Nova crawl in after me, cursing quietly.
“Holy shit, it’s hot! Where does this thing empty out, the ninth circle of hell?” she hissed.
“Let’s hope not,” I whispered in reply.
Inch by inch, we moved forward, the flashlight beam jerking and swinging with my movements. I had no concept of how far we’d traveled, thinking it couldn’t have been more than thirty or forty feet before the vent suddenly widened. We saw another, smaller vent to the left, through which the hot air seemed to be pumping. Once we had passed it, gasping with the intensity of the heat, the metal on all sides gave way to damp stone that sloped gently downward. The heat we’d felt in the first part of the vent began to dissipate as we descended, slipping a little on the dampness of the stone, which increased as the passage became colder and clammier. Soon, we were barely able to keep ourselves from sliding straight down into the darkness. I had to brace my hands and feet against the walls to slow my progress. I panted with the effort, terrified that I’d lose my grip and go barreling down the passage, and right into the arms of waiting danger. Behind me, Nova was making quiet sounds of distress as she, too, tried to control her progress down the passage.
Suddenly, as I shifted my weight to ease a cramp in my leg, my shoe lost its purchase, and I tumbled downward. My hands scrabbled desperately against the walls for a handhold, but I found none, and landed with a gasp and a thump on the floor. A squeal of alarm was the only warning I got before Nova slid down as well, and landed in a crumpled heap right on top of me.
“Sorry! Are you okay?” she asked, in a voice that was little more than a breathless whisper.
“I’m fine,” I lied, as I crawled out from under her, wincing.
Nova fumbled for a moment with her phone, which had landed on the ground beside us. The space in which we found ourselves was dimly illuminated. It was a small, round chamber—I could have reached out with both arms and touched the walls on either side of me simultaneously. The ceiling was unexpectedly high; how far had we descended? I was too panicked and sore to try to estimate the distance, but I knew we were well underground. The thought only made me more anxious. This was a theater, for goodness sake. Why the hell did it have a creepy subterranean passage? As though she had read my thoughts, Nova whispered in my ear.
