I grab my phone from my back pocket and turn on my flashlight, staring down at the dirt floor below. That damp scent hits me again, mud that seems to cake my throat. It’s as if I’m lying in the dirt myself, the rank scent enveloping me. Dirt and dampness and stale air. Below the door is a set of stairs I could take to lower myself down into it.
My heart picks up speed in my chest at the thought.
I lean down farther, trying to get a better look at what might be waiting for me. There’s a stack of boxes in the far corner, though they look as if they’ve gotten wet and are falling apart. They’re very old, probably older than if my grandma had been the one to leave them.
There’s a shelf along the back wall with a few jars on it. The only other thing I see in this cellar—aside from whatever bugs and rodents might be lurking—is dust.
I wonder who the last person to be down here was. I picture my grandma—or her grandma, even—coming down to the cellar to get vegetables canned straight from the garden for her family. I imagine how the cool, damp air must’ve been a nice respite from the hottest days of summer.
I can’t resist the temptation to explore the space, the opportunity to feel closer to the women who came before me in whatever way I can. Slowly, I place my foot on the first step, pushing down with as much weight as I can muster. The wood creaks underfoot, but it remains steady. Steady enough I feel confident it can hold me.
I move down to the next step, sucking in a breath of stale air. It reminds me of summers spent climbing over fallen logs and hiding inside the hollow trunks of trees in the woods.
As I ease down into the darkness, the possibility that someone might’ve come in the house this way knocks on the back of my skull like a pulse. The sheriff said it wasn’t likely, but that doesn’t mean impossible. There are shadowy spaces downhere, hiding places. For a brief second, I pause, shining the light around once more, and I have to choose.
To decide.
I look back at the safety of my bedroom, my two options swirling in my mind, but in the end, it doesn’t feel like a choice. I have to know.
The first and second steps hold me well, but as I put my weight on the third step, I hear it crack. Feel it start to give. Panic seizes my lungs. There is only a second to process that it’s happening as the wood splits completely underfoot. My foot slips forward. I reach behind me, then sideways, grasping for the wood of the stairs or a rail that doesn’t exist, trying anything—everything—to stop my fall. I slam into the next step, then the next, my tailbone on fire. I tumble forward, launching off the stairs and into the dirt.
I land with a thud, my nose scraping against the hard ground before I roll to my side with a yelp. For a moment, I lie in the stillness, catching my bearings. My stomach roils with fresh fear as hot as soup. I inhale deeply, puffing out a breath between my lips slowly, trying and failing to slow my heart.
I’m alive. I’m okay.
My hand goes to my nose first. It stings white-hot from the gash across the bridge, and warm blood dots the wound already. I’m okay. Nothing's broken as far as I can tell, but it burns terribly as I fan the blood.
I’m sore. My body feels worn and broken as I try to sit up, radiating fiery pain in some places and seeming to vibrate with dull throbbing in others.
I look around for my phone and find it a few feet away, wincing as I slip it into my pocket. The ground below me is damp and hard, and the air is stale and heavy, as if it isn’t quite air at all, but something thicker, heavier. I check the stairs, my eyes flitting with fear as I remember it’s my only point of exit. Thethird step is busted in the middle, but the rest seem unaffected by my fall.
Carefully, I stand and cross the shadowy cellar, my muscles and bones stiff and sore. I’m definitely going to be bruised by morning, if I’m not already.
I’m not trapped down here. I can make it up using the stairs that haven’t broken, I just have to be more cautious when testing them. I got too confident, too trusting of the old wood. Still, being down here fully makes each breath feel a little bit more difficult. My body is as tight as a stretched rubber band—both from the fall and from the fear of this place. Of being trapped, though I know I am not, and of what I might find down here.
It’s like the quintessential basement in every horror movie, and though I have to know what’s down here, there’s a part of me that wonders if I’ll regret looking. I breathe in the dusty scent of the cool, damp air as I make my way to the row of old, wooden shelves. There are a few old jars, labeled in a scratchy handwriting I don’t recognize.
Beans
Carrots
Pickles
Tomatoes
Beets
Corn
I’m shocked by how well the food appears to have held up over the years, though I wouldn’t dare eat it. Still, it’s a little time capsule left for me, most likely from my grandma. A piece of history I’m grateful to have. Once, she must have had mealsplanned for these foods. I wonder what happened. Why they weren’t eaten.
It’s hard not to picture the shelves filled with vegetables from the garden—meals just waiting to be made. Grandma was always a brilliant cook, and she was never afraid of the hard work it took to run this house on her own.
I’m tossed into my memories of her suddenly.
I remember the chickens she kept on the property and the large garden she tended. I remember how she’d wake me each morning with a kiss to the head, telling me the sun was waiting for me to come outside. I remember eating tomatoes right off the vine, or slicing them up, adding mayonnaise on a slice of bread, and eating it as a sandwich. I remember how she’d pour lavender and rosemary oils into my bathwater, how she’d sprinkle it with flower petals and tell me to call the fairies to come and play. How she’d serve every drink in a teacup, just because she could. I remember sitting on her porch learning to braid wildflowers, repeating each of their names and the special things they could do.
Wisteria for deep pain.
