Finally, I reach the end of the steps and look around. I’m in a room. I think. My iPhone light isn’t exactly going too far in thepitch black. I look along the stone walls with my lamp and my hands, and finally I find a switch. I hesitate for a moment, my hand hovering above it. What if clicking it on means some alert goes off somewhere? What if it sets off a trap?
Then I remember my heartbreak. Adam’s gone. My entire body remembers the pain of everything, and it resounds deeply, as though the hurt were a bell someone rang through my cells, and so I flip the switch as quickly as I can.
An enormous light fixture set in the middle of the low ceiling goes on. It’s huge and long with frosted glass set into windowlike panes around the lamps inside. And I can see everything.
It’s not much. The room is empty. The walls and the ground are made of the same stones, large and curvy. The beach walk downtown is cobblestone, and these remind me of that, except they’re discolored and porous. From age, maybe. I get the feeling that this place is really old, older than the church above me, even.
Behind me are the stairs, and in front of me is what appears to be a dark hallway. I slowly make my way to its entrance, my footfalls oddly soundless against the stone. I glance down at the threshold.
I guess the light switch worked here, too, because lightly glowing fixtures illuminate the way. The hallway is narrow, much tighter than I’d like. Since returning from the woods, I am much more claustrophobic than before. But the only alternative is feeling what it’s like to have a heart that’s just been ripped to shreds and then lit on fire. So I keep going.
It’s only about thirty or forty feet when I find the end of the hallway. There’s a weird setup here, and I glance around, looking for a door or anything like an entryway elsewhere. But there isn’t any.
So I focus on the…thing in front of me. The light here is so dim, I can’t really see the details. But I can hear it. Whatever it is, it involves water.
I angle my phone torch at it and blink. It’s…it’s a fountain. A wide, cement bowl comes right out of the wall, and water is bubbling up into it, creating constant, gentle waves. I look underneath, expecting to see some piping, but there isn’t anything like that. It’s just the continuation of the stone wall meeting the stone floor, all the same type of stones that were in the one circular room behind me.
Something glimmers at the edge of the fountain’s bowl and I bend closer, bringing the light with me. It’s…well. Piles of coins. Some American currency, but lots not. And tiny little pieces of paper, folded up into impossibly small squares. And…beads. Some made of wood, some of what might be semiprecious stones. There are also what look like seeds. Tiny black round seeds and enormous purple beans. Sage would know what these are.
I grab my phone to send a text, but curse when I realize that, unsurprisingly, I have absolutely no service down here. Considering it wasn’t exactly early when I broke into the director of education’s office, I realize I need to head back as soon as I get some photos of this fountain—which is also an altar, I’m realizing—as well as the round room.
I sit down to get a detail of the bottom of the bowl when I accidentally angle my phone too high and freeze.
There’s something etched into the wall, high above the fountain. I jump up to stand on my tiptoes and hold my phone above my head, high.
There Is No Such Thing as Sin.
That’s what’s carved right into the rock in loopy all-caps.
Goose bumps prickle over my skin. Despite the message being pretty peaceful and nonthreatening, I get the feeling that Idon’t actually belong here. Not just the breaking-and-entering feeling. But there’s a primalknowingthat comes over me, about my intrusion. Something primordial. I don’t belong. This is a cult and I haven’t been initiated. Everything I am seeing, I haven’t earned the right to see it. And what’s going to happen to me if they—whoever they are, whoever keeps up this place and leaves coins and seeds on the altar here—find out? I don’t want to know, actually.
I turn around and go back the way I came, through the narrow hallway, through the big, round stone room, and I click the lights off as I reach the staircase. I take a big sigh as I think about how far I’ve come and how far that means the incline is. I’m not Teal. I don’t spend my free time running up and down hills. Nevertheless, I begin the climb.
It takes longer, not just because it’s a much more difficult workout, but because I keep banging my toes against stone. And they hurt, even through the leather of my shoes.
When I finally reach the top, I sit down, catch my breath, and reach for the keys in my bag.
Only they’re not there.
I try to open the door, wincing because I’m pretty sure it locked behind me earlier. And yup, it’s definitely sealed as all hell. I try and shake it, and even give it a good kick, but it’s not going anywhere.
I look closely at the knob of the door and realize there isn’t even a keyhole. Even if I’d had the keys, I wouldn’t be going anywhere.
And now I want to kick myself for not thinking this through at all.
It’s Adam’s fault. It’s definitely Adam’s fault for breaking my heart and forcing me to break into an ancient cult gathering space under the big Catholic church.
I hold my phone against the door, hoping it picks up service, but it remains completely disconnected from the outside world. No matter where I move it, the little bars at the top right corner refuse to light up.
I sigh and lean back against the cold stone wall of the step I’m sitting on. It being Adam’s fault doesn’t change the fact that I’m locked in and not a single soul knows where I am.
Instead of running from my heartache, I have found myself stuck in the dark with no choice but to feel it.
Finally, I begin to cry.
33
I’m lucky because I alwayspack essentials in my handbag, and I’m also lucky that I thought to bring my handbag. I have water and snacks. I have a little travel first aid kit. I have plenty of tissues, which are definitely the most important supply I have on hand. I blow my nose into another one and curse myself out once again for not telling anyone what I was up to. To be fair, anyone I can think of would’ve tried to talk me out of it. Which really goes to show I shouldn’t have done it to begin with.
