“Because it’s not just a root cellar.”
Behind the shelves farthest from the trapdoor, there’s another half door, this one built into the wall.
No knob on it, but it does have hinges and a frame.
We trade looks, then move as one to clear the old jars off the shelves blocking the door.
It’s tight in here and smells even more like my grandma’s basement than the cabin basement did.
Dark and creepy too.
Likely full of worms.
No spiders though.
My heart won’t stop pounding.
There’s something behind that door, and soon, Davis is pulling the shelves away.
Unlike the top door, this one isn’t padlocked.
So maybe we’re about to find someone’s secret stash of historical sex toys. I heard that happened on a ranch in Wyoming somewhere, and given what I know of the people who live in Sarcasm and Shipwreck today, it truly wouldn’t be surprising if their ancestors also had secret sex toy rooms.
I mean, I have one myself, if you call a nightstand drawer a room.
But when Davis pries the door open with the shovel, with me staying as far out of the way as I can, I tell myself to be prepared for an empty space.
Probably a wall.
Maybe the door was put there to reinforce the structure.
Like the dirt was caving in or something. See again, there are roots poking through the dirt walls down here.
So I’m prepared when the door opens to a rock.
Seriously.
There’s a rock on the other side of the door. A big, stone-colored, rough-edged, small boulder of a rock taking up the entire width of the door.
But while it’s wide, it’s not tall.
In fact, it’s only half as high as the half-high door.
Davis shines his flashlight in and squats to look.
I huddle close to him, inhaling his familiar scent of pine and campfire, and peer in too.
He stops breathing.
I canfeelit.
Or maybe that’s me.
Maybe I’ve stopped breathing.
Probably we’ve both stopped breathing.
The little hidey-hole beyond the rock isn’t empty.
