Mercy, stop.
I put my hand on the iron handle.
It pressed down.
Unlocked.
I blamed Judah for this. For not locking every door in his house.
It swung inward. Cool air came up from below, and with it the smell of earth and stone and something that didn't belong in a root cellar. My mind thought of pennies. That faint metallic tang that was descriptive of a certain red fluid.
I glanced underfoot.
Idiot.
Moron.
What the hell are you doing?
Stone steps went down. I saw the faint outline of a pull-string bulb at the bottom. Dark beyond it. I should have turned back. Every instinct screamed it. But there was something about that odd smell — ritualistic, almost — that didn't fit with the rest of this grand old house. It whispered of secrets kept below the floorboards, of things hidden from polite society.
Dumbass.
I took the first step.
The second.
You reckless, foolish girl…
The third, and stopped.
The dark below was total. I stood on the third step and thought about what happened to women in stories who went into cellars.
I thought about Celeste Taylor's flyer.
I thought about the boat at the dock.
I thought about Gerald Hall and his notepad. Andmypen that he never gave back.
I thought about the cherry in my palm and the way Judah had looked at it pinned to my dress.
My foot found the third step going back up. Then the second. Then I was in the corridor with the door still open behind me, the cold air still coming through it.
I pulled it shut.
Turned around.
Judah was there.
He didn't look like a preacher. In the near pitch-black dark of the corridor, he looked like a statue carved from something old and unforgiving. He was shirtless — the suffering Christ on his skin looked distorted in the shadows, the ink dark as bruises.
“I was looking for the bathroom,” I said. My voice sounded thin, like a wire about to snap.
He didn't move. He watched me with that terrifying, Sunday-morning stillness. It was the look of a man who knew exactly where every mouse in his house was hiding, but not quite sure howthismouse had slipped him by.
I knew that look. My father had worn the same expression whenever I’d “disappointed” God, which, according to him, had been fairly regularly.
“I went the wrong way,” I said quietly, careful not to disturb the night. Or maybe too afraid to let him her me.
