He twisted the toothbrush in his hand to realy get into the little niche running along the bottom of the paneling on the Vitale Society's pledge room wal s. The toothbrush came out black with ancient dirt and dangling cobwebs, and Matt grimaced in disgust. His back was already sore from hunching over.
"How's it going, soldier?" Chloe asked, squatting down next to him, a dripping sponge in one hand.
"Honestly, I'm not sure how scrubbing out this room is going to help us develop honor and leadership and al the stuff Ethan keeps talking about," Matt said. "I think this might just be a way to save a couple of bucks on a cleaning service."
"Well, they say cleanliness is next to godliness," she reminded him. Chloe laughed. He realy liked her laugh. It was sort of bubbly and silvery.
Internaly, he gave himself a little eye rol . Bubbly and silvery. She had a nice laugh, was al he meant.
They'd been spending a lot of time together since Christopher's death. Matt had felt like nothing could be as bad as living with al of Christopher's stuff when Christopher himself was gone, but then Chris's parents came and packed it up, gently patting Matt on the back as if he deserved some kind of sympathy when they had lost their only son. And with just empty space where Christopher's things had been, everything was a mil ion times worse.
Meredith, Bonnie, and Elena had tried to comfort him.
They wanted so badly for him to be okay again that he'd felt guilty he wasn't, making it harder for him to be around them.
Chloe had taken to coming by the room, hanging out with him or getting him to come to the cafeteria or wherever with her, keeping him in touch with the world when he felt like locking himself away. There was something so easy about her. Elena, the only girl he'd ever loved - before now, part of him whispered - was much more work to be around.
Inside, he flinched at his own disloyalty to Elena, but it was true.
Now he was starting to wake up and take an interest in things again. And he kept noticing with fresh surprise the cute dimple Chloe had in her right cheek, or how shiny her curly dark hair was, or how graceful and pretty her hands were despite the fact that they were often stained with paint.
So far, though, they were just friends. Maybe ... maybe it was time to change that.
Chloe snapped her fingers in front of his face, and Matt realized he had been staring at her. "You al right, buddy?" she asked, a little frown wrinkling her forehead, and Matt had to restrain himself from kissing her right then.
"Yeah, just spacing out," he said, feeling a flush creep over his cheeks. He was smiling like a goof, he knew.
"Want to help with these wal s?"
"Sure, why not?" Chloe answered. "I'l soap down the wal part, and you keep doing whatever you're doing there with that little toothbrush."
They worked companionably together for a while, Chloe now and then accidentaly-on-purpose dripping soapy water onto the top of Matt's head.
As they worked further along the paneling, the niche under the baseboard got deeper, until it was not so much a niche as a gap. Matt slid the toothbrush underneath to scrub - man, but it got grimy down there - and felt something shift.
"There's something under here," he told Chloe, pressing his hand flat against the floor and working his fingers into the gap. He slid his hands and the toothbrush around, trying to shimmy whatever was down there toward them, but he couldn't quite get a grip on it.
"Look," said Chloe after a moment, "I think the paneling might slide up here." She wiggled the section of wood until it gave a raucous screech and she was able to work it up.
"Huh," she said, puzzled. "Wow, it's like a secret compartment. Seems like it hasn't been opened for a while, though."
Once she managed to ease the paneling up, they could see the space behind it was smal , only a foot or so in height and width and a few inches deep. It was ful of cobwebs. Inside was something rectangular, wrapped in a cloth that had probably once been white but was now gray with dust.
"It's a book," Matt said, picking it up. The grime on the outside of the cloth was thick and soft and came away on his hands. Unwrapping it, he found the book inside was clean.
"Wow," Chloe said softly.
It looked old, realy old. The cover was flaking dark leather, and the edges of the pages were rough as if they'd been hand cut instead of by a machine. Tilting the book a little, Matt could see the remains of gilt that must have once been the title, but it was worn away now.
Matt opened it to the middle. Inside, it was handwritten, black ink inscribing neat strong strokes. And totaly indecipherable.
"I think it's Latin. Maybe?" said Matt. "Do you know Latin at al ?"
Chloe shook her head. Matt flipped back to the first page, and one word popped out at him. Vitale.
"Maybe it's a history of the Vitale Society," Chloe said.
"Or ancient secrets of the founders. Cool! We should give it to Ethan."