Truly Devious (Truly Devious #1) - Maureen Johnson Page 0,60
here for. My dragons are down there.”
“Stevie, I wouldn’t . . .”
“You’re not me,” Stevie said. “If I die, avenge me.”
She was joking, but not totally. She had to go, and it also felt like a possible mistake.
Some mistakes you have to make.
The distance, she knew, was about four hundred feet. Four hundred feet of dark tunnel may not sound like a lot of dark tunnel, but it is, in fact, a lot of dark tunnel. But she was going in, like people who crawled into pockets of pyramids sealed for thousands of years with no idea what was ahead of them went in. There were buried mysteries, and sometimes, you must go into the earth.
She wondered if she would panic. To her surprise, though, her heartbeat was slow, steady as she took each step into the velvety nothingness of the tunnel. Soon, there would be a door at the end. She reached her arm out in front of her to find it, and eventually she felt the heavy wood at her fingertips.
Her heart literally skipped a beat and sent a glug of confused blood popping.
The door was made of thick pieces of wood belted together with iron, that small, sliding window looking like something from a medieval jail. There was no knob on this door, no lock. Originally, this door would have been opened from the other side, so if it was locked on that side, that was the end of her exploring.
She pushed.
It opened.
She was going farther. She was going in. This was like a dream.
The room beyond was small. Three sides of the space were composed of shelving. This had been the liquor room. The deliveries would come in through the tunnel, then come into this room for storage. A metal ladder went up to a hatch in the ceiling. Stevie tested it for a moment with a shake. It seemed to be firmly secured to the wall and in perfect repair. Could she do this? Could she actually go to the place where it happened?
The others were nowhere behind her. She was doing this alone.
She tested the ladder again, then tucked her flashlight into her bag. She was going up into the dark. She proceeded slowly, trusting in the ladder and knowing that at some point her head would make contact with the hatch above. She would use that sensation as a guide.
Up, up, up into the dark, moving more slowly as she went. She felt the hatch against her hair, against her scalp. She backed down a rung and reached up to test it. It didn’t give at first, but she pressed harder. There was an unholy squawk as the ancient springs were forced back into action, but the hatch popped open.
Some people want to go to see the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben. Some people dream of their proms or their someday weddings. Some people dream of going up in a hot-air balloon or scuba diving in clear Caribbean waters. Everyone has a dream place, and Stevie Bell was climbing into hers.
The domed observatory seemed smaller now that she was inside of it. The thick glass triangles that composed most of the structure were encrusted with dirt, so all was dark. She shone her light around the stone floor, the bench that ran around the side. There was nothing in here now but some dead leaves and dirt. It smelled like a shed.
Dottie had been here. This is where they found her Sherlock Holmes book. Albert Ellingham had come right through that stout door. He’d been struck and fallen to the floor. Here? On this spot? Had the money been counted here? Was this where it all started to go so very wrong?
She closed her eyes for a moment. Maybe, if she breathed this air and felt this space, maybe she could go back. . . .
“Hey!” Dash’s voice cut through the silence as he yelled from below. “Come on. We need you.”
The moment was over.
The filming was very quick. All that was needed was for Hayes to recite the Truly Devious letter while walking down the tunnel length. He and Maris passed the camera back and forth to get some long shots, but it was dark and cold and hard to film, and time was not on their side. At eight thirty, they all crept back to the steps. A quick look outside showed that no one was waiting for them to pop out of the hole. The doors were closed.