So much pain and disappointment. I was a little bit scared, but I knew they were, too.
I laid there, listening to the silence, knowing we were underground but surprised I couldn’t hear much. No footfalls above. No plumbing. It was a pretty solid little fortress down here. I’d never been before they renovated it, but that shower was impressive.
The catacombs.
Damon had said something about hiding something down here, didn’t he? In a shallow pool? Or a well?
I wondered if the room he described was still here.
Leaving them asleep, I quietly climbed out of the bed and found my way to the bedroom door.
Where did he say to go?
Something about the bottom of the stairs.
I walked out of the room, knowing the shower was across the hall, and we had come from my right. I didn’t think we’d passed any stairs, so I veered left and walked, hearing music playing, so I followed the sound as I trailed down the wall.
You turn left at the bottom of the stairs, he’d said, and keep going.
After what seemed like minutes and minutes, my heart racing a little more every step I took away from Damon, the music was loud now, and I held out my hand, feeling an entrance to a stone staircase. I put my foot on the first step, making sure. This must’ve been the stairwell leading up into the cathedral part of the house.
With my back to the stairs, I turned left, trailing down the hallway, the floor turning from marble to stone and dirt, and the walls less polished and grainier under my fingers. When I felt the draft, I turned right and held out my right hand, brushing the wall and counting the doorways.
Damn, this underground level was big. I wondered what I missed down here in high school, but then again, I was probably happier not knowing.
Reaching the fourth doorway, I stopped and immediately heard the trickle of water he’d told me about. Fear crept in, because I was far away from anyone else in the catacombs, but my heart leaped, too, because I’d found the place he described.
Stepping inside, I swallowed down my nerves, and followed the wall around to where I felt water spilling down the rocks and dribbling into a small pool. Kneeling down, I patted the rocks and stuck my fingers in the water, feeling its icy coolness.
Dipping my hand in, I felt around, touching rocks, until I came to a straight edge with a corner. I grabbed hold of it, recognizing that it was a box of some sort.
I shimmied it out from where it was lodged and set it down on the ground, finding the clasp, and opening it. Carefully, I grazed my hand over whatever was inside to make sure it was nothing sharp.
Finding a plastic bag, I pulled it out and unraveled it, feeling something hard inside. Opening it up, I felt around, fingering what seemed like beads and another small metal object.
Pulling both out, I held them in my hand, examining them.
Right away, I recognized the cross on the rosary.
It was Damon’s. The one he wore in high school, and the one he had in the fountain when we were kids.
The other object was metal, with a sharp clasp, and a design on it. A hair barrette.
And then a memory flashed—me taking this out of my hair. Why did I give this to him?
The rosary, the barrette, the fountain…
I bit him.
What?
The memory was so fleeting, but it was vivid and strong. “I’d bitten him that day,” I said out loud, realization flooding back. “Before we went to the treehouse. He let me bite him in the fountain. He was glad I did it. Why?”
What were we doing in that fountain? And why was it more important to Damon than what happened afterward in the treehouse?
Leaving the box and bag, I carried the items with me back out in the corridor, retracing my steps.
“Winter?” I heard Rika’s voice.