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The basement door creaks and groans as it swings open, the ominous wooden stairs descending below into the darkness like something out of a horror movie.
I swallow the urge to whimper.
So much for never going into the basement again. How long did that resolution last? Two days? At least I’m not alone this time.
Well, technically I wasn’t alone last time, but Cecily hardly counts as a person.
Aaron tests the light switch on the wall, and when nothing happens, he grunts and makes a face.
I glance over my shoulder at him, smiling at the furrow between his eyebrows. “I told you the lights don’t work.”
“I was hoping they just didn’t work for you.”
“What? Like the lights have a vendetta against me?”
“If an inanimate object could have a vendetta, Trisha, it would be against you.” Aaron’s eyes sparkle at me.
“Wouldn’t that be exciting?” I roll my eyes.
Setting my tennis shoe on the first step, I twist the flashlight on and aim it downward. “Prepare yourself.”
“For what?” he chuckles, placing his hand on my shoulder as he walks down the steps behind me.
“To be terrified beyond all reason.”
Aaron’s voice is warm and rumbly at my back. “I think you’re exaggerating how scary these dolls are.”
I scoff. “Wait until you see them.”
The vaguely damp scent of the basement envelopes me as I step off the groaning stairs and onto the cold cement floor, the harsh white light in my hand illuminating the piles of junk in every corner of the main room.
“Yikes,” Aaron mutters behind me.
“Right?” I turn the light back to him. “How does one person collect so much junk?”
Aaron moves to stand at my shoulder. “I’ve got an uncle in Dublin who’s a bit of a hoarder.”
“Really?” I glance up at him.
“Yeah.” He smiles. “I’ve told you I’ve got family in Ireland.”
“Oh, I know about your Irish-ness. It’s the hoarding gene that’s got me worried.” I shake my head in mock disappointment. “That might be one too many genetic predispositions than I can manage.”
Aaron flashes that heart-stopping grin of his at me. Even in the eerie darkness illuminated only by flashlight, it still makes my stomach tighten.
“Is that so, Miss Lee?” He leans down, slipping his hands around my hips as he presses his face against the wild frizz of my hair. His breath tickles my neck.
I gulp a lungful of musty basement air as I turn out of his hold. “It is. I just don’t know which is scarier. Being a hoarder or being—”
Aaron’s lips find mine in the dark, and my brain short circuits.
Words had been—I had been wording. Kissing is happening now. Kissing is better than wording.
The first time he’d kissed me a few years ago, it had been awkward. We’d gotten in a bit more practice since then, and apparently Aaron was a very fast learner.
Oh, Aaron was good at this. One big hand cradled the back of my head, fingers wound in my crazy hair, his fist gently pressed against the nape of my neck as he kissed me. The other hand splayed across my lower back, drawing me close to him.
I have hands too, you know. But one of them is clutching the flashlight, and the other one is just sort of flailing. Did I mention that Aaron is good at this?
Eyes closed, floating in his arms, I hum happily as he pulls back. Not far. Just far enough to set a soft kiss on the tip of my nose.
“You were saying?” he whispers against my forehead.
“Was I?”
“Something disparaging about the Irish.”
“My mistake.” I tilt my chin up and smirk at him. “What was that for?”
He hasn’t let me go yet, still holding me in the crook of his arm, pressed lightly against his chest.
“What?” His eyes twinkle. “I can’t kiss you just because?”
“We’re standing in the creepiest basement known to man, and you want to make out?”
“I always want to make out with you.” He presses a chaste kiss to my lips and slowly untangles his fingers from my hair, taking a step back.
Losing the warmth of his arms in the chilly, smelly basement makes me frown. “Well,” I adjust the flashlight, “you never know who could be watching.”
“Oh, like your dolls?”
“Keep it up, fuzz face.” I poke him in the arm. “When you see them, you’ll be just as creeped out as I was.”
“Sure I will.” He allows me to move past him and settles the flat of his palm against the small of my back.
I shine the light around in the big main room. Something’s not right. Or at least, it’s not the same as it had been the last time I’d been down here. But I can’t put my finger on what has changed.
“Has anyone else been down here?” I turn in a slow circle, shining the bright light at the piles of junk and trash.
“I don’t think so.” Aaron brushes something off my shoulder. “The door was locked this morning.”
Yes, it was. I’d unlocked it myself.
Which brought up another question, because I didn’t recall locking it in the first place. Maybe Keith had.
The beam of light catches on something shiny.
A bicycle.
Oh, the paperweight. Cecily and I had found it when we were locked down here.
“Is that a bike?” Aaron snorted.
I slowly turn back and look at the stairwell. I had to be losing my mind. I didn’t remember the bike being this far into the basement.
“What?” Aaron sets his hand on my waist.
“It moved.”
“What did?”
“The bike.” I point the light at it.
The bike currently leaned against the concrete of the basement wall. Previously, it had been propped up against a pile of cardboard boxes and trash sacks.
“So?”
I glance up at him. “So?” I think my voice goes up an octave. “It’s been moved.”
“Then I was wrong, and someone else has been down here since you and Cecily were locked inside.”
“But the door was locked.”
“And you and Keith have the key.” Aaron offers a gentle smile.
I take a steadying breath.
That’s right.
I have a key, and Keith has a key. So if I didn’t come down to the basement and move the bicycle, Keith must have. Easy explanation.
Aaron pats the side of my face. “You all right? You went kind of pale.”
“How can you see anything down here?” I turn away and shine the light around, revealing all the oddly shaped piles of junk, until the light falls on the garish red door at the other end of the room. “There.”
“Ugh. Red.” Aaron muttered.
“That’s what I said.” I start toward it. “Cecily didn’t seem to think it was a big deal.”
We approach the red door slowly, picking our way around cardboard and Styrofoam and giant rolls of plastic wrap.
“You’re worried about the magical moving bicycle,” Aaron said quietly. “I’m worried about the massive number of giant plastic wrap rolls this guy has. Either he was planning to repaint this whole place, or he’s killed about a dozen people and buried them down here.”
“Don’t even joke about that.”
“If he’s got a bottle of elderberry wine in the cabinet upstairs, we can get nervous.”
I can’t stifle a giggle in spite of myself. Aaron has an unending supply of Carey Grant movie references always at the ready, and I’m never sure when he’s going to throw one out.
We reach the door, and I push it open, allowing the light from my hand to spill into the darkness beyond.
“Oh, man.” Aaron lets out a loud hiss over my shoulder.
As before, at the center of the room behind the red door, the large shelf of porcelain dolls greets us. Their dull, unblinking eyes are like glass daggers, stabbing at us through the dark.
Aaron walks to the shelf and picks up one of the dolls. “That is not okay.”
I hover at his elbow. “Creepy, right?”
He turns the doll over in his hands, its limp hair flopping and sequined dress sparkling in the flashlight glare. Aaron narrows his eyes at the doll’s face.
“Not that I’m into dolls,” he says slowly, “but—would anybody actually buy one that looks like this?”
“Oh, you’re not into dolls?”
He raises an eyebrow at me.
“And you think I am?” I draw back in pretend disgust. “Why? Because I’m a girl?”
He shrugs. “If the shoe fits.”
I grunt. “Well. You’re a boy.”
Aaron laughs and sets the ugly doll back on the shelf. “I sure am.”
“And you’re Irish too.”
“The truth hurts.”
I duck under his arm as he tries to grab me again, and I step around the shelf, shining the light at the other piles of junk in the room. There is no rhyme or reason to it. All the rest of the items in the room are just as scattered and disconnected as the rest of the house.
“What was that, Trish?”
I poke my head around the shelf to look at him. He’s standing in front of a pile with a penlight he produced from somewhere.
“I didn’t say anything.”
He turns to me. “You didn’t?” He frowns.
“No.”
“Oh.” He scowls. “I thought I heard you.”
A slight chill creeps up my arms. How long do we have to be down here anyway? Was there a reason other than showing him the dolls that I wanted him down here for?
As we stand in the silence of the basement, the cold dank air seeps into me. Voices echo overhead before I remember that Laurel, Keith, and Prisha are upstairs, but my heart is still pounding. With every breath, I’d swear phantom fingers trailed along my forearms, crawling around in my scalp.
What was it about this place?
It’s just a basement. Isn’t it?
“There are lights in here, but I think they’re all burned out.” Aaron points his penlight at the ceiling. “We’ll need to change those bulbs out, and then we can get to work cleaning this area.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I walk toward him.
He stows the penlight and smiles at me. “Want to get out of here?”
“That obvious, huh?” His expression is kind.
“This place just creeps me out.”
“It certainly has a vibe.”
“A vibe?”
“Yeah, a vibe.” Aaron smirks. “How would you describe it?”
I blink at him. “Scary beyond all reason.”
“Yeah, you said that already.” He chuckles and guides me to the red door.
I take one last look around the room and pause.
“Hey, Aaron?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you put that doll back?”
Aaron frowns in surprise and looks back at the shelf. “Yeah.” He points to the middle row where one of the dolls rests slightly askew from the others. “Why?”
The light cast on the shelf shows an empty space on the bottom shelf, in the middle. It’s glaringly obvious. How I missed it when I walked in, I don’t know.
Slowly, I walk to the shelf and kneel, shining the light on the bottom shelf.
“Are you saying a doll has gone missing?” Aaron chuckled. “Maybe Keith came and got one.” But he doesn’t sound convinced. “Maybe you just thought it was there when you saw them the first time.”
I shine the light on the shelf, revealing a pattern in the dust that marked where the porcelain doll’s stand had sat. Aaron cleared his throat.
“Huh.”
I glare at him. “Yeah, huh. It’s creepy.”
Aaron carefully tucks me into his arm as he leads me out of the room toward the stairs. “We should talk to Keith. If he hasn’t been down here, then we have a problem.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know, Aaron.”
“No.” Aaron pauses by the stairs to let me go up first. “If things are going missing, that means someone else has a key. We need to know this place is secure, and if Keith can’t guarantee that—well, we need to know.”
I nod and hurry up the steps.
This time, on the first floor, I lock the door behind us.
In the sunlight upstairs, I can breathe easier. Also the fact that the team has done a tremendous amount of work helps. The path between the front room and the dining room is wide enough now that three people can stand across it.
The front door bangs, and Keith ambles inside with a fresh cylinder of trash bags. He grins at us, the stretch of his neck muscles making the skull tattoo ripple across his skin.
“How was the basement?” he asked.
I gesture to Aaron and he shrugs. “Scary beyond all reason.”
This is why I love him.
“For you too?” Keith cackles. “Must be some freaky dolls down there to unsettle a big guy like you.”
“Yeah, speaking of which,” I start, “have you been down there at all since Cecily and I were locked in?”
Keith sets the trash bags on the table and adjusts his collar. “Not at all. Why?”
I scowl at him. Is it just me, or does he sound nervous?
“I think some things have moved.” I say quietly. “I think there’s a doll missing, and I’m pretty sure that the bike that’s down there is in a different place.”
Keith frowns. “Well that’s—odd.”
Biting my lower lip, I watch his hands. He’s acting shiftier than normal, though I can’t tell you what normal even is for Keith since I don’t know him very well. But he has no reason to be shifty at all if he’s telling the truth. So what if he’s lying?
“Are you sure nobody’s been down there?” Aaron asks.
“Not to my knowledge.” Keith shakes his head. He sounds sincere. “But it’s conceivable that a family member might have a key. Possibly.” He’s still scowling. “I’m sorry about this. I was told the house would be secure. I’ll check with my supervisor tonight.”
“It’s not your fault, Keith.” Aaron holds up his hand.
I don’t argue, but I don’t agree either.
“It may not even be a big deal,” Aaron continues, “but I’d like to know who has access to the house.”
“Agreed.” Keith nods.
With a clattering, scraping sound, Cecily appears through the backroom door, pushing a large cardboard box full of wooden carvings. She reaches us and straightens, pushing her glasses up her nose.
“Aaron. Patricia.” She eyes Keith. “Mr. Wilner.”
“Miss Coburn.”
Cecily turns her gaze to me. “Prisha and I have nearly completed the initial removal of boxes from the back room. I have assembled all visible wooden figurines in this receptacle and would appreciate direction on where to place it.”
I struggle with the urge to sigh.
Sighing in the face of a statement like that seems like the best course of action, but it’s probably also rude. Again, if Cecily could pretend to be human for a little bit of our time together, it would make this entire project so much easier.
I look at Keith. “Wooden figurines?”
He shrugs. “That could be something URM could take. We’re starting an online store for donated goods. Maybe people would be interested in—” He stops as he pulls out a wooden figure of an anthropomorphized fox with antlers and wings. His expression turns into a grimace.
“Kindling?” Aaron supplies.
“My thoughts exactly.” Keith drops the wooden figure into the box. “I’d say take it to URM. We’ll add it to the growing pile and sort through it later.”
Aaron nods and bends down to lift Cecily’s box. “Trisha, you got your keys? We might as well throw this in your car.”
“Yeah.” I dig in my pants pocket.
Cecily vanishes around a corner and appears again with two more boxes, somewhat smaller but still large enough to be awkward.
“More carvings?” I gape.
“Yes. This box is a variety of cat-like figures.” She nods at the box to indicate that I should take it, which I do.
“And what’s that one?” I eye the box she’s holding.
“This box is entirely full of wooden carvings of human beings with duck heads.”
I look at Keith, whose expression is worried.
“Kindling?” I ask.
“Highest and best use for wood carved duck-people.” He nods.
“We’ll take this out to the car and be right back,” I say. “Aaron, you got that?”
“My box of winged, antlered fox-people is just fine, thank you.”
I lead the way out to the porch and then to the sidewalk with Aaron and Cecily trailing behind me.
“This has been a peculiar day,” Cecily is saying.
“How so?” I balance the box in one arm and search for my keys with my free hand.
“I was certain that yesterday I left a box of plastic cuckoo clocks in the living room.” Cecily glanced at the sky as though she were watching clouds pass. “But today, I can’t find it anywhere.”
I stop and turn to her. “Cecily.”
“Yes, Patricia?”
“Remember the bicycle in the basement?”
“Yes, Patricia. There was no logical reason for a bicycle to be in the basement.”
“Where was it?”
Cecily blinks. “In the basement.”
“No, in the basement, where was it? When we came off the stairs, wasn’t it right there against that very first pile of junk?”
“Correct.”
I turn to Aaron. “And now it’s on the other side of the room leaning on the wall.”
Aaron narrows his eyes. “Do you remember if there was a doll missing?”
Cecily shifts the box to one arm and strokes her chin. “No, there were dolls evenly spaced on every shelf. If there had been a void, I would have noticed.”
Aaron sighs. “So someone else does have a key.”
I groan. “Why can’t it be simple? Why can’t it be easy?”
Aaron starts walking toward my car again. “Now, come on. Let’s not fret.”
“I’m not fretting. I’m moaning. There’s a difference.”
Aaron chuckles. “I mean, Trisha, is there really anything anybody can take out of that house that’s going to hurt? They might be doing us a favor.”
“Or perhaps the neighborhood rumors are true after all.” Cecily brushes past me.
I stop again.
“What neighborhood rumors?”
Cecily pauses and sets her box on the sidewalk. “According to several of the neighbors, the house is haunted.”
Aaron rolls his eyes.
“Cecily, there are no such things as ghosts.”
Cecily shrugs. “Perhaps. But it is highly likely, according to talk in the general area, that many people have died inside the home. Apparently there were rumors about the house being haunted before the old man died in the RV in the driveway, so I’m certain that has only exacerbated the situation.”
Aaron moved between us and set the big box of wooden carvings on the trunk of my car. “Let’s not go crazy here. The house isn’t haunted.”
“And you are an expert in these matters?” Cecily narrows her eyes at him.
“The house isn’t haunted, Cecily, because ghosts aren’t real.”
Cecily tilts her head. “Ghosts are not real, Aaron, but I do not believe I am indicating that the house is full of ghosts.”
“That’s what a haunted house is, Cecily.” I set my box down and grab for my keys.
Aaron scrubbed his hand down his face. “All right. If you aren’t saying you believe in ghosts, what are you saying?”
“I believe in spirits.” Cecily straightens. “And there is no point in debating the matter, because both of you do as well, if our last year’s study on the Book of Ephesians is any indication.”
Now I’m gawking at her.
“Cecily.” I pull my keys out of my jeans. “Are you saying you think the house is possessed?”
Cecily shrugs. “Why not?”
Aaron laughs softly. “Okay.” He nods at me. “Let’s get this stuff in your car and get back to work.” He lifts the box off my trunk, and I open it so that he can nestle the box inside.
Seriously, Cecily must be smoking something.
Does she actually believe the ugly orange house is infested with demons or spirits? What is she even talking about? Sure, I believe in a spiritual world, but I sincerely doubt that any self-respecting demon would give a hoot about a hoarder’s paradise in Tonkawa, Kansas.
Not that demons have self-respect.
Or do they?
Never mind. I don’t want to think about that.
Stupid Cecily.
“Patricia.”
I hold the trunk open so Aaron can set my smaller box inside the trunk. “Cecily, bring your box over.”
Cecily doesn’t budge.
I start to glare at her, and then I trace her gaze. She’s staring at my car’s passenger door. Slowly I lean back and follow her eyes, my heart dropping into my stomach.
The passenger side window has been smashed open, glass all over the sidewalk.
