Houses of Stone, KATHY [classic literature books TXT] 📗

There were three steps, rickety and slippery with wet. Cameron hadn't exaggerated about the mud. It squelched disgustingly under Karen's booted feet when she stepped down onto the floor.

Cameron's voice was eerily magnified by echoes as they moved slowly forward. "This part of the cellars was never electrified. When they installed central heating—around the turn of the century, it must have been—they raised the floor of that one section in order to make the furnace more accessible. I suppose the old boy's decision to shut the rest of it off makes some sense; there was ample storage space, in outbuildings and in the house, and it would cost a fortune to renovate this area. It should be of interest to historians, though; some parts are original, and over two hundred years old."

Karen was becoming accustomed to the odor now; it was nothing worse than damp and decay. She was relieved to find that her discomfort was entirely physical. The air was no colder than that of any other underground region, and although she would have preferred to be elsewhere she had no feeling of mindless panic.

"Stop a minute and have a look around," Cameron said.

It was sensible advice. She had had to concentrate on keeping her footing; the mud was as slippery as ice, and the idea of falling into it, getting the noxious stuff on her clothes and skin, was not attractive. Settling her feet firmly, she sent the beam of her flashlight slowly around the room.

The image of the cave was irresistible—limitless caverns, natural prisons of windowless stone, deep in the bowels of the earth, lightless and inescapable—the classic metaphor of confinement and burial alive. The stone walls shone greasily green with lichen. The indescribable substance underfoot covered her feet; pools of sickly iridescence marked its surface. Somewhere, under the slime, was a solid surface. Stone, brick? She was not tempted to investigate.

The wall on the right was blank except for a barred opening high against the rough wooden boards of the ceiling. A window well, she thought, but not the one into which she had fallen; this one was dark, its covering still intact. On the walls ahead and to her left, some of the stones had been shaped into arches. If there had been doors, they were gone; darkness as solid as wooden paneling filled the openings.

"There are two more rooms like this straight ahead," Cameron said. "One opening out of the other. The arch on the left leads to a passageway with two rooms on either side and another at its end. I made a rough plan; if you'll accept a copy of that in lieu of further exploration, you will do me and yourself a favor. The rest of the place is just like this, only worse."

He was trying to control his voice, but she heard the strain in it. "Are you claustrophobic?" she asked, without stopping to think that it might not be a tactful question.

"Doesn't it affect you that way?"

He wouldn't admit it, of course. "I'm not a happy person," Karen said frankly. "But the smell and the slime and the mud bother me more than the sense of enclosure. We can go. I'm sorry to have inflicted this on you.

"Not at all." But his movement was a little too abrupt; turning, he slipped and had to take a few quick running steps to keep from falling. The mud sloshed and splashed. Viscous drops struck Karen's hand and clung like glue.

"Sorry," Cameron said breathlessly.

"Oh, stop apologizing!" Karen resisted the impulse to scrub her hand against the seat of her jeans. The mud stank horribly. It would be easier to wash her hands than her pants.

She moved cautiously toward the steps, where Cameron joined her. His breathing was too quick and too loud, though he was obviously fighting to control it. Men, she thought contemptuously. Why hadn't he admitted he suffered from claustrophobia? An impulse she was soon to regret prompted her to say cockily, "No tigers, no snakes."

She heard his breath catch. The beam of his flashlight swung to one side. Greenish black, thick as her wrist, scales shimmering with wet, it was framed clearly in the light before it slithered out of sight, with a wet sucking sound.

As she stumbled back, feeling her feet sliding out from under her, Cameron's arm caught her and pulled her against him with a force that drove the breath from her lungs.

"Just a water snake," he said. "Perfectly harmless. There are copperheads in the woods, though, so if you go exploring watch where you put your feet and hands."

He did that on purpose, Karen thought furiously. He knew the damned thing was there; he must have heard or seen something I missed. Of all the silly, childish tricks—getting back at me because I witnessed his moment of weakness . . .

"You can let go of me now," she said through clenched teeth.

"As soon as you get up those stairs safely."

"Thank you so much."

"Not at all."

Karen made no attempt to free herself. She had found what she wanted. Every detail matched Ismene's description of the cellars—including one particular detail that gave the final proof of her hypothesis. The capstone of the arch that opened into the passageway had been shaped, by nature or a sculptor's hand, into the shape of a monstrous head.

Chapter Seven

Alas! A woman that attempts the pen Such an intruder on the rights of men, Such a presumptuous Creature is esteem'd The fault can by no vertue be redeem'd.

Anne Finch,

Countess of Winchelsea, 1713

It IS whispered, by those whose memories (though dimmed by the passage of time and warped by the influence of pagan superstition) extend into the distant past, that the stone was discovered by workers clearing the fields for cultivation. It was one among many such boulders; but it alone had the appearance of having been shaped by deliberate intent. The poor ignorant workers fled, screaming in terror, when this diabolic countenance glared up at them from the soil from which