The first match I strike goes out almost instantly – it’s an old box.
I use the second to try and get my bearings, but I still can’t see the steps, and I’m struggling to get enough air into my lungs.
The third match I strike briefly illuminates part of the wall, and I notice all the scratch marks on the surface. It looks like someone, or something, once tried to claw their way out of here.
I try to stay calm, remember to breathe, but then the flame burns the tips of my fingers and I drop the final match on the floor.
Everything is black.
And then I hear it again. My name being whispered. Right behind me.
Amelia. Amelia. Amelia.
My breaths are too shallow, but I can’t control them and I think I’m going to faint. No matter what direction I look in, all I can see is darkness. Then I hear the sound of scratching.
Adam
It takes far longer than it should to find Amelia’s inhaler.
Her asthma attacks are few and far between, but I always think it is best to be prepared for the worst. Life made me think that way and I’m better off for it. Looking for my wife’s handbag is never an easy task – even for her – but trying to guess where she might have left it in an unfamiliar building, in complete darkness, is something which takes time. Time I know she doesn’t have. When I finally feel the leather bag, I find the inhaler inside, and rush back to the trapdoor. Bob has started scratching at the wood, and I can hear Amelia crying.
‘You need to find the steps,’ I say.
‘What do you think I’m trying… to do?’
She can’t breathe.
‘OK, I’ll come down.’
‘No! Don’t, you’ll… fall.’
‘Stop talking and focus on your breathing. I’m coming.’
I feel my way slowly, one foot connecting with one step at a time, the sound of Amelia’s panicked breathing guiding me in the darkness. I find her against the opposite wall from where she needed to be, and put the inhaler in her trembling hands. She shakes it and I hear two puffs. Then the power comes back on, the fluorescent tube on the ceiling flickers back to life, and the crypt is bathed in ghostly light.
‘There must be a generator,’ I say, but Amelia doesn’t answer. Instead she just clings to me and I wrap my arms around her. We stay like that for a long time and I feel oddly protective of her.
What I should feel is guilt, but I don’t.
Amelia
He holds me and I let him, while I wait for my breathing to return to normal. I think about what the marriage counsellor asked at our very first session. ‘Call me Pamela’ – as Adam nicknamed her – always sounded as though she knew what she was talking about, but I confess my confidence in her dwindled a little once I discovered she’d been divorced twice herself. What does marriage mean to you? I remember how she purred the question and I remember Adam’s answer. Marriage is either a winning lottery ticket or a straitjacket. He thought it was funny. I didn’t.
He kisses me on the forehead, gently, as though scared I might break. But I’m tougher than he realises. Cleverer too. The kiss feels antiseptic, nothing more than something to soothe.
‘How about we take this bottle to bed?’ he asks, picking up the Malbec and holding my hand as he leads me out of the crypt. Sometimes it is best to let people think you will follow them, until you are certain that you won’t be lost on your own.
There is a circular wooden staircase in the middle of the library lounge, leading up to what must have been a first-floor balcony when this was still a chapel. I’m guessing the woodwork is all original, it certainly looks it, and every second step creaks in a rather theatrical way. Bob charges ahead, trotting up the stairs, almost like he knows where he is going.
I can’t help but stare at the pictures we pass on the whitewashed stone walls. The series of framed black-and-white portraits starts at the bottom of the staircase, and winds all the way to the top, like a photographic family tree. Some of the pictures have almost completely faded, bleached of life by sunlight and time, but the newer ones – closer to the first floor – are in good condition, and even look a little familiar. I don’t recognise the faces in them, though. And there is no point in asking Adam, who doesn’t even recognise his own in the mirror. I notice that three frames are missing; discoloured rectangular shapes and rust-coloured nails remain where they used to hang.
A red carpet held in place with metal rods runs up the middle of the stairs – unlike the cold flagstone flooring downstairs – and they open out onto a narrow landing. There are four doors in front of us. All of them are closed and look exactly the same, except for one which has a red DANGER KEEP OUT sign hanging on its handle. There is a tartan dog basket in front of it, along with a typed note like the one we found in the kitchen when we first arrived: