Chapter 36
36
The further down I went, the colder it got. Damp, chill air wrapped around me like a straitjacket. It smelled musty, slightly bitter. I took each step mechanically, forcing myself to take deep breaths.
Finally, after what felt like forever, I was at the bottom. I swept my flashlight around; I was in a cavern the size of a small room. Mikki and Jonah were walking around the perimeter, their beams swirling like mini floodlights. The stone ground was bumpy but overall pretty flat.
“Hey!” Mikki glanced at me. She might be nervous, but she was also excited: her dark eyes flashed, taking everything in. She stopped in front of a huge squarish slab across from the stairs. It was like a weird parody of the lobby upstairs. I pictured Grace behind the stone desk, cheerful in devil horns: Checking in? Welcome to hell!
Beyond the slab was a six-foot-tall tunnel. Mikki and I shone our lights into it, but they were quickly swallowed up by darkness.
I gulped audibly. There was nothing on this earth I wanted more than to turn around.
“What do we think?” Mikki peered into the corridor.
“Do you have any idea what this is?” I needed to stop her, to pause for one freaking second. “You’ve been researching this place, I’m assuming? Wasn’t it supposed to be a resort?”
“Yeah.” Mikki turned to me and Jonah. “I actually tracked down one of the original investors; he’s now in Florida. He told me the management company had inflated their numbers and run out of money pretty early in the process. But instead of continuing investment rounds, they wanted to abandon the property, which he thought was strange. They ended up selling the land to one of the builders.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Steven’s father.”
“Steven’s father owns this place?” Jonah asked, clearly taken aback.
“He used to. He died seven years ago and left it to Steven, who started building the castle during early COVID. The guy I spoke with couldn’t figure out where he’d gotten the money. Steven’s dad—his family—wasn’t rich.”
“Catherine,” I said. They both glanced at me. “She was withdrawing large amounts from her bank account during that time. Maybe she funded this place.”
Mikki nodded slowly. “That makes sense. But what seems weird to me is that no one mentioned this . A cave system underneath the resort—I didn’t hear about that anywhere.”
I glanced up at the dim square of the doorway high above us. If someone shut and locked the door, we’d be trapped down here.
“Should we keep going?” Jonah nodded at the tunnel. He seemed on edge too.
“Let’s go.” Mikki walked ahead of him.
Steeling myself, I followed them. My jaw vibrated, from cold or fear, but I clamped my teeth together. I was going to do this.
The tunnel went about twenty feet and then opened into another space. We shone our lights, but the ceiling was too high for us to reach. This felt like a much larger cavern. And it was less smooth, rocks of all sizes scattered before us. The rough ground was wet, covered in small pools. There came the delicate, rushing sound of running water.
“Look.” Mikki pointed. “Can you see that? All the way back there?”
A small point of light flickered far off.
“Let’s check it out.” Mikki started picking her way across the bumpy terrain.
“Be careful,” Jonah called as her sneaker skidded into an ankle-deep puddle.
She stepped out of it. “Damn, it’s slippery.”
As they went ahead, I remained frozen, primal terror climbing up my spine. Being in this space, this cavern, was giving me déjà vu. The sound of the water, the damp mineral smell: it reminded me of the dreams.
But even if I told them—it wouldn’t change anything. Lots of people dreamed about caves. They were fucking Freudian.
I took a slow step, then another. That’s it. One foot after the other. I approached some larger rocks, used my free hand to climb over. Okay. I could do this.
The flickering light gradually grew bigger; it appeared to be a candle near the far end of the cave. Squinting at it, I slipped, falling onto my knees with an “oof.”
“You okay?” Jonah called.
“Yeah.” I got gingerly to my feet, my knees aching. Focus.
The ground sloped downwards like we were in a giant amphitheater, moving towards the stage. The small pools turned into rivulets. I concentrated on each step. When I looked up again, Mikki and Jonah had reached the back wall and were shining their flashlights on something white and round that looked like a skull.
“Jesus,” I muttered, my heart thumping away in my chest.
Near the end and bottom of the cavern, the rivulets widened further into streams, cutting through the rocks and flowing downwards. The rushing sound was loudest here, white noise filling my ears. I paused to see Jonah’s flashlight shining on a space at the wall—or rather, lack of space. The streams converged, flowing as one into a hole that was about five feet across. It was like a giant drain, gurgling and sucking, shooting bubbles and spray. I thought ridiculously of the hot tub upstairs.
This is our cold plunge! I pictured Moon at the edge of the hole, naked and gleeful. So good for your circulation!
I climbed towards its left side, where Mikki and Jonah were standing. My foot slipped and dropped into the water. I cried out with the sudden terrifying possibility of being sucked down into the hole, never to be heard from again.
Jonah grabbed my shoulders, supporting me until I was back on the rock.
I choked back a sob filled with frustration and fear. I was fine. I was doing fine.
“This is it, right?” He shone his light on the white skull-like object. It was the sculpture of Catherine’s head set on top of a plank of wood near the hole’s entrance. A large lit candle burned beside it.
“Yes,” I gasped. Who had brought the sculpture down here? Lit the candle? And why?
“This is the missing girl?” Mikki bent to study it. “It kind of looks like you .”
“They look alike.” Jonah bent to take a picture with his phone.
“No eyes. Creepy,” Mikki muttered. “And these.” She bent to pick up one of several ceramic shards on the other side of the candle. “What are these?”
“They look like the painting.” I peered over her shoulder.
“What painting?” Jonah asked.
“One I saw in the junk room.” This shard had the two largest figures on it, their square arms pointing at the sky. The other shards showed the torso of the striped figure, the bottom half of the couple behind the patterned square.
Mikki lifted the sculpture, grabbing something beneath it. “Oh.” She held up a shining gold necklace. “This looks like Moon’s.”
“It’s Catherine’s.” It suddenly felt hard to breathe.
“This is that symbol, right?” Jonah shone his light between the sculpture and candle; someone had painted a red spiral trapped in a triangle, the spiral’s line dotted with circles.
Moon’s excuse—that she’d dreamed about the symbol as a kid, that it had no connection at all to Stargirl —suddenly seemed very thin.
“We have to leave.” The words came out in a whisper. No one heard me over the rush of the water. Now Jonah was examining the necklace.
“Guys!” My voice came out sharp, jarring. “We have to get out of here.”
Mikki’s and Jonah’s eyes were wide.
“What’s the matter?” Mikki asked.
“What’s the matter ? This is a fucking shrine to Catherine.”
“It might not be hers,” Jonah said quietly. “Maybe all the women at the Center have this necklace.”
“But why is her head here?” I cried.
“So I don’t want anyone to freak out.” Mikki held up a red-tipped finger, the whites visible around her irises. “But I think this is blood.” She dipped it again in the water, rubbed it against the spiral, and held it to her nose. “It smells like blood.”
I pressed a hand to my mouth, suddenly nauseous. An image arose, superimposed on the shadowed rocks: Catherine standing in front of the hole. Someone coming up behind her, pushing her in.
You tricked me! How could you do that to me? It should’ve been you !
I backed away, my foot slipping and plunging again into cold water. It sucked at my ankle, pulling me towards the black void, stronger than I would’ve imagined. I turned and scrambled over the wet rocks, my breath ragged in my throat.
I had to get out of here.
Who knew if the vision of Catherine was a good guess or just a random theory offered up by my imagination. What I did know was that this place held a darkness—an evil—that I needed to escape immediately.
I slid over the rocks, again slipping and banging my left knee. I pushed myself up and kept going, barely registering the sharp, stinging pain.
Halfway across the hundred-foot chamber, I paused to look back. Mikki and Jonah were following twenty feet behind, their lights bobbing. Keep going. Now that we knew what was down here, the possibility of being shut in seemed much more realistic. We had to get out of this underworld as quickly as possible.
My hands shook, and I felt the dark edge of a panic attack. I tried to keep it away with deep breaths and mental encouragement. You’re doing great! Awesome! Amazing job! Finally, I reached the tunnel, the blessedly walkable floor, and raced through it. Then I scurried up the stairs. The open doorway at the top shone a warm, buttery yellow.
I think this is blood. It smells like blood.
I was going to call the police. I didn’t care if Mikki and Jonah thought I was crazy, or if it took two hours for them to get here. The second I had service, I was going to call 911 and tell them about Catherine. I couldn’t contain or push away the possibility—it blared like an alarm—that they’d done something horrible to her here.
In the meantime, I’d lock myself in my yurt— The yurts don’t have locks. I’d barricade myself in my yurt, then. Did I need a weapon? Should I stop in the kitchen to grab a knife first?
My thighs quickly started burning. It was harder going up the steep steps. Halfway up, I started coughing and couldn’t stop. I bent over the stairs and vomited up water. Dripping back down the steps, it seemed like a lot. Where had it come from? I hadn’t drunk anything recently, apart from a glass of sparkling yuzu juice at the bonfire.
“Are you okay?” Jonah caught up to me.
“Yeah.” I continued upwards. My right calf spasmed, but I didn’t slow.
Jonah was saying something behind me, but I could barely listen. All I could focus on was that square of light, steadily growing. I was almost out of this place—a place that felt ancient and cold and not of our world. A place that could break away from reality like an untethered boat drifting out to sea.
It was only when I reached the last few steps, my momentum launching me up through the hole, out through the door, and back into the studio, that the thought struck me:
We didn’t leave the light on.