“And before he does any more violence,” Noah said.
I wish I had some sort of weapon.
Twenty-Three
They returned to the cottage so Willow could wink unobserved by hostile eyes. Noah made her promise to approach the Big House with caution, and to flee at any sign that Jones was in the mansion. He opened the door and the gate and stepped out for a moment to allow Willow time to exit. Shadow darted out as well. He would be their alarm if Jones appeared outside the house while they searched.
Willow laid an invisible hand on Noah’s arm. “See you there.” Her footsteps sounded for a few seconds and then stopped. The quiet buzz of stealth flight started, then faded away overhead.
Noah walked first to the truck to pick up some things to help with their exploration, as well as his smaller digital camera. He picked his way quietly along the path in the near darkness, preferring not to use a flashlight. Fortunately, Shadow led. When he reached the Big House, Willow spoke softly from somewhere as he climbed the porch stairs. “I’m here. There’s no sign of Jones.” Shadow plopped down on the porch, panting heavily.
Noah unlocked the door and walked in, paused while Willow came in, and then closed and secured the door again. Willow reappeared by the wall switch and turned on the atrium lights. “Maybe the light will keep Chester away. Is that your dowsing rods?” She pointed at the large flat box Noah held.
“Yes. I should have listened to you the last time we came. We probably know where the entrance is located. Especially you, since you’ve spent so much time here. We can’t see it because we’re blinded by what’s right in front of our eyes, if you know what I mean. Maybe dowsing will help dig it out. This will, too.” Noah held up a tape measure. “Sure fire way to find a false wall. I think we should cover the same ground we did last time.” Willow nodded.
The house was cool, but not uncomfortably so. They checked the camera first. To Willow’s disappointment no photos had been taken. They moved on to the kitchen cabinets, but dismissed them again. The window made it obvious no passage could be there.
Willow led Noah across the service hall to the laundry and pantry area. “I think the key is in this room,” Noah said. “The cave is right outside the back wall, according to my dowsing.” A repeat visual inspection still turned up nothing.
“We have to get smart,” Noah said. “The way the closet is situated, it’s impossible to tell if its back wall is thicker than it should be. You can’t see to the back of the closet and have a good reference point to compare.”
Confusion filled Willow’s face. He motioned for her to follow him. “Come over here,” Noah said. He walked to the service hall and stood sideways in the doorway facing the back door of the house. He motioned for Willow to stand in front of him facing the same way. “Straight ahead of us is the back wall, which we know is roughly twelve inches thick. We can see how far we are from it. Now look toward the closet.”
Willow nodded. “I see what you mean. From here you can’t see the back of the closet, so you can’t compare the distances and can’t tell if the wall behind the closet is extra thick.”
“Exactly. So we’ll use an artificial reference point.” He pulled out the tape measure and handed it to Willow. From an inner jacket pocket, he pulled out a small notebook and a pencil. “I’ll scribe since you don’t have your glasses. The tape measure has big numbers so you can read it.” Willow stuck out her tongue. “First, measure the distance from the back door to the edge of this board.” Noah put his toe on a specific board that ran perpendicular through the doorway.
Willow followed his directions and called out the distance. “Fifteen feet, give or take a quarter inch.”
“Call it one hundred eighty inches,” Noah said. He wrote the number down and sketched a quick map of the hallway and room. “The floor boards run perpendicular to the door, so follow the same edge across the room until you’re in front of the closet door, and measure to the back wall of the closet.”
Willow stared at him, unmoving.
“What?” Noah asked.
“I already have sketches.”
Noah couldn’t keep the exasperation out of his voice. “You do? Of the house?”
Her face flushed with embarrassment. “Yes. I forgot about them until now. Father made a series of sketches and measurements when he had the house rewired and the plumbing rearranged. Do you think they would help?”
Noah shot her his best perturbed look. “Where are they?”
“At the cottage, in a chest of his things.”
Noah stuck the notebook in his pocket and zipped up his jacket. “Let’s go.”
“Noah, wait.” Willow hesitated. “I’ll go get them. Just wait here. The things in the chest are … personal.”
“You mean secret.”
Willow frowned. Her displeasure constricted his chest. “Just wait here, Noah.” She vanished. He heard her soft footsteps travel out the door and down the hall.
Noah stood still for a moment, shocked, then stomped to the atrium. “You can’t do that, just wink away in the middle of a conversation.” The buzz of her flight sounded and then faded away.
What a little snot!
Willow’s displeasure … or was it their’s … faded as she left.
Noah looked toward the widow’s walk and let out a long sigh of frustration.
“I hate all this secrecy crap,” he said. He paced the atrium between the front door and the service hall. “You drive me crazy sometimes, Willow. You seek me out and then push me away.”
We’re such powerful lovers, perfectly matched, yet I hardly know you.
“All you ever told me about was your parents, and then only about their death.”
Do you have any siblings? Did you go to college? Where did you grow up? What’s your favorite color?
“Why do you have so damn many secrets?”
Noah continued to pace for several minutes, stewing, and then sat on the stairs, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands.
“I guess you don’t know my favorite color.”
To be with you, to love you and cherish you, is a gift beyond measure.
“Even if you are a little snot.”
A quiet buzz sounded overhead. Noah looked toward the widow’s walk just as Willow shimmered into view on the inside platform. She vaulted the rail with one hand and dropped into flight, buzzing down to land as gracefully as any ballerina. Her sweatshirt encircled her waist, and she held a notebook against her bare chest. She didn’t see Noah on the stairs and walked toward the back hallway. Her wings settled behind her.
“Willow,” Noah called softly. She stopped and turned toward him, her wings rising up and twitching slightly. Her expression was taut, troubled. Her chest rose and fell from exertion. Noah walked into the swirl of her magic. He stared down into her dark little eyes. They brimmed with sorrow, he saw, with hurt. His heart was heavy with her emotion.
“My favorite color is green,” he said.
Tension slipped away like chains suddenly broken, replaced by confusion. Willow’s features softened and a faint glow colored her cheeks. “John Deere green, I suppose,” she said.
“Of course.”
Willow looked at him quizzically. “Why—” she began, but Noah interrupted with a kiss.
“Never mind,” he said. “Let’s check out the sketches.” He offered his hand and they walked into the kitchen. Willow laid the notebook on the counter, untied her sweatshirt from around her waist and pulled it on. Noah wanted desperately to grab the notebook, but thought better of it. When finished with her shirt, Willow pulled her glasses from her jeans pocket and put them on. She flipped pages, searching for the right spot.
“Here,” she said, and pointed to the open page. Noah leaned in close.
The paper was old and yellowed. Drawn in pencil in a spidery hand was a sketch of the kitchen and the pantry and laundry area across the hall. Each room was marked with overall measurements in inches. Pipe and wiring positions had been
added later in blue pencil. With such a jumble of lines, the drawing was difficult to read.
“Any help?” Willow asked.
“Well, I’m not sure. The dimensions are all here, no reason to doubt them. I was hoping we would see that the back wall of the house was extra thick in the pantry, but this shows it the same as the kitchen.” He pondered the sketch for a few moments, then reached in a pocket and pulled out a small calculator.
Willow snickered. “Do you always carry a calculator?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Oh, nothing. Must be a photographer thing.”
“Smartass fairy,” Noah muttered. He began punching the calculator, while one hand moved about the sketch pointing at numbers. “Hmm. Interesting.”
“What?”
“These dimensions don’t add up. The length of the two rooms added together should be the same as the length of the hallway, but there’s a difference of twenty-two inches. The room dimensions add up to that much less than the hallway.”
“That’s what you’re looking for, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but it seems odd your father never checked. Of course, this was made for other reasons than finding a false wall.” He flipped a few pages and found a sketch of the second floor area directly over their heads. Noah followed the same process as before and soon nodded. “Same result. Up there you would expect it, though, since the windows are deep set to accommodate the plumbing.” The third floor sketch yielded the same difference.
“Just one floor left,” Willow said. She flipped the pages, looking for the section of the fourth floor they wanted.
“Stop,” Noah said. He flipped back a couple of pages and smoothed the paper. The master bedroom suite spread across the right hand page. Unlike the previous pages, red ink cross outs and corrections covered the page. Most important, drawn in red over the original pencil was an L-shaped passage starting behind the fireplace and ending at the back wall of the house. Conspicuous in the center of the page was a large red question mark within a swirl of circles.
“Have you seen this before?” Noah asked.
Willow shook her head. “Never. I was around for the remodeling project. That’s how I knew there were sketches, but the last time I saw this page there wasn’t any red ink. I can’t believe Father could have found false walls and not mention it. He must have found them after I left for Kentucky. Right before they died.”
Noah pondered the drawing in silence for a full minute. “A question mark,” he said. “Did that mean he didn’t understand why the walls were thick or that he knew why but couldn’t find an access? There’s nothing here that indicates an entrance.”
Willow shrugged. “Who knows? Father was always poking around the house, trying to understand why Armstrong wanted to get in so badly. At least with this we can narrow our search.”
“Of course, we’re assuming this sketch shows the access to the cave.”
“Well, the sketch makes it look like a passage to the back wall of the house, right over the false wall in the basement. Let’s go check it out.” She pocketed her glasses and picked up the notebook. Noah retrieved the dowsing rods, flashlights, and camera from the hallway. Willow took his hand and led the way to the back stairs. She stopped and turned to Noah.
“By the way, my favorite color is grey.” She looked into his eyes and smiled. “Sea-grey.”
The climb to the fourth floor left Noah breathing hard, while Willow was unaffected. When they reached the closed door to her parents’ room, she unlocked and opened it. The moment she crossed the threshold, she stopped and shuddered. The back of her sweatshirt rippled with motion and her wings rattled. Noah remained outside, unwilling to enter the magical room.
Here we go again.
Willow turned around, her face all lust, her posture sensuous, provocative. She offered a flirty smile.
“Are you sure you’re ready to come in here?” she asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well, don’t forget it’s an enchanted room. The last two times we came in here some things happened.” Willow turned on the flirting, so that Noah could have felt it with his eyes closed. Her cheeks and neck glowed. “And this time we don’t have any inhibitions, since we’ve already consummated.”
Noah laughed. “Sweetie, you know you’re being zapped by the room again, don’t you?”
Willow’s radiance grew and her voice turned husky. “No, I’m not.”
A wicked grin grew on Noah’s face. “Come back out here and settle down. We’ve got work to do.”
“It turns me on when you talk about work,” she said. She gave him a sultry look through her eyelashes as her arousal washed over him. “My pants are glowing,” she whispered.
Oh my, you are so tempting.
“Willow, stop, or I’ll get my pentacle out and use it on you. Like they do vampires.”
Willow put on her pouting face. “The wicked photographer shouldn’t tease the horny little fairy,” she said, and stepped back through the door and kissed him. She kissed him for a long time. When she pulled away, her breath was shallow. She shook her head as if to clear it, and her glow faded, replaced by a deep red blush. “I can’t believe I let that happen to me again.”
They laughed and embraced. Willow took Noah’s hand and cautiously stepped through the door a second time. Noah followed when he saw Willow had safely crossed over, focusing his mind on their task. He laid the dowsing rods, camera, and extra flashlight on the floor by the door, while Willow started tapping on walls and squinting at cracks and joints.
The stone fireplace drew their attention first, since the sketch showed the hidden passage ended behind it. They searched all around the stones and the wall and floor joints, but found no indication of an opening or even a healthy-sized crack. They moved on to the walls inside the closet, along the atrium wall, and in the bathroom, but still could not find a hint of a crack or a joint.
Noah studied the fourth floor sketch again, trying to clear his mind. Willow looked ready to start removing walls. She stood with her arms folded across her chest. Noah smiled at her, but she frowned.
“How do you stay so patient?” she asked.
Noah shrugged. “Just how I am.” He walked to the door and pulled his dowsing rods from the flat box. “Let’s try one more thing before you get a sledge hammer.”
“Where should I go? The last time you used those you made me leave.”
“I think you can stay. If it seems to be a problem, I’ll boot you out.” He grinned. Willow did not.
“I’ll sit on the bed,” she said.
“Fine, but don’t pout. It projects negative energy. If you want to help, use your fairy energy and visualize us finding the access. Seriously, it could help.”
“Okay.”
Noah left and walked to the end of the service hall, which was on the outside of the presumed double wall. He positioned the rods, let them stabilize, and performed his mind clearing routine. He paced up and down the service hall and the balcony several times, but only the smallest tremor moved the rods. He moved into the suite, where Willow sat with her head bowed in concentration. He dowsed the bathroom and the closet, with no result. He paced the bedroom twice. Still nothing. He stopped in front of the fireplace and sighed, with the rods in position before him.
Willow raised her head and smiled, but her smile faded to surprise. She shuddered and rubbed her arms. “Wow, I’m cold all of a sudden,” she said. “Are you cold?”
You never feel cold.
“Not at all. Are you okay?”
Willow’s eyes widened and she pointed at the rods. The right hand shaft swung to Noah’s right, while its partner continued to point straight ahead. Willow shivered again. The rod moved until it was perpendicular to its partner. It pointed at the wood storage cubbyhole in the fireplace.
“Are you doing that?” Willow whispered.
“No,” Noah said. “The rods always move together and when one moves out, the other moves the opposite direction. Look.”
The left shaft swung to the right and soon touched the right hand rod.
Noah smiled at Willow, who still shook. “Sweetheart, what do you know about ghosts?”
“Huh?”
“I think your parents just showed us the entrance.”
Willow looked bewildered. She gazed at the rods and then at Noah. “You think they’re here?” Her expression brightened and she began to illuminate. She turned in every direction. “Mother? Father? Is it you? Are you here?” Her excitement blasted through the room.
No response came. The room remained quiet; no flashes of light or glowing shapes appeared. Willow’s excitement faded in a few moments. She walked to where Noah stood. “The cold is gone,” she said.
Noah put the rods in one hand and pulled her close for a consoling hug. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” he said. “Stories say when ghosts appear or manifest in other ways, the room grows cold. The theory is they suck energy from the room to be able to enter, or at least manipulate, the physical world. You’re an excellent source of powerful energy. I would think especially for a fairy ghost. Maybe that’s why I didn’t feel cold.”
Willow’s eyes glistened, but she smiled. “We didn’t check the cubbyhole,” she said. They knelt on the floor, moved the stack of wood out of the storage space, and piled it against the closet wall. Willow crawled into the tight space. Noah shined his flashlight over her shoulder so she could inspect the wall joints. The cubby was all stone.
“I don’t see any cracks, but the back has to move.” Willow tested the panel with her hands. “I think it gave a little.”
Noah stood up to inspect the wood fireplace mantle. “There must be a catch somewhere, a lever or button or something. That’s how things always work in mystery novels.”
Willow backed out of the cubbyhole, lay down on her back and slid into the opening feet first. Noah continued inspecting the mantle until a loud thud and a crash made him jump. A small wooden lever with an attached wire swung lose from the bottom of the mantle.
“I think I found the catch,” Willow said with a giggle. Noah shined his flashlight into the opening. Willow lay on her back with her feet in the air and a grin on her face. A single blow of her powerful legs had broken the latch mechanism. The back of the cubbyhole was a door, now open flat against the inside wall of the passage. Dust and attic smell floated out of the opening.