to budge. Judith had to put her shoulder against it before it opened with a harsh, scraping sound.
“Where are we?” Renie asked, looking around a large room with two narrow window slits far above the cousins’ heads.
Judith scanned the cartons, boxes, barrels, and chests that covered most of the floor and were stacked almost six feet high. The air felt dank and stale. “It must be the storage area.” She grimaced at the mounds of various containers, many covered in dust and cobwebs. The room was so crowded that Judith found it oppressive, even overwhelming. “What else could it be?”
“I don’t know,” Renie replied as thunder rumbled close by. “I can’t see anything.”
Judith glared at her cousin. “Not funny, coz. Here’s the trapdoor,” she added, pointing to an area near a pile of wooden crates that were marked with black letters spelling LINENS.
“I’m not kidding,” Renie asserted. “I can’t see. My chronic corneal dystrophy has come back.”
“Good grief!” She was familiar with Renie’s problem, involving blurred vision and drooping eyelids. Sure enough, Renie’s left eye was half closed. “What brought that on?” she asked in a shocked voice.
“All the gray,” Renie replied. “Not to mention the stress from flying, whether I’m drunk or sober. I’ve got my medication and eye patches with me. I never go anywhere without them. I’ll be fine,” she said, and walked straight into a large wooden crate marked china. “Ooof! What’s this?” she asked, bracing herself on the crate.
“You’re in China,” Judith replied. “Don’t move while I look at this so-called dungeon.” She used both hands to tug at the iron grip that was sunk into the trapdoor’s well-worn wood. Fortunately, it lifted easily.
Judith stared into the opening. “No cobwebs, no dust, no dirt. It’s clean, like it’s used often.”
“Chuckie?” Renie suggested, feeling her way toward Judith. “He goes into the dungeon to play with his imaginary rack.”
“Maybe. I see the rain barrel.” She paused. “Why would it be full of water? There shouldn’t be any leaks down there.”
“Seepage through the walls?”
“Not possible.” Judith sniffed. “Can you smell that?”
“Let me move closer,” Renie said. “Maybe my sense of smell is better now that I can’t see. They say that when you lose…Aaack! I just touched something horrible covered with hair!”
“That’s my head,” Judith snapped. “Don’t lean on me!”
“Sorry. Oops!”
“Now what?” Judith demanded, turning to look at Renie, who had stumbled and fallen on top of a carton cluttered with small objects.
“Don’t worry about me,” Renie snarled. “Now I’m blind
“Open the door.”
The cousins both jumped.
“The same voice,” Judith whispered.
“Almost the same message,” Renie whispered back.
Judith looked around the room but saw no hiding places. All of the storage containers were piled flush against the walls.
“Open the door.”
Renie shuddered. “Way too creepy. Let’s get out of…Aaaaah! I feel something cold and clammy and dead! Help!”
“That would be my hand,” Judith said through gritted teeth. “Stop touching me. Where’s that voice coming from? It can’t be in this hole.”
“Who cares? I’m going.” Renie tripped over Judith’s foot and barely managed to stay upright. “Which way’s the door?”
“You can’t go without me,” Judith retorted. “Shut up and listen.” But the voice had gone silent. “It must mean that we should open the trapdoor.”
“We already did. It’s a ghost,” Renie declared. “I don’t care if it’s giving hot racetrack tips.”
“You don’t believe in ghosts.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Bad timing for that.” Judith pointed to the trapdoor. “Now sniff.”
“Medicinal,” Renie said after a few seconds.
“Not quite…booze!” Judith exclaimed. “It smells like Scotch.”
“That figures,” Renie said. “Philip owns a distillery. Maybe he stores some of his private stash here and it leaked.”
“Into the dungeon? That’s where it’s coming from. Did I see a flashlight on top of one of those boxes by the door?”
“You might have,” Renie said. “I can’t see anything.”
Judith went to the carton where she’d noticed the flashlight. She clicked it on and focused its bright beam on the barrel some ten feet beneath the basement floor. “That’s odd,” she said in a curious voice. “It looks like there’s
