like a sitting duck.
I’d been backing steadily away from the opening, crisscrossing the light over the rest of the space, but now I froze as my legs bumped into something that clanged as it scraped against the floor. Whirling, I splashed the light over the object, and then let out a breath of relief. Someone had set a folding metal chair in the center of the room.
An odd place for it, I thought. And it made me think that maybe it hadn’t been so long after all since someone else had been down there.
What would one see from that seat?
I stepped behind the chair and played the light along the facing wall. Nothing there.
Slowly, I moved the beam up the wall and over the ceiling. The chamber was supported by old wooden beams, and as the light penetrated the gloom, I once again saw the gleam of something metallic.
I steadied the light on the ceiling until I realized what I was looking at. A series of chains and pulleys had been suspended from a ceiling joist. Bolted to the ends of the chains were leg irons.
“Devlin?”
No answer.
“John!”
I heard a scrambling sound, then his voice. “What is it?”
“Can you see this?” I moved the light up and down the chains, then angled the beam over the pulley.
“Not from here, I can’t. What is it?”
I drew a breath. “Chains with shackles hanging from the ceiling. A pulley. Some other kind of device.”
He said something then that I couldn’t understand.
I stared and stared at those chains. “This is where he brought them, isn’t it?” I hated the tremor in my voice, but it would have taken someone far stronger than I not to react. “This is where he did it.”
Devlin must have sensed I was very close to the edge. Who wouldn’t be? He said in a soothing tone, “He’s not there now. No one’s down there with you. You’re safe.”
I could process nothing beyond the frantic drumming of my heart. “I need to get out of here.”
“We’ll have you out in no time. Take a deep breath and try to relax. You’re an archaeologist, remember? You live for this stuff.”
“Not anymore I don’t.”
“Stay calm. Everything’s going to be fine.”
I did as he advised and drew a deep breath. “Just…don’t leave me, okay?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “You’re my eyes right now. Tell me what else you see.”
I knew he was trying to distract me and I appreciated the effort enough to play along. “The floors and walls are brick. The support beams are wooden.” I turned in a slow circle. “There’s an opening in the wall facing you. I think it leads to a tunnel.” Another way out, another way in. I shuddered. “Someone has painted symbols on one of the walls.”
“What kind of symbols?”
“Gravestone art. I think they may have been used in the same way that quilt patterns and song lyrics were used in the Underground Railroad days. A broken wheel by land, an anchor by sea…”
“What else?”
“You wouldn’t believe how thick some of the cobwebs are.” I aimed the light toward an area I had yet to explore. “They’re like cotton gauze in the corners, but they’ve been cleared away in the center of the chamber.”
The beam probed through the fibers, into the darkest recesses of the room. I felt something on my arm and extended it in front of me. A spider as big and thick as a fist inched its way up my shoulder.
I was so startled and my nerves already so fragile that I screamed as I flung it away. Stumbling back, I tripped over the chair and lost my footing. The flashlight banged against the brick floor and went out.
I held my breath as the cold darkness settled over me. Then a loud thud sounded behind me and I whirled.
“Amelia?” Devlin called softly.
He was in the chamber with me. He’d just dropped twenty feet into total blackness when he heard my scream.
“I’m here.” Maybe it was my imagination, but I could have sworn I felt warmth emanating from his body, pulling me like a magnet. Arms outstretched, I moved toward him. When we made contact, he put his hands on my shoulders and brought his face down to mine.
“Are you all right? What happened?”
“I saw a spider on my arm and panicked.” Already I was reacting to his nearness. “Did I happen to mention that I have a mild case of arachnophobia?”
“And yet you thought it a good idea to crawl through a bunch of spiderwebs?”
“I normally have it under control,” I said. “But the hairy ones always make me lose it.”
“That’s good to know.”
“Anyway, thank you for leaping to my rescue. I can’t believe you did that.”
He was silent for a moment. “When you screamed…”
The slight hesitation in his voice quickened my pulse. He’d thought I was in danger and had come immediately to my aid, without regard to life or limb. That was…powerful.
It was also his job, but I chose not to look at it that way. My first assessment was more in keeping with my romantic views.
“I dropped my flashlight,” I said, because I needed to say something and I couldn’t share what was really on my mind at that moment.
“Did it break?”
“I don’t think so. I heard it roll over that way.” Which was not at all helpful since he couldn’t see where I pointed.
I heard the sound of striking flint and then a flame danced between us. His face looked pale and a little ghoulish in the flickering light. I’d never seen a more beautiful sight.
He peered at me through the shadows. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I completely overreacted. It was stupid.”
“Not so stupid. Not in this place.” He glanced around. “Where did you drop the flashlight?”
“Over there.”
“I see it.” He bent to pick it up, then held the lighter out to me. “Here, hold this.”
I obliged, lifting the flame high enough so that he could see to unscrew the glass, tighten the bulb and then put the housing back together. A battery adjustment, a couple of taps against his palm and the light sputtered on.
Releasing the thumbwheel, I let the flame die and handed the lighter back to Devlin. It was ornate and heavy and looked quite old, from what I could see of it. “I didn’t know anyone used these anymore.”
“It belonged to my father. I’ve carried it around for years.”
“For good luck?”
“It’s just a keepsake,” he said. “Nothing more.”
But as he pocketed the lighter, I was reminded of the amulets he said Mariama had worn to bring good luck and the stone from Rosehill that hung from my neck. We all had our gris-gris, our placebos. Even Devlin, whether he would admit it or not.
He held the flashlight shoulder-high, sweeping the beam up and out as he surveyed our temporary prison. I followed the light as it played over the symbols on the walls, the cobwebbed corners and finally up and down the chains.
Devlin walked over and stood staring up at the ceiling where the pulley was secured to a wooden beam. He tracked the ropes with the light until he found the end wrapped around a metal spike that had been hammered into the brick wall. The shackles were bolted to the chains, which in turn were secured to some sort of device that could be raised and lowered with the pulley.
