She strode to the door and took the key before she could think of an excuse not to go investigating. As she went to the utility room, Mojo jumped down from his perch and followed her. If she had to guess, she’d say he enjoyed these little jaunts. He sat down next to the big metal lock, his nose almost on it.
“Careful of those whiskers,” she said, and inserted the key and turned it.
The familiar grinding of the heavy mechanism greeted them, and Mojo cocked his head in response. She frowned a little at him. He’d heard this dozens of times before. Why be puzzled by it now? Was it different? As she continued turning the lock, she listened intently. Although he kept tilting his head, one way and then the other, it sounded no different to her.
It was unnerving.
Finally, when the key turned freely, the clunking and scraping stopped, and Mojo simply looked up at her.
“Honestly, Mojo. Sometimes you worry me.”
He scratched lightly at the lock.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “Here we go.”
Grasping the thick black handle, she tugged open the wood hatch.
Mojo immediately bolted down the stairs.
“Uh, after you,” she said, and leaned the door off to one side.
As she looked down at the steps descending into darkness, it occurred to her that the electricity might not be working down there either.
Good grief, she thought. That would be a deal breaker.
Her mild claustrophobia was the result of being trapped in an elevator without power, in the dark and in silence. There was no way in the world she’d repeat that.
She crept down the few steps that it took to reach the light switch and flicked it on. To her relief, the long fluorescent bulbs beneath her popped to life. But as she looked down at the well lit area, she also found she was a little disappointed. Her excuse to abandon this foray was gone.
“You don’t have to stay long,” she told herself, as the familiar tightening in her chest began. “Just a minute or two. Mojo’s not afraid.”
Then again, she thought, he’d probably never been trapped in an elevator.
She passed the collection of beautiful antique books in the diagonal bookcase to her left, not pausing to look at them. Instead, she proceeded directly to the floor and took a step away from the stairs.
So far, so good. She hadn’t even broken out in a sweat.
The familiar hat boxes, crates, dresser, and suitcase looked exactly as they always had. But as she looked past them, she saw Mojo sitting on top of one of the steamer trunks. He gave her a plaintive little mew, his big orange eyes seeming to catch all the light from the bulbs overhead.
“That one?” she asked him. It was further into the basement than she’d ever gone. “Are you sure?”
For an answer, he simply stared at her.
She glanced back over her shoulder and up to the utility room, and then back at the little cat, who hadn’t moved.
“Okay, fine,” she muttered, and hurried to the antique trunk.
Laying on its side, it was still as tall as her waist. It was the kind of luggage rarely seen anymore, though she’d seen one or two still in use in her hospitality days. As the name implied, it was the type of trunk used on steamer ocean crossings, and had to hold a lot. The latch was unlocked, and as she lifted it, Mojo jumped up to the nearby suitcase.
Though Maris fully expected it to be chock full of his toys, she was pleasantly surprised at what she found.
“Photos,” she whispered.
Some were in plastic sleeves—like the one of her from her senior year in high school—while others were in all sorts of frames. Under those were several photo albums, as well as some manilla envelopes and archival boxes. Judging from the size of the trunk, there might be several hundred photographs here.
Idly, she moved aside her senior portrait and one of the envelopes, and found herself looking at Aunt Glenda. It was always like looking in a mirror. They had the same blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair; the same heart-shaped face and petite nose; and the same decidedly non-petite figure. The shag haircut that Glenda wore, along with the Gunne Sax blouse and faded colors of the photo, indicated it might have been taken in the seventies. The heavily tarnished silver frame said the same. But the real icing on this photographic cake was Cookie.
The two friends were posing in the parlor, in front of the record player. Cookie’s hair was shoulder length and jet black, and she wore a floral apron over a crew-neck t-shirt and a pair of faded bell-bottom jeans. Glenda had her arm over the chef’s shoulders, and Cookie had wrapped an arm around her friend’s waist. Their smiles positively glowed, and Maris found herself smiling back at them. While the fashions and hair color had certainly changed, the parlor hadn’t, right down to the furniture and records.
Maris realized that Mojo hadn’t moved from his nearby perch and looked up at him. “Nothing you want to explore?” she said, and turned to look at the rest of the basement—which is when the sweat started.
As the familiar tightening in her chest also began, Maris clutched the framed photo to her chest.
“On second thought…” Slowly, she lowered the trunk’s big lid and looked up at her cat. “Good find,” she told him. “Let’s go.”
He apparently needed no more urging. As fast as he’d come down, he shot up the stairs, and Maris followed close behind.
BACK IN HER ROOM, Maris adjusted the photo of Glenda and Cookie on her dressing table. She knew exactly where the silver polish was kept. It wouldn’t take long to
