titles, some of which were not even in English. He knew as well as anyone that he was not the literary type, but there should have been at least one he recognized. What he could tell, even considering his minimal exposure to reading, was that they were very old.
Ethan and Madison had wandered into the length of the passage leading to the rear porch. Two other rooms opened off this passage, not with doors but, like the others, with arches. Ethan turned into the first he came to, apparently the kitchen. It held multiple potbelly stoves, larger than the ones he was familiar with, as well as two large opened fireplaces, one with a spit for roasting. They were clean and neat but sooty with use. Large wooden islands were about, one scored with slash marks, the other dry and dull as if used for baking and now stained with flour. A small table and chair sat near the only window—a place for the servants to eat, he imagined.
Madison had chosen to turn right, directly across from the kitchen, where she found an enormous dining hall. It held a dark colored wood table, ornate in carvings and curved of leg. The most noticeable characteristic, though, was the surprising length of it: nearly twenty feet long. The sides were lined with ten matched chairs of the same artistic cut and bowed-leg design as the table. At the head and foot of the table sat matching chairs, but wider and with a much taller back. On one side of the room silently sat a wide fireplace, useful for cooking as well as heating the room. On the other stood a hutch, still filled with china and glassware, and cabinets wide enough for placing trays of food. Hung over the table was a pair of chandeliers, both with many candleholders still stocked with thin yellowish candles. To Madison, this was the epitome of grandeur and decadence. She could easily see herself hosting a dinner party in here for important people of the film and modeling industries—after her discovery, that is. Famous actors and directors and other important celebrities would sit about, sipping the best of brandy, gushing compliments about her style and grace as a host and model, maybe even as an actor.
After many moments of exploration, and for Abby many shots with her camera, the group gathered at the foyer, just at the foot of one of the grand stairways. It was clear that each one of them stood impressed by what they had seen in the house, moved to either dreams of grandeur or disgust in decadence.
“Who wants to check out the upstairs?” Chris asked, always in some form of a rush.
“I have to go up there, take some shots. Ethan, I am going to need to dump this camera soon; we forgot to do it last night, and I am almost full.”
“Did you bring another memory stick?” he asked knowing she had not.
“No, just the one…” she replied with an apologetic smile.
“I’ll set the laptop up down here. Hey, you know what?” Ethan asked thoughtfully as he began to scan the higher reaches of the room and stairs, into the huge chandelier over the foyer.
The others began looking around the room in the same fashion, but saw nothing more than the richness of the place and the layer of dust over everything.
“What, Sherlock?” Chris asked sarcastically. “Are you going to tell us?”
“Uh, yeah…” His voiced was strained from looking directly overhead. “There are no cobwebs anywhere…”
“So?” Chris asked quickly.
“With the dust over everything, and a house this big, what keeps the spiders out?” he asked softly. “If you look around, you won’t see any bugs at all.”
“What do spiders have to do with cobwebs?” Madison asked.
“That’s where they come from, sweetie,” Abby responded gently before Chris could toss an insult at her. He was always quick to nip at people, even those he was sleeping with. Abby simply liked the sweet ignorance of Madison, and had, since she met her, protected her like a child.
“They do? Aw, gross! I hate spiders!” She shook a bit as if she could feel one crawling along her flesh.
“So what’s the big deal?” Chris asked, clearly becoming agitated at the fact he did not understand.
“No cobwebs, no spiders. Have you ever known a house that didn’t have spiders?” Ethan posed.
“Well, the doors and windows were all closed,” Chris reasoned.
“There is no such thing as an air-tight house, Chris,” Ethan explained, “especially one this old…”
“Once more: so? Who really cares if there are spiders in here or not? I’m going upstairs.” He began climbing the stairway, his aggravation at not understand Ethan’s concern obvious.
“Don’t you find it a bit odd that there are no spiders in a house this old?” Ethan asked Abby.
“Actually, I do. It’s not…I don’t know…natural?” Abby knew when Ethan was serious, and there was something about this lack of insect thing that really bothered him, which worried her as well.
“Hey, it’s fine with me; like I said, I don’t like spiders anyway,” Madison said brightly as she began following Chris up the steps. “Wait for me, Chris.”
“I’ll setup the laptop; you go get your pictures before the light’s gone completely,” Ethan urged Abby. It was getting on in the day, and with the sun nearly set, photography would be difficult without using the flash, which meant less battery life.
Abby stared at him a moment longer, sharing with him a splinter of apprehension, a fragile blossoming of dread that something was not right with the Heart House. It was almost imperceptible, a stealthy figure of wrongness, but she could not get her hands around it. She stared a moment longer, then favored him with a crooked smile before beginning her climb to the second floor.
Chapter 5
Ethan drew his laptop from its protective casing and set it on a small table behind one of the grand stairways. He angled the screen upwards and hit the shiny silver power button. It clicked, chirped, and then displayed a bright blue logo on the screen.
The computer and its inherent technology seemed grossly out of place here, it as odd an entrant as the people walking around upstairs. The thing whirred and popped softly as the cooling fans kicked on and then off to save the battery. Suddenly, Ethan felt a chill run across his ankles as a very light breezed played over the tops of his hiking boots and under the cuffs of his pants.
He looked down and scanned the floor for the source. He noticed a door next to the table which opened under the stairway. It was not an obvious door, designed to look much like the wall and moldings around it, but it was a door nonetheless. It was short, squat, and just slightly ajar, enough to allow the chilly breeze to waft across his feet.
He could hear the others walking around upstairs but chose not to call them down to see what he had discovered. He eased the door open and found a brick wall, not like the foundation or the steps to the front porch, but pitted, reddish bricks, very old and held together with aged and crumbling cement.
This was the first real sign of wear or apparent age Ethan had seen. It made him think the house was just a shell, a shiny wrapper for some bitter tasting candy. The house was actually old and near collapsing, as only seen in this small part hidden behind a small door, under new moldings and countless gallons of white paint.
The bricks were dirty orange and rounded at the edges. Clearly stamped in each one was the moniker U.S., which was worn and faded as well. They made him think of gold bars hidden deep within some vault somewhere. He reached up and gently felt the bricks. They were icy cold and vaguely moist. As his hand crossed a line of cement holding the bricks in place, it crumbled away like dry cookie dough, much more easily than it should have for old cement. He prodded it gently with his finger, and accidentally made a neat hole through the sandy stuff. He heard the smaller bits falling on what sounded like wood and then skittered down into oblivion. When he drew his finger out of the hole, he felt a rush of cold air. A rancid, sickly stench assailed his nose but quickly dissipated.
He made his way to the other stairway, but there was no door there. He returned to the glowing laptop, now ready for his user name, and logged in. He could hear the others coming down the stairs above him, talking loudly and sharing quips among themselves.
“Almost ready here. Come check this out, you guys,” Ethan called to them.
“What?” Chris asked, overzealous as usual.
As they came around the side of the stairs, Ethan absently pointed at the brick wall behind the door.
“Why would someone put a door there? You think they needed easy access to the foundation or something?” Abby asked as she shot a couple of pictures.
“It's not part of the foundation,” Ethan said as he took the camera from Abby. “There is a room or something
