The Shadow Sisters

[E1] Chapter 12 - Elizabeth Cole

Elizabeth sat in the cold little windowless study, in front of her desktop screen. The word processor was blank, apart from a blinking cursor that seemed to be judging her.

She was not trying to craft the next great piece of twenty first century literature. She was just trying to come up with a lesson plan.

But as of yet, the metal rod she held up to the cloud of inspiration had yet to draw out a lightning strike. Perhaps if she were to break the larger task into smaller ones, and just focus on the introductory class plan, she might get something done.

But when a few more hours passed and she had yet to commit a single word beyond the title, she decided to get up and clean.

Cleaning an external mess often helped her feel more organised about the internal web tangled in her brain. It also gave her some of what she called productive momentum.

There was never a shortage of things to do either. She loved her girls, but they were far from the most house proud. Marie was a slob who left things at her feet. Hannah was a ball of chaos. Each room she passed through, it was as if a miniature tornado had followed. The worst was when she cooked a new recipe from the internet; the entire kitchen became a war zone.

Eventually, through all the dusting, polishing, and vacuuming, Elizabeth ended up at the cellar door.

They had still yet to explore the interior. Marie was repulsed by it, even more than the rest of the house. And although she'd never admit it, Hannah was frightened of it. That was what happened when you watched horror movies since you were old enough to say boo and consumed Stephen King books like packets of crisps. Elizabeth's feelings fell somewhere between those of her daughters.

But she decided that now, while the house was empty, it was a good opportunity to make a dent in things. She didn't like feeling as if unfinished business was buried beneath them.

With a deep breath, she undid the three large iron bolts. They clacked and squealed their protests. Then she opened the door and descended downward into the pitch black.

The smell was foul, rancid and rotten. The stairs were of wood, oak, with large gaps in between them; it'd be easy to lose a shoe or cause injury if one wasn't extremely careful.

Each stair groaned under her weight. When she arrived onto the stony floor at the bottom, there was a sense of relief, until she realised the surface she stood upon now was wonky and uneven. It gave her the impression that she might tip over at any moment.

She pulled on the light switch, but nothing happened.

Well, that was to be expected.

Using the flashlight function on her phone, she began to slowly reveal the contents of the cellar. The room was a large chasm, the entire width of their house or maybe even bigger.

Alcoves were set in the walls, so shadowed that their depths were hidden. Who knew how deep they ran? That was a mystery she'd either return to on a later date or choose to leave unsolved.

Standing in the middle of the room were what appeared to be huge bookshelves, towering above her. They were hollowed out so that the items and books were visible from either side. On the lower shelves, the ones that she could reach without having to climb, were all manner of ornaments and creepy artifacts.

Elizabeth picked up a vase with odd designs on it, hand drawn playing cards, and a clay cup. Next to a bangle of keys were small metallic balls that could be twisted and locked into new shapes, like archaic toys or puzzles. They coated her fingers in a layer of dark grime.

There were boxes too, containing shoes, old clothes, letters, and documents. It seemed like such an odd mishmash that Elizabeth thought it couldn't possibly be all from the previous resident. This was multiple owners worth of junk, perhaps going back decades and decades.

Who knew when this place had last been stripped apart? Certainly, the University would have maintenance officers and cleaners who tended to these properties between tenants and during active tenancies, but it appeared that they'd given the cellars up as lost causes.

Maybe if she phoned and complained, someone might come out and sort it, but that wasn't in her nature. Besides, what kind of impression would that give her coworkers?

It was an enormous undertaking. It was overwhelming. Again, if she broke the big task into smaller ones and picked the shelves apart, row by row, she could focus on progress over completion.

But even that would take years. The other method was that she could just forget about cleaning it and use it as a dumping ground as all the previous residents had done.

Sighing, she was about to climb the stairs again to make herself a spot of lunch when something glinted, catching the corner of her eye.

It was a golden glint.

Her heart was racing when she spun back around. Ahead, she saw that within one of the shallower alcoves was a lectern. She crept over to it, matching the thuds in her chest with her footfalls as she saw atop it was a book. That calmed her.

Once she picked up the weighty, leather bound tome, she was enfolded within the stench of rotting paper.

She was just about strong enough to handle the thing. Maybe she could incorporate it into her workouts. Sure, it wasn't quite as dynamic as a kettle bell, but it'd get the job done.

She sat it back down onto the lectern and opened it. As she thumbed through the dry, cracked, yellowed pages, she saw that it was full of scrawls and sketches of stories and pictures.

From the quick scan, she was able to garner that it was a collection of myths and histories belonging to old Willow Town, from back when it had been a town. It was funny, her a teacher of folklore and mythology, finding such a relic in her cellar, almost as if it'd been waiting for her.

Vaguely, she wondered if all the houses in Meadow View had creepy lecterns with creepy books devoted to the occupant's selected passion? Was this the University's idea of some weird gift? Or did such coincidences really exist in a universe of mostly random chaos?

Her tongue found the roof of her mouth. Of course, she had just imagined that golden glint, that one that still made her pulse quicken. She'd seen it hundreds of times, in her dreams, in the reflections on her peripheries, but they were all a lie, an echo, just a memory of the first time she'd seen a glint like that.