She opened her eyes to silence. The room was empty, the oil lamp still alight on a small table beside the door. There’s something deeper, she thought. This Coldbrook was similar to her own in name only, and she knew she had barely touched its surface. She had to get a grip on the place.
Holly stood up and rubbed her eyes. The door was locked. She knelt and examined the lock, then carefully unscrewed the oil-flow control knob on the lamp. She plucked the pin out, and the flame increased in intensity. Kneeling at the lock again, she remembered those old days at university when she was tasked with small engin-eering problems. It’s as important to know how to take things apart as it is to know how to put them together, her lecturer had said. It took her a minute to strip the lock, and a minute more to roll the tumblers and slip back the bolt.
The corridor outside was clear, its wall lamps providing low-level lighting. The floor sloped down to the left, so she went that way, conscious that the air was growing cooler and the lighting fainter. It wasn’t far to the first stairwell and Holly did not hesitate. She went down.
A trickle of water ran along the lower corridor that she soon reached. The floor sloped here as well, and the water seemed to have been flowing for a long time – it had worn a channel at the junction of wall and floor, and she could see mineral deposits below its clear surface. She followed the slope, then paused at an intersection with another, darker corridor. Its wall held only one oil lamp, and beyond this oasis of light the darkness was deeper than ever.
Holly smelled food. Warm, spiced, perhaps a soup. And she remembered the steaming bowl passing the doorway: Drake’s reaction had been cagey – he’d nudged the door closed.
‘There’s someone down here,’ she whispered. As she edged forward, a crack of light appeared under a door in the wall to her left. She heard singing coming from inside.
The voice was low and rumbling, the tune nothing that she had heard before. She wasn’t sure whether it was words or just notes, but the song seemed to settle in her stomach and vibrate there. She paused for a few seconds, then walked on. Why keep someone locked away down here?
Or were they hidden?
Approaching the doorway – seeing the light spilling into the corridor, and sensing the warmth and illumination beyond – Holly thought that perhaps she should have fled at the first chance she’d had. They had saved her life after she’d come through the breach, but everything she’d seen and heard since then had made her more and more uncertain.
She nudged the door open enough to see inside, and gasped. The square room was much larger than she had expected. It was well lit with at least six oil lamps fixed to the walls. The half of the room closest to the door was a living area, with several huge floor cushions bearing the impressions of frequent use, a selection of threadbare rugs covering the floor, and a couple of low, wide tables bearing books and candles. The wall to her right was lined with shelves, bearing books and pictures and other objects that she could not quite make out. There was a distinct dividing line across the room marked by waist-high cabinets, and beyond that was a sleeping area and a table and chairs. The bed was wide and round, scattered with crumpled sheets and blankets, and several pillows that were propped against the side wall. The formal seating area comprised a table and six metal chairs. The walls were lined with dozens of movie posters – Psycho, Once Upon A Time In The West, The Graduate, Peeping Tom – with barely a space showing between them. Some of them seemed to have been drawn upon with elaborate markings, others appeared to have been vandalised with a knife. They were all pre-1972.