The young girl eases along, slowly making her way back up the staircase toward the second level. The young boy crawls along silently behind her. When the girl makes it to the second level, there is a storage area with a four feet high door. She gently opens the door, then crawls inside all the way to the back side of this small, four by ten foot room. Gently she pushes upon the back wall along the corners. When she pushes suddenly upon the top right hand corner three times, there is a sharp snap, then the entire board covering the wall opens as if it was hinged, exposing a narrow downward dusty staircase.
"Look," she says to the boy child. "I found this the other day while playing around. I was bored and didn't have anything else to do."
"Wow," whispers the boy child to the girl as he gazes down a pitch black passageway, "you already been all the way to the bottom of these stairs?"
"Yes," she replies.
"What did you find?," asks the young boy child, in an easy, somewhat quiet voice.
"That's what I am about to show you," the young girl replies. She places her right index finger vertically across both lips, making the sound for silence, "Shh!"
The boy child continues to crawl as the girl child makes her way down the sharply downward sloping staircase. Very soon the passageway transforms into complete darkness.
"I can't see," whispers the boy to the girl.
"I tried to find a flashlight, but failed to recall precisely where it was I placed it last. What I did find was this candle here, and some matches. Watch this," she says as she strikes a match upon her shoe bottom in the pitch black darkness with her right hand. She replaces the match box into her pocket, and retrieves something else the boy child could not quite make out. A flicker of gold and yellow light slightly illuminates the narrow corridor, to a point the boy child can observe the walls, and the staircase sloping downward into an ocean of thick darkness.
The girl's right hand is soon seen bringing light toward her left, in which she holds a large candle. When the candle is alight, the dancing light vividly fills the narrow corridor and the staircase. When the young boy gazes down the staircase, he can clearly make out the last step, which stops before what was obviously a heavy wooden, normal sized door.
"I spy a door!," suddenly announces Hansel. "Is it locked?"
"Of course it is," replies the girl, "but I have the key."
The young girl continues to walk toward the bottom of the stairway, and this ancient doorway. A musky smell soon fills the boy child's nose. As the two near the door, since the boy's head as he crawled is almost high as the keyhole, he can clearly see where this door may only be opened by an unusual key, of the type he had seen inside old mansion homes near Chesapeake bay while in his parent's company, and nowhere else.
"Where is the key?," asks Hansel.
"Right here," replies the girl, as she suddenly produces a bobby pin.
"That's no key!," says the boy suddenly.
The girl glares at the boy firmly, while placing her right index finger vertically across her lips.
"Shh! watch this," she replies, as she bends the bobby pin sharply upward on the end.
She walks over to the keyhole, shoves in the bent bobby pin, then turns it hard toward the right, while moving it gently back and forth as she wrenches the crystal door knob.. In an abrupt instant, a creaking door opens. The sight standing before these children literally takes their breath away, even with the fact of this dank musty air striking them directly in their noses, with the same intensity as the sights of the room they are beholding inside the ageless dancing candle light.
Ancient Secrets In The Hidden Room
To the right hand side stands a wax figure of a tall powerful man, wearing a long sandy brown beard. This figure of a man dons a gray military uniform seemingly crafted from wool, with buttons and trim of what appears to be pure gold to the girl. On his right hand shoulder are stitched some rather large red and gold alphabet letters.
"Mother has been teaching me to read," says Whammy with a whisper, as she turns to face Hansel in the flickering candle light. "I think I can read these letters. One is a C. The other is an S, I think. And the other might be an A, far as I can tell. Do you have any idea what that might mean, Lanker?"
"No idea," the child speaks up with a smile, as he shakes his head from side to side. "Mama told me somethin' 'bout those three letters, C, S, and the A, once, but I don't know what they mean," Lanker replies in a repressed voice.
Inside the right hand of the wax figure is a well aged sword. On the right thigh of this soldier is a holstered pistol. On his left hand thigh is sheathed a heavy shop hammered knife. All of these clothes, tools, and weapons seem to the children as if they are ancient in age. In company with this soldier stands wax figures of nine other soldiers wearing similar uniform, with the same three letters stitched upon them, and a series of other letters.
"What are the other letters, Whammy? What do they mean?"
"I don't know, but I can read them out to you. Here they are; C,O,M,..,P, I think. A,N, and a Y, then another A all by itself. Then the letters, and I know all of them; T, H, E, L, A, S, T, T, O, F, A, L, L, T, H, E, B, R, A, V, E, S, T, T, O, S, T, A, N ,D. I still can't figure out what they mean, though. What about you?"
"I haven't a clue," says the boy child with raised eyebrows.
In the corners of the room, and hanging from the walls, are rifles of various sorts. Along the walls behind these wax soldiers, is a bookshelf filled with large leather bound dusty volumes. The feeling generating back down to the children, is one of a powerful invisible presence.
"Wow, look at all of this!," says Lanker to the young girl. "What is the meaning of it? Who were these people? "
A look of sudden fear seizes the face of the boy child, who gasps with widened eyes..
"Are they ghosts, Whammy?"
"I don't know. I am going to ask my father about it tomorrow. I have explored around here before, but didn't want to come down here by myself," says Whammy, with nervous fear in her voice.
"Why not? What are you afraid of?," asks Lanker.
"I feel as if I am being watched here for some reason. I am not saying I am afraid, but that I just feel uneasy being in here, like there is some type of unseen presence in here, or something," replies the girl with a disturbed look on her face.
"You mean, like ghosts or something?," asks Lanker, with a heavy gasp in his voice.
"Yup, I suppose," the girl says in an audible whisper.
"What can a ghost do, but scare you?," says the boy child inquisitively.
"Most people are scared of them, when they have a chance to meet one," smiles the girl as she continues to whisper.
"Let's take a look around this place, and see what we can find," says Lanker.
"It mostly seems to be a bunch of old junk piled up in here, some old books, lots of long forgotten papers, and stuff," Whammy replies, with somewhat of an impatient sigh in her voice.
"Let's look around here," whins Lanker with a certain amount of curious timidity in his voice. He craftily attempts to hide the fact of being afraid from the girl, by asking her to continue on in their exploration of the room.
"Do you see how low this candle is burning, boy?," the girl informs him. "We need to be heading back upstairs, or else we'll both be trapped down here in the dark. Our parents are probably looking for us right about now. We both have been gone for some time already."
"I'm not worried about mine," Lanker replies with a sly smile.
"And just why not?" asks the girl sharply, in a sudden authoritarian voice.
"Because I had rather to look around in this room," says Lanker.
"You'll care when that little ice of yers gets whooped until it turns blue as rum-camellia. Then you'll care!," the girl snaps back at him.
"Well then, I guess you're 'bout right," Lanker moans with a sigh.
"I know I am right," the girl chuckles, while glaring hard at him with widened eyes. "Have you gone crazy, or something boy?"
"Not really, but I want to have a look-see in this room," he replies.
"This sounds like a job for tomorrow," Whammy announces to him. "You can stay down here, but I'm heading back upstairs now," she announces as she suddenly breaks into a run for the stairway.
"Hey, wait for me!," yells Lanker, as he crawls behind her on his knees, fast as his cast covered legs can move.
The two make their way back up the staircase, into the house on the second floor. Soon they both are back inside the small cubical from which the staircase was accessed. When they finally make it back down the stairs, Whammy's mother meets them head on.
"We were all wondering where it was that you two had wandered off. Where have you been?," she asks Whammy in a hard voice.
"We've been house exploring," Whammy replies.
"Oh, that sounds like so much fun!," says her mother as a slight smile softened up her hardened face. "Sometimes I wish old folks could get interested in life like that. There indeed, is so much around here to explore."
"Yeah, it's fun!," Whammy says, as she smiles back toward Lanker. Lanker returns her warm smile, but says nothing.
"Tomorrow we shall begin our daily devotion. Please don't forget our kitchen appointment at 0730 sharp," firmly informs her mother.
"Oh, we'll certainly both be there," replies Whammy, with a child's cheer filled enthusiasm in her voice.
"Yeah, we both will be there!," replies Lanker with a broad smile.
"Well, you two run along and play today because tomorrow our work schedule begins," informs her mother.
The two children make their way back into the den. No other people were around, so Whammy pauses, then turns toward Lanker.
"Let's go get a flashlight, and make our way back down into that room," she whispers.
"Yeah, let's get a flashlight!," replies Lanker with sudden excitement.
"What do you think is down there?, asks Lanker inquisitively.
"There is lots of army stuff, to be sure. The other day I was plundering around right by myself, and found an old crystal ball. I knocked the dust off of it with an old cloth, and this funny feeling came over me," Whammy quietly intimates to Lanker.
"What kind of funny feeling?," asks Lanker, with a glint in his eyes.
"I don't know., a spaced out kind of feeling, maybe, like I was about to enter into some sort of unseen passageway, or something," Whammy continues.
"Wow, that sounds like fun!," replies Lanker with a broad smile. "I wonder what we'll find when we go into that unseen passageway."
"I don't know, but let's get a flashlight and find out!," Whammy says in an air of newly aroused excitement.
Through the den and the kitchen Whammy leads Lanker, who crawls along behind her on legs wrapped in plaster casts up to the thighs. It really was astonishing to witness the peculiar manner in which he manages to squirm along with those casts, and do so with such speed. On the other side of the kitchen is a doorway into a small room. When Whammy opens the small door, Lanker can observe where the room is filled with tools of every variety. On the floor as she entered the room, sits a large yellow flashlight, of the hand held spotlight type.
"This will be perfect," she whispers to Lanker, who eagerly listens. "And it has a big battery that will last a good long time."
Slowly the two make their way back through the kitchen and din, and up the staircase again. Quietly they both ease into the small room underneath the staircase, until they are standing before the back wall again. With great skill Whammy presses the upper top corner of the back wall, causing it to open in its revelation of this narrow staircase that seemingly drops down into thick darkness. Whammy pushes a button on the flashlight with a click. A beam of light instantly emerges, completely illuminating the sharply sloping staircase all the way down to the door at the bottom. The place now seems to glow brightly as the light of day, yet the air is saturated with very obvious floating dust.
"Follow me," she whispers as she eases down the staircase. When she makes it down to the bottom, she retrieves her special bent bobby pen. With the acquired skill of a professional she opens the door in a honed expert's artistic ease, exposing this apparently long forgotten room to the brilliant beam radiating forth from the hand held spotlight. The dust in the air swirls thickly, taking a minute or two to settle down as the beam of light slices through the thick darkness. When it finally settles, it reveals a uniquely intriguing world, all unto itself.