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“I can see that Sherlock, why did it close?” Marissa asked annoyed.
“I was just about to try and find out,” Jason grumbled through his teeth. He climbed the steps until he was hunched over right under the ceiling. “Miss Marie? Can you hear me?” He banged on the underside of the door with his fist.
“Mr. Havenward? Are you and Marissa alright? The door fell and now its stuck.” Granny’s voice could just barely be heard through the floor.
“I am going to try and lift the door from down here. Make sure you are clear of it,” Jason warned.
“Wait, I need to move my chair. I tried to catch the door as it fell but ended up on top of it.” A few muffled scuffs could be heard, then nothing else.
“Are you clear yet?”
“Damn chair won’t move, I think something is wrong with the battery. You’ll have to wait until someone comes back here that can move me.”
“It should only take a few minutes for Kira to get back and help Granny, we might as well find that other trunk while we wait. I’m going to start checking along one of the other walls.” Marissa disappeared among the walls of shelves.
“Trusting girl isn’t she?” The whisper through the floor boards was so low only Jason could have heard it. “And before you have to ask, yes this door will stay closed as long as it needs to. Talk to the girl, I’m sure she will understand more than you think. Have fun and be good, I’ll see you in the morning. Oh and I stashed some food for the both of you in a cooler by all the camping gear.” There was the sound of a click and of the wheel chair rolling away. Why the trapdoor would have a lock on the outside Jason did not want to ask. He was shocked that Miss Marie would go as far as locking them in the cellar, but unless he wanted to rip the door out of the floor, they were stuck.
From somewhere behind him, Jason heard a thud followed by a soft cures, he followed soft shuffling sounds until he found Marissa on her hands and knees peering under another set of metal shelves overflowing with odd and ends. It appeared as if the light in this corner didn’t work, so Marissa had found a small flashlight somewhere and had it clamped between her teeth.
“You might as well give up, you are not going to find another trunk.”
Marissa sat back on her heals and looked up at him, annoyance evident in her eyes. “If it’s down here, I’ll find it.”
“That is what I am saying; it is not here.” At Marissa’s blank look he explained. “We have been had, there is no second trunk, and Miss Marie did not accidentally end up on top of the hatch. She closed it and locked us in here.”
“Why would Granny do that?” Now there was more than annoyance.
“I think she is playing her and at match maker.”
“Great, just great.” Marissa let herself fall back to she was sitting on the floor. A lock of hair found its way out of her slip and fell over her eyes. “Now what do we do/”
Twenty minutes later Marissa was board out of her mind. She had tried to make small talk but Jason seemed content to just sit leaning back against a box with his eyes closed. She had then tried to read one of her mystery novels but she just couldn’t keep her mind engaged on any of the impossible twists and turns, so she’d given up on those. Now she had two choices left, walk around and try and find something to amuse herself with (which she’d done twice and only came up with a rubix cube that was missing half its stickers) or try and talk with Jason again. She opted to walk. She found herself back in the area the trunk had been in when her foot hit something. She bent down to see what it was and found the book she’d intended to give to Kira, it must have fallen when they heard the trapdoor close.
Board and with nothing else to do, Marissa moved a box out of the seat of an old lime green bucket chair and curled up, hoping to be amused.
The opening chapter was a quiz in order to figure out if your boyfriend was really a spawn of the devil. Some of the questions were down right preposterous: “Has your boyfriend made a habit out of sniffing your neck?” Then the questions took another turn: “Is he able to move heavy objects without much effort? Have you ever seen him eat or drink anything? Is he able to move faster than should be possible? Is his way of moving so graceful it appears odd? Does he attack the attention of both women and men? Is there an oddness to the way he speaks, as if he was from another time?”
Marissa set the book down, no, she was crazy to even be considering this. But…no, she was stopping this train of thought. IT was just and over active imagination. Jason had the right idea, a nap was what she needed.
Marissa set the book on the armrest and closed her eyes. As her eys closed, memories came unbidden, how he came to her rescue from that drunk, when he was in the garden he had stayed to the shadows. The many times he would just seem to appear out of no where. The trunk that easily weighed 200lbs he had picked up with no problem. His skin was always cold, but he never seemed to notice. In the months they had lived in the same house, she had never seen him eat or drink anything, even the tea and coffee he would order. And what kind of person never used a single contraction when they spoke?