Mask
Instead of moving towards them, you duck into the shadowed areas of the stone arcade and slip through the first doorway you find. You run and whisper out to the voice you heard earlier, but it does not answer you.
It’s very dark. Light only comes in through a few distantly spaced doorways like the one you entered. You slow to a walk, keeping one hand on a wall to guide your way. Suddenly bony fingers grip your arm tightly, but when you cry out another hand is already wrapped around your mouth.
“Stay quiet, Kate, ’til they have passed.”
You reach up and touch the hands grasping you to find they belong to someone emaciated and young, small enough that you could overpower them, but you do not fight, only listen for sounds of a chase. There is movement in the corridor and then a woman’s voice, harsh with annoyance.
“She won’t last long in there,” she says, “and then she will pay for this insolence. And if she does not, I shall visit the Leadmeres directly to collect.”
The rustle of her skirts grow louder and you are grateful for the veil of darkness which hides you from view. It seems she is in no hurry to search the darkened rooms for you, not realizing that you welcome their protective shroud. After she and her companion have moved on your mysterious friend speaks.
“Now you see what they are really like, beneath disguises of fine lords and ladies.”
Up close the voice is familiar, though it is shockingly altered since you last heard it.
“Maisie?” you whisper.
You feel her head nod right next to your shoulder. The two of you slink deeper into the darkness before you speak again. You cling to Maisie, who either knows where she is going or has been here so long she can see her way in the inky blackness.
She tells you that she came here in a similar way to you, though through a different doorway, and has been trapped ever since. The Leadmere family has made a dreadful bargain with those who control this place and are required to periodically deliver an innocent soul to them, someone who will then be bound in servitude for eternity.
Maisie would not cooperate and was banished to the caves below the city. She has left even the comfort of her assigned cell down there to concentrate on finding a way back home.
“It’s been so long that I can’t recall the way out,” she says, “but I think I have found another way. However we must risk traveling deep below the mountains. I have been too frightened to try on my own, but now that you are here…”
Do you go down into the caves?
This is part of the story Beneath Leadmere Manor, written for @calluna’s 9th Tell a Story to Me Contest, based on the prompt, “Deep below ground, a portal opens…,” as well as the #freewrite prompt by @mariannewest: mask.
Image by Kamil Feczko.