Rise [Bruno Mars]

Chapter twenty-four

Chapter twenty-four

Bruno held up a finger. Wait.

He left the living room. I heard the stairs protest as he climbed them. Glancing at Nan's closed room, I wrapped my fingers around the doorjamb the crockery unit was once hiding, peering into the sheet of black. I stayed still. Listening. Hearing nothing but the sound of my own fear.

Bruno returned wearing a large red sweater, another gray one thrown over his shoulder, two oil lamps in his grip. The light from them flickered into the stairwell, dimly exposing the weathered wood and sloping ceiling. He waited as I drew on the gray sweater, the sleeves hiding my fingers and the hem brushing my knees. Although way too big it was soft and comfortable. Bruno handed me a lamp. I stepped inside, landing silently on the first step. I turned to watch Bruno close the unit; it had a door's handle for opening it from the inside. It shut with the tiniest click.

The world cut off from us, then. It was only me and him and the light and the lightless. Bruno seemed amazingly calm, but his eyes, nearly swallowed by black, were tinged with excitement. It was contagious. A bolt of my own thrill shot down my spine. “You ready?” he breathed, autumn gaze fixed firmly in front of him, eager to know what was below.

“Always,” I said, “with you.”

He turned to me, his light smacking the wall. It flickered out, and the darkness grew. “Shit. Look what you made me do.”

I started in disbelief. “What I made you do?”

“If you said things like that more often I wouldn't have been so damned surprised.”

“Oh, Amber Alert, Bruno's missing some self-reproach.”

“While you're looking for it go find more fucking cute things to say.” He set his light down, I handed him mine, then held out his arm. I splayed my fingers across his inner elbow, holding on to him. We began to incline, my futile light propelling the darkness as we did. Our hearts beat faster with each step, our nerves danced. The worse part was that we had to move painstakingly slow, in order to not miss a step and break our necks.

I kept my right hand on the wall, feeling the holes of the rotten wood. It was all but silent, the sound of my and Bruno's faint breathing keeping the silence at bay. Glacial air blanketed us at the end. We shivered. I held up the light.

Nostalgia hit first, my thoughts flying to my mother sitting behind a desk, glasses askew, piles of books and papers scattered all over. My chest ached. I missed it. I missed her. With the memories cupped in mind, a feeling of awe embraced me. The basement looked like the rest of the house: all old wood. Against one wall was a worn Chesterfield sofa, and on the next, a single desk, and on that, towers of the written word. I was immediately drawn to them, as though they released a pull all on their own. Trailing a finger across a tattered spine, I inhaled, remembering the library smell that overtook my room, knowing this was the reason why. 

I turned to Bruno. He stood near the bottom step, watching me wordlessly.

“Come here.” My smile was small, crooked. “Look with me.”

“What do you think all this is?” Bruno took hold of a stack of paper once he came.

“I don't know, but it's something. If all this is worth hiding”—our gazes locked—“Then it must be something.”