Mina ✓

•|chapter twenty: the lady wilhelmina andras [present day]

"So what is the thing that you found?"

"A confession. Now we know where Wilhelmina Andras is," Yvaine smiled, unable to control herself by looking at the horrified look on Amberly's face. "We had been sharing the same roof without even knowing."

"What do you mean!"

"Here, read this."

Warily taking the paper from Yvaine, Amberly began to read it. Her face changed colours faster than a signal, from white to red to green and back to white again. Gulping nervously, she looked up from the paper. The hand in which she held it shook in trepidation.

"This guy," she said, pointing to Jonathan Andras's coffin. "This guy, he killed his sister and buried her within the basement of the chateâu!"

"Yes. It seems that is what must have happened."

"What do we do now?"

"Why? We go back to the chateâu and dig up the backyard," grinned Yvaine. "Then we retrieve Wilhelmina's remains from the basement. I refuse to live any longer with a corpse."

***

Digging the backyard was no menial task.

The day had bled into the late evening. The sky had turned into a shade of deep cerulean blue with a few clouds flitting about and the half-moon had just risen above the horizon. Stars had started to appear along with the cool nightly breeze.

Amberly and Yvaine at that hour were at the château, digging into the hardened soil of the backyard. There was mud everywhere; mud in heaps beside them, mud upon their bodies and mud caked the surface of the shovels that Yvaine had found in the storeroom. It had been hours since they had been doing this. Still, there was no sign of any entrance to the basement.

"This is some tiresome job," Amberly groaned, shoving away a shovelful of mud. "I wish we could have hired someone to do it."

"I don't think anyone within the town would have agreed to do it if they knew what we are looking for," Yvaine wiped away a bead of sweat. "But with Mr Vescott's contacts, we might have had some help with this. I hope he was here."

"Yes, me too," Amberly acquiesced. "He is resourceful, always knows what to do. Speaking of which, when do we tell him about this?"

"At once we find Wilhelmina Andras, we phone him and tell him everything. I bet he will be excited."

"Sure he wil—my goodness, now what is this!" Amberly limped away from the spot she was digging. She raised her right foot and began rubbing it.

"Did you hit something?" Yvaine went over to the spot, the shovel dragging behind her.

"Yes, something metallic I guess. It hurts."

"Metallic you say? Wait, let me check it out."

Yvaine started to move the soil with her shovel. No sooner did she start to do so, the shovel made a sonorous sound, akin to when a metal hits another. She went down on her knees and using her hands she brushed away the soil.

Something smooth made contact with her palm. Bringing out her phone from her pants pocket, she switched on the flashlight and showed it on the spot. And lo and behold! There was a wooden trap door with a brass knob, the thing upon which Amberly had stumbled. Holding the phone in one hand, Yvaine tried to open the trap door with another hand but it would not budge. It was stuck.

"Miss Wood, please come here. We have to break this down." She said standing up, wiping away the soil on her hands upon her pants.

"Okay. Let us hit this together, Miss Agan." Amberly said, raising the shovel above her head.

"One...two...and three!" The two counted before bringing down their respective shovels on the trap door. The old wood gave away at this great impact and broke down with a loud clang, revealing a square dark hole.

"Those are stairs," Amberly had put down the shovel and went near the open trap door to inspect it. "It goes deep underground. Who's going in there?" She looked at it nervously, her thoughts once more upon spiders.

"Of course, I will go down there," Yvaine said, holding out her phone's flashlight. "You wait here for me, Miss Wood."

"You will go there all alone? What if you get trapped there?"

"I am sure I won't," Yvaine smiled. "If I do, call 911. But something tells me that you would not have to do it."

With that Yvaine went down that century-old trapdoor, the flashlight her only source of light.

***

The stairs went deep down. Walking down them felt like walking on top of a giant sleeping snake, thought Yvaine. It felt like the labyrinth through which Theseus had passed to face the Minotaur.

The place was unusually clean. The air was not stale nor did it smell of decomposition like what she had experienced in the mausoleum with the coffin of Jonathan Andras. There were no cobwebs, no spiders or dust. It was just an empty void without any contact with life and light. It was a cold place, very cold.

Yvaine wondered about that ghastly night, the night in which Jonathan had dragged the dead body of his sister down to this dark cell. What was he feeling? Was there truly no remorse as he did it neither any fear? She wondered why the ghost of Wilhelmina appeared so frequently to her. Did it want company, a little warmth? This place, after all, was so doleful.

Lost in thoughts she reached the landing of the basement. In the light of the flashlight, Yvaine could make out a few broken pieces of furniture, old paintings and vases kept all over the place.

But to the left, in a corner was a chair upon which sat something like a very dark silhouette. Something which the flashlight's light was weak to fully illuminate.

A shudder ran down Yvaine's spine. Nonetheless, with quivering hands and feet she walked, almost sprinted towards the chair. Her heart leapt into her hands when she saw face-to-face what it was.

There was lady Wilhelmina Andras, sitting in the same position as she was made to sit for an entire century. Her skin was gone and she was a skeleton just like her brothers in the mausoleum.

Yet tufts of the glossy hair still hung from the shapely skull, shining in the flashlight the way it would shine when Wilhelmina would stand in the sun. She still wore the blood-stained dress, the streaks of red quite prominent. The crimson shawl was still wrapped around her just like that fateful winter night.

Yvaine fell to the floor, a strange weakness overwhelming her. She dropped her phone and stared into those empty sockets, wondering what must have felt like to die here all alone and be so cold all the time. Tears flooded out of her eyes for the murdered girl, whose entire life was snatched from her for a mere misunderstanding. The fear in her heart was replaced by pangs of pain.

And at a far corner of the basement loomed a shadowy lady. Unnoticed by Yvaine, she looked at the moving scene with rapt attention. Slowly, she dissipated within the shadows, never to be seen again.

Mina had never liked the cold. Now, she was at last free from its spell.

THE END