I grab David's arm when he places a hand on the knob of the cellar door, getting ready to turn it.
I don't know how long we sat on the floor in the hallway, but it was long enough for my bum and my right foot to fall asleep. Needles and pins are relentlessly running up and down my leg. I feel better each time I touch David, and not just because feeling the play of the muscles under his warm skin gives me the strength and reassurance I crave.
When I'm touching him, I know that he is really here.
Yes, I touched the bed and the scratchy bear too, and they weren't really there, but that was then; this is now, and right now, there is a handsome man within touching distance, and I would really like to keep it that way. I'm going to touch him as much as I can without being totally creepy.
"It's okay, Belle," he murmurs, smiling that warm smile I'm starting to really love. "Whatever happens, I'm right here."
"Oh, I really hope you're not a mop," I say the only logical words that spring to mind, and David chuckles, nodding his head.
"Me too," he grins. "I'm more of a broom kind of guy."
I relax my face into a smile while the rest of me braces itself as he turns the knob. The door clicks open, unceremoniously getting out of our way as if it is not one of the most important moments of my life and it's not required to provide a bit more drama, at least. Never before in the history of mankind has a woman been so happy to see some wonky stairs leading down into threatening darkness.
This is a good sign, right?
David flips the switch just inside the door, bathing the rickety stairs in watery light. Still clinging to his arm – there is no way I'm letting him go – I slowly follow him down the stairs into the body of the cellar.
The first thing I check when he pulls the light cord at the bottom of the stairs is the condition of the floor. It is clean, clearly recently scrubbed by a woman who wasn't just imagining doing so.
The sounds of the storm are much more muffled from down here, but the cold is more intense. It had been such a hot day before the storm started, and now, I'm shivering and not just from fear anymore. I can see my breath and David's, but the cold doesn't seem to bother him. He has enough warmth built up inside him to cope with it
I wrap my arms around myself, keeping an eye on him as he inspects the shelves covering every wall. He is lifting dusty tarps and moving dilapidated boxes, doing a thorough job of surveying the contents of the cellar.
"David, could we please leave the inventory-taking session for later and just see if the secret door and the tunnel are still here?" I finally ask, my nerves wound into a tight ball in the pit of my stomach. He drops the latest piece of plastic sheeting he's lifted and turns to look at me.
"Oh! Yeah! Of course," he says, moving towards me. "I was checking for mould since this is one space in the house I've never been in, and if there's mould, it's most likely here. I haven't seen any in the house, but then again, I wasn't searching for it. I definitely will, though."
"Does mould cause people to paint vibrant paintings in their sleep?" I ask, really not convinced of the toxic mould theory. It does not explain the clocks or the matryoshka doll and the... Wait! Where did I put those? Perhaps those weren't real, either! Oh, I hope the painting exists; it's the only one I have so far.
"Well, some artists can only work when they're high; maybe it's similar."
I'm not sure whether he is trying to say that I fall into that category of artists, but I won't blame him if he thinks I'm high. After all, not that long ago, I was sitting in his lap, crying about a disappearing room. I definitely would've thought that I'm high.
"Do you remember where the door was?" David asks, and I turn to inspect the section of shelves where I'd found it earlier. Taking a deep breath, I step closer and feel along the seam for the trigger, praying for it to be there... or not be there... whichever option will prove my sanity.
The relief I felt at seeing the stairs leading down into the cellar pales in comparison to what I'm feeling now as I close my fingers around the recessed lever and unlock the secret door with much more ease than I had earlier when it was still extremely stiff due to disuse.
We step back when the section of shelves slowly moves towards us, opening the tunnel. I glance at David, smiling, when I see the look of wonder and astonishment on his face. This is clearly new to him, and I'm not the only one seeing it.
I once again hold on to his arm as we navigate the steps and then the winding tunnel down to the cave, David using his phone to give us at least some light in the cloying darkness.
The wind meets us before the sound of the heavy rain reaches us when we finally enter the cave hidden at the back of the small, private cove. If seeing the storm from the foyer had been spectacular, there are no more intense words left to describe seeing it from the mouth of the cave.
The water is an angry, boiling mass of waves spilling through the rocky arms up to only a couple of steps from the entrance to the cave. The idea of ending up in that terrifying sea during my sleepwalking sessions is making me feel quite ill.
"It's true!" David breathes, and at first, I think he means that despite the very clear message from the clock earlier, I might not be cuckoo after all, but then he turns to me, looking excited. "I heard stories from my Grandfather about our ancestor who built this house and how he was a bit of a shady character. A smuggler, to be precise, with ties to pirates.
"Later generations have, from time to time, used the house to smuggle refugees during the many wars that tortured this area. It seems that his descendants were a lot nobler than he was," he chuckles and then his eyes grow sombre, running over the violent waves mercilessly smashing themselves against the boulders.
"Except for my great grandparents. There are rumours that my grandfather's father was a criminal, running from justice... I'm not entirely sure what it was that he'd done, but he was a sailor, and my grandfather's mother abandoned her newborn baby to run away with him. Their ship was stranded during a storm somewhere out here, probably, because pieces of the wreckage and the bodies of some of the crew washed up here. You can reach the shore of this cove from over there," he points off towards the left, where the land runs downhill, tumbling into the sea.
"There are some stone steps leading down to the beach. They're heavily overgrown at the moment, but I remember coming down to the beach with my grandfather when I was a kid. Never saw this cave, though; it's not visible from down there. I don't think he knows that it's here."
He is right; when I was in that dream, rescuing the stranger who wasn't there, I didn't see the cave until he walked into it. The opening isn't wide, and it is dark. The view from here inside the cave is much less obstructed than the view from outside it.
"He has always resented his mother for leaving him because her parents were overly strict. I don't think he had a happy childhood. Perhaps, in a warped way, they blamed him for the loss of their daughter. She did run off with his father, after all, and I don't think they were even married. That kind of thing was a big deal back then."
"W-were there m-many sh-sh-shipwrecks here?" I stutter, shaking with cold, my teeth are starting to chatter, and my muscles are spasming. David puts an arm around my shoulders, pulling me against him when he realises that I am freezing out here. It's interesting how comfortable we are with each other and how natural it feels for us to hold one another even though we only met a few hours ago.
I am not normally a very touchy-feely kind of girl, but I'm starting to become one... in overdrive. I am aware, though, that David is the only person I have any desire to be close to like this.
"Let's go back and get you warmed up," he smiles, turning me away from the emotional scene outside, back towards the tunnel. "Yes, those rocks that stick out forming the cove stretch into the ocean quite far," he tells me as we carefully retrace our steps. "Only skippers who really know this part of the ocean well dare to come here, and only in very clear weather. When I was doing research on the house, I came across many stories of ships blown onto the jagged, hidden rocks, especially during storms."
I shiver, shamelessly nestling into his side. Hey! I can do with all the heat I can get right now; besides, David smells really good... smoke and all.
We close the cellar door behind us when we finally enter the kitchen, and while I sit, leaning on the serving island, David makes coffee. The kitchen is warm. The oven isn't on, there's no sun spilling through the windows, and yet, I'm feeling more and more cosy sitting here, watching him going through the steps of making extremely good coffee, as I find out when he places a steaming mug within my reach and I grab it, taking a sip.
So, I found a huge dining room that hadn't been there before... or it was there all the time, and I just didn't see that door and therefore never entered it. So, a small room that filled me with dread and despair has suddenly vanished, replaced by a closet.
Is that really so bad?
Gazing at David sitting next to me, quietly sipping his coffee and eating biscuits, thinking his own thoughts, listening to the heart of the house ticking away, I feel my eyelids drooping sleepily, lulled into a sense of well-being I really shouldn't be experiencing.
I am, after all, in a house that has seen smugglers, refugees and criminals passing through its hallways. A house where broken clocks kick up a storm of sound at random intervals, a place where time doesn't matter and every minute hand follow its own path. An old mansion filled with sounds and secrets. Really nothing to inspire peace of mind, and yet...
I'm feeling really sleepy now, physically and emotionally exhausted, but I never want to sleep again because I'm afraid that if I do, David will be gone when I open my eyes again.
I really don't want him to be a mop...
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