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Chapter Two: The Basement

There’s a reason I don’t go down there unless I’m told.

But tonight, as the rain needles the windows and Reverend Bishop hums to herself over some séance nonsense upstairs, I hear the Queen’s voice in my ear — low, velvet, imperious:

“Go down. Retrieve what was left.”

I light the oil lamp. I don’t trust the switch. Electricity flickers in this house like it knows what it’s doing, like it’s in on the joke. The steps are narrow and spined, the wood soft in places from old floods or worse. Each creak is a word I’ve tried not to hear.

The smell hits before the bottom: wet rust, old vinegar, and something sweet that doesn’t belong.

The door at the foot of the steps still has military markings scorched into it — not language, just symbols. A triangle inside a circle. A fingerprint above a flame. I used to think they meant something. Now I know better. Symbols mean nothing without blood behind them.

I push the door. It opens like it’s been waiting for me.

Inside, everything’s as I left it — or rather, as it refused to leave. A row of broken mannequins leans in the corner, faces melted and wrong. A shelf of leatherbound books in languages I’ve never heard anyone speak aloud. The drain in the center of the floor pulses slightly. That’s new.

I approach the window — the one I used to sit beside. A child’s imprint remains on the sill. Mine. I ran my finger over it once, and the Queen said:
“Your soul left through that smudge. Don’t wipe it. Let it learn to breathe.”

Something scurries in the ceiling — too fast to be a rat. Too quiet to be real.

There’s a trunk by the old furnace. A red one, latched with silver. I kneel beside it. The Queen said something was left inside. Something I forgot. Something I was made to forget.

The finger and the thumb on my back burn a little. That happens sometimes. I think it’s her way of smiling.

I unlatch the trunk.