Free The Book of James by Ellen J. Green

tell me about having any guests, and I never heard
    of anyone named Mackenzie. Now what are you doing on this
    property?” She tried to make her frail voice sound menacing.
    “It’s all right, Virginia,” Cora said. She must have come out the front door, but I hadn’t heard her approach. “She’s a guest of mine.
    This is Mackenzie. She’s a friend of Nick’s.”
    Virginia’s face changed instantly into a large, bright smile.
    Her teeth, or dentures, were white and even. Her cloudy blue eyes cleared for just a moment. “Nick’s friend? He’s come back? Final y.
    Where is he?”
    Cora placed a hand on the frail woman’s back and turned her
    toward the woods. “He’s not with her, Ginny. Go home now, and
    I’ll explain it all to you in a little while.”
    “Let me stay. I want to hear too. It’s been so long . . .” she pleaded.
    “No. Now go on home or I’ll have to call Harrison to come and
    get you. You don’t want that, do you?”
    Virginia turned without a word and trekked around the front
    of the house, then turned toward the back, out of view.
    THE BOOK of JAMES
    65
    Cora waited until the frail woman was out of sight. “I’m sorry
    about that. She’s a dear friend of mine. But never mind that. Let’s get you settled.”
    I gathered my things from the Jeep and carried them to the
    front door. Cora waited just inside the foyer. She held the heavy doors for me with only one arm. When she let them go, they
    slammed shut, the sound echoing through the tomb of darkness.

CHAPTER 15
    Cora led me through the foyer but turned in the opposite direc-
    tion from that of my last visit. The hal way was long and narrow, with high ceilings, and seemed to go on forever. The wal s were
    adorned with endless drawings and paintings, but I didn’t pause
    long enough to real y look at any of them. The doors that dotted
    the passageway were all shut tight. I was curious and wanted to
    sneak a look in one, but Cora was moving quickly, even with my
    suitcase in her hand. The hal way final y twisted to the right and ended in a narrow marble stairway that went down to a lower floor.
    Only a few steps down, the weak lighting was obliterated. Cora
    quickly descended and disappeared into the darkness. The sounds
    of her shoes against the flooring became less distinct within seconds. I hesitated on the landing and was reminded briefly of that Poe story “The Pit and the Pendulum.” Stay up here in a vast,
    well-decorated mausoleum, or descend down into the depths of
    the unknown?
    I took those marble stairs one at a time, squinting to make
    out a shadow or an outline. I saw nothing. I had no idea which
    THE BOOK of JAMES
    67
    way Cora had gone. I put my arm out to the side until I felt a wal , rough and slightly damp. Clawlike fingers grabbed my elbow.
    “I didn’t realize that you weren’t behind me,” she said. “Your
    room is just down here a little bit.”
    She flicked a switch on the wal , and the space became il umi-
    nated. We stood at the entrance of what looked to be a very nar-
    row, crude hal way. The wal s were unfinished, rough stone.
    “These tunnels were original y air shafts to the root cel ar
    when the house was built, but they were much smaller then. They
    were opened up and made into tunnels during the mid-eighteen
    hundreds, before the Civil War,” she said. “The abolitionists used to hide slaves down here. This house is full of passageways like
    this. My family did some renovations over the years, had that stairway put in, but most of the house remains intact.”
    “Real y?” I was genuinely interested. “It must have been fun
    growing up here—all these rooms and little places to hide.”
    “Yes, I suppose.” She hesitated. “When I was a girl I knew
    spots where no one could find me. When my father . . .” Her voice trailed off.
    The passageway was becoming narrower and more confining
    as we moved along. “Your father?” I encouraged her.
    “I mean my great-grandfather,” she