Free Father Panic's Opera Macabre by Thomas Tessier

she was stuck here, so unfair and unnatural. Her own personal life was indefinitely on hold.
     
    Neil had to find the right way to speak to Marisa about it, to make her see that she had to do something-for her own sake. She could at least try to get away for a few days every month, to Rome, anywhere. Just to be among other people, to stroll about a city, eat in a restaurant, see a movie...
     
    He was about ten years older than Marisa was, but that didn't seem to matter to her and it certainly didn't to him. Maybe a real relationship would never work out, but Neil had a strong sense that he could not just drive away and let go without even trying.
     
    He had to leave ... but he had to see her again ...
     
    ... wanted her ...
     
    His eyes closed.
     
    "Do we have to wait for everybody to go to bed again tonight?" Neil asked, smiling at her.
     
    "You're so naughty, I love it," Marisa said, laughing. "No, we don't. I have a special place I want to show you."
     
    They were finishing a light meal in the billards room. Some vacuous Euro-techno music droned on the radio in the background. Marisa looked very pretty, very girlish in a dark blue-green plaid skirt that almost reached her knees and a white short-sleeved blouse that was somehow even sexier to Neil because it was buttoned all the way to the top. She wore several thin silver bracelets on her wrists. She had braided some of the hair on the sides of her head and tied it with beaded blue bands.
     
    "I had to tidy it up while you were sleeping," Marisa continued. "I had not been down there for years."
     
    "Down there?"
     
    "Yes." She pointed to the floor. "There's a huge cellar beneath this house. It's full of things my family brought with them after the war and have never used since. I don't know what we'll do with it."
     
    "But they were lucky they could take anything at all with them," Neil said. "By the end of the war tens, probably hundreds of thousands of people had nothing more than the clothes on their backs."
     
    "Yes, I suppose. Anyhow, when we were children, Hugo and I had our own little clubhouse down there. It's buried in the middle of everything. It was a good place to hang out on rainy days. Later, I used to like to go there alone, to read or just to think. You know?"
     
    "Sure." Neil nodded. "The childhood retreat, the adolescent haven. We all had private hideouts like that."
     
    Marisa laughed. "Hideouts-yes, that's the word."
     
    She took his hand. Neil thought that they were heading toward the front of the house, but as usual there were so many turns and passages that it was impossible for him to keep a sense of direction. They finally arrived at the door that led to the cellar. As soon as Marisa opened it, Neil heard the sound of an electric generator. She flicked a switch and some lights went on below. The narrow stone stairs descended along an interior wall that was made of rock and mortar, and were open on the other side.
     
    "Watch your step," she warned him.
     
    Neil nodded. The air was cool and damp, but he could tell from his first few breaths that it probably wouldn't bother him. The unbroken flight of stairs was steep and long-it was more like two normal floor levels down to the bottom, Neil estimated.
     
    They had not quite gone halfway when Marisa stopped and turned to him. She pointed out across the expanse of the cellar now visible on the one side. Single lightbulbs dangled from cables here and there, providing some illumination, though much of the place was cast in shadows.
     
    "Look at it," she said, sounding exasperated.
     
    "I see what you mean."
     
    The place was a vast warren of storage areas, shelves and platforms, all of them full of boxes, cartons and trunks. One area contained metal racks jammed with clothing on hangers-coats, dresses, suits, shirts. Another part was given over to larger items that were covered with tarp, unusual shapes, some kind of equipment or tools.
     
    "This is only half of it," Marisa told