Page 79 of In the Pursuit of Haven
Nodding, I headed that way. I was so ready to get out of this musty dankness. Seeing the wooden stairs ahead of us, I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. This had to be the exit out. I rushed up the creaking boards and stopped. A grate barred us from leaving. I turned to Jessie. His face was lined with a grid of shadows as he stared up.
A fountain gurgled off to the side, and ivy partly concealed the view of a garden I knew too well.
Bette Ann’s cute 18thcentury condo was set back between the alleyway, just a block away from her candy store. Her white picket fence held in a grassy area peppered with plucky lawn ornaments frosted by the wintry night. Her famous blue glossy dinosaur poked its head over the grating to glower down at us.
“Jessie, how are we going to get up there?”
He threw his shoulder against the grate. The grass and ivy growing along the edges only gave him a little resistance before he ripped the metal covering from the dirt and then, reaching for me, he picked me up and shoved me up and over.
I let out a breath on the other side, feeling a little like Alice in Wonderland ascending from the rabbit hole. Bette Ann’s dog barked at us from inside the house. I was completely illuminated by her bright merry-go-round lights. Staring down at the cylinder I’d rescued from the smashed bottle, I recognized the same symbols that were down in the tunnels. “Jessie,” I said. “This thing is a map.”
He tossed the flashlight onto the grass turf and crawled up beside me.
Remembering that Bette Ann had a motion-detector sprinkler ready to douse any critter that moved across her lawn, I held out my hand to warn Jessie. He straightened. The second he did, the sprinklers sprayed us in a powerful jet of freezing water.
He groaned while I let out a shout. I quickly covered my mouth.
Bette Ann’s door sailed open and her German shepherd lunged into the darkness, barking and yowling in absolute joy when he spied intruders to chew on.
“What on earth?” Haven’s best friend cut off the sprinklers by wrenching against the switch set against the house then, making shocked, huffing noises, she marched over to where I sat in the grass.
Her dog was faster and ran a rough tongue down my face. Panting out in excitement, Harry went after my husband next, throwing his paws against Jessie’s shoulders.
That’s when Bette Ann caught sight of Jessie too. “What are you…?” Her eyes went to the grate. “You’ve been in the tunnels, haven’t you?”
She knew about those, did she? Well, she lived on them, and still, I would’ve appreciated being let in on the secret. That would’ve made my childhood!
“Sorry, Bette Ann,” I said, and remembering that she’d called me the other night to warn me about Jessie meeting up with Divine, I reddened. “We had to get out of the tavern fast. There’s uh… someone we’re trying to avoid.”
Her hands flew to her hips as she looked disapprovingly over at Jessie. “I’m sure. What do you have to say for yourself, young man?”
Jessie didn’t know that he was supposed to explain away Divine. “Sorry, Bette Ann,” he hurried to say, “we didn’t mean to disturb your garden. We’ll get out of your hair.”
Bette Ann shook her head, looking down at the cylinder I clasped to my chest. “What’s that you’ve got there?”
Jessie plucked it from my hands, staring down at the symbols that had become familiar in the tunnel below us. “It’s something we found down there.” He inched closer to the hole where we’d come from. “I’m just going to return it real quick.”
He was going to follow the directions on there to see where they went. “Not without me, you don’t!”
Jessie pushed his knuckles into the turf on either side of me, steadying himself. “I’m sorry, but if anything happens to you, I couldn’t live with myself.”
I made a sound of protest, though it was hard concentrating on any kind of argument with his eyes on me like that.
“You heard your wife,” Bette Ann said with a decisive clap that snapped us back to the problem at hand. “You’re not going without her. I’ll close this grate behind you.”
My surprise tingled through me. The most upset she’d been was at our startling appearance, but now she was all for pushing me back into the dark hole like she was washing her hands of our mad capers. “I used to play in those tunnels as a child,” she said in a brisk voice. “Goodness. It isn’t so mysterious as everyone wants to make it. Just go, go! Return whatever you need.” Her gray slippers shuffled over the grass as she heaved up the grate.
I inched back to the hole, dangling my legs over the edge. Bette Ann’s dog nudged at my back as I glanced over at her. “How safe is it?”
She lifted her shoulder. “I don’t know of anyone dying down therethiscentury. Of course, there’s always a first time. Watch your step.”
Jessie made a low sound of disgruntled dissent, but he was beaten. His hands slid under my arms and he lowered me down until I touched the creaking steps again. He pushed the flashlight into my hands before jumping down beside me.
Bette Ann moved the grate over our heads. “Don’t come back this way. I won’t have you trampling my flowerbeds again.”
Her flowers were fake this far into the cold winter, but I wasn’t about to argue the point.
Bette Ann got the grate in place, moving her vines over it again. “You’ll find another exit underneath there near Turner Street,” she said. “It’s easier to get out that way—less vegetation. And be sure to close the gate behind you. We can’t have everyone wandering around down there all willy nilly.”
