Page 19 of The Retreat

Chapter13

Lucy

Now I understand why Spencer appeared so freaked out this morning when I asked him if he knew an Ava Reynolds. Hearing the first name of Cora’s dead daughter even if pronounced differently must’ve rattled him and he didn’t want to talk about it—especially if what Craig has said is true and Cora doesn’t like it—so he’d scurried off.

Interestingly, if Cora doesn’t like discussing her daughter’s death, why did she mention it to me when I first arrived? Then again, considering I’d told her about Mom dying recently, it was probably her attempt at empathizing, trying to make a guest comfortable.

Whatever her rationale, I can’t interrogate her just yet, not after what Craig said, which leaves one other person who can definitely give me answers. However, Spencer is nowhere to be found. I scour the grounds, the day spa—which is stunningly beautiful in its simplicity, all muted lights and taupe walls and lavender-scented air—before exploring the mansion from top to bottom.

Once again, I don’t cross paths with anyone, and my skin prickles with awareness as I realize how damn lonely it is in this place. There’s a difference between providing a quiet environment for guests to detox and being surrounded by perpetual silence in isolation. It’s a tad spooky and I don’t scare easy. But I can’t shake the feeling I’m being watched as I comb the grounds—nothing to do with Craig saying it, more like a feeling I can’t ignore—and when I set foot inside the mansion again, my skin prickles like a million ants are on the march.

I rub my arms, unwilling to give up my search but needing to regroup and think, so I head to my room. I reach for the doorknob when I hear it, the muffled boom of a steel door closing beneath my feet.

The tunnels.

Nobody else has mentioned them apart from Spencer and I’m sure they’re not part of the guest package, but who’s going to see me if I snoop around? It’s not like I have anything better to do. Jase and Cindy retired to their room after lunch, and Craig and Demi went on a long beach walk. The day spa is closed so I’m not sure if it’s only staffed on a part-time basis, and Daphne, Spencer and Cora are the only other employees I’ve seen here, apart from the yoga instructor briefly this morning.

Glancing over my shoulder to ensure the corridor is deserted, I open the door opposite my room, marked ‘Staff Only’. I thought it was a linen closet and expect it to be locked, but the door swings open soundlessly, a sensor light clicks on, and I release a sigh of relief when I spy regular cleaning supplies—mop, vacuum, buckets, chemicals—stacked neatly along the walls. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to find, but in this weird place anything’s possible.

There’s a sheet hanging on the opposite wall, covering something, and I close the door before taking a few steps across the small closet and tugging it aside to reveal a door. Not just any door. It’s huge, made of thick old planks, with a huge knob the size of a dinner plate in the middle. The knob’s engraved with thevegvisirand ismade from heavy iron with symmetrical spokes fanning out from its center like a ship’s steering wheel.

I reach out to grab the spokes, surprised to find them slightly warm rather than the cold of iron I expected. Has someone recently entered or exited the tunnel? Probably staff and if so, I shouldn’t be caught snooping like this.

But I came here to find answers and I won’t get them by wasting my time with yoga and pilates.

Mind made up, I turn the wheel counterclockwise. It’s resistant to movement and creaks, but I persist, throwing my weight behind it until I hear a satisfying clunk of bolts sliding back. The door swings open, I take a step forward, and a blast of air so cold my teeth chatter hits me like a wet blanket to the face.

I gasp, the frigid air making my legs tremble, and I reach for the walls to steady myself. My palms encounter icy slime and I yelp, snatching my hands away. I swipe them down the side of my jeans, but it doesn’t stop the strange prickling, and when I glance at my palms, I see the faintest fluorescent glow of Arcania’s emblem emblazoned on my skin.

I blink several times and refocus, seeing nothing but my bare palms, and I wonder if my obsession with thevegvisirand what it was doing tattooed on my mom’s sole is making me go a little loopy.

Dragging a few deep breaths into my lungs, I wait for my eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom. The tunnel isn’t pitch black. Instead, a weird glow emanates as far as I can see, the same dim lighting recreated by the library staff on Halloween by placing paper lanterns over the lights.

The cold that blasted me when I first opened the door has subsided, but I wrap my arms around my middle, regardless. I have two choices: explore this tunnel and where it leads or listen to my voice of reason, that’s insisting I stop this madness and go back to my room.

I’m leaning toward the latter, but if Mom had the remotest connection to this place, I need to discover how, so I shake out my arms, square my shoulders, and take a step forward. Another. Forcing my feet to move forward when every self-preservation instinct is urging me to turn back.

The faintest tang of rotting seaweed fills my nose the deeper I move into the tunnel, darkness all around me. But it’s not intensifying. If anything, the light increases with each step I take, the damp stone walls shimmering with a faint glow. I never liked chemistry in school, so don’t know what’s coating the stone to make it look like that and after my earlier encounter when I touched them, I don’t want to find out.

The tunnel ends abruptly, opening out into a large cave where I can stand upright without hitting my head. The walls glow like the tunnel but I can’t see any source of light and there’s another heavy door, made of steel this time, a few feet in front of me, with the same Viking compass embossed on the steering wheel knob, and a porthole-like window set three quarters of the way up.

I’m tempted to open the door, but I barely take a step forward when a loud boom from the other side of it makes me jump.

A horrible thought insinuates its way into my brain. Is someone trapped in there?

The boom comes again, and again, and again, moments apart, and I stand, immobile, torn, wondering what to do.

That’s when I hear it.

The faintest strain of‘Lucy, are you there?’

I stifle a scream and run.

Chapter14

Cora

THEN

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