The Lost Apothecary(48)

I felt it before I saw it—a draft of air brushing up against me—and I lifted my light in the direction from which it came. Another door stood ajar just ahead, the air of the room within being sucked out, presumably, by the vacuum I’d now created in opening the door at the entrance. The tops of my arms prickled with goose bumps, and I jumped at the sudden tickle of a loose hair on my neck. Every muscle in my body tensed, ready to run or scream—or look closer.

Up to this point, my breaking-and-entering had led me on a mostly predictable journey. I knew the outside door existed, and I suspected it led to a jagged corridor—a built-over street or walkway, according to Gaynor—and I felt there was a good chance the corridor wouldn’t be all too interesting once I got inside.

So far, true, true and true. But this door? This wasn’t on the map.

I was desperate to peek inside, and I told myself that was all I would do. The door was already ajar—no more kicking and shoving—so I resolved to slide my phone’s flashlight into the room, take a quick glance around and then leave. Besides—I checked my phone’s battery life, which was now at 32 percent—I didn’t have much time to stick around anyway, unless I wanted to be left in the dark.

“Christ,” I muttered as I stepped to the door, sure that I’d gone clinically insane. This wasn’t something normal people did, right? I couldn’t even be sure this was about the apothecary anymore. Was I still chasing down her story, or was I one of those people who went on reckless, adrenaline-high-seeking adventures after a big loss?

If something happened to me—if I slipped or got bit by a feral animal or stepped through loose floorboards—no one would know. I could lie here dead and undiscovered for who-knows-how-long, and James would surely think I’d left him once and for all. This realization paired with my quickly dying phone made it difficult to steady my beating heart. I resolved to look inside, then get the hell out.

I pushed the second door all the way open. It swung easily on its hinge, which wasn’t warped and rusted like the exterior door and instead seemed to have remained fairly dry and intact. Standing just inside the threshold, I moved my phone in an arc in front of my body to more closely look at what lay within. The room was small, perhaps ten by twelve, and the floor was packed dirt, the same as the rest. Inside were no crates, no tools, no old building fixtures. Nothing.

But the back wall—there seemed something different about it. Whereas the walls on either side of the room were brick, similar to the building’s exterior, the back wall was made of wood. Some shelves were affixed to the wall, like it had once been a built-in library or cupboard. I took a few steps closer, curious to see if there was anything on the shelves: old books or implements, any forgotten remnant of the past. Again, there was little of interest. Most of the shelves were warped and splintering, and a few had collapsed entirely and lay on the ground near the center of the room.

And yet, there was something odd about the arrangement. I couldn’t quite place my finger on it, so I stepped back and considered the wall of shelves as a whole. A memory of the mudlarking tour came back to me, Bachelor Alf’s eerie words: You are not searching for a thing so much as you are searching for an inconsistency of things, or an absence. I frowned, sure there was something strange about what I was seeing now. But what was it?

I noticed, with a start, that most of the fallen shelves had come from one section of the wall—the far left side. In this place, rather than being secured against the wall, most of the shelves had buckled and crumbled to the floor. I stepped closer, using the light to inspect the panel. Only one shelf on the left side of the wall remained in place, so I gripped it and wiggled it slightly; the shelf rattled easily in my hand, so loose that I felt sure I could yank it off without much difficulty. Why on earth would the left side of the wall have lost its shelves? It was as though these shelves weren’t installed correctly, or the structure behind it was inadequate—

I gasped in realization, covering my mouth with my hand. The space where the shelves were dislodged was about my height and only slightly wider than me. Instinctively, I took a step back. “No,” I said involuntarily, the word echoing in the tiny, empty room. “No, no, no. It can’t be.” And yet, I knew as I said the words that I’d stumbled on something. An interior door.

To men, a maze. The first sentence in the hospital note rushed forward in my memory, and I understood, at once, what it might mean: this door, if it did indeed lead somewhere, was meant to remain concealed within a cupboard-like structure. If anyone today—perhaps a building inspector—had reason to be in this room, I felt sure they would have noticed the oddity, like I had. But given the fallen shelves directly in front of me, it was clear not a soul had been down here in decades. And no one had discovered, much less opened, the inset door.

I crouched and searched for a handle, but saw none. I pushed my right hand against the wall, jumping at the silky, sticky feeling of a cobweb against my fingers. I groaned, wiped my hand on my pants, and used the phone flashlight to illuminate the lone, intact shelf. Then I saw it: underneath the shelf was a tiny lever, visible only on account of the crumbling wood. I maneuvered it out of position and gave the wall another push.

Without so much as a croak or groan, as though grateful to be discovered at last, the hidden door swung open.

With one shaky hand against the wall, I clutched my dying cell phone and lifted it up. Ahead of me, the beam of light pierced the dark. Then, in breathless, disbelieving silence, I took in what lay before me: all that had been lost and buried for far too long.