When the Sky Fell on Splendor(51)

He opened the door beside the pantry, revealing the basement stairs, and then held out his hand. “Here. Let me use your flashlight.”

“Why?” I asked. “You already have one.”

Arthur huffed. “Do you trust me?”

I rolled my eyes. “And they say there’s no such thing as a stupid question.”

He thrust his hand toward me, and I handed over my flashlight. “Stop being dramatic.”

He shone both flashlights down the basement steps, then glanced over his shoulder at the rest of us, gathered there in the kitchen. “Remy, Sof, Nick—I put three boxes in the trunk. Go grab them.”

“Are you serious, dude?” Nick said.

“That’s half a mile back,” Sofía said. “Why didn’t you tell us to get them before we left the car?”

“I was hoping we wouldn’t need them,” Arthur said. “It’ll take you ten minutes.”

“When did you even put them there?” Remy asked.

“When we stopped by my house and you took twenty minutes to do your business in the bathroom!” Arthur fired back. “Now hurry up—we haven’t got all night. And don’t open them.”

“Why doesn’t Levi have to go?” Nick said.

Levi’s eyes went wide. He held his hands up in surrender. “I’ll go, gladly!”

“No,” Arthur said. “You’re working the camera.”

Sofía shot me a mildly perturbed look, then faced Arthur. “If your mystery boxes will help, then fine, but we’re not packhorses, Arthur Schmidt. From now until you leave for school, expect to carry my purse.”

He waved a hand. “Just put it on my tab.” As the three of them headed toward the back door, Arthur turned to the basement again. “Levi, get your camera ready and wait here. Fran, follow me.”

Arthur descended first, dual flashlights cutting tracks down the dusty steps. Three steps from the bottom, a skittering noise rose from the back corner of the basement, and Arthur jerked the lights sideways in time to catch a massive rat disappearing behind a stack of mildewy cardboard boxes.

The air smelled dank and sour, and if there were any partial windows, they’d been blacked out. We could see nothing but what the flashlight touched.

As we took the last three steps, I tucked my nose into my jacket and slid my palm along the banister, both relieved to have a guide through the dark and unsettled by the thought that, at any second, my hand could brush something I couldn’t see.

I jerked it back to my chest as we reached the bottom step. Arthur’s flashlight wandered over the space: cement walls and floors and a labyrinth of cardboard boxes stacked in columns as tall as we were.

“Here.” Arthur forged ahead down a seemingly random path through the boxes, and I followed, weaving through, twisting back and forth until I’d lost track of where we were in relation to the stairs.

Arthur stopped and shone the light on the floor just ahead of himself. “Stand there.”

I shivered. I was half-soaked from the rain, and it was cold down here, but more than that, it was the dark, the shadows not even flashlight beams could break. “Arthur, what’s all this about?”

“Trust me.” He jogged the lights on the cement floor where he wanted me to stand.

I sighed and took my position. “Now wh—”

The flashlights winked out.

“Shit,” I hissed. “What happened?”

Arthur didn’t answer, but I heard a shuffling noise. “Arthur?” I reached through the void for him, and my fingers met cardboard. I turned, hands extended, feeling for my brother or an opening in the stacks of boxes.

Steps were pounding up the stairs.

“Arthur?!” I half yelped, stumbling forward. “Art, is that you?”

I hit another box and jumped backward, disoriented, lost in the darkness. The angry embers in my stomach flared into something bigger. “Turn the light back—”

My words dropped off at the sound of a door opening, then slamming shut again.

I moved toward the sound, hands still outstretched. “Arthur?”

There was nothing to see. Not even a dappling of moonlight. I reached for my phone, tapped it awake, but the bluish glow barely dented the darkness, and the screen was pixelated, unusable.

“ARTHUR!” I screamed.

My pulse kicked up to full-fledged panic, and my shoulders lifted, as if to protect my neck from whatever could be hiding in the dark as I tried to feel my way back to the stairs. “Arthur, come on!” I choked. “Let me out!”

I jerked backward in surprise and horror as my hands met something stringy and dry. Hair, I thought with revulsion, and stumbled sideways.

I swung my phone light toward it even as my stomach clenched, warning me I didn’t want to see.

A doll! Just a ceramic doll poking out of the top of a box stacked on top of two more. “Arthur,” I shouted, starting across the basement again, hands outstretched halfway. I wanted to find the stairs but only the stairs. Nothing else, nothing else, nothing else, I thought.

My fingertips met a smooth wooden surface, and I gasped with relief as I fumbled up it—the banister!

I threw myself up the rickety steps and caught the doorknob at the top.

It was locked. “Arthur, stop it!” I shouted, shaking the knob.