The Atlantis Keystone (33 page)

“Emma, look at this article here. Apparently Torpa had an underground passage way!” He translated the article for her and told her about his thoughts. He showed her the picture which accompanied the article. It was black and white and boasted a bearded young man with a cap, the plumber, together with a hole showing the top of the archway to the entrance, covered almost entirely by rubble. The picture had been taken just after its discovery, before it had been covered up.

“I suppose it’s a little bit odd that you’ve never heard about it but not very surprising really. It could have been seen as a bit of an embarrassment that the local paper had said that there were not enough funds for the excavation work and it could have been a topic which no one wanted to approach with the estate’s family members. And people’s memories are short. It was probably completely forgotten about by the time you were old enough to understand.”

“But why couldn’t they have spent money on the excavation works? There were clearly enough funds there. Something is not right about this. This underground passage forms part of Torpa’s history. Its discovery must have been significant. People would have been interested to see it. It could have become a tourist attraction. But instead, they chose to board it up and forget about it.”

“Perhaps they simply weren’t very interested in these things in those days. But what are you suggesting?”

“I might be wrong but I’m thinking that perhaps it was secretly used for something else, even in my lifetime.”

“Like what?” Emma paused. “Perhaps the tablet was hidden there?” She sounded hopeful.

“I’m not sure about that but I would certainly like to find out. This place seems to have a lot of secrets, more than I ever could have imagined… I suggest we take a walk to look for it in the garden. I’m not sure where this is,” Erik said pointing at the photo. “But I can’t imagine it could be that difficult to find.”

“You’re the boss! I could do with a bit of a break now anyway.” They put their trainers and jackets on and ventured outside. It was drizzling but not bad enough to require an umbrella. Having decided to walk together rather than split up, it took them longer to browse the expansive gardens but the whole experience was all the more pleasant. Erik suggested they looked for a small mound of rubble, like the picture had suggested. He guessed that by now it was probably covered in grass and may not be very prominent or even noticeable, which complicated their search even further. They spent a long time leafing through every inch of the garden without any hint of anything which could have been hiding an underground passage entrance.

It was not yet dark but they decided to give up the search for the passage entrance for the moment. They started to walk back. It was suddenly a gorgeous evening. The rain had given way to a weak spell of sunshine, although the sun was on its way down, spreading a purple band of cloud across the sky. The spring air was still warm and fresh, smelling of pine and moss. Some persistent birds were entertaining them with song. The expansive gardens had the remains of a few autumn leaves strewn about but was otherwise well kept and entirely surrounded by large trees. Erik put his arm around Emma and they stopped for a moment, looking at the old house on the other side of the moat. In the soft light of the last sun rays it looked ghostly but yet alive. The smaller of the two lakes was faintly discernible behind it. The white render shone brightly, in stark contrast to some of the windows at the front. The sun was shining in from the west, creating an optical illusion of dancing dust in some of the rooms on that side. The inside of the east side was completely submerged in darkness. Emma suddenly froze.

“I could have sworn that I saw something moving in there! Right there, in the window to the right on the ground floor!” Alarmed she pointed in the direction of the house. Erik couldn’t see anything, only a dark window.

“Are you sure, or could it have been the reflection of trees in the window?”

“I don’t think so. It was definitely something inside the house. Someone or something was moving in there! We should call the police!”

“What?” He laughed. “They would think we were mad, calling them about a possible sighting of ‘something’. I don’t think we should waste police time over this. Let’s go and have a look ourselves first. It’s probably nothing. There could be an open window somewhere, which made the curtain move.” Erik had no desire to enter the godforsaken house again. He had only had less than pleasant experiences in there; and his childhood fears were still rife within him, in particular since the revelation about the death and gruesome burial of his biological mother inside the house. But he didn’t want to let Emma down, or be shown to be a coward. He decided that some precautions were necessary. “Wait here a second, he said mid step as he rushed back into the house.

He was going to get his father’s hunting rifle. He was no stranger to it, having used it once when he accompanied his father on a hunting expedition as a teenager. After that he had decided never to do so again but at least he had learnt how to load and use the weapon. It was kept in a wooden box inside the bookcase in one of the reception rooms. If there really was an intruder there, it would be the most effective way of protecting them, he reasoned. But he refrained from loading it there and then, scared of accidentally pulling the trigger. He also made sure his mobile phone was charged and functional before he went outside again, carrying the rifle on his back in a leather string over his right shoulder, just as his father had taught him, as well as the keys to the old house. Emma was still there outside waiting.

“Shall we?”

“What’s that?” Emma looked at the weapon with disgust.

“My father’s rifle. I thought we needed some protection,” he said cheerfully, stroking it.

“Be careful, you could kill someone with that thing!”

“Perhaps we should sneak in, rather than just walk up to the entrance,” Erik said, ignoring her. “If there is an intruder in there and he has seen us, he would be getting ready for us now, or trying to escape.”

“Perhaps a voluntary escape would not be such a bad thing. At least then we wouldn’t risk getting you in jail shooting someone! I say we just walk up, as if nothing has happened.”

They didn’t say a word as they walked over the walk bridge over the moat and up to the entrance. Erik fiddled with the keys. His hands were shaking somewhat, making it a more difficult task to unlock the door. If there was a person in there, he must have used the back-door, as the front door was locked from the outside, including the three extra locks that his mother had had installed after the break-in. As they went inside, Erik left the door unlocked, planning for a swift escape. He felt braver with the weapon in his hand but thought it may have been a mistake not to load it.

“Let’s stop for a second,” he whispered. Inside the entrance hall he took out the bullets in his pocket and loaded the gun. Holding it carefully, they continued down the hall and into a room that Erik doubted he had ever been in before. It was still fully furnished, seemingly with old or broken furniture that his family had left there. Other than the main reception rooms and one of the bedrooms, which had been restored to their former fifteenth century glory for the benefit of tourists, all other rooms were run down and covered in dust. The curtains had black moth stains and looked a bit sorry. A familiar smell of damp was prevalent all throughout the house. No wonder, given that it had no modern heating system. There were no guided tours over the winter months, the first ones starting in June, with the last one at the beginning of August. His parents had not prioritised the upkeep of the house for the rest of the year.

The door which they had calculated should be leading to the room where Emma thought she had seen the movement was closed. Erik’s heart was pounding hard as he pressed down the handle to open it. To their disappointed relief, it was locked.

“Now what?” he whispered.

“Do you have a key?” Emma pointed at the bundle he was carrying.

“Good point.” He searched through it as inaudibly as he possibly could but there was no helping it. Searching for a key was not the quietest of jobs. “No, this isn’t it. I didn’t bring all the keys with me. These are just for the external doors. I know there’s another bundle of keys in the keycupboard in the house. We need to go back and get it.”

“I’ll stay here and keep a look-out. You hurry!” Erik didn’t want to leave her there but they had not heard or seen any sign that there was someone else there. What she had seen could have been a trick of the light. Relying on that, Erik didn’t think she was in any immediate danger.

“Alright. You go back to the main hall and wait. Take this.” He gave her the rifle. She accepted it without a word. “Keep quiet, whatever you do.”

Erik ran as fast and as quietly as he could through the corridor and outside, over the bridge, over the garden and up to the modern house. As per normal when he was at home he had foolishly left the door unlocked, although consequently there was no need to fumble with keys again. The key-cupboard was in a little room off the hallway. He quickly found the bundle of keys. There was only one that seemed to have the right sort of look. It was fairly long and simple in its design, the kind of key which was likely to fit most old internal doors. He grabbed the bundle and started to run back, locking the house on his way. He didn’t want the intruder to get access to the many valuables there. As he reached the old house again he could hear nothing other than the wind hitting the trees outside. Walking slowly up to the main hall, his heart pounding in his chest, he hesitated, scared that Emma would think he was the intruder and that she would use the rifle on him. He therefore whispered: ‘It’s me!’ as loudly as he could before entering. She was sitting on a stool in the corner, white as a sheet, rifle in combat position.

“Thank god it’s you!”

“You ok?”

Emma nodded. “Shall we go back to the door?”

Erik concurred and carefully took the rifle back. Emma moved ahead creeping in a funny walk on her toes with back slightly bent, as if she had to go to the toilet. Erik couldn’t help himself laughing but at the last second realised that under the circumstances it was probably unwise. Instead he focussed on trying the key in the old door and found to his relief that he had chosen wisely. The lock clicked open. The moment he pressed the handle again he had stopped breathing from anticipation and fear. He looked at Emma, as if to reassure himself that she wanted him to open the door. What if she had been right? What if there was someone there? The door opened with a creak and the room came into view. It was lighter than the corridor, with two windows each of the external walls but the sun had started to set and it was certainly not swimming in light. The main thing was that it was empty. There was no one there. The only strange thing about it was that the furniture appeared to be dusted and the curtains were of better quality than the other rooms. It even had a red Persian rug, an antique looking sofa in a light blue shiny patterned material and a desk. On the desk was a pen in a stand and a kerosene lamp. The pen and lamp ensemble looked antique in itself but this was in stark contrast to an item that had been thrown on the desk chair. Emma, who had become braver, walked up to it and held it up. It was a black T-shirt. At that moment a noise resembling a shriek escaped her.

“What’s the matter?” he whispered. He walked up to her and held her shoulders. She didn’t answer, merely continuing to hold up the T-shirt in disbelief. A memory of Emma, Paul and him walking in the woods started to form in his mind. Paul had been wearing that T-shirt that day; the day when he had shown them the rune-stone! It was Paul’s T-shirt! Paul’s T-shirt was in this room! Suddenly Emma started to panic.

“Oh my god, Paul is here!” she said in a voice somewhere between a whisper and a scream. “He’s here now! I know it; it must have been him I saw in the window!”

“Emma, you’re not making any sense. How could Paul possibly be here? He may even be dead.”

“Look over there!” She pointed at a door in the corner. Erik had seen similar doors in many of the rooms. It was to the stairs which led either to the basement with the servant quarters and kitchens or to the dungeon. The house had been cleverly designed and Erik guessed that this one, having previously been a bedroom, led to the servant quarters. If there had been someone in here earlier, that is where he or she could have escaped.

“Do you want to go down there and have a look?”

“Well, we can’t stop now.” She led the way to the door but Erik went in first as she opened it.

“It’s dark down here. We need a light.”

“We can’t leave the room now. Perhaps we can use the kerosene lamp.” She walked back into the room and picked up the lamp. It looked as if it had not been used for a while.

“Luckily for us, I have matches on me! I used them when I lit the fire earlier!”

“Perfect!” She took the matches, lifted the glass and lit the wick. To their surprise, it worked. “Amazing! These things are certainly long-lasting.” She gave the lamp to Erik who started to walk down the stairs again. Emma followed, deliberately leaving the door open behind them. It wasn’t long before they reached the basement at the bottom of the stairs. What was before them was the skeleton of a kitchen. It had been stripped of all its appliances, leaving a large space with unwelcoming cold stone walls, no windows and nothing but rubble and a big black stain where Erik guessed the stove had stood. There was no sign of any life, as far as they could see in the kerosene lamp light.