OBLIGATION

 The smell hit me harder than anything, each breath heavy with damp dirt. It took a few deep breaths to get over it.  

"No one is making you come down," Rhys said behind me, from the foot of the ladder.

"Will you just tell me what's down there?" Kate replied.

I was still trying to figure that out myself, waving my flashlight app around the room. Only standing two feet away from the foot of the ladder didn't help. All the shapes I could see were hard to discern, dark lumps against the darker walls.

Light from the closet only spilled down into the basement in a square. It was only enough to see the brick walls, old the mortar crumbling off them. No windows.

I swept the room once more, aiming lower. A cluster of candles left wax trails down the sides of their pillars, onto a coffee table.

"You have a lighter?" I turned to Rhys.

"Here, let me," he mumbled, stepping out of the square of light from above. I aimed my phone at the table for him, silently thanking him for taking the first few steps into the room.

The candle flames flickered, light dancing up the brick walls, casting Rhys' shadow long and thin across the room.

"Check it out, we can be a little more civilized." Rhys crouched down, examining something glass and glinting next to a cardboard box. Some kind of antique oil lamp. He pulled the glass chimney off, lighting the wick, and sliding the chimney back into place. It offered more light than the trembling candle flames.

"It even has a finger hook. Look at that." Rhys grinned. "Come on down. There are bean bag chairs. It's really scary."

There were, actually. Bean bag chairs, a few boxes, a low bookshelf, and the table of candles. It wasn't exactly cozy, but it wasn't a small room, either. At least thirty people could fit comfortably.

Kate appeared first down the ladder, wrapping her arms around herself the moment she let go of the rungs. Dean followed.

"It's like you knew it was here." I gave Rhys a hard look.

He shrugged. "You said it. Like for revolutionaries and slaves. You know what this is right? Tell me somebody in this room knows something about history."

We stood silent long enough for Rhys to raise his eyebrows in either disbelief or disapproval. Maybe both.

"It used to be part of the Underground Railroad," Dean said finally.

Oh. That made sense. This space was big enough for a good number of people, but not much else. Everything in there had to come down the narrow hatch.

"Exactly. Cullfield's full of them. I've found maybe half a dozen," Rhys said, his face unsettlingly underlit by the oil lantern in his hand.

"Is that supposed to make me less creeped out? Because it's not working," Kate stuck close to the ladder like she might need to make a quick escape. She was fully prepared to leave the rest of us behind if need be.

"It's fine. It's just a room and the only way in or out is the way we just came in," Dean said.

"Not comforting," Kate insisted.

This time, Dean ignored her nervous arm rubbing and her tone. He was too busy looking at me.

"Oh..." The book. I still had the book. Rhys kindly shifted, casting extra light from the lantern over my shoulder to read by, because there's nothing quite like reading the diary of a dead girl by lantern light in a windowless brick room with only one way in or out.

The light to read by wasn't the thing I appreciated most.

"When you live in Cullfield, your time comes. It doesn't matter if you can see the threads pulled or not. It's always too late. It's always too deep a hole to climb out of. I'm the only one who sees it coming long before it happens.

"The archives arson was the first time I drew any kind of attention from anyone. I remember the drawings, wearing out the orange, the yellow, the red crayons. Mom and Dad bought more, but they never put those drawings up on the fridge. Then my teacher sent them home with concerned notes. That's all it was at first—concern. What is Natalie drawing? Why?

"Until the Harry Garnett building burned down. The town records, destroyed. Anything that wasn't in the museum or input into a computer was gone. The paper trail of so much of Cullfield's goings-on went up in flames. The secrets and the truth.

"The interesting thing about people is they don't have to be sure of things. Once there's doubt in their minds, they question everything. They questioned me. And that was the last time I drew anything from my dreams. The very last time.

"What if I wasn't the only one who knew the fire was coming? If someone else knew, did they do anything about it? If Cullfield could hide slaves on their way out of the country, it could hide secrets.

"I think about that fire a lot for a crime that happened when I was a child. Someone destroyed so much information, so much town history. Why would they do that? What was there to hide?

"I wonder what would be worth destroying. I wonder what would be worth keeping, if someone chose to keep certain information safe."

Reading it actually kept my voice steadier. It kept me from shaking. The light over my shoulder wavered a little.

Wait, Natalie told me, as if she knew all off this would happen, as if she knew Rhys and Dean and Kate would be drawn here the same way that a young Natalie drew flames until her crayons wore out against her paper. 

"I don't know why I came here," Kate said after the silence between us drew out into awkwardness. She turned on her heels, reaching for the ladder rung.

Her chin jutted up defiantly, but she shook like the candle flames.

"Kate, wait." Dean grabbed her wrist.

"Just because your family's history probably got destroyed in that fire doesn't mean I have any reason to stay," Kate snapped, "who was it named after? Your great great grandfather."

Harry Garnett building. Dean didn't answer, only raising his eyebrows, pleading for sensibility. 

"Why did you come, Kate?" I asked before I could stop myself, "are you going to tell your mom about the room?"

Kate faltered on the ladder, tugging her arm back half-heartedly from Dean's grip.

"And scare all her potential buyers? Unlikely." Her tone didn't come off half as scathing as had a moment before. If she told her mother about this, she'd have to admit she broke into the house. The door may have been unlocked when she walked in, but she didn't come to the house knowing that would be the case. 

I glanced down at the book, flipping to the next page. Blue sticky note. Rhys.

I pursed my lips, quickly flipping through the next couple of pages. Pink sticky note. Kate.

"Kate, look, there's more in here, for you," I flipped further, predictably finding Dean's name scrawled on a green slip of paper, "and Rhys and Dean. Rhys' pages are first. Maybe you should think about it?"

"Really? Me?" Rhys reached over, pulling the book out of my hands. "There are rules. There is an order and a time for everything. Stick to it. Now's the time to go home. You're in luck, Kate.Better listen to Natalie."

Kate shifted her weight, drawing the toe of her shoe through the dust. I wished she would look at me and know I wasn't standing there because I was any braver than her.

"I'll think about it somewhere far away from this poor man's torture chamber," Kate said, climbing up the ladder before anyone could stop her a second time.

"She'll come around," Dean said, "at least we'll have advanced warning about any house showings."

"Yeah." The optimism wasn't exactly contagious. I don't know anyone else who could sound positive at the end of this night.

Dean headed up the ladder after Kate, leaving Rhys and I to blow out the candles.

I didn't realize how cold it was until I reemerged from the room. For a moment, I stepped out of the closet and rubbed one arm, staring off into space for a second.

"What's up?" Rhys dropped the trap door behind him as he came up. With a tug on the little chain, the light cut out and we plunged back into dark. I lost sight of his face, couldn't see his eyes as he loomed over me.

"Nothing. I just... I want to check something out upstairs," I said, but I didn't move. The silence hung in the air with the dark.

"Would you like company?" Rhys asked after a moment.

I hate how that sounded, like I was waiting to be left in the dark with him.

I would go up the stairs with or without anyone else. I would have.

But I nodded, then realized it was incredibly dark. "Yeah."

He trailed behind me up the stairs, following my lead and my flashlight app.

All the doors were left swung open down the hall. On the right, there was an office, bookshelves packed full of ancient hardcover books. Past that, the master bedroom.

My chest felt tight, a voice in the back of my head telling me I didn't belong here. It was a little late for that, wasn't it? We'd already taken over the secret basement. I watched Mr. Driscoll leave yesterday with enough luggage packed for a Caribbean vacation.

I panned my phone around to the other side of the hall, frozen in front of the doorway to a room undoubtedly belonging to a girl my age.

I struck me how neat it was. Every other room in the house had the unsettling impression of abandonment, like everything was dropped without warning. Natalie's room was the opposite. I inched my feet forward, stepping through the threshold.

Her bed was made, the blanket pulled over top her pillows. All her textbooks were stacked on top of her desk.

I rubbed my arms, feeling the goosebumps rising on my skin.

Rhys stepped passed me, crossing the room to the open window. For a moment, he leaned out of it, his shoulders filling the frame. Looking at what? Natalie's trajectory? The clear view from the sill to the sawed-off fence?

Wordlessly, he leaned back, shutting the window.

"Find what you were looking for?" He asked, twisting to face me.

Backlit, he looked almost menacing. A tall, thin boy whose face disappeared into shadows.

"I guess so." I shrugged, taking in the room a second time in case I missed something.

Still empty. No sign of anyone. Eerily left behind.

"I wonder why Kate came if she wants nothing to do with this. And Dean was here before I even I gave him his note..." I didn't know why I shared that out loud. I didn't know anything about Rhys Davenport except he occasionally needed a pencil in class. He was the only other person in the room. That was the only reason I had.

"You might not want to know the answers," Rhys replied, "you're still new."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means you shouldn't trust anyone in Cullfield."

A chill ran up my spine, unsure what to do with his words or his tone. No one needed to tell me that. The apathy in town was enough to stand my hair on end.

"Not even you?" I asked carefully.

"You're catching on." He grinned. "Let's get out of here, shall we?"