After they’d walked through the brush about 50 feet, they saw the outlines of a small stone building. Bette called out over her shoulder, “We’re heading there,” as she aimed her torch at the small building.

Bette produced a key as the neared it, explaining briefly that the man in the museum had given it to her.

The door didn’t immediately open after she unlocked the door and tried to open it. It creaked as she leaned her shoulder into the door, but felt it hitch on something.  Jules joined Bette to lean on the door, and after a couple of shoves, they got the door open.

Bette motioned to Tom to ask him to pull the door shut after him as she consulted her notes on a small notebook that she pulled out of her hip pocket.

She pulled up an area rug in the center of the room to expose the wooden floor beneath it, and then walked to the far wall and pressed a button hidden behind the faceplate of the light switch.

A trap door on the wooden floor suddenly swung open.

Bette aimed her torchlight into the darkness revealed by the open trap door. She motioned for Jules and Tom to stay behind first.  “Let me have a look-see around.  I have to figure out which path to take in the maze of tunnels down here.  I’ll wrap one end of this rope around me and you can hold onto the other end, Jules.”

“Do you think it’ll be long enough, Bette?”

The brunette nodded. “It should be, Jancis said she packed this stuff up herself, and since she herself had moved whatever it is that we’re looking for, about six years ago, I’m guessing she packed exactly what I’d need for this.”

“Jancis did all that by herself??” Jules asked, surprised. She couldn’t imagine the elegant, elderly woman scraping around a musty, dank tunnel hauling anything.

“I guess she’s stronger than she looks,” Bette observed with a smile. She mouthed that she was going to be alright.  She headed in.

Stale air, humidity, and a dank earthy stench jostled for dominion in the pitch-black tunnel as Bette walked carefully further into the tunnel. She eyed the rotting wooden slats holding up the low ceilings of the narrow passage, a fearful sense that the rotting wood could give way while she was in the tunnel crossed her thoughts for half a second.  Just get to work, Bette!, she told herself.