The night was uneventful. The wind brought with it a distant rattling, but Maggie knew it was just the strange sounds of the country. Of course, a city dweller such as herself would get unnerved over the smallest little things: everything was an unknown now. But despite that, she slept decently enough.
Although Geadais was decaying on the outside, the interior had been well lived in. Uncle Francis was a strange man. She'd never met him before but recalled her mother talking of her the eccentric old man with the pigeon coop and the barn who collected various old bibles and other religious artefacts. He'd gone to university in the early 1900s, studying Indian languages before becoming an archaeologist. After a trip to Assam, he'd all but vanished from society, retiring to this very cottage to pen various memoirs and tales of the people and places he'd encountered. That was really all Maggie knew about her great uncle. She'd never met the man before.
As she awoke in the guest bedroom, she unearthed herself from the mound of blankets and duvets that were piled on the bed. She knew she could have slept in her uncle's bed - after all, it was her home now - but that felt a little weird to her, especially when she was still, for all intents and purposes, a guest, a stranger to this little cottage.
She made her way into the drawing room. The home had no electricity, so she'd been unable to appreciate the unique beauty of Geadais under the dim light of her old battery-operated torch. In the morning sunlight, she marvelled at the domed ceiling, each panel inlaid with strange carvings and artwork and painted with the most beautiful shades of sage and gold. Along the walls, large bookcases stood tall and proud like silent sentinels, filled to the brim with archaic old tomes, each one a treasure trove of knowledge and memories. The old man had clearly taken great care of the home's interior: nary a speck of dust lay on any of the lacquered wood furniture or the ancient vases that lined the top of the bookcases. Maggie couldn't even wager a guess at how old any of these beautiful items were. A grand fireplace rested beside the bookcases, directly opposite of the brown leather sofa and its quarry of various embroidered cushions and pillows. What a stunning place, Maggie thought. She was about to turn and explore the rest of the home when she noticed another letter laid out neatly on the polished coffee table between the sofa and the fireplace.
She was going to ignore it but it felt strangely placed, as though laid out neatly expecting her to read its words so she did. Placing herself on the edge of the sofa, almost afraid to sit properly, and politely crossing her legs, she picked up the cream letter. It was parchment - thicker than the solicitor's letter and home deed and textured under her bitten and ragged fingernails.
Dearest Margaret,
I remember dear Alice telling me how you had dreams of exploring as a child. I leave this cottage in your capable hands and invite you to make use of the books I have collected over the years. I have no doubt you will be a more than capable scholar and will be eager to explore this beautiful cottage, but I must implore you: do not open the cellar. It is long flooded, and restoration will be impossible without collapse, but it will not trouble you. Take care of yourself, dear girl and make use of the bibles. The Good Word will grant you protection.
Much love,
Dr Francis Harris Scott
Ah, mother. It had been ten years since she'd passed. Maggie shrugged at the old man's religious insistence - she hadn't picked up a bible since she'd become a mother herself, so many years ago. Fat good it had ever done her, anyway. In fact, she had planned later that day to remove the various crosses that hung throughout the house. She laughed, unable to believe the silly old coot honestly thought she still clung to such silly tales of a man in the sky. Nonsense.
***
Before she would begin the renovations and making various phone calls to the construction companies she'd need to aid her, Maggie began to tidy up the property. It was much tougher work than she'd expected but the cold winds were barely an issue with her working up such a sweat. She ripped out weeds and cut back swathes of overgrown brush with an old scythe she'd found, doing her best to make it look as tidy as possible, but it'd been a long time since she'd had to do gardening, having lived in a high-rise building for years. She worked her way around the large moor, doing it bit by bit, day by day. On the fifth day, she approached the old barn and began to chop down the tall grass when she wandered round the back of the dilapidated building. And there it was: the cellar Uncle Francis had told her about.
Hiding among the tall weeds, the cellar doors lay, almost flat, covered in creeping ivy and moss. Grey stones were piled up on either side, as though to give the area more support where the muddy earth dipped a little below the weight of the barn itself. A heavy iron chain held the doors tightly shut with a large padlock. Curious, Maggie decided she'd come back later with bolt cutters after a nice afternoon coffee.
She returned later with the heavy bolt cutters and her trusty old battery-operated torch and snapped the old chain off. It fell to the damp grass with a dull thud. It took her a few attempts to wrench the doors open but she managed after some exertion and, peering down into the now exposed black void leading down into the earth underneath the barn, a sudden wave of chills flew over her body and the downy hair on her arms rose. Clicking her torch on, she shone it down into the depths. It was ominous.
Thankfully, nothing was waiting down there to leap out at her. She crept down the old stone steps one by one, listening as her torch flicked about looking for any danger but she was relieved to find she'd just been letting her imagination run wild. She was surprised to find the cellar was dry - she wondered if maybe it had been flooded at one time and locked up just in case. The walls were strange - stone but she noticed a cut out piece of stone near the north wall, facing the ocean, surrounded by marks and scratches. The dirty stone floors were caked in dried mud and other debris, but something caught her eye as she flashed the light around: a small glint of metal lying on the floor near the corner. She approached cautiously, kneeling to see what the object was. A locket.
Picking it up, she wiped it against her rain jacket, clearing off the dirt and read the engraving aloud.
My dearest Maude, beloved daughter.
How strange.
She approached the hollow in the stone wall and noticed that the scratches were remnants of an engraving. She noticed an old, mildewed cross hanging from the wall at an angle. How curious. Lowering her eyes from the unreadable words, she peered into the hollow itself and instantly recoiled in fright. There was a large wooden box in there, about the size of an adult human, a large chunk of metal piercing through it, most likely a piece of fallen debris. The realisation hit her like an anchor being dropped from a great sky ship: this was a crypt of some kind!
