Secrets of the Cave Ch. 3

The next day Kathleen decided to take a break from all the research about the twins and check out the cave. After shoving the dirt around a bit in the root cellar she finally found a metal ring attached to a wooden door and pulled it open. Below it was a ladder that led down into the dark. Putting on a backpack and slipping a lantern around her elbow she climbed down the latter, it was nearly ten feet before she finally reached the bottom. The cave was well carved out, the ceiling rarely coming low enough that she had to duck, in many places she could see tool marks where it had been carved out. When she came to a split in the tunnel she made sure the walls were dry then pulled a can of spray paint out of her backpack and marked which way was out. Continuing on the straighter of the two paths she didn't get far before she came to the end of the tunnel and another ladder leading up to a wooden door similar to the one in the root cellar.

When she pushed the door open she was shocked to find herself in the storage room in the barn, the same room she had seen the shadowy figure disappear into the night before. Feeling unsure of what to do or think Kathleen shut the door, which from the top was nearly impossible to see,  and headed back to the house.

She debated what to do for a while, then, finally decided if she called the police they probably wouldn't be able to do much anyways; who knew how far the caves went on for and where the person she had seen the night before could be. So she got a hatchet and a large hunting knife that had belonged to Maud's husband and headed back down into the cave.

She had only gone a little ways down the tunnel that split off from the first path when she noticed wires running along the ceiling that started out coming down through the rock. If her sense of direction wasn't off it was right near the back corner of the house where the wiring connected to the house for the solar panels Maud had put in years ago.

She traveled steadily downward for quite a while, following the wires until they split off, one set of wires continuing along the main path and the other went through a doorway to the right. As she looked into the doorway she noticed a light switch and flipped it on. Neatly lined up along the walls of a small room were all the food and supplies that had been missing from the basement.

As she stepped out of the room she hesitated, not sure if she should continue or turn back, but Maud had started to tell her about the caves. Maybe that meant she had known there was someone living there and they wouldn't be any danger to her. Praying that that was the case, Kathleen continued to go deeper into the cave.

A little while later she turned a corner and spotted another doorway on the right of the path, this time though there was already a light on in the room. As quietly as possible she approached the doorway and found that it had a wooden door that was partially pushed up. As she stepped closer she could see bookshelves carved into the walls that were full of books, an old bed and dresser that she vaguely remembered being in one of the spare bedrooms in the house when she was little. On the bed were a couple of quilts that she knew Maud had made.

As she leaned forward to see in farther she swiftly clamped a hand over her mouth to keep herself from gasping. She took a step back and leaned against the wall for a long moment, trying desperately to keep her breathing steady and quite even as her heart pounded.

When she was sure she had control of herself she looked again. Sitting in a chair, reading a book, was the same creature she had seen when she was five and stayed with Maud after her parent's died. He was grown up now of course, but she was sure it was him, wings and tail, the horns had grown, now curving back along the sides of his head. He was wearing only a pair of black denim shorts and from what she could see rust and brown colored scales coved his back as well as the backs of his arms, hands and legs, but otherwise he looked human.

Silently Kathleen snuck back out of the cave as quickly and quietly as she could. When she got back to the house she moved a couple of boxes of stuff on top of the door to keep it shut then headed upstairs. For nearly half an hour she paced across the kitchen, trying to figure out what to do, whether she should stay there or leave, tell someone or keep it a secret. He hadn't looked dangerous, but what if he was, what if Maud had been planning to warn her to stay away from the caves because she knew it wasn't safe.

Kathleen picked up the phone, ready to call the local hotel to see if they had a room available where she could stay until she figured out what to do, then suddenly what Maud had said when they were talking about her dream seemed to echo through her head.

"You could see the truth, he has a good heart and would never hurt anyone."

Kathleen set the phone back down, even if Maud had never gotten to tell her anything specific, maybe without even realizing it she had told her enough about the creature in the cave to let her know he wouldn't hurt her.

Relaxing a bit she decided not to worry about it too much, with the door in the cellar blocked she hoped she didn't have to worry about him getting in the house.

---

Half an hour and a bit of rearranging later Kathleen pulled a large old trunk out from behind a pile of stuff in the attic. Opening it she found what she had been looking for, Maud's diaries. Maud had once told her about them and where they were, as well as the fact that she had continually kept a diary since she was fifteen and all but the most recent would be in the trunk.

After looking through them for a while Kathleen finally found one of the ones she had been looking for; the one from the year her parents had died. Opening it to the day after her parents death she found what she was looking for.

"Kathleen came to stay with me until Anna can come get her, the poor girl has hardly stopped crying since she got here. During the night Richard climbed out the attic window and down the tree to the window in Kathleen's room. She saw him, but wasn't afraid, she said he looked lonely. She has no idea how right she was, sometimes I feel so bad for him and Jenny, they're so alone in this world, all they have is each other and me. They have no hope of a normal life or the freedom to make friends or see the world outside of this little farm. The older they get the more they seem to realize how different they are. After I convinced Kathleen that she had just dreamt seeing Richard I went up to the attic to scold Richard for sneaking out. He said he had just wanted to see what a normal child looked like. Then he told me he thought she was really pretty and asked me if I thought he would turn into a normal boy if she kissed him, like the frog prince did. To say the least it broke my heart, and, unable to dash his hopes I told him maybe, but he'd have to wait until he grew up. At least that way he can have some hope while he's young."

Kathleen continued to read the next several entries, but found little about Richard and Jenny except for vague mentions of Maud's guilt over having to keep them hidden in the attic. At least until the entry from the last day that Kathleen had stayed with her before her grandmother came to get her.

"This morning Richard told me that he had snuck back into Kathleen's room and left her gift. I had planned to hide it to avoid having Kathleen ask questions about where it came from, but she was already awake and had found it by the time I got to her room. When she asked where it had come from I just told her I didn't know, but had a feeling it was for her. She said she thought it was from a guardian angle, to tell her that her parents were alright because her mother had loved roses. It truly amazes me how gifted Richard is with a simple knife and a bit of wood, granted he has had far more time to focus on practicing than normal children would. The gift he left Kathleen  was a beautifully detailed rose pendant, caved from a scrap of wood from one of his large projects."

Kathleen gasped as she read the last line and reached to her neck to touch the rose that had rarely left her neck since the day she had received it. It had always brought her a bit of peace, comfort and a sense that she wasn't alone.

Setting the journal back in the trunk she looked until she found the one from the year of the accident and the twins birth, although she already had a pretty good idea of what she would find.

"I hardly know where to start, so much has happened tonight. There was a horrible accident just down the road. A drunk driver hit a car, knocking both into the ditch, there was a young couple in the car, the man was beyond help, but I managed to get the woman, Maggie, out only to discover she was pregnant and in labor. At first it seemed strange the way she kept begging me to take care of and protect her children; she must have somehow known, even though she and her husband looked perfectly normal. She gave birth to a set of twins, a boy she named Richard Joseph after her husband and her grandfather, the girl she named Jenny Susan after her husbands grandmother and her mother. She begged me not to judge them by their appearance and to take care of them. I promised her I would and she told me to take a locket she was wearing to give to them someday, it has four pictures in it of her, her husband and both of her parents. With her last breath she told me to always remind the twins that she and her husband had loved them very much. Once she had passed I quickly took the twins home before the police and ambulances could get here; I don't believe it would be safe to let anyone else know about them. I just hope that Maggie's injuries will cover up the fact that she was pregnant."

"Well, now I know what happened to the twins," Kathleen said to herself as she set the journal and the one from the next year on the floor before closing the trunk; she would read more later.

---

That night Kathleen decided it was just warm enough to leave the windows opened so she could fall asleep enjoying the peace, and quite rustling of the wind through the pine trees.

Around midnight she woke up and realized it had gotten quite a bit colder than she had expected and was just trying to convince herself to wake up enough to get out of bed and shut the window when a shadow moved just outside of it. She lay perfectly still as a winged figure appeared just outside of the window; illuminated from behind by the nearly full moon. He sat there perfectly still for a long moment, just looking in and Kathleen was suddenly grateful that she hadn't yet moved the hair that had fallen across her face while she slept, since it would hopefully keep him from realizing she was awake and watching him.

A moment later he looked down at the desk that sat just inside the window then silently opened the screen and picked up the wedding picture that Lucy had given her. The way he held it and looked at it for so long, Kathleen was sure that he knew it was his parents. Finally deciding to say something she started to reach up to brush the hair out of her eyes, but before she had moved more than a few inches he had pulled back and disappeared. She ran to the window, but by the time she got there, there was no sign of him anywhere.