F. Wilson - Secret Circles

This was the lake seeping through.

He backtracked and found Weezy where he‟d left her, peering down at him.

“Empty dead end back there. I‟ll check this way.”

He‟d walked perhaps twenty feet when his beam picked out something leaning against a wall. It took him a moment to recognize its shape, and when he did, he knew he had to show Weezy.

He made his way back to the shaft of light shining from the Lodge‟s basement.

“Weez! I found something!”

“What? A book, a scroll? What?”

“You‟ve got to see it to believe it. Trust me.”

She hesitated barely a second. “I do.” She held out her flashlight. “Catch.”

He did just that, then watched her scamper down the wall like she‟d done it a thousand times.

“You‟re pretty good at that.”

She smiled. “Queen of the monkey bars—remember?”

He nodded. She‟d been pretty limber and agile as a kid. A lot of the boys had been unable to keep up with her.

She took her flashlight and turned it on.

“Now. Where‟s this thing I‟ve got to see?”

“Follow me.”

Aiming his light far ahead, he led her down the passage. His beam soon found the object.

“There. How soon can you figure out what it is?”

Jack had been practically on top of it before he recognized it.

Weezy slowed her pace, then stopped a few feet from it.

“It looks like the Septimus seal.”

“Right. It‟s the sigil. But I‟ve never seen one like this.”

All the others had been either sculpted or molded in relief on a circular base. This was just the figure itself—six feet high, Jack guessed—and not made of the usual stone or plaster.

Weezy stepped forward and ran a finger over its dust-laden surface. “It

feels like …”

Jack did the same and knew what she was thinking. Under the grime the surface was a smooth, shiny black.

Her voice was hushed with awe. “The same material as our pyramid!” She ran her fingers over the rough edges at one of the corners. “But the border is all broken off.”

“All except one section up top.” Jack ran his flash beam over it and immediately recognized the figures carved into the surviving section. “Hey, Weez—”

“I see. The same seven glyphs as on the pyramid—what do they mean? What do they spell?

And why aren‟t they on the other sigils, like the one over the front door?”

“Lots of good questions, Weez. And I‟ve got a few more. Like, what was written on the other sections? And why does Mister Drexler have one of the glyphs on his cane?”

She looked at him. “The glyphs here and on the locking mechanism on that door don‟t leave much question as to the true owner of the pyramid.”

He sighed and gave a reluctant nod. “Yeah. The Lodge.”

Too bad.

“You don‟t really think I‟m leaving it here, do you? No way. Finders keepers, and I found it.”

Her expression turned fierce as her voice rose. “I am never, ever giving it up again!”

“Okay, but—”

“What is this place, anyway?” she said as she flashed her light around—her mood had done a complete about-face. It seemed to change direction like her flash beam. “I can‟t believe they built all this just to store this one broken-down sigil. I—” She stopped when her beam picked up a dark rectangle in the wall farther down on the left side of the passage. “Doesn‟t that look like

… ?”

“Yeah,” Jack said, moving toward it. “A doorway. Let‟s see.”

Yes, a doorway in the stone wall, with no door. And a little to its right, another opening, smaller, square, chest high.

“This almost looks like a window.”

“But that‟s crazy,” Weezy said. “Who‟d put a window underground?”

Jack shone his beam within and saw more walls and what looked like another doorway. He stepped inside and found a partially collapsed stone ceiling. Rocky debris littered the space.

Through the second doorway lay another space, this one even more choked with debris.

“You know …,” Weezy said, close behind him, “this almost looks like a house.” “Exactly what I was thinking. A very small house, but a house.”

They returned to the passageway and moved on. They passed a rock-and-dirt-choked area where something appeared to have collapsed. And then on the right, another doorway leading into what looked like another little house.

And farther along they came to a wider passage crossing theirs. Jack positioned himself at the center of the intersection and turned in a full circle, beaming his flash in all directions.

Back the way they had come he could see the shaft of light from the trapdoor opening, but he was sure they‟d progressed beyond the walls of the Lodge. Down the three other paths he found darkness and the hint of other doorways and windows.

“Oh my god,” Weezy said as she turned with him. “You know what this is?”

“It … it looks like a town.”

“Exactly! Jack, we‟ve discovered a buried town!”

“Who would bury a town?”

“It‟s not so much buried as built over. It happens all the time. Look at the ancient city of Troy.

Archeologists think there are eight cities on that site, one built over another time and time again.

It‟s a layer cake. And York, En gland, is built over a Roman town, and sections of Rome and London are built over previous towns and cities.”

Jack looked around. “So you think we‟re in one of those lost towns of the Pines you‟re always talking about?”

“Yes and no. I think this is an ancient, early settlement. Maybe these people built the megalith pyramid out in the Pines. Somewhere along the way, the original Quakerton—what we call Old Town—was built over it.” She started jumping up and down in a sort of Snoopy happy dance.

“This is amazing! Amazing! It‟s part of the Secret History!”

Jack could see how it could have been built over—the passages were all roofed with stone.

“Well, if these used to be their streets, why did they cover them? I mean, it‟s like an ancient mall.”

“Maybe they were hiding from someone or something.”

“Like what?”

Weezy shrugged. “How should I know?”

“I thought you knew all this stuff.”

“In everything I‟ve read about the Pines, lost towns were mentioned, but never anything like this. This wasn‟t even hinted at. Not once. Oh, God, this is so great!”

Then they stood in silence a moment, each turning and beaming light down the passages.

“Well,” Jack said finally, letting his light come to rest on Weezy. “What do you want to do?”

“I want to explore—I really do. We may never get another chance.” She chewed her lip. “But I have this awful, terrible fear …”

“Of what?”

“That someone is going to come down to the basement, see the door open, and close it.”

Jack‟s stomach lurched. He looked back along their original passage and was reassured by the warm glow shining from the ceiling.

“You had to say that? You had to say that? Now you‟ve got me thinking about it.”

“Sorry. It‟s just that it‟s my worst nightmare.”

“Well, thanks, because now you‟ve just made it mine. Let‟s get out of here.”

Before Weezy could reply, Jack heard a high-pitched sound. He touched her arm.

“You hear that?”

She cocked her head and stood statue still for a heartbeat or two as the sound rose and fell in pitch and volume. She closed her eyes and looked like she was in a trance.

“That‟s what I heard on the tour. I think it‟s a voice.”