1966___________________
The hallway stretched endlessly into the dark. El crept down the corridor, hands brushing against the light blue wallpaper. Her fingers tingled as they met the cold wood of a hefty classroom door. She stopped to examine the door. The beam of her flashlight was focused on the room number.
LAB 5
El slowly twisted the knob, opened the door quietly, and snuck into the lab. The lab was tinier than the other labs. Taking in the musty smell of the lab, she looked at all of two empty tables.
This whole building is going to be dorms next year.
The thought made her sad and nostalgic, but she was a senior, and wasn't coming back. El was going to go to New York, and become the best broadway actress the world had ever seen. She could already see her name in lights. She imagined the spotlights on her and the audience giving her a standing ovation. She couldn't wait for those days. The days of glitz and glamor.
El stopped in front of a closet in the back of the room. She opened the door and stepped in. Wading through cleaning supplies and lab equipment, she found the back of the claustrophobic space.She took a leather loop in the corner and opened a panel that covered a room.
El stepped into the opening Looking around the room with her flashlight, she found the staircase, and descended the metal steps.
The room below was only lit by a lantern Avery left for her. The lantern sat on the small oak table they had snuck down earlier that year. The big door at the front of the concrete room was open.
Avery must've finished the last room.
El peeked into the space behind the door, to see that there was no one in the room. When she saw the room was clear, she began to push the door closed. The door was heavy, but she managed to close it without too much trouble.
After moving her dress out of the way of the closing door, it clicked shut. El leaned against it, and slid to the floor.
I wonder who will find this place.
I hope it's not someone completely, hopelessly stupid.
She sighed. She started feeling nostalgic about the rooms. She and Avery had worked for years on them. Ever since freshman year. Now it was finished, and she would probably never see them again.
She and Avery were going their separate ways. El was off to become a star and Avery was going to Harvard. Avery was always such a book worm. El and Avery would go to the automat for pie and she would always have one book or another in her face.
The thought made her giggle. One night, after a final exam, Avery had brought her all of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes books. She dropped the books on the table and told her to read all of them. At first El hesitated, but after she finished the first story, she was caught in the crime solving books that were Sherlock Holmes. She would come down to the concrete room to read them in peace after long days at school. El took a deep breath.
I'm gunna miss this place.
El got up and walked to pick up the lantern from the table.
Before she did, she took out her nail file. El carefully etched the combination for the door into the table.
Finally, she etched her first name into the finished oak.
Mavis
The letters were a little rough, but they were legible. She blew away the wood dust, and traced over the letters with her fingers.
Putting the file back into her bag, she took the lantern and went back up the winding staircase. She pressed a button at the top of the staircase, heard the beep that meant the alarm was on, then stepped up. The lantern lit up the room behind the closet very well. The new plaster walls were a lovely cream color, and wood chips covered the floor to every corner.
El walked to a corner of the room and knelt. She took out four items from her bag; a key, round at the top and had a unique shape, a small gear with a triangular shape cut out of the middle, a wooden box shaped like a butterfly, and a queen chess piece.
She set the key in the corner, then set the other items in the other three corners.
After setting all of the items in their corners, El walked through the opening. She replaced the panel and disconnected the leather strap from it. She then shut it and put a sign on the front:
Remove for Plumbing Only
She taped the sign in place. The renovators would plaster over the panel eventually. El stepped out of the closet into the dark lab. She walked to the door, then stopped and checked the closet to make sure it wasn't open. The door to the closet was closed. It looked like an ordinary closet, but El knew someone, eventually, would find that it wasn't, in fact, what it seemed.
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Evie held the document carefully into the light. She examined the paper, reading the paragraph under the name.
"Mavis Maxon, daughter of headmaster and owner of the school, Julian C. Maxon, went to Salem Academy under her father from 1962 to 1966. The Maxon family is very wealthy and have been supporters of the academy, even after the sad passing of the headmaster in 1969. Mavis and her partner -in-crime, Avery Healy, came back to the school to run it until 1973. Mavis and Avery remained patrons for the school for the next couple of years until a tragic car accident, June of last year, when Mavis died. Avery, after hearing of Mavis's passing, came back to Salem to be headmaster of the school, and to help people remember Ms. Maxon. According to all of the teachers at the academy, she was highly praised for her work in reforming the school for the new generation. The Mavis Maxon memorial will be put on school grounds this week."
Evie put down the paper, and sighed.
"That is so sad. She must have only been in her late 20's when she died." She said solemnly.
Nikki looked nodded in agreement, then quickly began to look through her pile of papers. She searched through a pile and produced a small journal, leather bound and very old.
"Knew I had seen that name somewhere!" She held up the journal and waved it at Evie who was confused at what her friend was on about.
"What name?" She asked urgently. Nikki held up the journal and read something off of the inside of the cover.
"Don't touch. Property of Avery Healy, 1966."
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Sooooooooo here it is! A brand new chapter with a POV of maker of the rooms.
(Queue cheesy ghost noises!)
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Anyways, thanks so much for reading and I'll update towards the end of next week!
Lucy😎
