Mrs. Hansen's Arc

Chapter 12 of 14

Mrs. Hansen lifted the lantern and moved toward the stairs. The ancient steps descended into darkness, each one worn smooth in the center where feet had walked thousands of times. She counted twelve steps before the passage turned and she lost sight of the collapsed floor above. The chain caught on her neck as she ducked beneath a low overhang. The necklace snapped, the clasp giving way after years of wear. She felt it slide away and heard the faint sound of metal striking stone somewhere behind her. She spun, holding the lantern toward the steps she'd just descended, but saw nothing. The necklace was gone, swallowed by the shadows between the ancient stones. She stood still, one hand rising to her bare throat where the weight had rested since she was sixteen. The eight-pointed sunburst that matched these walls was somewhere in the dark now, impossible to find among the cracks and crevices. She could go back. She could set down the lantern and search every step, every gap in the stone, until she found it. But Mr. Hansen was waiting above, and she'd already been down here too long. The passage ahead might lead to another way out, or it might end in solid rock. Either way, she needed to keep moving. She lowered her hand from her throat and turned back toward the descending stairs. The necklace was part of her mother's family, passed down through generations she'd never known. Now it lay somewhere behind her, lost among stones carved by hands that might have been her ancestors. She'd spent years wearing it without understanding what it meant. Now she knew, and she'd have to leave it behind to find her way forward. She took the first step down into the deeper passage, the lantern casting long shadows on walls that curved downward into the bedrock beneath her farm.