(( AN: Hello faithful readers, and than you for your patience and perseverance! This chapter took me forever, I know. The past few months have been a bit tiring on my end, and it doesn't look like things will be letting up any time soon. But I'm not abandoning this story. Updates will continue. They just might be few and far between. Anyway. This chapter in particular took me a bit of research and digging. Though definitely leaning more on the fantasy side of things, I've been trying my best to incorporate as much information from modern paranormal studies as possible. You don't necessarily NEED to be well-versed in such maters, but those who are might catch on to clues and plot points a bit quicker. ))

-IVY-

Creed kept an eye on me until the late afternoon. He said it was to make sure I was alright to be back on my feet, but we both knew that I could handle myself. He just didn't want me going back down to the passageway. By evening I managed to convince him that I was stable enough to make it through the night on my own, and he rather reluctantly left me. I distracted myself for a while by attempting to organize things from the boxes I had already managed to move out of the back room, but it did very little to help. My thoughts kept wandering back to the hidden passageway and the dusty rooms it led to. When one of the boxes revealed itself to be full of extension cords, I gave in. It had to be a sign, right? Everyone says witches are supposed to listen to those. And anyway, there didn't seem to be much down there.

Nothing alive, to be sure.

By the time I managed to untangle the cords, it was dark outside. I could tell they wouldn't reach all the way down the passageway, but it would be helpful to have at least a little bit of light in the dark tunnel. Especially now that the sun had gone down. Getting the lamps moved down there was the difficult part. I only had four, and two of them had to be pulled from the guts of my still unpacked boxes of belongings.

It was nearly midnight by the time I managed to untangle all the cords and get things laid out in the tunnel. It was much more eerie down there alone, but I pushed the unease out of my mind with the aid of my iPod. A strand of Christmas lights made for a last-ditch attempt to light up the corridor electrically. I still had about twenty feet of darkness before I would reach to door we had entered before, and I would need light inside as well. I had the candles from before, but somehow doubted they would be enough for the dusty old study. (I was sure it had to be a study; the bookshelves and cluttered desk didn't seem quite right for a parlor or living room.)

As I made my way down the corridor once more, lugging along my bag full of candles, the full gravity of what I was doing began to set in: There was some sort of secret structure hidden underneath my house. I had no idea how far it stretched, who else knew about it, or where it might lead. No one, save for Creed, would know I was down here if anything were to happen to me. By the time I made it to the end of my electrically lit path, I was beginning to feel extremely uneasy. The dark stretch of hallway in front of me suddenly felt much more menacing now that I had begun to doubt myself. The ringing silence didn't do much to help, either. I could hear my own pulse in my head as I felt my way along the wall, stopping as my hands bumped against the old carved wood that framed the doorway. I crouched down to light the first of my candles, fumbling for a moment with the lighter. I struck it twice with no success, and suddenly found myself frozen in momentary panic.

In the gloom of the hallway, I could have sworn I saw the sparks of the lighter glinting off a pair of shoes. Men's shoes.

It took every shred of restraint in my body to keep from running back down the hallway towards the upper level. I flicked the lighter again, and it mercifully came to life. The hallway around me was empty. The Christmas lights down the corridor, dimly flickering every now and then in their pre-programmed rhythm, showed a clear path through the shadows between the door and my electrified pathway. I quickly lit one of the jarred candles from my bag and stood up, finally letting out the breath I had been holding for what seemed to be hours. The door handle didn't feel cold when I touched it, probably because my hands were already freezing despite the flames from the lighter and candle. Once again my way was blocked by the heavy bookshelf, and I set down my candle on the dusty varnished surface. A couple more lit candles put me a bit more at ease, though I still couldn't shake the unearthly chill that seemed to have seeped into me. It was more than just the cold air of the underground hallway. I hardly felt that anymore. It was more an internal feeling, like my body was dropping in temperature from the inside. As I clambered over the bookshelf, I grabbed one of the jars and held it close, hoping the candle inside would help ease the feeling. My bag, still holding a couple candles, clanked slightly as I took a few steps further into the room. Numbly I came to stop in front of the desk. Even though I'd seen piles' worth of papers stacked on it before, it seemed to have been cleared. There was no dust coating the surface, and the candlelight gleamed off the dark wood. I finally set down the candle and gently tried the drawers. The first two stuck tight, but the third came loose all too easily, and crashed to the floor in a cloud of yellowed paper. Already jumpy, I yelped slightly as it fell and almost stumbled backwards, swearing a bit under my breath. This whole endeavor was turning out to be much more stressful than I had hoped.

As my heart rate slowly approached normal speed once again, I crouched down on the floor to pick up some of the old papers. Even in the dark, I could feel the age on the documents. There's a certain fragility and texture to old paper that I'd always found slightly repellant, but my curiosity was stronger than my distaste. Holding a few of the pages up to the light, I saw that they were, in fact, pieces of sheet music. On top of that, they looked to be handwritten. I pulled the remaining two candles from my bag and lit them, sitting down on the floor to look over the rest of the mess.

I'd given up any sort of music lesson in elementary school. I didn't have the patience for the community choir, and my piano skills peaked at a dumbed down and halting rendition of "Happy Birthday to You". And so I had absolutely no idea how to read any of the work that was now spread in front of me. The stone floor wasn't doing much for my chill, and my hands were shaking slightly as I picked up a stack of papers that had been loosely tied together with an old ribbon. There was a small tag attached at the knot of the ribbon, and even though the handwriting on it was rather difficult to make out, I managed to decipher it after a few minutes of squinting in the dim light.

"Pour Elle"

The papers themselves were more of the same sheet music, though written in a deep crimson ink that had started to show some discoloration with age. A few of them had vocal lyrics scratched into the score in the same odd handwriting as the ribbon tag.

I put them to the side and pressed my hands to my eyes for a moment. The coldness that I had been feeling was beginning to make me nauseous. As much as I wanted to continue exploring the study, it would have to wait until morning at the very least. I snuffed out the candles on the floor and put them back in my bag. I noticed as I stood that I was rather rapidly becoming dizzy, and had to hold onto the desk for a moment, squeezing my eyes shut, and I tried to get ahold of myself. I snuffed the third candle, only to drop it as I tried to put it away, and it shattered onto the floor. I didn't have time to clean it up now. Just like I didn't have time to clean up the papers. I wasn't sure what was happening to me, but I needed to get back to the house. I snuffed the last two candles in the bookshelf and left them where they sat. I didn't bother to close the door, and practically clung to the wall as I began to creep back towards the Christmas lights and strung-out desk lamps that would lead me home. My legs were starting to shake now, partially from cold, and partially from some unwarranted sort of muscle spasms.

What if it was something to do with the fall down the stairs? What if I was having a seizure? What if I collapsed down here, alone? I tried to think of something to take my mind off the blind panic that was starting to come over me. I started humming along to the first song I could think of; Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.

I could barely hear my own humming by the time I made it to the stairs again. I felt as if the hallway was spinning around me. My stomach was tying and retying itself in knots. I gripped the hand rail with as much force as I could, trying to make myself snap out of it, when suddenly everything seemed to stop and go quiet. My humming died in my throat with a short strangling sound as fear closed in on me.

There was something directly behind me. Standing over me.

As I stood frozen in horror at this realization, a voice directly next to my ear whispered, "You're off key."

And for the second time in two days, I lost consciousness.