Thanks to the people who reviewed. That was so sweet!!
Dedicated to Erik! I love you ssooooooo much!
Deisclaimer-...I do not own POTO...I wish I did...I would own Erik...
"Katrina...!" called a voice outside of her surprisingly nice dream about ice-cream and candy clouds and a hot, hot, hot HOT guy.
"Go 'way!" she sleep-mumbled, turning over and bringing her blankets above her head.
"Katrina." Orry said, banging softly on her door. "Valarie and Monsieur Hedgecliff wanted us in their office twenty minutes ago!"
"I can sleep in 'till noon today!" shouted Katrina. She then muttered something rude. Orry snorted.
"Com'n! I got breakfast!" he shouted. He waited a few seconds. Bumps, thuds and bangs echoed from the room, along with several oaths and curses. The door flew open, and she stood there, in jeans, a purple shirt with a yin-yang sign in white on it and a pair of sandals. Her hair (still it's shocking purple) was tugged up in a messy ponytail and her eyes were burning with internal fire.
"Give...me...breakfast." she said. Orry shook his head, holding out a muffin and a can of Diet Coke.
"You have to come get it!" he said teasingly, turning and running down the corridor. Katrina growled. She knew that he knew that if he handed over the breakfast, she slam the door and lock it. And it was her favorite too! With another growl, she took off chasing him. As she dashed down corridors, she almost ran into several people, dodging them at the last moment. Soon she caught sight of Orry, whipping around a corner with the coveted muffin in his hands.
"You cannot run forever, Sir Gawain!" she bellowed, whirling around the corner and diving. She hit him around the knees and brought him to the ground. "Your muffin stealing days are over, thou cowardly knave!" she bellowed, wrestling to grab the muffin from his hands.
"Thou shalt never have the Holy Muffin of Antioch!" shouted Orry, holding it easily above her head. "I shall-!"
"ORRY! KATRINA!" screeched a certain off-key soprano voice almost right beside their ears. "That is undignified behavior for a young man and woman to be participating in! Anyway, you are late!" snarled Valarie, slamming Monsieur Hedgecliff's office door closed.
Sheepishly, they untangled themselves and stood. Orry handed her the muffin and Coke. They walked in, Katrina snarfing her muffin and Coke. Valarie was sitting in one of the many plushy arm-chairs, talking earnestly with Hedgecliff. Madame Yowling was also there. When they entered, Hedgecliff looked up, his watery, piggy blue eyes glaring peevishly at them.
"Sit." he snapped. They sat. He stood, reading some papers. Katrina slowly began to pick at the pink-polish on her nails, hoping to pick it off. Yowling smacked her hand away. She scowled at her.
"You two are in serious trouble." stated Hedgecliff, putting down his notes and staring at them. "Those songs are strictly forbidden within the Opera House. Yet...yet you sang them. This is more than serious."
"He will come after me!" cried Valarie, who had obviously not slept the night before judging by the bags under her eyes. "After all, I am the star!" She began to weep.
"Oh, Valarie, darling, please, don't weep." cried Hedgecliff, producing a giant red handkerchief out of a drawer in his desk. He handed it to her, and she blew her nose.
"I demand punishment!" she cried, looking hatefully at Katrina and Orry.
"Of course." said Hedgecliff, patting her on the shoulder. Katrina stole a look at Orry. He met her glance and shrugged.
"I demand that I set the punishment!" she cried passionately.
"Yes," said Hedgecliff, stroking her hair. Orry rolled his eyes, making Katrina smother a giggle.
"I demand that they go to the catacombs and make sure that he hasn't come back!"
"WHAT?" Four voices cried, Katrina and Orry's the loudest. Valarie glared at Hedgecliff, then at Katrina and Orry..
"Make them go down to the catacombs and search for him. They are not to return until dinner tonight."
"I-I-I can't do that-" stammered Hedsgecliff, sweating slightly.
"Why not?" she screeched. "They deserve it! Make them search the catacombs!"
"Madame Valarie. This punishment that you request is almost impossible. The catacombs are rotting, falling apart. Gasses, molds and rats run amok down there. It is unsafe and unhealthful." stated Madame Yowling with calm dignity.
"I don't care!" screamed Valarie, throwing an old volume of music across the room. "They will GO!" Just as she was about to pitch the biggest screaming fit of all time, Orry stood.
"Katrina and I will gladly go down there." he said. "If it will put your mind at rest." He took Katrina by the arm, and lifting her out of the chair, escorted her out.
"Got everything?" called Orry, banging on Katrina's door for the second time that day.
"Almost! Come in while I find my boots!" He gently opened the door, and looked in. It was a small room, no more than 6'x6'. (Six feet by six feet) The ceiling height was just about seven, so it was fine for him to stand in. The floor was taken up with clothes, books and stuffed animals. A tool belt hung from one of the several pegs on one of the walls. The walls were painted a black with decorations of solar systems, stars and planets painted in several bright colors. She had a small closet that she kept her better things in, like her Christmas dress, the ball gown, and the other costumes that had been given to her over the years. There were a bunch of dried roses hanging above her bed from a string on the ceiling. Pink, white, yellow, several purples, but only a few reds.
Katrina was digging through her closet, gently shifting aside the hems of the fancy dresses, searching for her combat boots. A purple backpack was thrown carelessly on her bed, stuffed with several flashlights, some prepackaged food, her favorite blue work-gloves, waters and extra batteries. She herself was wearing her oldest pair of jeans, faded and torn, her oldest shirt, paint-splattered and faded, and a baseball cap from her pen-pal in the USA.
Orry sat gingerly on the bed, avoiding the backpack at all costs. "Be ready in a second!" she said, her head buried in her closet. She emerged with a piece of lace sticking to her ponytail. "Sheeesh, where are they?"
Orry felt his foot kick something under the bed, and he pulled out her black combat boots with the teal lacings. "I found them."
"Yay!" she said, grabbing them from him. "Thank you so much! Where were they?" He pointed under the bed.
"You were brave enough to put your hand down there?" she asked, eyebrows raised. He rolled his eyes. She dropped down to the floor, avoiding several stuffed animals and a food wrapper. She started lacing up her shoes. "I got what I was supposed to get. Did you?"
"Yep." he said, pulling it from his own backpack. "All of the blueprints of the catacombs dating back to 1850."
"Sweet! Are we ready to venture out into the great unknown yet?"
"Yeah...as soon as you get that lace out of your hair." She started, then reached up and snagged the lace.
"I wonder what costume it came from..." she said, taking it back to the closet. On her way over, she tripped over Moo-Moo the hippo, and fell into her closet. "Ow!" she cried as her fingers slammed against the back paneling. She sat there for a few minutes massaging her fingers, not paying any attention to the echoes of her shout as they traveled down the unknown secret passage behind her closet...down...down...down...to where the sun never shone...down to where the dripping of water was commonplace...down to the previously unoccupied catacombs...
"So where do we have to enter?" asked Katrina, adjusting her heavy backpack. She shoved her hair up tighter underneath her New York Yankees baseball cap nervously.
"According to these blueprints, the old dressing room." stated Orry, glancing at a sheft of blue paper in his hand.
"There are many old dressing rooms." retorted Katrina, whacking him upside the head with the flat of her hand. "Too many, in fact."
"You know which one I'm talking about." he snapped, swatting her as well. "The one that's always locked."
"Oh." she said. "That one. You don't have the key."
He swung it in front of her nose. "I swiped it from Hedgecliff's filing cabinet." They stepped down into a forgotten hallway, and halfway down it, was a door, painted a faded pink. Katrina sniffed the air.
"Is it just me, or does it smell smoky down here?"
"Some of the actors and singers come down here to puff a joint." said Orry, going up to the door.
"How did you know that?" demanded Katrina, giving him a curious glance.
"I joined them." He caught sight of Katrina's outraged and disgusted face. He laughed. "I kid! I kid! It'd ruin my gorgeous voice bent for Versailles!"
"Egotistical, idiotic soprano." she muttered. "You don't get water for an hour for that."
"You know I'm a bass."
"That's besides the point!"
Click!
Orry swung the door open. A dark interior greeted them. Orry felt for a light switch. He fumbled for a few moments, before Katrina snapped on a flashlight, and shone it into the room.
"It's so old, they didn't even install electric lighting in here." she said, stepping inside. Her feet crunched on something. She looked down. It was an old rose...you could still see the old vibrant red that it once upon a time had been. There was a black ribbon tied around it...
Her flashlight lit upon several burned out candle stubs, and more dried out roses in vases whose water had long ago disappeared. The wallpaper was a faded pink/gold combination. Mirrors...there were a lot of mirrors. There were several boxes in a corner with shoes, perfume bottles and things that might have once upon a time been candies.
Orry stole a flashlight out of her backpack, and flipped it on. "Man, looks like...nobody came back..." he said. "Someone left and never came back. See?" he said, pointing the beam of light at a dressing table next to a mirror. There was a brush, a comb, a box of ribbons, a box of jewels and a box of make-up. "They were getting ready for a show. There's even an old bottle of wine. It was opened...Phew!"
"What's that?" asked Katrina, shining her light at the farthest mirror. It stood like a giant in the room, it's gold frame touching the ceiling and a step or two leading up to it. "It's beautiful..." she whispered, delicately touching its intertwined gold and silver designs. A small dark space glinted between the frame and the mirror. She cautiously put her fingers in the opening and drew open the mirror.
"It's a concealed doorway..." said Orry, studying the mechanics. "And it still works..."
"It's also two-way..." whispered Katrina, standing behind it and looking through it to the dressing room, her flashlight cutting through the darkness like a hot knife through butter. "I can see you..."
"Like that doesn't sound slightly ominous." he said, moving out from in front of the mirror. He stepped into the passageway with her, and shone his light down the dark hallway. "Well, we have a long way to go and much to see."
"That sounds so cliche." she snapped, adjusting her backpack onto a better position on her back. "Ready?" she asked, starting to step out into the great beyond.
"Lead the way." he answered smirking.
Much later...
"You know, it's pretty surprising that these stairs have lasted this long." said Katrina, sitting on a ledge that was connected to a small sitting area off of the main stairs. She looked down, seeing how far down she could see. The light from the one flashlight was weak and only lit their small sphere of rest.
"It is pretty surprising." agreed Orry, biting into a muffin and chewing. "Yowling said that it was rotting away down here."
"Maybe she just meant the first passageway." Katrina shuddered slightly at the memory of the mold infested walls and floors of the passageway out of the dressing room.
"Maybe..." Orry inhaled the rest of his muffin. "I wonder what the artifacts we found are worth."
"You mean like that old box that turned to dust when you touched it? Or that torch that seemed to be still warm? Or that music box that played that nice tune?"
"Any and all. And I swear that torch was warm..."
"It wasn't. How could it when nobody's been down here in over a century?"
Orry shrugged, getting up. "Well, shall we continue?"
"Why not? I'm bored." She jumped down.
"What? Of sitting there, or from running around down here without much to go by?"
"It's your fault that the maps were wrong." she snapped, grabbing up her backpack and heaving it up on her shoulder with a grunt.
"Oh, like I drew those maps." he said, grinning widely.
"Shut your big mouth." she said peevishly. "I'm getting tired. What time is it?"
"Only about five minutes after you last asked me."
"The time...?"
"Sigh...4:25." he muttered, stepping down into the stairway, which still spiraled downwards with no end in sight. He felt a shiver go down his spine. Were those eyes he felt on the back of his neck...? Impossible, there was no-one besides himself and Katrina on the stairs, and the only thing behind him were steps and stones.
"Shouldn't we have started back a long time ago?" asked Katrina, rubbing her sore leg muscles. She was getting really tired. She started down the stairs, but suddenly stopped. She tilted her head. She had heard something...
"Did you hear that?" she asked, staring down into the abyss, eyes wide and frightened. Orry stepped up to her, watching her. She suddenly took off down the stairs, skidding on loose gravel and masonry.
"Katrina!" he cried, starting after her. "What the-?" He heard her feet pounding down the stairs, and heard her cry out.
"KATRINA!" he bellowed, galloping down the stairs, suddenly coming to the end of the steps and onto a landing like a grand hall in a palace somewhere. He saw her a few feet away, her flashlight had fallen, throwing into sharp relief the thing that had frightened her.
The skeleton of a horse.
"Katrina..." he gasped, trying to let his breath and heartbeat catch up with him. "What in bloody hell were you thinking?"
"I heard something...like a footfall upon the stair..."
"...'And there was nothing there' like that spooky story I told at the retreat. Nice try..."
"No, I'm serious. I heard something. What's a horse skeleton doing down here?" She was almost frantic, waving her arms about like a windmill. Orry smiled.
"Skeletons can't hurt you." he said calmly, picking up her flashlight, and returning it to her. Then his ears pricked. He heard something too...like the splashing of a oar into a still lake...
"Tell me I didn't imagine that!" she said, tensing up.
"Do we dare go investigate...?" asked Orry, his eyes shining with the prospect of a challenge. Katrina didn't answer, instead she started down the hallway, her flashlight beam shaking a little. Orry fell in step behind her. They procceded down a corridor that led to a sloping hill-like ramp. When they reached the end of that, there was a river going through...
"A river..." whispered Katrina, afraid to talk above that. Their flashlights lit only a small section, but they could see the glitter of the water going off between an old Gothic arch. Orry bent down and stared at the water. It was slimy and murky. Strange things floated just underneath the surface.
"Well, here goes nothing..." he said, about to put his foot down in the water.
"What in Hades are you doing?" yelled Katrina. "That water's nasty and decrepit!"
"How else do you suggest finding out where-?" started Orry, his foot frozen inches above the water.
"A boat, duh!"
"And where is a boat?" he said, eyebrows rasied.
"Ummm..." A slight splashing sound came from their left. Katrina whipped around, her flashlight lighting up a boat that was moored a few feet from them. They stared at it for a few moments.
"That wasn't there." said Orry, standing up. "It wasn't there." He approached it. It gently bumped against the embankment, urgeing them on. "It's a punt boat..."
"Who cares what kind of boat it is? There's nothing down here."
"Then what made that noise?"
"Rats. There's millions of the filthy things down here." Orry gave her a look. "What?"
"We're investigating. How can we come all the way down here and not see what is beyond the lake?"
"Easily. We walk away." Orry rolled his eyes and stepped into the boat. He swayed for a few moments, but soon gained his balance. He looked up at her.
"Well? You coming?" She growled, then jumped down, landing gracefully in the boat. She brushed off a seat, then sat, her arms crossed as Orry took the punt pole and started them off down the water-filled corridor.
With her flashlight shining ahead, the water sparkled as ripples spread from the slow, steady movement of the boat. Orry began to hum, and in a few seconds, she recognized the tune.
"Shut up!" she hissed. "Not down here, you idiot!" He glared at her but stopped. Soon, they turned a corner, and found themselves on the edge of a large lake. Something shone from her flashlight beam as they neared the opposite shore. As the boat nosed against the slightly raised bank, Katrina leaped out, shining her flashlight all over the place.
Mirrors...broken mirrors...
And a whisper of a song...
"Remember me...think of me fondly..."
Thank you for reading...I hope that you will push the little blue/purple button and review...