Chapter 15
Cassandra follows Eugene through the front door of the cabin.
It looks just as Eugene remembers, with a small kitchen and round dining table ahead of the entrance, and a living room with a stonework fireplace to the left of the door. The bright afternoon sun is shining through the open shutters, sheer curtains blowing softly in the breeze.
The only difference is that now it's completely empty inside, with not a sound or a soul in sight.
The door had been unlocked, which is how Eugene had left it the last time he was here. The furniture remains the same, but it appears that the pots, pans, and jars of food in the kitchen had all been taken. Some of the cupboards had been left open, with a couple leftover dishes inside.
The surfaces of every table and countertop are completely empty, as opposed to how cluttered and lived-in everything had appeared before.
"This is where you found her?" asks Cassandra as they warily step further inward.
"Yeah," Eugene exhales, the memory of it exhausting him all over again. "Before she knocked me out and ran off with our horse."
Cass peers around themselves, presuming the place to be abandoned. "Well, looks like Rapunzel's long gone now. Along with our esteemed prince."
"Let's just look around," he suggests, "Hopefully we'll find something I missed that'll tell us where they went."
With that, Cassandra wanders into the kitchen while Eugene heads for the living room in the opposite direction.
The small potted plants on the windowsill are dry, wilted, and brown. The fireplace contains nothing but burnt logs and ashes. Eugene crouches down and presses his fingers to the wood, discovering it to be cold to the couch. It hasn't been used in days.
As he walks between the low coffee table and the worn leather couch, a wooden floorboard creaks beneath his boot.
Eugene stops, peering down at the deer skin rug beneath his feet. He rocks his foot against it, hearing another creak and feeling a shift in the floor.
Hooking his boot underneath the rug, he kicks it up and folds over the corner.
At first glance, his eyes are met with only the hardwood floor revealed underneath. But as he looks closer, he notices the square outline in the wood and the two metal hinges embedded on one side of it. There's a small wooden handle at the bottom, flat enough that he hadn't noticed it protruding beneath the deerskin.
It seems Eugene had missed something after all.
Cassandra appears over his shoulder while Eugene only stares down at it.
"Huh. A creepy trap door," she observes, following his gaze. "Somehow, it's fitting considering who we're dealing with."
"What do you bet our answers are down there?" he asks, dreading finding out whatever may be lying beneath their feet.
"Guess we have no choice but to find out."
With a sigh, Eugene crouches down. He hooks his fingers around the small handle and pulls. Surprisingly, it hadn't been locked. The door creaks eerily as he pulls it completely open, letting it fold over onto the floor.
He rises to his feet as they both stare below.
Inside, there's a wooden ladder leading downward, propped against the edge. Beyond it, their eyes are met with nothing but blackness. They can't even see how far down it goes.
What on earth could he be hiding down there?
The thought of it alone makes Eugene shudder. If Donovan had been keeping something down there that he didn't want others to find, surely, he would have locked it. Unless he had left in a hurry. Or maybe he's still in there. The fact that he'd tried to hide it only makes Eugene more uneasy.
Everything in Eugene is telling him not to go down there, but he has to find out what happened to Rapunzel.
"You're not afraid of dark holes in the ground leading into unknown chasms, are you?" Cassandra asks, sensing Eugene's hesitance.
"Pffft. No," he scoffs, crossing his arms, "I'm just worried for your sake."
"Then lead the way, hotshot," she raises a challenging eyebrow at him, her lips tugging into a smirk.
"Fine. I will." With that, Eugene lifts his chin with false confidence, and begins to descend the ladder.
When they reach the bottom, their eyes are met with a dark narrow corridor encased in stone walls and concrete flooring. It's immediately colder down here and somehow the air feels thinner as opposed to the humidity outside.
Cassandra holds out a candle-lit lantern in front of herself that she had found in the house next to some matches. The flame provides just enough light for them as they walk down the hallway, the darkness quickly drowning out the sunlight from the open trapdoor above.
At the end of the corridor is a single, wooden door with large metal hinges and a thick wooden latch.
Their echoing footsteps come to a stop in front of it. There's no window in the door for them to see through it, but they can't hear a thing from the other side.
The hinges groan loudly as Eugene slowly pushes it open.
The lantern provides just enough light for them to decipher the small room in front of them.
"Whoa," Cassandra marvels.
The walls are made of wood, and the floor of stone. There's a high table in the middle of the room, and the walls are lined with various empty shelves. Wooden crates and barrels are cluttered against the walls, along with a small cot in the corner of the room. There's a small bedside table next to it and a round stool.
There are no windows, but there's a short staircase leading up to a pair of slanted doors in the ceiling. Faint lines of sunlight can be seen through the cracks, indicating they aren't as far below ground as it feels.
Just like the house, most of the surfaces are empty. With whatever trinkets that have been left behind, most of them are knocked over in a scattered mess throughout the room.
It appears they are in some sort of storage cellar. Though, clearly someone had been living here, judging by the bed and the desk that looks to have been converted into a work bench.
"Looks like our prince left in a hurry," observes Cass.
Eugene swallows. He doesn't like this one bit.
As they walk further into the shadows of the cellar, he realizes how cold and dire it all feels. His darkest thoughts of whatever may have been going on down here while Eugene was elsewhere makes him nervous.
He notices the syringe on the floor next to the cot, almost hidden beneath the bedframe. Though there are many other random objects scattered around, a tool like that definitely has no place in a storage cellar. What on earth would Donovan be doing with it?
Then Eugene looks over, and his heart drops as he recognizes the steel longsword tucked into a leather holster propped against the wall.
He approaches the corner of the room, picking it up in his hands. Dreading what he already presumes to be true, he grips the handle and partially slides it out of the holster, examining the marksmanship.
Eugene would recognize this weapon anywhere.
"She was here," he says after a moment, staring down at it in disbelief. "It's her sword."
Cassandra looks over at him from the opposite end of the cellar, distracted from what she had been looking at. She can't help but notice the tone of disappointment in his voice. As she steps up behind Eugene, she eyes the blade in his hands.
"You think he brought her back here after she took off?" Cass wonders.
Rapunzel had the sword when Eugene found her. If she had fled after that, how did it end up down here? Did she come back here on her own? Did Donovan bring her here? And why would she leave it behind? Now, wherever she is, she's without a weapon, which makes her even more vulnerable than she already is having lost her memories.
"I don't know," Eugene says.
He doesn't want to believe that Rapunzel was here. The fact that this cellar is so well hidden underground just proves that Donovan has bad intentions with her, otherwise he wouldn't go to such lengths to hide her.
Did she go with him willingly? Or is he forcing her to do it?
The fact that Rapunzel can't remember anything makes all of this so much worse. For all Eugene knows, Donovan may have convinced her that they know each other. Though, when Eugene had tried that himself, she clearly hadn't believed him, so there's no telling whether she would believe Donovan either.
Eugene supposes it doesn't matter. All he can think about is the fact that Rapunzel was here, and he wasn't.
"We're too late," he realizes, still eyeing the weapon in his hand. Then a sudden wave of frustration and hopelessness washes over him. He clenches the handle of the blade in his fist. "I missed her again!" Eugene roughly kicks his boot into a wooden crate at his feet, ignoring the startling sound of something being knocked over and clattering to the ground.
"Hey. Relax," says Cass sternly. Her voice remains level despite being taken aback by his outburst. "They couldn't have gone far."
Eugene's back is turned to her, and she can't see his face as he stressfully runs a hand through his hair.
He doesn't respond to her. Instead, he merely plops himself down on one of the crates, the sword laying across his lap. He sits with his chin down and his shoulders drooping as if they weigh a ton.
Though Cassandra understands what he must be going through, and she wants to find Rapunzel as much as he does, they need to keep a level head if they plan to get anywhere.
She realizes this is the first time she's ever seen him remotely angry and not constantly cracking jokes or bragging about his hair or just being stupid in general.
Suddenly, Cass isn't sure whether she should comfort him or not. She doesn't know how.
"We'll find her, all right?" she tells him.
Eugene doesn't answer.
Unsure what else to say, Cassandra continues looking.
She wanders over to the high table in the middle of the cellar. Lifting the lantern up to her face, she scans the objects on its surface. None of it looks useful. There's a few blank sheets of paper scattered among books with titles she doesn't recognize.
Momentarily peering down, her eyes catch sight of a stray piece of parchment, crumpled in a ball at her feet.
Initially, she assumes it's nothing. Then curiosity gets the better of her and she bends over to pick it up.
Placing the lantern on the table, she unfolds it in her hands.
There are printed lines on the discoloured page, forming a grid of rows and columns. A few of the dotted lines have cursive scribbles of ink on them. Along the left side is a series of increasing numbers lengthening down the page. At the top is written 'Friday, August 2nd,1771.'
That date was only a few days ago.
Her eyes widen as she notices the words written in cursive in the top corner.
"Uh… Flynn?" she says. "You might wanna take a look at this."
Eugene appears next to her a few moments later, peering over Cassandra's shoulder with intrigue. The firelight flickers against the paper in her gloved hands.
"It's a page from a captain's log," Cass explains.
He carefully reads the title at the top. "Scarlett Storm…"
Cass doesn't recognize it. "You ever seen a ship with that name?" she asks.
Eugene creases his eyebrows as he stares down at it in thought. Determination overcomes his voice as he realizes, "No. But I know someone who might."