~5.6~

Her steps became slower and smaller as she neared the end of the passageway. It wasn’t quite conscious… it was almost as though there were some strange trick of perception involved, an optical illusion where the far end of the passageway itself was larger than it seemed from a distance.

It wasn’t because she was afraid… while the words “dead spot” were still playing over and over in her head, she felt exposed in the tunnel, where she was conceivably visible to both chance passersby from the street and from anybody who might have been in the courtyard. It was dark in the passage, too, while the courtyard ahead of her was bright with moonlight.

She wanted to see more than the thin slice of it. She wanted to get out of the tunnel, to get it over with, to explore that hidden world hiding behind the ancient walls of the city, but it felt like there was… resistance.

“This is silly, Laurie,” she said to herself, and she lifted her foot up high and swung it forward. One foot after the other. It was just like walking down any hallway, any street… from any one point to any other.

But of course, she hoped it wasn’t. She wouldn’t have spent the train fare and Marnie’s fee, to say nothing of her precious paid time off, to get to any place as mundane and ordinary as Point B. What she wanted to see was something secret, something special… something sacred.

She’d told herself she wouldn’t be disappointed if all she saw was an aging courtyard, everything covered with moss and verdigris… it would still be secret and special enough if she saw it alone, in the dark and the silence. She was the sort of person who could find meaning in small things. She wasn’t greedy. There didn’t need to be anything more.

But there could be.

Taking a deep breath, Laurie closed her eyes took one last step out into the moonlight.