The Girl Below by Bianca Zander Read Free Book Online

head was a miner’s lamp, and when he switched it off, he disappeared along with the light. From then on, I thought of the bunker as his domain, that he was its guardian or gatekeeper.
    “We can’t go down there,” I said after Jean Luc had asked, but no one listened.
    Dad fetched a crowbar, along with the metal tools he used for basic plumbing and fixing the car. He oiled and coaxed the ancient bolts of the air-raid-shelter hatch, which had rusted shut after years of being trampled and rained on. It took all of Dad’s strength plus the wiry disco muscles of Jean Luc and Henri to lift the iron lid, and even then it scraped across the patio paving stones like a car without tires. Once the hatch was out of the way, they stepped back from the cavity and peered inside.
    “We need a torch,” said Dad, flicking Mum an expectant glance.
    “Do we have one?”
    “In the laundry,” he said, looking down into the hole.
    She went inside to fetch it.
    Gripping Dad’s hand, I sidled closer to the hole. I wanted to peer over the edge, to see inside the bunker, but the thought of going down there made my stomach pitch. I was imagining how dark and cold it was when the path went out from under me and I was jerked upward and swung out over the hole. I felt myself falling and screamed, and fell some more, and screamed again before my father returned me to solid ground, and I stood next to Jean Luc, who was laughing.
    “Boo!” he said, his French accent cartoonish. “The little one is afraid, n’est-ce pas ?”
    Henri slapped him on the back. “ Ben oui! ” Of course.
    I glared at my father and let go of his hand. His foot hovered above the hole. Was he going to jump in? “Dad! No!”
    “Don’t worry, there’s a staircase. Stone steps leading down.”
    “Wait for the torch,” I pleaded. “Mum won’t be long.”
    A bank of clouds unfurled, turning the garden gray. Mum appeared from the back door carrying a small cardboard box, and held it up to show us. “Candles,” she said. “I couldn’t find the torch.”
    Dad opened his mouth to speak but frowned instead. Henri handed him a lighter and Mum opened the box of candles and gave one to each of the men, who passed around the flame and cupped it with their hands.
    Mum passed me a candle, but I didn’t take it. “Are you really going down there?”
    “It’ll be fun,” she said, as though trying to convince herself. Then her expression changed. “Maybe you should wait up here?”
    Being left on my own was the only thing worse than going down there, and I took the candle from Mum’s hand.
    “It’s the last one,” she said. “We’ll have to share.”
    Dad went down first, with Jean Luc and Henri behind him. I insisted that Mum follow behind me with the candle, which meant that I was next in line. The staircase was narrow and steep, and we edged down it in single file, my knees wobbling more with each step. By candlelight, it was hard to see much, but the walls on either side were wet and slime grew in the gaps between stones. As we got farther down, the air became dank and wintry and my feet splashed in shallow puddles. I was wearing my school shoes, round toed, with a buckled strap, and the water quickly breached their leather sides and seeped between my toes.
    In front of me, Henri turned around and pulled a face, but even with some daylight filtering down from behind me, his features were murky, indistinct. Only he must have seen how scared I was because he didn’t try to tickle me or make any more wisecracks—he just turned around and kept going forward. It was very quiet on the stairs, quiet enough to hear the flickering of candle flames and my own breath. I’d counted nine steps when Dad’s voice called up from below.
    “Bottom!” he said.
    “Anything down there?” Henri called to him.
    Dad didn’t answer straightaway. In front of Henri, I heard Jean Luc land on the bottom of the shelter and splash about in water. I could just make out their candle