I stood at the top. Dread, like the words oh no rattling along my arms and legs, kept me frozen to the spot. I squinted as if that might help me pick out any glimmer of light down in the dark. It didn’t look like there were any windows down there. I got out my phone and switched on the flashlight app.
I gave the lower stairs a brief sweep of cold blue light.
I took a step down.
Changed my mind.
Came back up.
I switched my phone to my left hand and picked up the new axe in my right. Then I slowly descended.
This is my basement, I told myself. My basement. My house.
There could be nothing in there that I didn’t put in myself.
Unless the previous owner is hiding down there, dead, rotting, or waiting, with a knife. Or left bear traps all over the floor ready to shatter your shins. Or put up piano wire stretching across the stairway to take off your head.
“Stop it,” I scolded myself aloud.
I checked the stairs ahead again with the light from my phone. No piano wire. The only person down there in the dark with an axe would be me.
I descended.
My phone light bounced off white walls, grey in the dark. It was hard to get an idea of the size of the space. The sound of my footsteps came back to me in ringing echoes. The white-blue square of light shook and danced where I directed it. The air smelled of fresh paint and cold stone and old earth. I followed my phone light along the walls until I found a grey box with a big black switch on it and that tell-tale electric yellow triangle with the lightning bolt. I tucked the axe under my arm and reached for the switch.
Before I could flip it, I was plunged into darkness.
My phone bleeped pathetically. Not enough battery for the torch app. In my panic I slapped the electrical box, desperately trying to find the mains switch.
“Come on, come on!”
I found and flicked the switch.
The basement lit up immediately. I screamed.
After a few seconds, I remembered I’d left the light switch at the top of the stairs in the on position. At least that meant the electricity worked. Finally, I could charge my phone. I rubbed my chest with my free hand and looked around.
It was an austere, white-painted stone room, bare and empty, lit by a single bulb hanging from a naked ceiling. The floorboards from the living room above stretched overhead. That nail or splinter that caught my foot yesterday must have fallen down here. I tracked back to where the floorboards ended and the stone entrance began. There was a small pinprick of light coming through a hole around about where I’d been stabbed. I searched along the floor, but I couldn’t see whatever had punctured me. I’d have to remember to wear shoes down here until I found it.
The boiler was right next to the electrical box, a thick grey metal column with a hatch for wood and a hatch for ash. At its base was an orange net bag of wood and kindling. Oh well, at least it would be a while before I needed to chop down any trees.
I tore open the bag and tried to push a log into the boiler. Too big. I’d need to—what did Rowan say?—split it. I balanced the log on the concrete floor, raised my axe and hoped for the best. After a few tries—missed the first, only took a splinter off the second, only got halfway down the third—I managed to split a few logs. That would do. I set the kindling going with a match and the end page of the house’s listing.
The flame took the kindling, enveloping it in flickering tongues. Carefully, I angled two split bits of wood over the growing fire. I watched, waiting for the fire to die or for the wood to collapse and snuff it out. But after a few seconds, the dry split edge took and flame crept along it like a bright orange caterpillar, sooty feet leaching the colour from the wood and staining it black.
My heart swelled. I’d done it. I had built a fire.
I stood up straight, hands on my hips, gazing with pride at my work. This was the most practical thing I’d ever done. Here stands a capable woman, I thought. Look, she can make a fire, work out a boiler, use an axe. I considered again my earlier daydreams. The stoic gardener, the plucky librarian, the enigmatic florist. Maybe I could do this. Maybe I could be the heroine of my own story.
I gathered up more wood to feed the fire.
But as I loaded up the burner, a thought niggled away at me. Why hadn’t the estate agent warned me about the boiler? They must have known about it. This hadn’t been the only rural property on their site. It would be a damn foolish thing to sell homes with boilers you don’t understand. And I couldn’t be the first person to ask. They must have known! Then why hadn’t they told me? I had been in a hurry, yes, but this seemed like something important. Like the 1a/1b situation. Did they treat everyone this badly?
Or was it just me?
I rubbed my arms in the growing warmth of the boiler.
Maybe they had smelt it on me. That thing that made my colleagues not want to stick around and wait for me. Maybe they took one look at me and thought, ‘oh, I see what you are.’ The squinted eyes, the unsure smile. The expression Rowan made when he weighed me up at the store.
