Those Concave Walls

She ran across the square in the center of town, through the freshly cut Courthouse lawn and into the alley behind Art Sanctuary; she knew if she could just get into the basement quickly enough, she would have time to find it.

Earlier that day, Olivia Gaudette had been doing the same thing she did every morning: sifting through dust soaked and tattered antique maps. In the quaint mountain town where she had lived her entire life, Olivia was one of the 26,000 residents who struggled to find decent work opportunities in town. But to Olivia, working at the Art Sanctuary was somewhat of a pleasure for her. Growing up a major history buff, Olivia found joy working with antique maps—she relished in holding history in her very hands everyday.

Living in a small town established in 1802 meant that Art Sanctuary wasn’t the only place with history spilling out of every alcove. The entire town was one great historical spectacle; every cafe, boutique and bar & grill had a story nailed into its creaky wooden floorboards.

During prohibition, in 1924, each of the towns shops and restaurants came together to dig tunnels leading into three places: the speakeasy, the towns theatre, and the liquor cooler that supplied illegal spirits—the one located in the basement of Art Sanctuary.

Having worked there for almost a year, Olivia was well aware of the old liquor cooler. After all, the maps she worked to preserve each day were stored in that very cellar.

The dimly lit basement usually felt more like a bunker to her, as she had to duck her head every time she reached the bottom of the hundred and fifty year old staircase. Olivia never minded this; in fact, seeing the filled-in tunnels and the crumbling stone walls gave her pleasure—she envisioned the locals slipping through the tunnels looking for trouble and good old fashioned fun.

Normally, her basement duties remained rather simple: taking inventory or stacking up boxes that lined the stone encrusted dirt walls.

But today was different.

Today, Olivia was handling the McNally 1856 World Atlas, an Atlas from the very first year Rand McNally went into business, and valued at over $10,000—a sum of money not taken lightly by the small town owner of Art Sanctuary.

With dust covered fingers Olivia frantically flipped through the stack of maps. I was sure I saw the United States Freight Lines Map she mumbled to herself as her heart reached a pace she could physically feel. The McNally US Freight map was one of the most sought after maps in the entire collection and accounted for almost half of the Atlases sum. When the owner, Percy, sensed her urgency he hobbled over to her; “what are you looking for”, he said with a tone that weighed heavy in the air and did not indicate a question, but instead demanded an answer.

“I’m just going through the stack one more time” she said to him without looking up to meet his dull yet loathsome gaze. “Which map are you looking for”, he said to her once more, this time with more conviction in his voice. “I’m looking for the US Freight map, I know it's in here I just missed it the first time around”. “Well you better find it, or else you’ll not only be out of a job, but you’ll also be out the money losing that map will cost me”, he told her as he started off with a limp—a consequence of his old age.

Olivia knew she hadn’t seen the Freight map in the stack, concluding that the only thing she could do was head into the stale air of the basement and look for the map there. She prayed it laid somewhere in the hundreds of boxes lining those concave walls.

After 40 minutes of searching through dusted boxes Olivia let out a sigh, shrinking down against the wall and sitting on the dirt covered floor. Is this what my life has come to? she thought to herself. Fearing my loathsome boss and scrambling like a rat in a cold, dark, basement just to avoid a debt that would take years to pay off with this miserable job. She quivered, not just at the dark thoughts that were swimming through her head but also at the cold, decayed air that engulfed her.

After allowing herself to slip into a moment of self-pity, Olivia picked herself up off the ground and continued to search.

Two hours had passed when Olivia—working through a mindless haze—finally reached the boxes at the very back, the ones that seemed to hold the walls of this shallow basement up themselves. She mindlessly reached for the first box and set it on the floor. What she hadn’t realized in the darkness, both of the room and of her clouded mind, was that with the box came out a stone. Tirelessly reaching for the next box in the stack, something shook her awake as she noticed a brick had fallen out of the wall. God dammit she thought. Now i’m really screwed with Percy. She picked up the brick and prepared to slide it back into the hole when she noticed something: empty space.

There was empty space where more wall should have been, she thought. Olivia quickly grabbed her phone and turned on the flash to look inside the new hole in the wall. When her eyes met an object she started back out of fear and adrenaline for what could be inside; after all, this town was chalked full of hundred year old ghost stories, historical relics and old folklore.

Taking a moment to compose herself, Olivia turned her flash back on and slowly lifted it up to the hole. What laid inside didn’t come as a shock to her: some old rusted liquor bottles, a tarnished jackknife and some old receipts. Must have been a liquor cabinet of some kind she thought to herself. She shrugged it off and picked up the brick, as she leaned in to replace it something caught the corner of her eye.

She faced the strange dark object that she hadn’t noticed before. What she found was a little, black, soot covered book. “This could be kind of interesting actually” she thought aloud, reaching her arm into the tiny space and grabbing the book. She plucked it out and took a couple steps back, examining her new found treasure. Dusting off the cover of the soft, leather black book, she slowly flipped it open. The book was thin, only holding a couple of pages—the rest appeared to be torn out or thinned from age. Two pages remained and both were heavily age toned, making the writing near impossible to read.

Bringing her flashlight up to the pages she could just barely make out the words: “to my daughter Rosalin McHammond I leave the large sum of $20,000. To my Rosalin, find your inheritance in the place of my demise, during the years of prohibition, that foul beast. And always remember the sun may rise in the West, but it sets in the East.

$20,000 was all that Olivia could focus on in that moment. God that's a lot of money she thought. I could finally escape this town if I had money like tha-- her thoughts were interrupted with Percy tripping over boxes behind her. He had a crazed look in his eye and was walking unsteadily, though much faster than usual. “Percy what are you do--” “Where did you find that book”, he said to her with fire behind his eyes and a rabid shape to his mouth. He didn’t give her the time to answer, he lunged at her, hands outstretched reaching for the book, but his stout figure and poor footing left him a couple of inches short of her.

In that moment Olivia knew that if Percy could tell exactly what the book was, enough so to throw himself into the air, hurdling at it, that the $20,000 must still be hidden somewhere and that she had the key to finding it.

She leapt over him running towards the staircase and ducking her head, readying herself to bolt up the old decrepit stairway. She stopped momentarily, shutting off the small basement light, making it impossible to see. She heard Percy moaning and struggling behind her but she didn’t stop until she reached the back door of the shop and flung it open, bursting through and running to her car down the street.

She flew inside knowing she had only a few moments before Percy would feel his way out of the basement. Percy was old and couldn’t move well, so he didn’t pose much of a threat. But what Olivia knew was that he was a part of the town council. A council that was suggested among locals to be more of a secret brotherhood than a town council. They were known to share town secrets only amongst each other and entrusted themselves as the keepers of such secrets. If he calls them, she thought, i’ll never have the chance to find the inheritance.

Switching back to the book, Olivia read the words written into the fragile page once more, this time saying them aloud: find your inheritance in the place of my demise, during the years of prohibition, that foul beast. And always remember the sun may rise in the West, but it sets in the East. Quickly, she started googling the name Rosalin McHammond when a vintage photograph of a family popped up reading the names Rosalin, Mary, James and Joe McHammond.

Olivia had heard the name Joe McHammond before. She knew he was the liquor cooler tender during prohibition, working in the very basement she had been standing in moments ago. She also knew that in 1932 he was caught and arrested in that very same cooler, and spent the remainder of his life in prison. In the place of my demise during prohibition, she thought…

Suddenly her eyes widened and her heart jolted into her back. The inheritance must be in the basement of Art Sanctuary.

Then, she saw it: Percy, along with four other of the town council members pacing towards her car. She quickly jumped out, thinking if she could just lead them astray for long enough, she might have time to get back into the basement.

She ran across the square in the center of town, through the freshly cut Courthouse lawn and into the alley behind Art Sanctuary; she knew if she could just get into the basement quickly enough, she would have time to find it.

When the men were out of sight, she ran up to the back door of Art Sanctuary, momentarily looking inside to make sure it was empty. Percy had locked the door, so she reached for her keys and shoved them into the knob opening the door simultaneously. She sprinted into the basement almost falling down those damned stairs. Turning on the light, she frantically started looking around and repeating the message over and over in her head, place of my demise… foul beast… the sun may rise in the West, but it sets in the East.

She paused to think; sun may rise in the West… sets in the East. Suddenly it hit her. Every afternoon around 6 o’clock the sun set on the east side of the building casting a warm glow into the shop. Sets in the East! She exclaimed. She ran to the east side wall of the basement and started pawing at the boxes, making her way towards the wall. Finally she arrived, digging her fingers into the crevasses of each brick pulling them out until she could pull handfuls out at a time.

And that’s when she saw it. $20,000 of neatly stacked cash placed on the other side of that old concave wall. She dropped to her knees. “I’m finally getting out”.