Our Secret Hideaway

Migrants came through our little town of Baroque every day. They carried with them the burdens of the places they had left, all cities that had been charred by the spread of wildfires or the complete destruction of power grids or even the rampant threat of unseasonal blizzards. Their faces were drawn and tired, shoes becoming worn from the miles-long journeys, and the children too were laden down with whole lives crammed into backpacks and sacks.

A curly-haired dog ran alongside the group, yipping for attention, and I knew no one would add another mouth to feed on their thus-far continuing journeys.

“Cadence,” a voice called to me, and my reverie lost on the newcomers was broken. I turned to see Malachi, scrap that he was, gesturing for me at the edge of the woods.

“Papa’s got me on day watch,” I said. “I can’t play today.”

“Oh, come on, there’s nothing to save in your dad’s old store!” he said. “All that’s left of the cans are the lima beans no one wants.”

“If they’re hungry, they’ll trade for them!”

“And you’ll get what? Some of that paper money that’s just good for a fire now?”

“Shouldn’t you be scavenging or something?”

“Cade, you’re gonna miss out on what’s left of your life if you listen to your old man all the time,” Malachi said. “What’re you gonna do when we have to move on too?”

“That’s not going to happen,” I said. Papa had already told me we weren’t going anywhere. We would learn to rework the land, if it came to it, because the scorch had yet to touch our town.

“Fine! Be daddy’s little girl! You won’t get anything for it!”

I was ready to throw a rock in the git’s direction, but soon enough he disappeared into the overgrown foliage of the trees.

My eyes turned back to the migrant train of people, but my feet shook with impatience. No one was stopping. They had greater sites to see than moth-eaten Baroque. And, if I continued to listen to Papa, there would be nothing left beyond Baroque for me to explore. The news—what was left of the sources that trickled out to us—wasn’t getting any better.

With a sound of frustration, I jumped up and dusted off my overlong skirt before dashing into the woods where Malachi had gone.

Almost as soon as I passed my third tree, Malachi walked out from behind a nearby trunk and grinned at me like I was the right fool in this situation.

“Knew you wouldn’t be able to resist,” he said.

I smacked him on the arm. “Don’t scare me like that!”

Malachi caught my hand and squeezed it. “Like you scare easy. Nothing fazes you.”

My heart tripped in my chest, and I pulled my hand from his grasp. “What was so important?”

“I was looking in the old mansion,” he said, “and I found something you might like.”

I huffed out a breath. “That’s it? We’ve been going to the mansion since we were kids. Nothing new to see there.”

I turned to go back to my post at what remained of Papa’s general store, but Malachi grabbed my arm and pulled me back.

“Cadence,” he said, “trust me on this. You’ll like it.”

My eyes flitted from Malachi’s hopeful face to the edge of the woods. I bit my bottom lip. “All right. Ten minutes.”

“That’s all I need.”

The trek to the abandoned mansion was easy for us, Baroque residents who knew the ways of the forest. Long ago, nature had claimed the mansion for its own with trees, ivy, and vines. It wasn’t a place you could live—there were too many holes and broken windows to keep you out of the elements—but as kids we all had our fair share of exploring every inch of the once-lustrous building.

As we entered the clearing, I stared at the mansion. Everything about it looked the same. I turned to Malachi, but he was already walking forward to go through the long-ago bashed-in front door.

“Malachi! You better not be pulling my leg!”

He waved a hand to me before crawling through the opening. I let out a noise of impatience before I too carefully followed.

The smell of mildew and soil overtook my senses in a familiar way. A hole in the foundation had allowed for a small pond of water to collect from rain fallen through the cracked glass dome in the ceiling. At first, I thought this was Malachi’s newest discovery—oh, joy, we had another place to swim during the high heat of summer—but he made a right turn into what remained of the main living area.

This room was much the same as I remembered: once-pristine furniture torn apart and ripped, a grand piano cleaved almost in half from a fallen tree branch through the nearest window, an Old World television that had bullet holes through its flat screen. This was the section I would have mourned most, I thought, if I had been the long-dead owner of this home.

Malachi went to the bookcase that had been cleared years ago—all the books had been burned during the last scare of the End Times—but this time he reached behind the wall’s-length bookcase and looked ready to try moving the whole monstrosity.

“Don’t! You’ll hurt yourself—”

But then I watched as one section of the bookcase pulled away from the wall where there had once been just one continuous furniture piece.

Beyond were stairs leading into darkness that smelled even more of damp earth.

Malachi looked back at me, his eyes gleaming with mischief. “Did you really think I’d bring you all the way out here for a lark?”

I stared down the new opening that offered so much possibility.

“You scared, Cadence?”

That was the sound of a challenge if I ever heard one. I scowled at the boy who had been tinder to my fire for so many years now. He was the reason I kept getting into trouble. “No,” I emphasized. I lifted my eyebrows at him. “Are you?”

Malachi just shook his head at me and gestured for me to take the stairs ahead of him.

And that was exactly what I did.

An effervescent glow from the walls helped to guide me as I took the curved stairwell down into the unknown. The smells of soil and water grew stronger, and I wondered if we might find some skeletons down here. Who knew why this secret passage existed. Had it been one last hideout for a past generation’s scare?

When the stairs ended, my feet met smooth and cool stone. I spun in a circle as I took in wall upon wall of what looked like—

“Paintings?” I whispered. I hadn’t seen any art since the last books were burned in Baroque. Papa had destroyed the watercolor set Mama had left behind for me before she went to one of the cities. And even drawing with a stick in the dirt had become something taboo that I did only when I was alone in the forest with Malachi.

Malachi grinned at me as I marveled at paintings depicting oceans, faraway landmarks, women with absurd fashions, even men with wings on their backs—all the things that had been lost since the current scare had allowed the careful destruction of artistry.

“Come on,” Malachi said, walking down another hallway, “there’s more.”

The next room held sculptures and busts of men and women from past eras. I stared into the eyes of someone who had once been notable enough to be immortalized in this fashion. I was mesmerized, drawing my fingertips from the eyes down to the nose and then to the lips.

“I can’t believe this is real,” I whispered.

Malachi settled his hands on my shoulders and stood close behind me. “Are you glad you followed me instead of watching all those sad people pass by all day?”

I inclined my head to see Malachi’s eyes studying me, and suddenly I felt shy. I danced away from the cage of his arms to stare at another sculpture, this one of a woman who looked almost indecent despite the cloth draped over her body.

“It’s amazing,” I said, “all of it.” I laughed, and the sound echoed back at me in the large room.

“I knew you’d love it,” Malachi said, scratching the back of his head and looking far too pleased with himself. “I miss seeing what you were able to do with your sketches. Maybe one day, if things had been different, you might have created something like this.”

I cast a mournful glance at a sculpture of a woman whose body seemed to twist like the trunk of a tree as her hair and fingertips started to drip with leaves. “In another lifetime, maybe. In another world.”

Malachi stepped closer again, but he didn’t try to touch me this time. “Cadence, I told you before. If you want, we can try to go to one of the cities—”

“No,” I said. I’d heard this all before, and I wouldn’t even consider it. “I’m not leaving Papa. Baroque is his home.”

“But is it your home?” Malachi asked. “Are you going to die in this little town without seeing what the rest of the world has to offer?”

“The rest of the world is self-destructing, Malachi,” I said.

“Not everywhere. There’s still something out there, Cadence. I mean, even look at this mansion: we thought we knew everything about it, yet here we found something new after all these years. Don’t you think there’s hope somewhere?”

I shut my eyes, blocking out all the tantalizing sculptures—and trying to ignore Malachi’s words. “I’m not going anywhere,” I said.

That should have been the final shutter to the conversation, but then I felt Malachi’s hand curl around my wrist. My eyes flashed open, and I was ready to jerk away. But I saw the sorrow in Malachi’s eyes.

“Well, I am going,” he said. “That’s why I wanted to show you all this. I thought it might be the one thing to convince you.”

Something in my chest tightened. A Baroque without Malachi—did I even want to imagine it?

“I’m joining the migrant trail next week,” he said, not meeting my eyes as his thumb circled over the spot where my pulse jumped in reaction to his touch. “You can join me, if you want. We can see what’s left of the world together.”

Then his hand departed, and I felt cold like I’d been sitting in a rainstorm.

Without speaking one more word, we closed up the secret passageway to the hidden art gallery. I went back to Papa’s store—where I hadn’t been missed, not at all—while Malachi went back home.

The migrants continued to walk through Baroque’s dusty streets. I watched them all, studying them, and wondered why they were so brave and I wasn’t.

I touched the place where my mother’s heart-shaped locket sat underneath my dress.

If I took the gold piece out now, I could barter with someone in moments. I could gain enough supplies to start a journey of my own wherever my feet could take me. I wouldn’t even need Malachi’s help to leave Baroque.

But my hand fell away. If the world was really dying, I didn’t think I wanted to see it.

I could survive on glimpses of hidden art in-between the mundane quality of this life.

I could survive, period.

But was that the kind of life worth living?

Did I dare reach for something more?

Did I dare to take Malachi’s offer—and his hand?

Did I dare take the dusty road out of Baroque for good?

Did I dare to actually live?

A dying little town or a dying world?

I closed my eyes.

The answer was simpler than I allowed myself to believe.