GA Writing Prompts - 22. # 85 'Treasure Dome'

‘Treasure Dome’

by

Dolores Esteban

I inherited the shop from my uncle. He died at the age of ninety-one and he had run the shop for sixty-two years. So the name ‘Everything Old’ was quite fitting to the shop. I was his only relative and that was why I inherited the shop. But, honestly, I was not happy about it. I had visited my uncle and his shop once or twice a year and the visits had always left me feeling drained and depressed. The room was dark and small. The air was stifled and the dusty shelves were cluttered with trinkets and books. Just the thought of clearing out the shop made me feel sick.

I went there on a Saturday morning. I stood, feeling petrified, and gazed at the clutter. I did not know where to begin. Perhaps it was best to buy a few dozens of garbage bags and take the whole trash out. I felt guilty, however. I thought of my Uncle Robert who had devoted his life to this shop. I found he deserved a little respect. So, reluctantly, I started to look through the clutter. I piled up things and stuffed other things into garbage bags. I packed books into boxes and carried bigger items out of the shop. I worked until late in the evening and I felt totally exhausted. But when I looked around in the shop I found that it looked unchanged, as if I had not moved anything. I felt totally depressed at the sight.

I sat down on a wooden box and gazed into the room. I decided to read the newspaper the following day and check if someone was offering clear-out services. I was not able to do it alone. Almost absent-mindedly, I picked up a book from the floor. It was old. The cover was tattered and the pages were starting to fall out. I opened the book and looked at the yellowed pages. It seemed to me as if I smelled the dust of centuries, which could well be as my uncle had bought the shop from an old man who had also run the shop for decades. The smell was everywhere in the shop. It did not only come from the tattered book in my hands. I was certain I would develop a house-dust allergy. I looked at the opened pages of the book. They were covered with letters written in ink that had already started to fade.

I held the book in front of my eyes and had a closer look. Was this a hand-written diary or was it a cook recipe book? Not that I had a real interest in finding out. I was just too tired to rise to my feet and leave the shop and go home. I yawned as I gazed at the hand-written letters. I found they were hard to read and I did not really feel like trying. I turned the pages until I saw a drawing that I found looked like the treasure maps that I had seen in old pirate movies. I looked at the drawing and read Jerome’s notes, and then I realized that the drawing was the ground plan of the shop. I instantly felt less tired and my curiosity was raised.

I opened the first page of the book and started to read. A certain Jerome de Sale had started to write the book in 1792. That was why the letters were hard to read. The hand-writing back then was very different and more so were spelling and grammar. However, with a little concentration, I was able to figure out the meaning of the sentences. When I had finished Jerome’s introduction, I rose to my feet and shut the door and the single window of the room. I shut the curtains and lit a candle – there were plenty of them in the shop, luckily – and then turned off the light. I sat down on the floor on some kind of patchwork rug and placed a water bottle beside me. I sat behind an oriental room-divider. This made me feel safe and secure, at least safe enough to continue with reading Jerome’s mysterious notes.

I learned that Jerome de Sale was the first owner of the shop ‘Everything Old’. The entire house had in fact belonged to him. He had built it in 1791. He had opened the shop in the following year. I understood that Jerome was a wealthy bachelor. He had a man servant and a cook. However, they did not live with him. Jerome had paid an extraordinary high price for the piece of ground on which he had built the house. He lamented and ranted on this, but I soon understood why he had paid the price.

In a roundabout way and quite mysteriously, Jerome described the shop and the reason why he had opened it until he finally came straight to the point. The room had a hidden basement and in this basement was a hidden door that led to an underground corridor. This corridor led to what Jerome called his ‘treasure dome’. I had no idea what he meant by this expression and he gave no further explanations at first. I suspected it was an underground room that was filled with treasures.

Jerome wrote that the corridor had been built in previous times as an escape route. A castle had stood on the ground in the 16th century. The corridor was designed as an evacuation route for the earl, his wife, and his children in case of besiegement. The castle, however, burned down in the beginning of the 17th century. A park replaced the remainders of the castle some decades later. Jerome de Sale, a passionate treasure seeker from childhood on, found out about the meanwhile forgotten corridor. I understood he had found two old manuscripts that mentioned the corridor. His curiosity raised, he started to dig deeper and in fact managed to seize a ground plan of the old castle. Of course, the escape route was not marked on the plan. Jerome, a man in his forties, however, had spent two decades on investigating and hunting treasures. He knew how to read old maps and ground plans and he was able to locate the entrance to the old corridor.

The corridor began in the basement of the castle. The place, however, was meanwhile covered with a lawn. Jerome saw no way to dig a hole in the park without attracting attention and raise suspicions. That was why he bought the piece of ground and built his house on it. The house was built only a short distance from where the entrance of the old corridor was. As soon as he had moved in, Jerome started to dig in the basement. He found the entrance to the corridor exactly in the place where he had located it on the map. Jerome found that the corridor was passable. The builders had driven a safe tunnel. Jerome waited several days until the air had changed or had at least grown better. Then, equipped with a torch, a rope, a spade and other tools, he set out to explore the tunnel. The paragraph describing his explorations was short. Jerome came straight to the point. The tunnel led to a room that he called his ‘treasure dome’.

He found gold and silver coins and plenty of trinkets that he later sold in his shop. He opened the shop a few weeks after he had discovered the hidden room. He claimed to deal with trinkets that he got from clearing out attics and basements in the surrounding towns. His explanations must have been satisfactory. According to Jerome’s notes, nobody became suspicious.

Jerome’s story sounded like some weird story of a treasure hunter and I probably would have lost interest soon, had not my Uncle Robert once told me that he knew where to get treasures and trinkets for free. I then had thought of old and dusty attics and cluttered basements. But now that I read Jerome’s notes, I remembered that my uncle had used Jerome’s very expression ‘treasure dome’. I guessed that my uncle had found Jerome’s secret place. He probably had found Jerome’s notes. There were only two pages left in Jerome’s book, but they revealed nothing of interest anymore. I put down the book and I was pondering.

The secret room apparently was large and was still filled with goods and trinkets. Had it been the treasure room of the castle? The tunnel led from the shop to the treasure room. Was there another corridor leading away from the secret room? Jerome had not mentioned another tunnel. After all, I had understood the tunnel had been planned as an escape route. Where did this other tunnel end? Had nobody found that other corridor? Apparently not. According to my uncle’s remark, the room was still filled with trinkets. Had the other corridor collapsed perhaps? I was thinking. And then I found that the other corridor did not really matter. What mattered more was the corridor that led from the shop to the treasure room. My uncle had found it and so would I.

It was late at night meanwhile, too late to seek for the entrance to the corridor. I rose to my feet. My limbs were stiff and I felt tired. I left the shop and went home. I returned, however, the following day. Equipped with Jerome’s book, a flashlight and a spade, I descended the stairs to the basement. I studied the ground plan and Jerome’s notes. The basement was divided into six cellar rooms. I followed Jerome’s instructions and opened the door of the smallest cellar room. I switched on the light. The room was empty except of an old wooden shelf on a wall and six potato bags right in front of it. I looked at the shelf. Was it that easy? Was the entrance to the corridor hidden behind the shelf? I could hardly believe it. Then again, my uncle was ninety-one years of age when he died. Pushing the shelf aside had probably already given him a lot of trouble. I suspected that the entrance to the corridor had been hidden more thoroughly in previous decades.

I placed Jerome’s book, the flashlight and the spade on the floor. I pulled the potato bags away from the shelf, and then I pushed the shelf aside. Like I had expected, there was the entrance to the corridor. I felt almost disappointed at the discovery. It was not mysterious at all. It did not give me the shivers. I took up the flashlight and switched it on. I looked into the corridor and then I made a step into the tunnel. The stones of the walls were undressed and rugged. They looked dark, cold, and old. I saw wooden support beams. The construction seemed to be in a good structural order. The tunnel was wide and high enough for a man to walk upright and with ease. I felt perplexed at the sight. However, I found the corridor was not a well-hidden escape route. Perhaps Jerome de Sale had enlarged the tunnel.

I made a few more steps. Then I checked my watch and my pockets. I walked on when I found that I had taken along a lighter and additional batteries. I moved cautiously, lighting my way with the flashlight. The ground was hard and dry. At least I did not slip or slide. I moved on for about ten minutes. Neither the ground nor the walls changed their appearance. I saw more wooden beams. Someone had carefully planned and built this tunnel. So far, I had not seen a turning. The tunnel seemed to lead into one direction only. I moved on, and then finally I came to the end of the tunnel. The corridor opened into a room. I looked up. The walls and the dome-shaped ceiling looked as if they were made of lime stone, a façade cladding probably. The room was also in a good structural order, at least at first sight. I lowered the flashlight and then my heart beat faster. I saw chests and wooden boxes all over on the floor. They were opened and someone had sprawled their contents on the floor. The entire floor was covered with trinkets and items. It was too dark, however, to see what those items were.

I stood motionless with the flashlight in my hand and gazed at the mess. Jerome de Sale and my Uncle Robert and who knows who else - all the shop owners probably - had searched every chest and box. They had taken away what they thought was of use for them. They had sprawled everything else on the floor. The shop owners all were treasure hunters, my Uncle Robert the last in a line. I shook my head slightly. They had plundered the room for two centuries. The room must have contained boundless treasures.

I moved forward slowly. I moved the flashlight from left to right and back. I spotted tattered books, a broken mirror, a torn fabric, a tablecloth perhaps. The items I saw were all broken, torn, or rotten. The plunderers had done a good job. I pointed with my flashlight at a leathery item. I made a step towards it and then I gasped in shock. It was a mummified human limb. I had no doubt of it. My heart beat fast and I suddenly was totally scared. I moved closer anyway. And then I saw more body parts. The entire place was covered with them. They were scattered all over the floor. I saw everywhere leathery looking, mummified human limbs. I felt sick. I gazed at the opening to the corridor. I felt as if someone or something horrible soon would come and enter the room. Sweat covered my forehead, but my hands were cold. And my lips shivered slightly. I forced myself to calm down.

I looked around again. And then I saw the coffins. I counted eleven. But there were probably more. Someone had opened them all and had stolen what had been inside of them. The grave robbers had pulled the dead and mummified bodies out and had torn them. They had scattered the limbs all over the floor. I retreated to the opening of the corridor. Who had desecrated the coffins of the dead? Jerome de Sale? Uncle Robert? Someone else?

I entered the corridor. I cast one last glance back at the room that I now knew was a burial crypt. And then I turned around and fled the place. I hurried back, stumbling over my feet. Jerome de Sale had discovered the burial crypt of the old castle. He had plundered it. He had called it his ‘treasure dome’. He was perverted and abnormal. I felt disgusted. And what about my Uncle Robert? I felt terribly sick. I finally reached the basement of the shop. I collected the spade and Jerome’s book, and then I hurried upstairs.

I confided my discovery to a good friend. He knew a trustworthy man who bricked up the opening to the corridor without asking questions. My friend and I cleared out the shop. We threw everything in the garbage. The man renovated the shop and the basement. He whitewashed and painted the walls and the ceilings and he laid the floors. I sold the shop a month later to a middle-aged woman who planned to sell esoteric stuff like pendulums, rune cards and the like. I was not really interested. I just wanted to get away from the shop and the place and I wanted to leave behind my mental image of the ‘treasure dome’. I was not able to fully forget the image, but the memory luckily grew less horrible and haunting as the years went by. But I would always remember the name of the store. ‘Everything Old’ had been in fact a special kind of shop.