I stepped inside, closed the door and went straight to the bathroom. Cold water blasted into the basin as I turned on the faucet. I bent over and put my hands on the sides of the sink. My stomach was turning over, my head was pounding, my legs felt like they would buckle under me at any moment. I cupped my hands under the tap, filling them. The shock of the icy water on my face began to calm me after the third handful. I readied a cigarette and primed my lighter before straightening and looking at my reflection in the mirror. It had no imperfections, no defects. The end of the cigarette flared orange as I took a long drag. My eyes rolled to the ceiling as I exhaled, then leveled straight into the mirror. I stared into those blue eyes, listening to the blasting water.

"Tell them the truth," I said, holding my own gaze. "You've been waiting all your life to tell the truth."

I took one last drag off the cigarette before dropping it into the full sink. Grabbing the suit jacket off the bedpost, I went back outside to meet her.

"You look nice," she said, leading the way again. "Follow me."

To my surprise, she walked farther down my hallway. No one else had come down this way except me. She pushed open the last door on the left, walked inside and stopped in front of the bathroom door. The room was laid out exactly like mine. She looked at me and reached out to straighten my collar.

"Just be yourself, Evan."

I smiled down at her, more curious about what was in the bathroom than nervous about what to do. She turned around and opened the door.

I could see only a faint glow of light on the floor of the darkened room beyond her. She stepped in and the darkness enveloped her like a dense fog. I went forward and stopped in the doorway. When I looked for her inside I saw only the white collar and cuffs of her robe moving below me. The faint glow I'd seen came from torches mounted on the stone walls of a long, descending staircase. I took a second to let my eyes adjust then stepped down, searching with my left hand for fissures, ledges, and handholds in the old stone masonry of the walls. The brass tip of the cane clicked and echoed downward with each step I took. We descended between seventy-five and one hundred stone steps into the earth into what I assumed must have been an ancient grotto. The ghostly flickering of the last torches beckoned us to the bottom. She held her finger in front of her lips in a motion for me to be quiet as I neared the landing where she stood.