Chapter 11: The Key

“How’d you manage that?” I asked, taking the corded key from around her neck.

She waved her paw. “Rufus underestimates me sometimes. Actually, all the time.”

“You’re very clever, for an opossum.”

Yvette’s nose wrinkled in disdain. Her tiny teeth popped out. “For an opossum?”

“All the opossums I’ve ever met weren’t half as clever as you,” I hastily added.

“That’s because I’m a magically-created opossum. Rufus probably never expected me to find out where he hides his spare keys, but I did and here I am with one. Serves him right for thinking I’m just a dumb rodent.”

I smiled. “What time does Rufus usually go to bed?”

Yvette flicked her ears. “He’s a night owl. If you’re thinking of sneaking out, I’d wait a few hours. He’s in the laboratory now.”

“Good to know,” I said. “Because I have to get back there.”

“What for?” Yvette asked. “You left your gloves down there, by the way.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “But that’s not what I’m after. I want to see if I can use his Chimbrelis to get back home.”

Yvette laughed. “You better not get caught doing that.”

“I won’t, as long as you’re my lookout,” I said.

Her eyes glittered. “Not only will I be your lookout, but I’ll tell you what his Chimbrelis’s password is.”

I was so excited, I hugged her and almost accidentally squished her. “You’re a true friend, Yvette!”

“Don’t mention it,” she said, smoothing out her fur. “We pathetic, unmagical imbeciles have to stick together.”

We passed the time playing an old board game we found in the bedroom closet called Runaway Rabbits and wondered who it could have belonged to since it’s a children’s game. I snorted at the thought of a child Rufus playing it.

Each player gets a white, flat marble “rabbit” that gets moved around the board. You take turns rolling the dice to see how many spaces you move your rabbit. The board has a bunch of obstacles, like A fox chases you, Lost in the forest, or Stop to eat some clover, so you miss turns or jump ahead. Whoever moves their rabbit to the hutch at the end of the board first wins.

After four rounds of Runaway Rabbits, Yvette scooted across the floor and put her ear to the wall. She motioned for me to stay silent.

“I just heard him shut his bedroom door,” she finally said. “He usually falls asleep soon after he goes to bed, especially if he’s been doing magic. We’ll hear him snoring.”

About fifteen minutes later, we heard Rufus’s snores from down the hallway. We unlocked the door and stepped into the pitch-black hall.

Our biggest problem was that neither of us had anything to light the way. It was no problem for Yvette, who had good night vision. But I stumbled along the whole way down. A least it was too dark for me to see any other weird things Rufus probably kept in his house.

One of the times, I missed a stair and came down with all my weight on one foot. It made a clomp that echoed so loudly, we had to stand still as statues and hold out breath until we were sure Rufus hadn’t woken up.

Then I accidentally stepped on Yvette’s tail. She screeched. For the second time, we kept absolutely still until we knew we hadn’t been caught. Finally, we arrived at the basement door.

“You know, I’m still not going to be able to see anything,” I whispered.

“I guess we should have thought of that earlier,” Yvette whispered back. “It’s too late now; we’re already here. Pick me up and I’ll open the door, just in case.”

I did as she asked. “What do you mean by that?”

“I’m not sure if Rufus put a spell on the door or not,” she said. “It’s safer for me to check because I think I’m immune to magic.”

I frowned in the darkness. “You think? You mean you’re not sure?”

“Rufus has hurled a bunch of curses at me since we met,” she said. “None of them have stuck.”

“What if they were fake curses?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t think he’d waste his time with that,” Yvette said. “He’d make it be the real thing.”

The door squeaked open. Stale basement odor wafted by.

“He didn’t even lock it?” I said. “He’s got to be one of the most negligent magic-users I’ve ever met. Addison would never let me snoop around.”

“He doesn’t take precautions half the time because he still acts like he lives alone even though I’ve been here for months and he thinks I’m too stupid to figure things out. And he also didn’t count on you breaking out of your room,” Yvette said.

She leaped down. “Just stick your fingertip right over the threshold. You’ll know right away if it’s okay for you to go in.”

I cringed. “What happens if it isn’t okay?”

Yvette tapped her paw on the floor. “You’ll probably just get zapped or something. I don’t think it’ll be deadly.”

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The familiar hot and cold feeling washed over me. I slowly brought my finger to the edge of the door’s threshold. The basement’s darkness loomed in front of me like an infinite void. A lone cricket chirped somewhere down in the gloom.

What if my finger got blown off? Or my entire hand?

“Go ahead,” Yvette said. “We can’t stand here all night.”

“Don’t rush me!” I said, startled. “I don’t want to get my hand killed.”

“You’re taking too long,” she said. “We have things to do.”

Again, I raised my finger to the edge.

Yvette jumped up and smacked my hand. I lurched forward, narrowly missing the top step. I only grabbed the banister by accident because I fell onto it.

Then I slammed down on a stair and cracked my shin. Tears sprang to my eyes as I stifled a scream.

Yvette scampered to where I knelt. “Sorry about that, are you okay?”

“I can’t believe you did that. My shin is killing me.”

“Well, it’s better than getting your whole body killed,” Yvette said.

“Thanks for your sympathy.”

She shrugged. “I’m just trying to be practical.”

“I could’ve fallen all the way down the stairs,” I said.

“But you didn’t, and you were going to take all night. Do you want to get to the Chimbrelis or not?”

“Yeah,” I scowled.

“Then let’s get to it. Unless you want me to help you down the rest of the way?”

“No, that’s okay,” I said, jumping to my feet. Nothing like tough love from an opossum to get your behind in gear.

Yvette climbed up on my shoulder and acted as guide as we descended to the bottom of the stairs. We did this without any further mishaps.

“I wish we could get that coluire globe to work,” I said.

“I know how to do it,” Yvette said. “But it won’t turn on.”

“That’s not helpful.”

“Hey, I got us out of your room and down here, didn’t I? Give me some credit.”

“Sorry,” I sighed. “This has been really stressful and I thought I was going to get killed back there on the stairs.”

“Let’s get to the Chimbrelis. We need to be extra careful not to make any noise,” Yvette said. “I’ll tell you where to step.”

My vision was only a little better than when we stood at the top of the stairs. I didn’t like not being able to see, but I was more afraid of a zombie lumbering out of nowhere to eat us alive than making too much noise-- a rotting, moaning, drooling, stinky undead person with greenish-purple skin falling off and intestines hanging out and no teeth, staggering after us in slow, endless circles around Rufus’s stone table until we were turned into zombies too.

I tried not to think of the possibility of a speedy zombie. That would be even worse.

The Chimbrelis came into view right in front of us. I could barely see the carved claw feet of the pedestal.

“Here we are,” Yvette said. “The password is ‘revenant’. Real imaginative, huh?”

I took a deep breath.

“Hey, who are you going to call, anyway?” interrupted Yvette. “Isn’t Addison still in the hospital?”

“There’s an emergency number,” I said.

“There is?”

“It’s run by a bunch of magic-user volunteers. They know who I am. If anyone can help get me out of here, it’ll be them.”

Just as I was about to speak to the Chimbrelis, a giant blast of light flared in my eyes, as if someone had struck a very large match. Yvette and I were stunned, momentarily blinded.

“Who are you, and what are you doing in this basement?” demanded a woman’s imperious voice.

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