In the previous chapter Inge followed the cat and talked to a gypsy woman about the misbehaving of her pet. When the woman didn’t take her serious, she told her that she would have the cat removed by the animal shelter’s service.

*****

Obviously the woman had taken her words seriously because the days after, the cat didn’t appear. That pleased her, and she was thinking about adopting a dog from the shelter. Then Peter came home from work and he told her he had to accompany the General again. So, she would be alone during some days.

She passed the time with whatever she felt like at that moment. After some days her phone rang. As a matter of fact, the phone call woke her up. A woman’s voice laughed with perverse delight when she said: *I can see your husband here, right now… with a blonde…; the same blonde as some weeks ago. Did you know he’s being unfaithful to you?*

Inge felt if though they had emptied a bucket of cold water on her, but something made her answer without sounding altered: “I don’t mind; it’s a deal we made when we got married. We would leave each other free in certain aspects.”
The woman’s voice sounded less ‘happy’ when she said *Oh well, then I am not telling you anything new, I suppose!* *click*

Inge needed some fresh air. She sat on the bench in the garden and thought of the times when she was still dating Peter. At that time he had to go away for a few days as well, and also, that was the time he had received an anonymous letter. He had shown it to her afterwards. A letter in which someone told him that Inge was being unfaithful. She thought about it. Peter knew she had never been unfaithful to him. That was why she didn’t pay much attention to gossipy people.
When he called her that afternoon, she told him about the strange call, and he said that it wasn’t at all true. So she believed him. Next day the postman delivered a package with a small card attached to it written by her husband: ‘to my beloved wife’. The gift was an expensive stereo system.

She let her head sink in her hands…. He shouldn’t have done that! It was if though he was begging her for pardon. She felt awful and didn’t know for sure what to do.

She knew she needed fresh air…, lots of it. She started walking without really noticing where she was going. She walked for over two hours and started to feel tired. Her throat was dry and she felt quite stupid not bringing some water with her.

Then she heard someone humming. It came from behind a hedge. Looking over the hedge she saw an elderly woman attending a very beautiful little garden. The woman looked up when she noticed she was being observed, and walked over to the hedge. –“Good afternoon, can I help you?”

– “Good afternoon madam. I heard you humming and couldn’t help seeing this beautiful garden of yours. It’s extraordinary. I wish I was as skilled as you are.”
– “Don’t you want to come inside my dear? You are not from around here, are you?”
– “No, you’re right. I have been walking for over two hours and forgot to bring some water with me. Now I’m very thirsty.”

– “Oh dear; sit down on the bench. I’ll fetch you a glass of water… or would you rather have a tea or coffee?”
– “No…, water will be fine, thank you.”
– “Here you are honey.”
– “Oh thank you, and please…, call me Inge. My name is Ingrid Brancher but everybody calls me Inge.”

– “Alright then Inge, my name is Melissa Newman, but you may call me Mel.”
Hearing that, Inge choked on her water and coughed….
– “What’s the matter Inge? Take a deep breath…! Yes, you must have been thirsty!”
– “No, it wasn’t because of that but… are you really Melissa Newman?”
Mel smiled at her and said:  – “I didn’t know I was that famous. Why are you asking?”
Inge told her where she lived, and that they had found her diary. She also told her she had visited Mr. and Mrs. Tumbledor’s tombstones.
– “I always kept thinking of what could have happened to you and your husband because the diary ended very abrupt.”

Mel Newman nodded: – “Yes, you may say so! It was just because of… but, come inside Inge, it’s getting pretty cold out here… or maybe it’s just that I am feeling cold when I remember those horrible days inside that basement. We weren’t even aware it existed in our garden.”

Once inside, Mel prepared them a coffee and told Inge how things went from the last unfinished sentence in her diary.
– “It happened about twenty years ago, but I remember it as if it was yesterday. You already know what happened because you read the diary, you say…. Did you read all of it?”
– “Yes Mel…; I read up to the point where you interrupted that sentence you were writing.”
Melissa Newman drank a little from her coffee…, took a deep breath and started talking.

“As a matter of fact…, we’ve been lucky after all!  We didn’t expect that we would fall through a hole in the garden. We didn’t even know there was a basement. It was pure coincidence or luck if you want to call it that we had a lot of fruit with us. I had been collecting the fruit shortly before it all happened and now I thank providence that John used to be so forgetful in some matters. The day before he went out to get some groceries and simply forgot to put them away. It was such a relieve having all this food with us when we realized there was no way out of that basement. We knew we needed to be careful and use the food sparsely so there would be enough to survive on for some time. You know…, we never lost hope and prayed that someone would come to rescue us eventually.”

Mel started pacing the room and continued her story.
“That horrible man came by every day, and put the ladder in there. Then he changed into a cat and used the basement as his litter box, did all his necessities in the basement. The stench was horrific and I didn’t have any water to clean up after it. After making fun of us again, he changed back into a man and got out, taking the ladder with him. That was what he used to do….
When I wrote in that diary a last time, we didn’t have any more food and I suppose you could read in between the lines we assumed that we were going to die in that basement.

But then, he, Tehther, came down again and he was laughing like mad; it gave us shivers all over, but halfway the ladder he fell and hurt his ankle. He fainted from the pain….
We didn’t think twice, used the moment, and quickly got out of the basement. That’s why I didn’t finish writing that sentence.
As you can imagine Inge, we didn’t really want to stay in the house after that. We did not want to live in that house where we had been imprisoned. The first thing we did was taking a bath to wash of the stench and the filth, and left the house to go look for another one. We put the house up for sale at a Real Estate Agency. It was only some months ago that it had been sold, which is quite normal considering that everybody in town knew there was something wrong with it.”

Mel looked at Inge with tears in her eyes and said:  – “So it was you who bought the house!”
Inge nodded and affirmed:  – “Yes, my mom bought it through the Internet. It was her wedding gift. We had it cleaned by a Cleaning Service and that’s how we discovered the basement in the garden. I suppose we have to be thankful for that because that cat keeps running around the place…! Although I went to see that gypsy woman and told her that if her cat would come back to destroy our garden furniture, we would call the animal rescue center to have him taken away. I haven’t seen that cat now since several days.
Eh…, may I ask you what happened to Mr. Newman?”

Mel’s face darkened a bit with sorrow: – “About one year after finding this house, he died. It was his heart. Since that horrible experience he never became to be the same.”
– “Oh…, I’m so sorry to hear that. You must feel very lonesome now.”
– “Yes, that’s true, but I’m really glad he didn’t die in that basement. As for me…, well I have this nice garden to take care off. And I often dream about my husband and it feels as if he is still here with me….

O dear, look it’s getting dark! I think we have to order a taxi for you to go home!”
– “Yes, I wouldn’t like to walk all the way back in the dark. Would you mind if I pay you a visit now and again? I’m so pleased you managed to get out of that hole!”
– “Please, do visit me again my dear! And I would love to see you here when you have a baby. I adore children!”

Inge smiled and promised to visit her again. Then she said her goodbyes and took a taxi to drive home.

To be continued….