This story first appeared in the 2025 New Orleans conzine.

Author’s Note: Sometimes a story is written that affects me deeply. One such was written in the past year. Without going into the particulars, I want to say that I loved it and thank the writer for it, but felt a cry in my heart for a kind of sequel. This story is the result.

* * * * *

“…and that’s the story of my first Winterfest.” The old man took off his glasses to polish them as his rapt audience broke into applause, not in the least disturbed by the librarian trying to hush them as she passed. The smile on her face indicated she was only doing it for show. Mr. Eric’s story time was one of the best-attended of the week, and leeway was granted.

Winston, a tall, strapping teen who looked as if he would be happier shooting baskets on a nearby court, jumped up from the floor near Mr. Eric’s feet. He was a returning member of the ever-growing audience for Tales of the Tunnels, as Mr. Eric called them. “Let me help you, sir.” He held out a steadying arm.

One shaky hand latched onto Winston’s forearm and Mr. Eric, frail and bent, slowly rose from the leather chair in which he had been sitting. “Thank you, young Winston. You are kind.”

Maria, Winston’s girlfriend, stood and took Mr. Eric’s other arm. “We love hearing your stories,” she said shyly, looking down into his wrinkled face. “They seem so real when you tell them.”

Mr. Eric smiled and nodded. “But they are real, my dear! To me, at least.”

The two teens waited patiently while others from the gathering spoke to Mr. Eric. He was quite the celebrity in the library, his story times bringing many in who otherwise might never cross its threshold, and his stories seemed to invite others’ remembrances of times past, which they shared with him. When the crowd finally melted away, Winston said, “We’ll help you home.”

This was his usual offer but, unusually, Mr. Eric shook his head. “Just down the stairs would be enough, but thank you. Today is a special day, and I’m not going straight home.”

“What’s special about this Saturday?” Maria asked as she and Winston helped Mr. Eric gingerly negotiate the stone stairs.

“Eh, what?”

She repeated her question.

“Why, didn’t you hear my story? Today is – or would have been – Winterfest!”

Winston and Maria exchanged a look over Mr. Eric’s head. “But it’s just a story, sir,” Winston reminded him gently.

“What? Oh…yes, yes, I know, I know.” Mr. Eric patted Winston’s shoulder after descending the last step to the sidewalk. “Help me get a cab, would you? Then you two go have fun on this lovely winter day!”

The cab procured, Winston helped Mr. Eric into it, and heard him ask for Central Park before the door closed. As the cab pulled away from the curb, he waved to the old man while saying to Maria, “Central Park is pretty big. Should we follow him, make sure he doesn’t get lost? He’s so unsteady on his feet, he can’t walk far, and who knows if anyone would help him?”

Maria held out a hand, and they soon were laughing over repeating the old movie line, “Follow that cab!”

* * *

Mr. Eric was slowly but resolutely making his way into the Park when their cab pulled up. They followed him at a little distance, not wanting to upset him, just watching to ensure he would be all right.

He stepped surely in a particular direction that, in Winston’s memory of the Park, didn’t lead anywhere specific. Puzzled, he and Maria exchanged looks. When Mr. Eric vanished from sight, they waited a moment, then stepped through the heavy foliage into which he had disappeared.

He was gone.

Before them was a drainage tunnel. There was nothing else around but trees and bushes. Since they heard no rustling, they both surmised that Mr. Eric had gone into the tunnel…which seemed so odd to them, they exchanged another look. But Maria’s confusion cleared first as she recalled the name of his story time. “‘Tales of the Tunnels.’ Well, there’s a tunnel, right?”

Winston stared at her in disbelief. “Those are just stories! And that’s really just a drainage pipe!”

“Well, he had to go somewhere, and he didn’t go left or right so…” Not knowing what else to do, she stepped forward and entered the tunnel into which the drainage ditch vanished. Winston reluctantly followed.

As soon as they entered, they heard the snick of a metal door closing. Winston turned on the flashlight feature of his cell phone, and they saw footprints in the soil in front of a solid metal door. Mr. Eric was not in front of it, but his footprints indicated he had been there mere moments before.

Maria shoved at the door. It didn’t budge. There was no handle or latch, so she began searching for a lever of some sort. She felt all around the door as Winston cast light on various sections of wall where it met the metal. “There!”

Maria looked up to see the smallest of indentations in the rock, something she normally wouldn’t have looked at twice had she not felt around the entire door already. It was the only anomaly. She raised her hand and let her fingers cover the indentation, then pressed into it. That same snick of metal sounded as earlier, and the door unlatched. She looked at Winston. He shrugged.

Pulling out her own cell phone, she let her flashlight feature reveal the unlit interior.

It was difficult to see very far inside. The only illumination was the weak sunlight barely filtering in from outside, and their cell phone flashlights. Maria turned hers off. “Might as well save my battery if we’re going in together. We are going, right?”

Winston nodded. “Do you smell that?”

She sniffed. “Smells like a match was lit recently.”

“Mr. Eric doesn’t have a cell phone. But he came prepared with…maybe a candle?”

Nodding, she said, “Let’s follow his footprints. They look like the only ones, so it shouldn’t be hard.”

Soon they could see a weak light glimmering ahead of them. Whispering, Winston said, “Let’s fall back a bit. Don’t want him hearing us.”

She smirked. “He’s nearly deaf…but OK!”

They gazed around. They were in a tunnel, all right, one that was leading them downward. The rock walls were not oppressive, however, which surprised Winston. There was an aura of spaciousness and…peacefulness. He wondered if Mr. Eric had found this place and it had inspired the stories he made up.

As they continued downward, Maria noted, “I’ve never seen Mr. Eric walk this far. And he’s going at a pretty good pace, too.”

Winston frowned at the realization. How odd. The old man seemed to dodder at the library, but his pace was not leisurely here below the… Below! That’s what Mr. Eric sometimes called the place he referred to as his home in the tunnels. Well, this certainly did seem “below” – below the Park, below the city streets…below. Muttering, “If Below is real, I wonder what else is,” he picked up his own pace, closing on Mr. Eric.

Before they reached the old man, he disappeared into an opening in the rockface. They approached the gap with care and peeked around its edge. It led into a seemingly cavernous space. They entered and found that the passageway here was no longer within a tunnel; they were walking along a footpath that hugged the edge of a…cliffside? When Winston aimed his flashlight on their surroundings, they saw that there were several barely visible levels below and above them. “What the heck?”

“Where are we?” Maria wondered aloud.

“He’s turning into another gap in the rocks.” Winston picked up his pace. If they lost him amidst these passages, they might never find him again.

Hurrying, they veered into the tunnel without looking into it first.

Mr. Eric was standing there, arms crossed, waiting for them.

“You don’t sneak very sneakily,” he observed, a wry smile on his wrinkled countenance.

“Well, you’re hard of hearing, so we thought we were safe,” Winston said, smiling apologetically.

“I am, am I?” Mr. Eric chuckled. “People see what they want to see. What we make them see.” He shook his head. “Well, come on then. You’ve traveled this far, you might as well tag along the rest of the way.” He reached for an unlit torch lying against the rockface and, using his candle, lit it. Immediately they had enough light to see a long way down the corridor.

“Save your batteries. Follow me.” Mr. Eric turned and walked with a fairly sprightly step ahead of them. Another look passed between the youngsters, chagrin on both their faces. What had happened to the little old guy who could barely stand without help, who needed assistance getting down the library’s stairs…

The passage was straight, no further downward tilt, making their next few minutes’ walk quite easy, which allowed the young ones to look around, taking in the number of openings and the dark spaces beyond them.

“Those are individual chambers,” Mr. Eric said. “You’ll recall I spoke of the one I lived in while Below. It was quite a ways from here, nearer the Hub…where most of the community lived.” He looked back at them, smiling at their surprise. “Yes, it was all true, every word.” He faced forward again. “Where we’re going isn’t the Hub though. As I mentioned, it’s Winterfest today, so we’re heading for the Great Hall.”

“That’s where you held the big Winterfest gatherings…with…with your helpers?” Maria was recalling his story.

“Right! Back then that huge cavern held a couple hundred people, and there was music and food and magic and dancing and…” He stopped speaking, his voice having choked a bit on the last words. “So I like to visit it on these anniversaries, just to remember.”

“I’m glad we’re with you then,” Maria said. “So you aren’t alone with your memories.”

Mr. Eric looked over at her. “What a lovely thought.” He smiled, getting misty-eyed. “My sister Ellie would have liked you. She was always thinking of others, too.”

As they approached a large staircase, the elderly man warned, “Careful of the winds, they pack a wallop. You want to stay close to the wall since there’s no railing.”

Winston couldn’t believe how strong the breeze was that kicked up once they had started their descent. Again, he marveled that Mr. Eric seemed able to withstand the buffeting without assistance.

They got to a set of massive wooden doors, where they stopped. The doors were standing open, pushed back nearly to the inner walls. “Once I realized I was close to the time I couldn’t open these by myself, I made sure they stayed open. There are metal rings in the interior walls and I chained the doors to them. It makes the cavernous space quite chilly and windblown, but I had little choice if I wanted to continue coming here.”

Inside, the wind wasn’t as strong, but it still blew through. Maria was glad it was winter so she was wearing her warmest coat.

Mr. Eric walked through the vast space, his torch lighting tantalizing glimpses of the walls, the stacked tables, the cozy alcoves. Then he climbed…unassisted…up an interior staircase to illuminate incredible wall hangings on a surrounding balcony.

“Wow.” Winston was gobsmacked. The reality of the place made him begin to believe in the reality of the community that Mr. Eric said had once inhabited it. But…perhaps the old man had merely stumbled upon these passageways and caverns? He could still have manufactured the stories about inhabitants – some of them quite unbelievable, when you got right down to it. A genius boy named Mouse. A lion-faced man. A candlemaker supplying light to the entire community. It was a lot to buy into, even now that he was standing in this huge space…that had wall hangings and tables…

“You don’t quite believe me yet, do you, my boy?” Mr. Eric shook his head, smiling, and descended the stairs. “Come. I’ll show you someplace else that’s special. I don’t usually go that far on visits like this, but for you two, I will make an exception. First, however…”

He reached behind a stack of tables and extracted a bottle. Maria’s eyes grew wide as she realized it was a very expensive one.

“That’s hard to find…and pricey,” she said. “Sure you want to share it?”

“You aren’t quite old enough to drink yet, are you?” He watched them shake their heads. “Ah, well. Still, I’d rather not drink alone, so…just this once.” He eyed the contents. “Not much left anyway. I’ll have to bring a new bottle next time.”

After opening the whiskey, he took a moment to breathe in its aroma. Then, nodding, he held it out. “Ladies first.”

Maria quirked her head at such an old-fashioned sentiment.

“Humor me. I’m as much of an antique as those wall hangings.”

She chuckled and nodded, reaching for the bottle. She took a tentative sip, then let the liquid sit on her tongue for a moment. Her eyes widened and she swallowed. “That’s good!”

“Don’t I know it,” the old man said. “Winston?”

The younger man took a nip and swallowed it quickly, then nearly coughed at the burning feeling that ensued. “Whoa!” He handed the bottle back, satisfied with just one taste.

Mr. Eric stood for a moment with his eyes closed. Maria wondered if he was searching for the faint sounds of an orchestra, or the murmur of conversation, or the sound of many feet dancing on stone… Tears slipped from his eyes but his smile grew as he stood there. Finally, he took a healthy slug of the whiskey, draining the contents. When it was empty, he held the bottle high. “Happy Winterfest!” he crowed.

The youngsters looked at each other and said in tandem, “Happy Winterfest!”

Mr. Eric stood the empty bottle on the floor and straightened. “Come along. In for a penny…”

They exited the Great Hall the same way they had come in, but he turned them in the opposite direction once they reached the top of the stairs. They walked for what seemed like a mile, this time Winston carrying the torch. Mr. Eric told them that what they were seeing had been viewed by only his eyes for nearly twenty-five years, since the community had disbanded, lives intersecting back Above, the need for this refuge diminished while the ability to keep it secret had also diminished.

“The man with the face of a lion, he was real.” Mr. Eric stopped to rest for a moment – the first time he’d seemed to need to. “This place protected him, as I said in my stories. But after he passed away…” His eyes blurred with tears, and they fell hot and fast, even as he kept speaking. “Anyway, the need for this place was no longer so great then, and once the oldest ones, those set in their ways, died, the younger ones had no compelling reason to stay. We all left. We had our memories, and we kept in touch with each other once we were Above, but this place stayed alive only in our hearts.”

He began walking again. “We sealed most of the entrance points, but left one or two for emergencies, for retreat in times of trouble that never came.” He stopped before turning a corner. “I’m the last one. The last of the last.” He slipped around the corner then, and they entered a chamber that was gained by descending a short set of steps. It was filled with books. A huge desk sat in one corner.

“Father’s Library,” he said. “We kept it as he’d had it. I don’t know why, really. We could have used the space, at least at first. But gradually, as our numbers thinned, it was just a nice place for our oldest to come and sit and reminisce.” He indicated the chess board. “The pieces are around someplace, probably in a drawer. Vincent did clean the desk out after Father passed. Catherine organized the papers they found there. We found some interesting things.” He smiled sadly, his mind a million miles in the past. Then he seemed to waken to the present. “A story for another day. Anyway, there was plenty of room in that desk after that.”

Winston walked among the stacks. Dust covered things, but it was dry and cool this far Below, and the books had held up remarkably well. “It’d be nice to get this place cleaned up and useful again,” he murmured.

Maria nodded. “Can we see more? Or are you too tired, Mr. Eric? You’ve been on your feet a long time.”

“I could rest right here while you two take a tour yourselves. Just keep going in a big circle and you’ll get right back to this place. There’s more to the Hub, of course, but that’d take you to lots of interesting places.”

“You sure you’ll be OK alone?”

Mr. Eric nodded. “After twenty-five years, I’m sure.” He lit a couple of candles so that Winston could take the torch.

The youngsters ran up the steps and turned as instructed. They were gone for an hour, rushing from chamber to chamber, wondering what they might have contained. They marveled at the big pond that Maria remembered was called the Mirror Pool, and were surprised to see a stout wooden door blocking one chamber that they peeked into, surmising it was the lion-faced man’s bedroom when they caught sight of a gorgeous painting of him with a woman in a long ruby-colored gown.

They wanted to take a longer look around but felt Mr. Eric’s energy might be flagging, so returned to the library. Finding him dozing in a chair, they crept through the chamber for a while, poking around and enjoying the serenity of the place.

“Seen enough?”

They turned to find Mr. Eric standing tall. He blew out the candles. “I’ll show you out.”

They returned to the Park entrance with him, peppering him with questions the whole way. He made an effort to keep up with their pace and their queries, but was obviously extremely tired once they got back to the street. Realizing he truly was exhausted, they felt awful for having worn him out so badly.

“We’ll get you home,” Maria said, insisting when he tried to refuse. “It’s the least we can do after such a magical afternoon.”

Winston took the old man’s arm – he really did need assistance by this time – and stayed with him through the cab ride and right to his door. Maria opened it for Mr. Eric, and he let out a deep sigh of relief as he entered his apartment.

He turned to gaze up at them. “I never thought I’d say this but…thank you for following me and learning my secret. I feel it’s safe with you two.”

“It is,” promised Winston.

The old man nodded and shut his door.

They walked in silence from Mr. Eric’s apartment building to the subway, each lost in thought. Finally, Maria said, “We’re going back, right?”

“Absolutely!” Winston’s brown eyes looked beyond her. He was back in the Tunnels in his head. “Exploring that place will be amazing! And really, it’s so nice down there…”

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, her enthusiasm matching his. “We could move down there, maybe for the summer.”

He nodded. “We can bring down whatever furniture we might want late at night…if we even have to. That lion-man’s chamber looked pretty complete.”

“And we’ll check the kitchen area, see what we’d need to make it usable.”

“Find a way to get more light down there…”

The subway came and soon they were on their way home, making plans.

Who knows, maybe more Tales of the Tunnels would one day be told? For what is past is prologue…*

Shakespeare really did know everything.

______________

*From The Tempest, by William Shakespeare.