Four Metres by Three

Johnny Ryman lifted a rotting trapdoor in the storeroom of 56 High Street and discovered that his building had a basement.

He had returned to New Norfolk that morning with cleaning supplies, work gloves, and the intention of beginning the slow process of making the shopfront habitable. The storeroom had seemed the logical starting point—clear the debris, assess the space, establish what could be salvaged and what needed removal.

The trapdoor revealed itself when he shifted a pile of collapsed cardboard boxes that the previous tenant had abandoned. The wood was soft with age and moisture, its edges splintered, its iron ring-pull corroded to a colour somewhere between orange and brown. The boards surrounding it showed signs of water damage, suggesting that whatever lay beneath had not been accessed—or maintained—in years.

Johnny had not expected a cellar. The building's documentation made no mention of underground space. The letting agent had said nothing. It was possible, he realised, that no one currently associated with the property even remembered the cellar existed.

He retrieved a torch from his car and returned to the storeroom. The trapdoor lifted with reluctance, groaning against hinges that had fused with rust, releasing a smell of damp earth and long enclosure. A wooden ladder descended into darkness.

The ladder protested his weight with each step, its rungs bowing and creaking in ways that suggested structural failure was more a matter of when than if. Johnny descended slowly, testing each foothold before committing, the torch clamped between his teeth to free both hands for gripping.

The cellar floor met him sooner than expected—perhaps two metres below the storeroom level. He stepped off the ladder onto packed earth and swept the torch beam across his surroundings.

The space measured roughly four metres by three. Stone foundations rose to meet timber joists overhead, the stones slick with moisture that seeped through from the water table. The ceiling hung low enough that Johnny had to stoop slightly, his hair brushing the cobwebbed joists. The air was thick, still, carrying the particular coldness of earth that never saw sunlight.

Something small and fast moved at the edge of the torch beam and disappeared into a crack between stones. Johnny tracked the movement without alarm. Rats, probably. Or skinks seeking the cellar's cool refuge. Either way, evidence of access points he would need to identify and address.

He completed a slow circuit of the space, running his free hand along the stone walls, testing for stability. The foundations were solid despite the damp—built in an era when construction meant permanence rather than economy. The earth floor was uneven but firm. The timber joists above showed no signs of rot, protected perhaps by the building's ventilation or simply by luck.

Four metres by three. Cramped. Damp. Utterly inadequate for storage of anything that valued either space or dryness.

Johnny stood in the centre of the cellar and considered.

A legitimate shopkeeper would have seen a liability. A hole in the ground that would cost money to waterproof or fill, that served no commercial purpose, that represented nothing but maintenance burden and potential structural concern.

Johnny was not a legitimate shopkeeper.

He saw instead the cellar's position—directly beneath the storeroom, accessible through a trapdoor that could be concealed, separated from the retail space by a doorway and a wall. He saw the stone foundations that would muffle sound and maintain temperature. He saw the packed earth floor that could be excavated, the low ceiling that could be raised, the cramped dimensions that could be expanded.

He saw potential.

The realisation settled into him slowly, taking shape like an image emerging in a darkroom tray. This cellar—inadequate as it stood—could become something else. The stone foundations would support concrete walls. The earth floor would yield to shovels and determination. The space that currently measured four metres by three could be expanded, reinforced, equipped with climate control and ventilation and everything else required to house creatures that could not exist in public view.

Johnny climbed back up the ladder, lowered the trapdoor, and sat on the storeroom floor for a long time.

The work would be immense. The secrecy would be absolute. He could tell no one—not his father, not the contractors who would handle the visible renovation, not anyone who might ask questions he could not safely answer.

But the cellar had shown him something he had not known he was looking for. A hidden space beneath an ordinary shopfront. A foundation for dual purposes.