The whispering passageway beckoned.
With nowhere else to go, Irréelle squeezed through the archway she had always made a point to avoid. A moment later, the bats shot by in a frantic storm.
But they could circle back at any moment, sniffing her out with whatever strange senses they possessed. She groped her way past the thick tree root and into the partially collapsed tunnel.
The rustling came closer, grew louder. She flattened herself against the wall and held her breath. From the depths of the tunnel, the draft continued to whisper, like words tangled in a breeze. But she could not focus on that now. Something was just outside the archway, shuffling, sneaking, slowing.
She edged backward, away from the scampering that sounded like a mouse, or maybe something larger, like a rat. One made of dirt and spiderwebs, sent by Miss Vesper to gnaw at her ankles. Irréelle shuddered, pressing into the inky, nightmare black, hoping it hid her completely.
The walls pinched around her, closer and closer the deeper she went.
The whisper came again. Quite close. Quite raspy.
And a hand, most certainly a hand, grabbed her ankle.
She shrieked, tried to twist out of its grasp, but instead lost her balance and fell to her knees. When she hit the ground, she dropped the candle. It rolled out of reach. The wick hissed, and the flame sputtered out.
Irréelle blinked into the absolute darkness.
“Who’s there?” she said. Dirt sprinkled down from the ceiling.
Silence.
And then a voice came low and raspy. “Sorry.” A cough. “Are you hurt?”
Irréelle scooted forward, away from the rusty-hinge voice. It might be another one of Miss Vesper’s creatures, one that spoke softly but had teeth like knives, waiting for her to come close enough so it could snatch her away. Her hands swept the ground. She would find the candle and run, never mind the bats or the rat or whatever it was in the main tunnel.
“Who’s there?” she asked again.
“I’ve been calling to you for such a long time,” the voice said softly. “Have you any light? I’m stuck, you see.” A laugh, low and scratchy, filled the tiny chamber. “Of course, you can’t see. These tunnels are darker than midnight, than a raven’s wing, than sleep.”
Her hands bumped into the candle, wedged in tight next to a rock. She wrenched it free, and it struck her just then who this disembodied voice might belong to. She whipped around to face the voice in the darkness.
It was a boy’s voice gone dry with disuse. Or else hoarse with shouting. “Are you the boy?”
“She called me Boy.”
Of course, Irréelle knew exactly whom “she” referred to. Miss Vesper. Irréelle scrambled over to him, found his hand on the ground. He wrapped his fingers around hers. They felt cold.
But not as cold as the shiver raising the hairs on the back of her neck. Like something had followed her into the darkness and crept closer.
“What’s that?” she whispered, expecting a swarm of bats to come around the corner at any moment.
The boy did not respond, as if he was listening. The only sound was their breathing.
“I can almost see you,” he said, breaking the quiet. “Your hair is very white.”
“Shh. Don’t let the bats hear you.” Irréelle swallowed the panic that tightened her throat and warbled her words.
“Bats are harmless,” he said.
“These are not,” she said, but if the boy showed no fear, she did not want to announce her own. “I can’t see a thing. I have a candle,” she said. “But no matches.”
“I have matches, but no candle.” He pulled his hand away and fumbled in the dark. “They’re here somewhere.” She heard rustling and again imagined a creature inching closer, but this time it was only the boy placing a matchbox in her palm.
She struck a match, sparking a flame. It glowed orange and red and was so suddenly bright in the pitch-black tunnel that Irréelle, at first, could see nothing beyond the flame.
And then she saw two eyes shining in the dark.
She lit the wick and held the candle up to her face. “I’m Irréelle.”
The eyes blinked several times, rapidly. She took in the boy’s thin, dirt-streaked face. He squinted as if he were looking at the sun. She did not mean to gape, but it hit her all at once. She had never seen a boy up close before, having only spied them from her window when they walked past the house, and certainly, she had never spoken with a boy before. No matter how silly, she felt suddenly shy.
“I prefer Guy to Boy,” he said in his gravelly voice. “Do you think you could give me a hand? As I said, I’m stuck.”
“Oh!” Irréelle said. “Of course.”
But still she could not move. She stared at the boy, who looked back at her with equal interest. He lay awkwardly on his side, his torso and both legs buried beneath huge piles of dirt and rock. They flattened him to the ground, leaving only his head, shoulders, and arms free. It looked like he grew from the ground itself. He propped himself up on one elbow as best he could. His hair, black and (understandably) unkempt, fell across his forehead.
“I’m sorry.” Irréelle continued to stare. “I’m so sorry I did not find you sooner.” She did not want to admit all the times she had passed by the tunnel, but she found herself saying, quite honestly, “I heard the whispers all this time, but was too frightened to follow them.”
He attempted to shrug. Dirt fell from his shoulders to the ground. “You’re here now.”
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
She set the candle down on a low ledge. The flame, though small, filled the chamber with soft light. When she stood, she realized just how tiny the space was in which she found herself, and in which the boy must have been trapped for such a long time.
From the corner of her eye, she saw something scamper by in the shadows. She spun toward it. “Did you see it this time?”
Guy frowned. “Maybe.”
“Then let’s hurry.” She returned to his side.
“That rock there.” He pointed. “Start with that one, if you could.”
Squatting low and pressing the heels of her boots into the ground, she wedged her shoulder against a heavy rock and leaned into it with the weight of her body. She jostled and strained until, at last, it rolled aside.
Beneath, she saw the tip of his boot. The next rock, although smaller, took longer to move. It was flat and wide and sunken in the dirt. She heaved and tugged, shoved and grunted, and then she pulled with all her might and the rock dislodged. It just missed dropping on her toes as she stumbled backward.
Guy’s boot shifted. “I can move my foot!”
“What happened to you down here?” Irréelle swiped her hair from her eyes and looked around the small chamber, not at all sure the dirt walls would continue to hold. Not at all sure what might be sneaking closer when her back was turned.
“One moment I was walking through the tunnel and the next moment, it collapsed on top of me.”
“How awful,” she said, working faster. “How long have you been stuck here?” She slid her fingers beneath a large gray rock and edged it inch by inch off his leg.
“Months, I’m sure.”
“How is that possible?”
“I have no idea,” he said. “Perhaps I’m a ghost.”
“Perhaps you’re a ghost.” In the habit of agreeing with whatever Miss Vesper said, she repeated his words automatically, but then she shook her head. “Well, no. That’s just silly. You are not a ghost.”
“Of course I’m not.” He squirmed a bit, but was not yet able to maneuver his legs out from under the rocks. The stones shifted and exposed his other boot.
She was not used to his raspy voice. He almost did sound like a ghoul in the dark, haunting her. She considered, working another rock loose. “It must be the bone dust.”
“That makes more sense,” he said. “And the worms.”
“Worms?”
“I had to eat something, didn’t I?”
/> “I suppose you did.” But her stomach flipped at the thought. Although she had not eaten for hours and hours, the thought of slimy, dirt-covered worms squiggling down her throat quite relieved her of hunger.
“No crickets this deep down, so worms it was.”
As she did not want to offend the first boy she had met by telling him eating bugs was disgusting, she merely nodded and focused on the rocks. Even more careful now, imagining all the insects she might uncover.
Stone by stone, Irréelle unburied him. Every few seconds she craned her neck, searching the candlelit chamber for signs of Miss Vesper’s twisted creations. She could not shake the feeling that they were being watched.
She dug faster, until he was free, and then stepped back to give him space. “Are you able to stand?”
Guy looked up at her. A too-wide grin spread across his face, revealing a chipped front tooth. His boots moved, just a little, as if he were wiggling his toes. He rotated one ankle, and then another. He bent his knees, and they made a horrible cracking sound that seemed not to bother him at all. His bones creaked as he pushed himself to standing.
He took one hesitant step, and then he lunged for Irréelle.
10
The Good-for-Almost-Nothing Boy
She raised her arms in front of her face. Not that it did much good.
He staggered forward with hands outstretched and grabbed her shoulders. The force sent her stumbling backward, right into the wall. Stones pressed into her crooked spine. A spattering of dirt rained onto the tops of their heads.
His face hovered only inches from hers, hair in his gray eyes, grime on his cheeks, and a snarl on his lips. He did not smell the best either. Irréelle turned her head to the side and tried to hold him at arm’s length.
She pushed against his chest. Just once. Not even that hard.
Startled, his hands slid from her shoulders. He had not, she realized, been holding very tightly, which likely meant he had not lunged at her either, and instead, being so unused to standing, had simply fallen toward her. As if to confirm this observation, he tottered on his feet, flailed his arms about, and, with nothing to support him, fell heavily to the ground.
He groaned on impact. His legs stuck out straight in front of him, and he glared at them.
“I’m afraid I’m not very steady yet,” he said. “My legs are all pins and needles.” He thumped his thighs as if to get some feeling back into them.
“Oh my.” Irréelle knelt beside him. Her cheeks warmed. “I’m sorry. Let me help you.”
“I think I’ve got it,” he said.
She took hold of his arm anyway and hoisted him to his feet. He rocked back and forth on his heels, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and grinned wider than she had thus far seen.
Standing beside him, she realized he was quite a bit taller than her, but just as skinny. (With only worms to eat, she would have all but wasted away, she was sure.) His shirt was dirty and spotted with holes. The sleeves exposed bony wrists. Dirt and dust caked his too-short pants. She could see the tops of his boots, and those too were scuffed and worn.
He looked down at himself. “I think I’ve grown.” He held out his arms and turned them this way and that.
“Maybe you’ve been down here longer than you thought. How old were you then?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ve never known my age. But I remember Miss Vesper saying I looked like a good-for-almost-nothing boy approximately a decade old. How old do I look to you now?” He lifted his chin and turned his head from side to side for her to better judge his age.
Irréelle thought about the question and looked at him quite seriously. “Well,” she said, “a decade plus one- or two-tenths of a decade, I would say.”
He became quiet then. He pulled on his sleeve, but it went no lower on his arm. “I guess that must be right, then.”
“It’s as good an age as any.” She wanted to reassure him, to make him feel better, but she was not sure of the right thing to say.
“Let’s get out of here already,” he said, sounding a little defeated that so much time might have passed.
“Yes, let’s,” Irréelle agreed, ear tuned to the sounds in the dark. Something burrowed through the dirt and rocks. “Can you manage on your own?”
“Course I can.” His voice came out as a rather loud croak.
“Quiet,” Irréelle warned. Her eyes darted toward the entrance to the tunnel. “I’m hiding.”
“From the bats?” Guy practiced walking in a straight line.
Already he was better at it than Irréelle, but she pretended not to notice. “Miss Vesper, of course.”
“Why would she be looking for you?” He kicked at a rock on the ground. It bounced against the wall. Dirt crumbled.
Irréelle did not want to repeat Miss Vesper’s threat about burning her bones. It made her heart leap to her throat just thinking of it, but the words she forced out were no better. “She wants to imagine me away.” Irréelle could not believe Miss Vesper had not done so already. The threat of it loomed wherever she went, like thunder following lightning.
It struck her then how useless it was to run away when she would always be tethered to Miss Vesper.
Guy stopped walking and turned to look at her. “Why?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Irréelle said. She crossed her arms, the left tucked beneath the right to hide their uneven lengths.
He shook his head. “Miss Vesper won’t come into the tunnels. Her face goes bone-white when she talks of them.”
Although Irréelle had never seen Miss Vesper visit the underside of the graveyard, it did not seem Miss Vesper would be frightened of anything. It was one of the things Irréelle most admired about her. “But I heard rustling. You heard it too.”
“You heard something,” he said, and she was grateful he had not dismissed her entirely, “but it was not Miss Vesper.”
“How can you be so sure?” Irréelle wanted to believe him.
His eyes darkened. “She never came for me, did she?”
How horrible, thought Irréelle, but she kept her voice light when she said, “Miss Vesper spoke of you highly.” That was not exactly true, so she amended, “Or at least, she spoke of you, that is.”
And just then, she could not help but wonder if Miss Vesper would forgive her if she brought Guy back to the house with her. Or even if Miss Vesper might imagine her real in reward. After all, Miss Vesper had asked about the boy. She had seemed to trust him with some unknown task she would not assign to Irréelle.
“Didn’t you say she thought you were good-for-almost-nothing? That basically means you are good-for-something. I think she would be very happy to see you.”
Perhaps she had exaggerated this last statement, as nothing seemed to make Miss Vesper happy, and Irréelle felt rather bad about stretching the truth, but oh, she already missed her bedroom and the great fireplace in the study and the scent of lilacs. And yes, as much as she did not want to, she missed Miss Vesper too.
Or at least the idea of her. Someone who might accept Irréelle as she was, who might love her and care for her, despite all her imperfections.
Guy was not listening. He kicked another stone, this one larger than the last. It struck the wall like a thunderclap, and cracks spread through the dirt like dark lines of lightning.
“What’s happening?” Irréelle asked. She raised a shaky hand to the wall. A vibration coursed through her palm and up her arm.
Guy stood perfectly still. Beneath the dirt, his face went white. “Don’t move.”
Irréelle could not have moved even if she had wanted to, as she was frozen with fright.
Within the walls, soil and stones shifted and groaned. Dirt fell in chunks from the ceiling into their hair, into their eyes. A draft leaked through the tunnel as if thrust out from the fractures in the earth. From above, from below, the ground quaked.
One breath of silence followed. Irréelle blinked dirt from her eyes. Guy coughed.
; And then the ceiling collapsed upon them.
11
The Hollow
It lasted only seconds, the grinding, shifting earth, the falling dirt and rock. Irréelle threw her arms over her head and huddled on the ground. She kept her face down, her eyes closed. Her breaths came very fast.
One last sprinkling of dirt, and the earth settled once more. She was afraid to move, afraid to disturb the sudden quiet. But slowly, she lifted her head. She lowered her arms. Dirt fell down the collar of her dress and clung to her eyelashes. She brushed it away.
She was neither buried nor harmed. She was safe.
Ahead of her, a narrow tunnel cut a slit into the earth, the opening revealed only when the ceiling caved in. A draft blew against her cheeks.
“Guy, look,” she said. “Guy,” she called again, louder this time when he did not immediately reply.
A low moan rasped from a dry throat. “I’m here, Irréelle.” Rocks rolled to the side. Guy sat up, shaking dirt from his hair.
Somehow the candle still burned, and in its warm glow Irréelle smiled. “Do you see?”
“Oh yes, I see.” Guy crawled backward, fast-like, his eyes focused not on the unearthed tunnel but on a dark crevice just in front of him.
Within, something rustled. Not bat wings whooshing, not rocks shifting, not dirt crumbling. No, whatever it was, it scuttled. The same sound she had heard chasing after her in the main passageway and sneaking around the chamber out of sight.
It crept from the crevice beneath the rocks.
It was not a dirt-made rat, as she had expected. No, it was much worse.
It was the Hand.
Slim fingers emerged one at a time until all of them were visible and tapping. The Hand squatted in the shadows and then dashed forward. Two of the fingers were still bent, though the breaks appeared mended, and the injury did not seem to slow it. It maneuvered over the dirt like a spider.
“What’s that?” Guy scrambled to his feet.
He had been in the dark so long, he must have thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. “I’m afraid it’s a dust-and-bone hand.”
The Bone Garden Page 5
