“Do you ever wish you could be Mark Huff?” I(mezzo-forte) said.
“I hate Mark Huff,” Jordan(mezzo-forte) said.
“You do not,” Zeke(mezzo-forte) said.
“And you can still want to be someone that you hate,” I(mezzo-forte) said, frowning.
“Nobody would want to be that Flatface,” Jordan(sforzando) said, shoving the sleeves of his sweatshirt to his elbows. “His mom moved to Florida to live with some home-wrecker she met at a concert. Now she works at a record store by the ocean. She mails him postcards that say, ‘Be good, eat your vegetables, birthday presents coming soon,’ but she never mails the birthday presents, she always forgets. I was there the day he heard that she had left. His dad had told him that she was visiting his grandparents. For a month, that’s what he had thought. After he heard where she actually was, he told me he wanted to jump off the pier and drown on the rocks. Instead we went into the street and played soccer until it got dark.”
Mark Huff was (pianissimo)laughing, dropping sugar to the gulls.
“Ty says everybody’s stomach has this gray pod, and when you grow up it swells up and splits open and spills this thick gray slime into your stomach that makes you crazy and obsessed with something weird or illegal or just totally freakish, like how Mark’s mom ran away with the home-wrecker from the concert, or how the Gelusos’ dad names his motorcycles, or how the Gelusos’ mom thinks about jigsaw puzzles like nonstop,” Jordan (mezzo-forte)said.
“What’s Ty’s thing?” I(mezzo-forte) said.
“Torturing middle schoolers,” Jordan(mezzo-forte) said.
We (forte)crashed into the woods, scattering (forte)hissing raccoons, leaping gray mushroom caps growing from the craggy trunks of fallen elm trees, heading to the dunes. Wind(mezzo-piano) flurried through, shaking leftover rainwater from the leaves above.
“If I could be anyone, I would be Ty,” Jordan(mezzo-piano) said.
“I’ve never met anybody I like more than myself,” Zeke(mezzo-piano) said.
“Nobody?” Jordan(mezzo-piano) said.
“I would miss me, if I wasn’t,” Zeke (piano)said.
There was only one way in and out of the tunnels, in a shady nook on the backside of a giant dune. A thorny raspberry thicket had overgrown the entrance, where tilting wooden beams kept the tunnels propped. Nearby, a ∞ had been notched into the bark of an ash tree—one of the symbols the high schoolers used to mark their territory. The wind had died. All of the birdsong had gone quiet. Jordan tugged the sleeves of his sweatshirt over his hands and shoved through the thicket. We followed, ducking into the darkness.
Something (mezzo-forte)snapped and (mezzo-piano)crackled and a lit match flared between Zeke’s fingertips. Sand from above trickled through cracks between the wooden beams of the ceiling. The tunnels smelled like Grandpa Rose—like stale cigarettes and unwashed clothing. Zeke bent over the lantern, lighting it, the flame gleaming across the silver mermaids on his arms. Outside the entrance, beyond the thicket, the wolfdogs were (piano)whining. Zeke (forte)barked at them, and then they went quiet.
Zeke unfolded a piece of paper pocked with burn marks.
“I brought a map,” Zeke (piano)said.
“Wasn’t that the homeschooler’s?” Jordan (piano)said.
“I didn’t steal it,” Zeke (piano)said. “Kayley wanted a blueprint of the ghosthouse, and we needed a map of the tunnels, so I swapped the blueprint for the map.”
“What did she want a blueprint of the ghosthouse for?” I (piano)said.
“I didn’t ask,” Zeke (piano)said.
Jordan took the lantern. Zeke held the map to the light. In faded charcoal, the map was marked with different rooms—LOVERS HAUNT, THE OPIUM DEN, FAR FAR HIDEAWAY—connected by different tunnels.
Zeke pointed at the room named THE BOTTOMLESS PIT. Underneath, someone had drawn a row of dead faces with all exed-out eyes.
“I’ve heard rumors about THE BOTTOMLESS PIT,” Zeke (piano)muttered.
“Rumors?” Jordan (piano)said.
They crept into the tunnels, (pianissimo)whispering.
The kids in my brain were (forte) shouting, “These tunnels could collapse!” (fortissimo)shouting, “A high schooler might catch you!” (crescendo)shouting, “Run home, run home, run home!” but I shoved a lock of hair out of my eyes and crept after the others.
We hiked through a maze of tunnels, room to room, the rooms all empty. THE FIREWORKS PARLOR empty aside from boxes of fireworks and scorch marks across the wooden beams. THE GRAFFITI CHAMBER empty aside from boxes of spray-paint and neon messages across the wooden beams. WIDOWS LAMENT empty aside from spiders and an overturned rocking chair.
“We may have walked over the heirlooms already, if the trunk is buried here,” I (piano)whispered.
We headed to THE BOTTOMLESS PIT.
After countless forks and bends in the tunnels, we still hadn’t found THE BOTTOMLESS PIT. We passed a pair of black rubber boots, then another pair of black rubber boots, and then still another pair of black rubber boots. They may have been the same pair. The lantern swung on its hinges, throwing light from wall to wall. The tunnel snaked through tilting wooden beams. Something was yowling or(pianissimo) wailing. We passed a pair of boots.
“Are we going in circles?” Jordan (piano)said.
Sand from above trickled onto our hair. Zeke stopped, chewing a lip and squinting at the map.
“Do you know where we are?” Jordan (piano)said.
Zeke spun the map 90°, 270°, 180°, like someone wrestling with the wheel of a sinking ship. Jordan hung the lantern from a nail.
“Do you know how to read a map?” Jordan (piano)hissed.
“I’m reading it!” Zeke (piano)hissed.
“Give it here,” Jordan (piano)hissed.
Jordan(mezzo-piano) snatched the map. Zeke(mezzo-forte) snatched the map. Jordan(forte) snatched the map. It slipped from their hands, swooped past the lantern, arced toward the ground beyond the light. Jordan lunged into the darkness, grabbing for it.
He tipped.
His arms flailed.
He dropped over the edge of the pit, (decrescendo)screaming.
THE BOTTOMLESS PIT was a room with a hole for a floor. I stood near the edge of the pit, clutching the lantern. Zeke lay at the edge of the pit, peering into the darkness.
“Jordan?” Zeke (piano)hissed.
The pit was silent.
“I never heard him land,” I (piano)whispered.
“Maybe he’s still falling,” Zeke (piano)whispered.
Sand from above trickled into the pit.
“We’re going to need some rope,” I (piano)said.
We ran back, winding uphill, curving downhill, guessing which tunnels to take. At a fork in the tunnels, we stopped, trying to remember which tunnel led aboveground.
White flashlight beams swept across us. We squinted, shielding our eyes with our hands. Silhouettes hovered at the end of the tunnel.
“It’s that thief!” a silhouette (forte)shouted.
Zeke (forte)yelped. The silhouettes pounded toward us, the beams of their flashlights chopping back and forth. Zeke bolted into the tunnel, turned into a silhouette himself, vanished into the darkness.
“You better run, freak!” a silhouette (forte)shouted.
The silhouettes turned into high schoolers in black hoodies. I dropped the lantern. Someone grabbed me by my shirt.
“Bring that one in, Isaac!” a high schooler (forte)shouted.
The high schoolers (forte)skidded through the fork, turned into silhouettes again, bolted after Zeke. The kid who had grabbed me was an Isaac, then. He was the biggest Isaac I had ever seen. His jaw was shaped like the bottom of a box.
“You snuck into the wrong place,” Biggest Isaac (forte)said, (piano)wheezing.
His voice was boomy, monotone. His hoodie said HILL 61 (prime). In high school, instead of your first name, hoodies have your last name. I tried to slip out of my shirt. He grabbed me by my hair.
“We’r
e going to FAR FAR HIDEAWAY, once I’ve caught my breath,” Biggest Isaac(forte) said, (pianissimo)wheezing.
“My friend needs help!” I (forte)said.
“Any other day I would have caught your friend myself,” Biggest Isaac (forte)said, (decrescendo) wheezing, “but today at tryouts we had to run about fifty suicides thanks to Coach Q. And that after a few hundred down-and-back layups. And that after the three smokes I had between school and tryouts. So, I’m lucky you didn’t run. Although, really, kid, you should have run.”
Then Biggest Isaac took me into his arms like a bundle of firewood and carried me away.
FAR FAR HIDEAWAY was the size of three or five bedrooms. Hammocks had been hammered into the rafters, each hammock sagging with swaying bodies. The ground was littered with the stumps of dying candles, making the kids flicker gold.
“Ty, we’ve caught a trespasser,” Biggest Isaac (forte)shouted.
A hand rose out of the farthest hammock, its knuckles furry with reddish hair, its fingers (forte)snapping like COME CLOSER. Biggest Isaac shoved me ahead. I stumbled past (piano)snoring bodies, stepping between candles. A trio of girls in homecoming hoodies stared at me from a (pianissimo)creaking hammock, clutching black bottles. Root beer was made from roots. Birch beer was made from sap. Spruce beer was made from twigs. What they were drinking, it was water, and sugar, and trees.
Ty had swung himself sitting, planting his boots on the floor, twirling a scuffed golden lighter from knuckle to knuckle. He had a gap in his teeth like Jordan’s, and the same messy hair, but his eyes were twice as dark. His forehead was marked with a white scar the shape of a saxophone. Jordan had said the scar was from their dad.
“He was with the thief kid,” Biggest Isaac (forte)said.
Ty(staccato) knocked a cigarette from a pack, then lit the cigarette. He puffed it a few times so the tip went gold, then dark, then gold, then dark. His hoodie said ODOM 67 (prime).
“How old are you?” Ty (forte)said.
“Eleven,” I(glissando) said.
“You were caught trespassing in high school territory. Worse yet, you were caught in the company of that kid with the buzzed head, who’s a known thief,” Ty (forte)said. “The customary punishment for trespassing is getting tossed into THE BOTTOMLESS PIT.”
My hands trembled.
“Why were you trespassing?” Ty (forte)said.
“We were trying to find artifacts from the smugglers,” I(mezzo-forte) said.
“Artifacts?” Ty (forte)snorted, spewing curling spirals of smoke at me. He shook his head, impatiently, and then leaned forward, candlelight glinting in his eyes. “It’s been years since the smugglers used these tunnels. By the time I found this place, looters had carted away everything. The moonshine. The pistols. The metal for scrap.” He waved his cigarette at the room. “Everything but ceiling beams and empty boxes.”
My knees trembled.
“So there’s nothing?” I(mezzo-piano) said.
Ty leaned so close to my face I could smell the ketchup on his breath.
“Nothing,” Ty(fermata) said.
Ty twirled the lighter from knuckle to knuckle. Ty stared at me. Ty nodded.
Then Biggest Isaac dragged me (fortissimo)screaming into the tunnels.
Biggest Isaac tossed me into the pit.
I(piano) slid along the pit’s walls, (forte)bounced off something that sounded wooden, and(piano) hit the sand at the bottom.
“Goodbye, kid,” Biggest Isaac (forte)shouted.
Biggest Isaac(mezzo-piano) stamped off into the tunnels. I wiped sand from my face. Ty stood in the oval of light flickering above, like someone peering into the depths of a well. I felt afraidgallows. I couldn’t see myself. I fumbled for my knife, but the knife dropped somewhere onto the sand.
Ty tugged his hood over his head, like an executioner, then pointed into the pit.
“Here’s what I’ll leave you with,” Ty (forte)shouted.
Something was (piano)grinding through the sand in the pit.
“This village was founded by settlers from Scandinavia. The settlers shored their boats on the beach just beyond these tunnels, and they built some lopsided houses, which couldn’t keep out the wind, or the dust, or the maggots, and they built some weedy farms, which grew about a vegetable apiece. By winter all of the settlers were sick with cholera or smallpox. Most of them died. But, in winter the ground freezes. You can’t dig a grave. So, that first winter, instead of burying their dead in the village, the settlers dragged the bodies to these dunes. That’s where they buried them. In the sand,” Ty (forte)shouted.
Something was (forte)grinding through the sand at my feet.
“But windy days, the sand would blow, the dunes would shift, and the bodies would surface—an arm sticking from a dune here, a head sticking from a dune there—and the settlers would have to bury their dead again. They buried them deeper, and deeper, and deeper, and still, on windy days, the bodies would surface,” Ty (forte)shouted.
Something was rising from the sand.
“That’s what’s in the sand above us, below us, around us. That’s what the sand is, now. Bits of hair. Bits of bone,” Ty (forte)shouted.
Something bumped me.
I (fortissimo)screamed.
Something grabbed my shirt.
“Relax, Calculator,” Jordan (piano)muttered.
The truth is that, even after I heard it was Jordan’s voice, I (forte)screamed a bit longer.
“I got knocked out, for a while, I think,” Jordan (piano)moaned.
Ty had heard the voice. Ty gaped into the pit.
“Jordan?” Ty (forte)said.
“Hello, brother,” Jordan (piano)said.
“Why are you in THE BOTTOMLESS PIT?” Ty (forte)said.
“I tripped,” Jordan (piano)said.
Ty couldn’t stop (forte)laughing.
“Let us out,” Jordan (forte)said.
“No,” Ty(forte) laughed.
“I’m your brother,” Jordan (forte)said.
Ty twirled the lighter from knuckle to knuckle. Sand trickled from between the wooden beams above him, twinkling sometimes. He opened, then closed, then opened his mouth again. His face was ticking like a metronome between opposite emotions.
“Do you remember, when we were younger, that weekend I went missing?” Ty (forte)said.
I heard Jordan(piano) shift, somewhere in the darkness.
“First grade. On your birthday. When you ran away,” Jordan(mezzo-piano) said.
Ty stepped toward the pit, the toes of his boots crossing the edge.
“First grade for you, fifth grade for me. I didn’t run away. That’s what I told Mom and Dad, but that isn’t what happened,” Ty (forte)said. “What happened is I found these tunnels. And, like you, I fell into THE BOTTOMLESS PIT. But, unlike you, I was alone.” Ty squatted at the edge, coins and keys (piano)tinkling in the pockets of his jeans. “I spent three days here, in the pitch dark, in an empty pit, feeling sorry for myself. Crying. Barely moving. Asleep, awake, asleep, awake. It wasn’t until the third morning that I stopped feeling sorry for myself and started thinking about what else was here with me.” Ty twirled the lighter from knuckle to knuckle. “Don’t ever feel sorry for yourself. It can kill you. And you’re never totally alone.” Ty frowned, rubbing his scar with his thumb. “When I got home, I lied to Mom and Dad. I told them I had run away. They grounded me for a month. If I had told them the truth, they wouldn’t have grounded me. They would have felt sorry for me. But I didn’t want them feeling sorry for me. I didn’t want anybody feeling sorry for me ever again.” Ty twirled the lighter from knuckle to knuckle. “If you want to understand why I toss trespassers into THE BOTTOMLESS PIT, you need to understand its true nature.”
Ty smiled, his face a mask of light and shadow.
“It’s not a prison,” Ty (forte)hissed. “It’s a riddle.”
Ty twirled the lighter from knuckle to knuckle. Ty smiled into the pit. Ty stood.
“But knowing you, you would
starve before you solved it. So, since you’re my brother, I’ll give you the solution. Build yourself a staircase. Stack the crates,” Ty (forte)said.
Ty tossed the lighter, the flame pinwheeling into the pit.
There was a moment where the bottom of the pit was lit by the flame and we saw each other and the shapes of the crates surrounding us.
Then the lighter hit the ground and the pit was dark again.
Ty (forte)cackled, (piano)tramping off into the tunnels.
“I hate how much he loved that,” Jordan (mezzo-piano)grumbled.
Jordan crawled around, bumping crates, (piano)bumping me again, feeling for the lighter. There was a (mezzo-piano)scraping sound. There were (piano)clicking sounds. Jordan lit the lighter. He squinted. His chin was bleeding. He was clutching a crumpled paper in his fist.
He grinned.
“I caught the map,” Jordan(mezzo-piano) said.
He wiped blood from his chin. He blinked at the pit. Then his face changed.
“Calculator,” Jordan(piano) whispered.
He pointed.
Some crates were stamped THE SPIRIT OF LANGHORNE.
Some crates were stamped MADAM CRISTO.
Some crates were stamped PAWPAW.
MISSING MEN
PAWPAW isn’t an island—PAWPAW is a ship,” Jordan (forte)said.
“A ship?” Grandpa Dykhouse (forte)said.
“Was a ship,” Zeke (forte)said.
Zeke (forte) unfurled a map over the porch, like someone unfurling a sheet over a bed.
“Is a shipwreck,” Zeke (forte)said.
We weighted the map’s corners with the lantern and our knees. Grandpa Rose hobbled into the circle of light, hunched over his cane, wrapped in a blanket. Grandpa Dykhouse squatted alongside the map.
“My map has a list of shipwrecks, with the number and the letter that matches the box in the grid where each ship sank,” Zeke (forte)said. “But I had never thought to check the list of shipwrecks, until Jordan saw the ship’s name on a crate.”
If You Find This Page 12
