by B. V. Larson
We stared at him, not knowing where this was all going. But suddenly, in the quiet, a throat was cleared. All eyes swung to Waldheim, except for Urdo, who looked at the floor.
“Milord,” said Waldheim when those slightly yellow eyes struck him. Again, I was surprised by Waldheim’s obvious state. He worked his hands in his pockets and swallowed as if his throat had filled with dust.
Vater’s brows rose as high as they would go. “Yes?”
“The children, milord,” stumbled Waldheim. “They aren’t prepared for this… for this sort of thing.”
Vater lit up at his words. With one extremely long finger upheld in front of his face, he stalked toward Waldheim. “Exactly!” he shouted. “You have hit upon the trouble, my good dean. They are not prepared. They are not well-served, there has been shirking here, and I’m glad you would be the first to admit it. Your job, I understand, has been the maintenance of discipline, am I right?”
“Yes, milord,” said Waldheim in a strangled voice.
“Then perhaps you’d like to participate in our exercise?”
Waldheim’s face changed from nervous to fearful. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think he feared anything. I found myself wanting to see him change into a lizard and give Vater a good kick in the rear. The thought shocked me, but there it was.
I wasn’t the only one with such a thought in my head, as I heard something then, something everyone heard while Vater and Waldheim stared at one another. It was a coughing sound, but a fake one, the sort of cough a kid gives when they are really saying a word.
The word sounded like “ Bully ” and it came from the kids in the line-up. It could have been a much worse word, but it was hard to be sure. I flicked my eyes that way and saw Beth’s hand coming down from her face. She’d done the fake cough, I knew it in an instant. The rest of us had been conditioned for this moment our entire lives, the moment when we met our great-great grandfather. She hadn’t. She had none of our inbred awe of this strange, scary man. Who else would have had the guts to mock him publicly?
At that single word, Vater stiffened as if someone had put a knife into his back. He loomed up, taller than I would have thought he possibly could have stood. He turned slowly and slid his eyes across the faces of the assembled children. I followed his gaze, and I picked out Beth almost as quickly as he did.
It wasn’t the other kids who gave her away, mind you, I was proud to note that they weren’t snitching on her on purpose. No, what gave her away was her expression. Everyone else had a look of sick shock on their faces, but not Beth. She was trying to look innocent and unconcerned. She was covering, but didn’t realize how everyone else was taking it.
Like a laser beam, I felt Vater’s eyes zero in on Beth. He took a single step toward her, and those long fingers rose up slowly to point at her.
“That one,” he said. He cocked his head at her. It was an animal-like gesture. “You, girl. There is something about you… Did you have something you would like to say, my dear?”
“No sir,” said Beth, still playing innocent. She had the gall to smile at Vater. No one, and I mean not anyone I’d seen so far this day, had even thought to smile while looking at Vater. I felt sure he rarely saw that expression on anyone’s face.
Vater cocked his head the other way and took another single slow step toward Beth. His hand rose up to touch his chin. “Interesting,” he said. “Unforeseen.”
He slowly pointed at Beth with a long finger. The finger turned upward and curled into a beckoning gesture. Beth played up the innocent act to the limit, I’ll give her that. She did the “What, me?” face and pointed to herself.
Vater frowned and raised his chin, beckoning again. Perhaps this time there was a bit of impatience in his gesture. Beth came forward and joined Jake and I in the center of the group.
“Yes,” said Vater, ignoring us now and speaking to the rest of the group. He eyed each in turn carefully. “Yes, I think that’s it.”
Waldheim drew in his breath, and I knew he was about to speak. So did Vater, who put up a flat hand toward Waldheim’s face. “Don’t speak,” commanded Vater. “Don’t compound your errors, Dean.”
Waldheim fell silent. Whatever words he’d thought to say died in his throat without ever having been spoken.
“Children,” Vater said, addressing our classmates. “These three amongst you have been selected as the hares. The rest of you, are the hounds. The hares will run from you today, and tonight, for a full day. You, the hounds, will try to catch them. Are there any questions?”
Danny raised his hand. There was an eagerness in his eyes I didn’t like.
“Speak!” said Vater.
“Milord,” said Danny smoothly. “What will the hounds do when they catch they hares?”
Vater smiled at Danny. He turned and regarded the three of us. “What hounds always do when they catch their prey. Nature will take its course,” he said evenly.
I blinked at him and suddenly, there was an odd pain in my pants. I felt shocking discomfort, and then something long snaked down the back of my pantsleg. It slipped out onto the floor beside my shoe. I had sprouted a long pink scaly tail. The tip of it flipped and curled like a snake around my leg.
Some of the kids in the line-up snickered.
Vater looked down at my tail and pursed his lips. “A rodent,” he said flatly. “I don’t care for rodents.”
I looked back at him, narrowing my eyes. I almost said many things, but held back with a desperate effort of will.
He noted the look in my eye with interest, and gave me a tiny nod, showing he’d read my thoughts.
Vater drew himself up. “The game begins. He pointed at the clock on the wall. It showed it was 10:15 am. “The hounds will give the hares a fifteen minute head start,” he announced.
He turned back toward the three of us and leaned forward. He put his hands on his knees. He eyed each of us intently, Beth, Jake and lastly me. His face loomed into ours.
“It’s time to run, children,” he said in a whisper.
We staggered back away from everyone. All their eyes were upon us.
We ran.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hounds and Hares
We’d been taught, all our lives, that someday we might be pursued. We’d been taught that on some single, fateful day, we might become hunted prey. Remember all those horror movies that ended with a bunch of angry villagers carrying pitchforks and torches and chasing down the monster? Well, the monsters in those movies were our relatives. We’d been trained for this day, which everyone hoped would never come. But we had never expected that the hunters would be our own friends.
“So now I guess we know what kind of a purge he had in mind,” I puffed as we ran down the hall. Beth and Jake were right behind me.
“What did you get me into, man?” asked Jake, wheezing as he ran.
“What do you think they’ll do if they catch us?” asked Beth.
“I don’t plan on finding out,” I said.
“I knew being your friend would end with something like this. I just knew it. You’ve been flipping off the adults since day one. It was only a matter of time. And now I’m guilty by association. Why did I have to be your buddy? All because you didn’t laugh at me that one day.”
“Shut up, Jake,” I said.
Jake had no intention of shutting up. “I should have just sucked up to Danny and Thomas like all the other guys. I should have been their court jester. I could have done silly little toad-tricks to keep them all amused, but noooo, I had to go with the rebel, the prankster, the powerless boy.”
“Jake,” said Beth, “Please shut up.”
“I’m tired already,” said Jake. “All day and night did he say?”
“Where are we going anyway, Connor?” asked Beth.
“They’ll expect the attic, they’ve seen us up there. So I’m headed for the basement.”
We got to the basement door and rattled the doorknob. It was locked. We stood there for a
moment, hands on our knees, breathing hard.
“Locked,” I said. “We’ll have to find another way down.”
“This can’t be happening,” moaned Jake.
Beth just looked at me. No doubt she expected me to pull a rabbit out of my hat, as I had during Hussades. I looked back at her, thinking to myself there were no more rabbits in there. In fact, there wasn’t even a hat.
“Maybe we should really run for it,” said Jake, looking at me seriously. He had some of his wind back and could talk clearly. “Let’s just open a window and head for the woods. We could make it before the fifteen minutes are up.”
“Ten left now,” interjected Beth.
“Whatever, we have time,” said Jake. “We could be home in two hours and just forget this whole thing. What are they going to do? Make us move out of town?”
I looked at him seriously. “Maybe.”
“You think so? What about our families?”
I just stared at him. “If we shame ourselves in front of Vater I think anything could happen. Our folks could be too ashamed to stay here. People move out of Camden for a lot less reason than this.”
I turned my attention to Beth, who watched us closely. “You’ve got no big stake here, Beth. I think Jake’s right in your case. Just take off. No one will feel bad about it.”
“Except us, that is,” said Beth. “I’m not a quitter. You should know that about me by now. Look, Connor, we’ve been running away from things since I got here. Maybe it’s time we planned out some moves of our own.”
I looked at her and slowly, I grinned. “You really do think the way I do.”
Jake moaned. “Okay, I’m out!”
I turned to him and my grin vanished. “Jake?”
“No, I’ve had enough Connor,” he said, heading to the nearest window. He jimmied the lock, but it was frozen shut. He tried several more while he talked. “You are my best friend, but I’m not going to get run down in this spooky place. I’m bailing.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Beth put her hand up in a gesture to stop me. Hard words died in my throat.
With a grunt and a crunching sound, Jake got one of the old-fashioned windows to crack open about a foot. He put one leg out into the snowy outside world. Cold air blew in, cooling our faces.
“Don’t freeze to death out there,” I told him.
He looked back at me, and I saw the pain in his face. He didn’t want to do this, I could tell. “I’m sorry,” he said.
I grabbed his hand and gave it a shake. He and Beth hugged, and then he was running around the side of the house, plowing through about two feet of snow.
I couldn’t believe Jake was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Underworld
Beth and I closed the window to cover his tracks, and then we ran further into the house, toward the back where the kitchens were.
We avoided the adults working there and slipped into the basement through the kitchen’s backstairs. This part of the massive basement was used to store food and cooking goods. The gymnasium section was far away at the other end of the mansion under the dormitories.
“How long?” I asked Beth. The first hallway in this part of the basement was dingy and dark. A single, naked 25 watt bulb hung down from the ceiling and glowed with yellowy light. We were surrounded by musty crates of vegetables and canned goods. The place had an earthy smell to it, the smell of dust and mold. She snapped on her tiny flashlight, examining her watch. I had neither.
“Five minutes, maybe less.”
I chose a passage at random and we ran into the darkness.
For several hours, no one came near. I imagined them combing through the attic, finding nothing.
“I hope they aren’t chasing Jake in the woods,” said Beth in a whisper. I looked at her, but could barely make out her shape in the darkness. I’d been thinking the same thing.
“He’ll be okay,” I said without much conviction.
“Why is your grandfather doing this? Why is he dividing up the family and putting us against one another?”
I shrugged. “We’ve always been a competitive bunch,” I said. “But this is different. I guess he thinks this is what he needs to do to make us tough.”
“So this is all about trying to show him how tough you are? This whole scary game of hide and seek, is just about impressing the old man?”
“Sort of,” I said. “Like I told you back on the bus, we are not normal people here in Camden.”
“I remember that, like a dream from a year ago. I had no idea.”
There were some thumping steps on the ceiling above us. I waved for Beth to be quiet. The steps slowed, and then stopped. It seemed like they were directly above us, perhaps in some hallway.
“What do you…?” began Beth, but I shushed her.
The steps began again, slowly moving above us.
“They can’t hear us down here,” hissed Beth in my ear.
“Those might not be human ears listening,” I hissed back, putting a finger to her lips.
We listened for perhaps thirty seconds. Nothing.
Then, suddenly, the steps started thumping again, fast this time.
“Come on,” I said, grabbing Beth’s hand and pulling her out into the hallway.
“You think they heard us?”
“I think so, we need to move.”
Somewhere in the distance we heard a door creak open and slam. Beth squeezed my hand. The hounds had come down into the basement.
So we ran again. We traveled deeper into the basement. I came to realize as we stumbled about in the dusty underworld that the mansion’s basement was fully as big as the main floor of the mansion.
Then we found the stone steps. They led down further into the ground. A single dim light bulb hung down on a wire. It looked very old, as if electric lights had been a new idea when it had been installed. I wondered how many decades it had hung there. I reached up and twisted the hot bulb, unscrewing it just enough that it went out quietly.
“What’s down those steps?” asked Beth in the heavy darkness.
“We’re going to find out,” I said, pulling her after me as we went down the steps. I hadn’t even known there were deeper levels, but I didn’t want to tell Beth that now.
The second level down was much older than the first. Instead of walls that were flat concrete, the walls here were mortar and stone. The stones weren’t bricks either, but real stones with rounded corners, they looked and felt smooth like river rocks to me. We found a lantern near the stairway with Beth’s tiny flashlight. There were very old wooden matches with the lantern. After burning out half the box of matches and singeing my fingers, I managed to get the lantern to light.
“Good,” breathed Beth when yellowy light splashed and flickered over the walls. “The batteries in my flashlight wouldn’t have lasted much longer.”
I nodded and held the lantern up to look closely at the space we were in. There were leather straps and things hanging on the walls. Small rooms built of wood were here and there around the dusty interior.
“This must have been for animals,” said Beth. “That’s a bridle, and there’s a yoke, like for oxen.”
“Yes,” I said, “I get it, they must have kept animals down here years ago. But why keep them underground?”
“I know in cold places they did that, like Scandinavia,” said Beth. “To keep the animals warm, the lower levels of a big house were for the cattle and horses in the winter.”
“Wouldn’t have been much fun for the animals,” I said.
“Nor the people caring for them, either,” said Beth.
I nodded, wondering how old the mansion really was. It had to be a century old, maybe two centuries. As we explored the stables, I worried that we might find something horrible, something that I didn’t want Beth to see. The adults had whispered about the old days, and I knew that the people of Camden hadn’t always been completely civilized. This basement seemed like just the kind of place where dark secrets
would be hidden.
But all we found were empty storerooms and empty animal stalls. There were pitchforks and shovels and wheelbarrows and horseshoes.
Eventually, we found more stone steps leading further down into the Earth. We both stared at these steps and the ancient wooden door at the bottom. The door was obviously far older than anything I’d seen in the mansion before. It looked medieval. It was made of heavy dark wood. The thick, crudely cut wood planks were held together with rusty metal straps. There was no doorknob. Instead, a massive ring of black iron the size of a large man’s hand served the purpose.
Beth hugged up against me as we looked down the steps at that closed door. “What’s down there?” asked Beth.
“I have no idea.”‘
“I don’t like the look of it.”
I shook my head. “Me either. I feel like we are going back a century in time with each level we go down.”
We heard sounds back far behind us. They echoed from the stone walls. It was the sound of voices, and footsteps. I found a loop of thick rope and dropped it on the stone steps that led down to the ancient door. I had the beginnings of an idea.
I took a step downward, reaching toward the huge iron ring. Beth held me back.
“If we go down there Connor,” said Beth in my ear. “Eventually, we will run out of levels, and we won’t have any way to go back up. We’ll be trapped down there.”
“Maybe,” I said, “But I’ve got a plan.”
Chapter Thirty
The Dungeon
We pushed the dungeon door open. That’s what it was, really, I could tell just as soon as I pushed those groaning ancient hinges open. Rusty iron was everywhere, and what greeted us past that door could only be described as a prison. Cells with barred windows lined both sides of the winding passageway. Stone walls that perhaps had been hidden under the mansion for decades stood in dusty crumbling silence. Down here, it smelled very earthy, the way my parents basement had smelled when I climbed down into it as a tot. In a way, I found it comforting. Beth, however, was anything but comforted. A large dusty cobweb caught on her face and hair and she gave one of those shrieks that only girls can make. I shushed her, but it was too late. I heard shouts behind us.
