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Wendell looked at the others.
Cornelius whispered, “It knows who’s coming.”
Inside, the cabin appeared almost orderly.
Too orderly.
The stove had been cleaned. The kettle polished. The bed remade with a blanket none of them recognized, coarse gray wool tucked tight around the mattress. On the table sat five tin cups.
Five men. Five cups.
Reverend Bell began to pray under his breath.
Sheriff Voss removed his hat. Sweat stood on his forehead.
The vertical mark on the wall was gone.
In its place, the boards were clean, pale, almost new.
Wendell approached despite every instinct screaming at him not to. The section of wall where the stain had been did not match the rest. It looked as though the wood had grown over the mark, healing itself with fresh grain.
Absalom moved to the corner where the rocking chair had once stood. He knelt and brushed dust aside.
“There,” he said.
A seam showed in the floorboards. Rectangular. Not a trapdoor exactly; more like a panel fitted so carefully that dirt had hidden it. There was an iron ring recessed into one edge.
Voss looked at Cornelius. “Was there a cellar?”
“No.”
“Mabel ever mention one?”
“No.”
Absalom stood. “Don’t open it.”
All eyes turned to him.
He looked at each man in turn. “We came to see. We have seen. Leave.”
Wendell thought of Mabel’s last sentence. I am going to look behind me now.
“We need to know,” he said.
“No,” Absalom answered. “You want to know. That is different.”
Voss drew his revolver. “If there is a space beneath this cabin, there may be remains.”
“If there is a space beneath this cabin,” Absalom said, “it is not beneath this cabin.”
The minister’s prayer faltered.
Cornelius gripped his cane. “Listen to him.”
Wendell wished he could. For one suspended moment, he almost did. Then something knocked beneath the floor.
Three short.
One long.
Reverend Bell sobbed once.
The knock came again.
Three short.
One long.
Then Mabel Thornquist’s voice rose from under the boards.
“Cornelius?”
The old man’s face collapsed.
“Mabel,” he said before anyone could stop him.
The floor ring lifted by itself.
The panel opened.
Darkness breathed out.
Part 5
Later, none of the men would agree on how deep the opening looked.
Sheriff Voss would say it was a crawlspace, perhaps three feet from floorboards to earth, though he could not explain why the lantern light failed to touch the bottom.
Reverend Bell, before silence claimed him, would write in a single note that the opening contained “distance without room for distance.”
Cornelius Holloway would refuse all questions.
Absalom Reeve would say only, “It was not dark. It was looking.”
Wendell Crisp saw roots.
That was what his mind chose first, perhaps because roots belonged beneath a cabin. Thick cedar roots twisted through the black, pale where bark had split, wet as tendons. They descended farther than roots should descend, crossing and recrossing into a throatlike passage. Between them, embedded in packed earth, were objects.
Buttons. Teeth. Hair combs. Compass needles. Wedding rings. A child’s shoe. A rusted buckle. Glass beads. A pocket watch with no hands. A pipe. A strip of blue ribbon. A small Bible swollen with damp. A woman’s jawbone threaded with wire.
The smell rolled up, wet iron and old leaves and birth gone wrong.
Mabel’s voice came again.
“Cornelius, help me.”
The old man took one step toward the opening.
Absalom caught him around the chest. Cornelius fought with sudden strength, clawing at the tracker’s hands.
“She’s down there!”
“No,” Absalom said. “That is what it has of her.”
“Let me go!”
Mabel began to cry beneath the floor.