doors in modern houses; they are flimsy. If you want to see a solid piece of seasoned oak, bound with iron and riveted to huge hasps and hinges, visit a nice old-fashioned chamber in a manor house. Our door was massive and stern, heavy enough to keep any noise in or out. I yanked on the lock, just in case it had not been padlocked, for once. The door did not even tremble.
“What do they expect us to do if there is a fire?” I asked scornfully, hugging myself and hopping from one foot to another.
Vanity’s teeth chattered. She said mournfully: “Quentin says Mr. Glum should not have cut down the Great Escape Tree. He says there was a Dryad living there, who now wanders, houseless, among the winds.”
“And it was our only way down from the window. You don’t think Dryads exist, do you?”
“Well, that one doesn’t any more, obviously. Are you going to get dressed? Not there!” she added when I hopped over to the dresser. “Those will be ice-cold. I wrapped up things for us to wear in our pillows. They were under the sheets with us, nice and toasty.”
“Clever, clever!” I said. She also happened to pick out my favorite out-of-door outfit: jodhpurs and a heavy blouse, and high-waisted jacket of buff leather that went with it.
From the top shelf of the wardrobe I pulled my leather aviatrix cap and my goggles. I buckled the chin strap and slung the goggles around my neck. There was also a six-foot scarf which wound around my neck.
Vanity was staring at me in disbelief. “We are not going to a fancy dress ball. Why are you putting on a… costume?”
“What? This? This is my lucky helmet,” I said, tucking strands of hair beneath the cap. “Besides, how are we going to end up going anywhere? Are you going to pick the locks without touching them, the way Victor does?”
Vanity said, “I don’t think Victor actually can do that. Who has ever seen him?”
“The sun will come up in the West before Victor Triumph tells a lie!” I said. I was seated, pulling on my high-heeled boots.
But Vanity had pressed her cheek up to the stones along the East wall of the room.
On the other two walls, the stones were covered with white plaster and wainscoting. This wall was irregular granite blocks, cemented together, for about ten feet. Above that were deep casements and small, barred windows looking East, surrounded by plaster and uncarved wooden frames. Below these frames were massive iron mountings, carved into gnome faces. What these mountings were originally supposed to hold, either torches, or curtain rods, or other fixtures, I did not know.
11.
As a little girl, I had always been afraid of the faces, and was terrified to find them staring at me when I woke in the middle of the night. My fear was not alleviated when Primus (so he was called at the time) told me sternly that inanimate objects could not hurt anyone.
It was little Quartinus (Colin) who saved me. One day when he was playing sick, he sneaked from the infirmary, and stole nail enamel from the boudoir of Miss Daw, who was our music teacher, a fair-haired woman of ethereal beauty with skin as clear as fine porcelain. He then went out to steal a ladder from Mr. Glum’s shed. Somehow he carried a ladder all the way up three flights of stairs in midday without being seen, and all the way to the girls’ dorm.
There he was, balanced precariously eleven feet high, painting the noses red on the ugly metal faces, crossing their eyes, giving them moustaches and goatees, and he had managed to deface six out of the seven goblins when Mrs. Wren walked in and caught him.
He was punished by being sent to his room without supper. I smuggled him part of the tuna fish casserole we had for dinner, wrapped up in my skirt. At that time, of course, the ash tree outside the North window gave me easy access to the ground. I tied the skirt in a bundle and threw it through the window of the boys’ dorm. Quartinus thanked me the next day, but he never returned the skirt.
I asked him why he defaced the goblins. He told me: “Your fear gives them energy. When you see them as stupid-looking, though,
Whatever the reason, it worked. They always looked silly to me after that; all except the one on the far end, whom little Quartinus had not gotten to.
12.
Vanity stood with her cheek pressed to the stones, her eyes closed, as if she were listening intently. She motioned with one hand, pointed to the long-handled candlesnuffer which (we assumed) had been in the room since before the candelabra had been electrified.
I handed her the pole, and she put the hook end (used for lighting candles) in the mouth of one of the gargoyle faces. It was the one at the far end. She tugged.
With a sigh and a click, a section of stone moved forward and then swung out, revealing a secret passage beyond.
“That’s impossible!” I said, flabbergasted.
The door was small and square, no more than three feet by three. The stones, which had seemed so thick and sturdy, were merely an eighth-inch of shaved granite face affixed to a wooden door.
The door was set to the frame with sets of hinges of a type I had not seen before: each hinge was riveted to a second and a third, to form a little metal W-shape. The triple hinges unfolded like an accordion when the door was opened, allowing the door to move directly out from the wall for a half-inch, before swinging to one side. This also allowed the door to swing outward, even though the hinges were on the inner side.
The crawl space beyond had a floor of unpainted, unvarnished wood, and narrow walls of brick. The three- foot ceiling was curved in an arch. It looked like a chimney lying on its side.
“When did you find this?” I asked Vanity. I was kneeling, with my head in the door, and she was peering over my shoulder.
“During the summer, after Mr. Glum chopped down the Great Escape Tree. I would check for panels every night. I could only find it, for some reason, if it was the thirtieth or thirty-first of the month. Weird, huh? I bet it’s on a timer.”
I turned on my knees to look up at her. “Dr. Fell gives us our injections on the first of the month.”
She blinked at me, her wide, emerald-green eyes brimming puzzlement. “What has that got to do with anything?”
Now I knew how Victor felt about me when I asked a question about something he thought obvious.
I nodded toward the dark hole: “Where does it go?”
“I was never able to get a light in here. If you follow the left-hand wall through two turns, you come out near the clock in the Main Hall. There are two other ways I never explored.”
“Left? You mean right, surely?”
“Just go as I tell you.”
We crawled in the pitch dark. My fingers felt occasional spiderwebs or splinters along the dusty wood floor. Once or twice I banged my head against the brick ceiling, and was glad for the humble protection of my aviatrix helmet.
The stale air was warm and close, and I was grateful for the warmth on a cold night like this. Once or twice I heard a noise: it sounded like the rumble of breakers.
“I hear the sea,” I whispered over my shoulder.
Her voice sounded very close in the pitch darkness. “Some trick of the acoustics, I doubt not. Like a whispering gallery. Maybe there is a tunnel which leads down to the sea cliffs…?”
“Ow! I found where the wall ends. It goes left and right.” I was glad I had bundled my hair into a cushion under my cap. I took a moment to adjust my goggles so they rode atop my head. Another extra inch of leather and glass might mute the next skull impact.
