The professor stepped up to one of the best-preserved skeletons and held his lantern close. “Take special note of the knee joints, and here, the skull. The thickness of them. I have never seen the like on any human being.”
Coldness ghosted over my skin. “You’re saying this fellow here was a giant?”
“This fellow is actually a woman,” he said with a grin made eerie in the swinging lantern light. “And, no. Though brutishly built, they’re roughly the same height as us. But I wonder if those buried here were actually human.”
“What else could they be?” Elizabeth asked, startled.
“It’s very controversial,” the professor said somewhat uncomfortably, turning to my father, “but I know that you, Alphonse, are a man of wide and liberal beliefs.”
“Speak freely,” Father said.
“There are theories, unpopular still, that we were not always as we are. Some think that before man was man, he was something else. That over thousands, if not millions, of years we changed from one thing into another. These skeletons here may be what we once were. Before we became properly human.”
“The first Frankensteins, perhaps,” said Henry with a nervous attempt at laughter.
“Would this have been the tomb of an entire clan?” Father asked.
“Possibly,” said the professor. “But these skeletons here are merely a prelude to something else.”
“Why do you say that?” Elizabeth asked.
“You will see.”
He led us farther along the chamber until it opened into a much larger one. At its very center was a raised mound, encircled and entirely covered by a profusion of ornaments carved from stone and bone. As we drew closer, I saw that some were fist-size figurines of men or women. Others were carvings of animals-all the great beasts depicted on the walls. In wonder I knelt down to see them better.
“In many ancient cultures,” said the professor, “it is common for a chief or shaman or king to be buried with family members or dignitaries who were chosen to share the tomb.”
“Those skeletons in the passage?” Henry asked.
“Precisely.”
“But given their sheer number, and the profusion of ornaments here-and that wall image in the chamber above-I believe whoever was buried beneath this mound was considered a god.”
CHAPTER 11
I’d meant to wait till after midnight before making my entrance to the spirit world, and must have fallen asleep while reading on my bed. I woke with a start. The candle had all but burned down. Quickly I stood, walked to my shelves, and opened my chess set. Nestled beside the queen was the key to the bottom drawer of my desk. As I crossed the room, I faltered. Lingering in the air, like the memory of some spectral perfume, was the sense that someone, not long ago, had just been here.
Uneasily I opened the drawer, and stared in panic. The spirit clock and the green flask of elixir were both gone. Had we been discovered? Had Father stolen into my room and seized these things?
I took several deep breaths. No. Not Father.
Silently I crept out into the hallway and made my way to Elizabeth’s bedchamber. What right did she have to confiscate my elixir, to try to control my actions? Inside my head angry words tumbled one over the other. Her door was locked, but I’d anticipated this and took from my pocket a slender two-pronged device I’d mastered at the age of twelve. In four seconds the door was open and I walked inside, my angry speech already rehearsed.
She was lying fully dressed on her bed. Her eyes were shut, each of her hands holding something. In her right I caught sight of the outlines of the spirit clock.
She was inside!
After all her talk of never going in again, she’d gone inside-and without me!
On her night table was the green flask. Hurriedly I drew out the dropper and let it drip once upon my tongue. I replaced it and sat down in an armchair. I pulled off my family ring to grasp in my hand. I had only a few seconds to wait before***
— I open my eyes in Elizabeth’s empty bedchamber. At once I see a colorful butterfly launch itself from my body, and with a grunt of dismay I realize that this is the spirit, my spirit, that has been upon me all day, giving me such strength and mental agility. I stand and follow it out into the hallway, lifting my hand, but it flutters high out of reach.
“Come back,” I whisper, feeling a flicker of panic within me.
But almost at once it crosses paths with a black butterfly that spirals gracefully down toward me, its musical wings softly thrumming as it lands upon me. At once I feel the familiar pulse of energy and calm.
I hear voices, and pad silently down the hallway to Konrad’s bedchamber. The door is ajar, and I peer inside. Konrad and Elizabeth are sitting as close together as they possibly can, talking tenderly. My brother has his head lowered to avoid her glare, and he certainly hasn’t noticed mine. I open the door and stride in.
“You hypocrite!” I say to Elizabeth.
They both turn in alarm, Elizabeth with her hand to her chest.
“Victor! I thought you were fast asleep.”
“No doubt you stole them for my own good,” I say mockingly.
The surprise on her face becomes defiance. “I did nothing of the sort, though it would’ve been good for you! You’re not one to resist temptation easily.”
“Nor you, clearly.”
“And why do you get to keep them locked up in your room as if they belong to you alone?”
“I found them.”
“No more than Henry or me.”
“They’re mine. And how did you know where I kept the key to my drawer?”
“You’ve been keeping it in your chess set since you were twelve years old! I was going to return them as soon as I was done. Anyway, is it so wrong to want some time alone with the person I love most in the world?”
“Not at all,” I say dismissively, though her words sting. “We had the same idea.”
She laughs. “No, we didn’t. You’ve come to see what’s in that burial mound.”
“Well,” I say, taken aback at being caught out so swiftly, “I’ll admit to being slightly curious. So you told Konrad about what the professor found?”
From the moment I’d heard the moan from that slanting passage and had felt the strange energy wafting up from it, I’d known it was only a matter of time before I made the descent to find its source.
“Don’t go, Victor,” Konrad says.
“You needn’t come, either of you, if you’re afraid,” I say, knowing this will light a fire under both of them. “But I’ll need to slow the clock, to buy myself more time.”
Reluctantly Elizabeth hands it to me, and I urge the supernatural gears to slow until they are scarcely turning.
“Victor,” my brother says, “whatever’s down there is dangerous.”
“We don’t know that yet,” I insist. “But if it’s so true, surely we ought to know about it.”
“True enough,” Konrad says with difficulty.
But I’m also thinking, There’s a power in that place, and I need to know what it is.
At the threshold of the slanting passage Konrad falters.
“I don’t know if I can do it,” he says when I look back to see if he’s following me and Elizabeth.
“You’re safe with us,” I tell him. “We’re the living. Nothing can hurt you while we’re here.”
His fear is etched deep into his face, but he takes a determined step after us, sword in hand.
