Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Straining her ears, Emily counted as the gloomy clock, muffled by endless layers of stone walls, knelled the hours into her dark cell. Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Eleven o’clock, and still no sign of Kipper. Of course, he had not arrived until midnight the night before, so there was time yet for him to put in an appearance. Emily shut her eyes tight, thinking that if she could doze off, the time would pass more quickly. Then all at once, her eyes flew back open. Voices! She heard the sound of voices breaking through the heavy silence from somewhere! Emily stiffened, staring wide-eyed into the darkness and listening.
Was somebody coming to see her? Neither Kipper nor Tilly nor Aunt Twice would be likely to let themselves be heard visiting the prisoner at this hour. Who then? It was impossible to tell. Like the clock, the voices were muffled, and they had a curious hollow echo to them. But there was something else quite startling about the voices. They seemed to be coming from somewhere under the floor of the Remembrance Room! Closer and closer drew the voices until they were almost under the bench where Emily lay, and then gradually they began to fade away until at last they disappeared altogether.
Emily shivered. Was the darkness playing tricks on her? How could voices be coming from under a cellar floor? It wasn’t possible! In the end, persuaded that she must have become crazed from being alone in the dark and had imagined the whole thing, she drifted into a restless sleep.
She had no idea what time it had become when she was startled into sudden awakeness by the sound of a key grating in the rusty lock of her cell and then being carefully removed. Ready to feign sleep in a moment, she watched the door open slowly. A brass lantern with the wick turned down low appeared around the door, and right behind it was Kipper!
“Evening, Emily!” he said, calm as a sunny day at the shore, and just as cheerful.
Emily could only stare at him, speechless with happiness and surprise at seeing him right before her in the cell. Fear and the memory of strange voices imagined in the dark suddenly vanished.
“Come now, ain’t you going to say anything? Tuna got your tongue, as Pa always says?” Kipper grinned.
Emily threw her hands to her mouth. “Kipper!”
“Once again, as promised! Come to help you run away, Emily.”
“Run—run away?” stammered Emily.
“That’s right, run away to Pa’s and my place,” said Kipper. “Leastways ’til we could find a safer spot.”
Run away! Emily had never considered the possibility. But now the door to her prison was unlocked, and she could run away. She had a place to run to, which was an enormous consideration, and someone to look after her. Run away—the answer to everything! Or was it?
“I-I can’t,” said Emily.
“Can’t!” Kipper exploded. “Why not, Emily? This place addled your brain already?”
“I don’t think so. It’s just that … just that—”
“Just that what?” Kipper interrupted impatiently. “You best come up with some good explanation, Emily.”
“Well, what do you suppose would happen if I ran away?” said Emily defiantly. “Mrs. Meeching would believe that someone in Sugar Hill Hall had let me out, and who would be punished for it? It could be anyone she chose—poor Aunt Twice, or poor Mrs. Plumly, or even one of the old people. It could be Mrs. Poovey or Mr. Bottle or—or anyone! So I can’t run away, much as I want to. I can’t, Kipper!”
Kipper scratched an ear. “Guess I never thought
’bout any o’ that, Emily. But you’re right, I’m blessed if you ain’t. Danged snake lady! Well,” he said with a deep sigh, “ain’t much left to say excepting I will come see you as often as I can.”
Emily struggled to keep a solemn face. “Someone else will be coming to see me often too.”
“I expect you mean Tilly, who’ll be bringing you your lumps o’ bread and some o’ the other outstanding Sugar Hill Hall wictuals,” said Kipper. “I guess you ain’t going to be too happy ’bout seeing her, for more’n one reason.”
“For your information, I will be happy to see Tilly. Now what do you make of that?” Emily could no longer keep the happy smile from her face.
“What I make of it is that you’re just as addled as you can be,” replied Kipper. “What’s Tilly done now, repent o’ her wicked deeds?”
“It’s what Tilly hasn’t done, Kipper!” cried Emily. “She hasn’t drowned Clarabelle!”
Kipper stared at Emily as if he’d been struck by lightning but hadn’t fallen over yet.
“It’s true,” said Emily. “She brought Clarabelle to show me last night after you’d gone. That’s the someone else I meant—not just Tilly, but Tilly and Clarabelle!”
Kipper finally blinked. “Well, I’ll be a beached barnacle, as Pa always says!”
It was a long while before everything that could be said had been said about this wonderful news. But not until the subject of who had done the terrible deed of telling, if not Tilly, had been thoroughly, although unsuccessfully explored, did Emily finally remember something.
“Kipper!” she gasped. “I forgot to ask you—how did you get the key to the lock?”
Kipper grinned wryly. “I was commencing to think as how you never would ask! Mind if I take a seat?”
“Please!” said Emily.
They both perched on the hard bench with Kipper’s little lantern between them, and he told his story.
“Happens on my way out last night, I get this sudden notion, so I hightail it right into the kitchen and pick me up a lump o’ bread from the basket. I pour a dab o’ water over it and mux it up real good ’till it’s like a hunk o’ clay. Then off I go with it to the snake lady’s room.”
“You didn’t!” exclaimed Emily. She was already turning all goose bumps.
“I did!” said Kipper. “First I look, and there ain’t any light coming from under the
