Emily, all attention, shifted nervously on the bench.
Kipper lowered his voice to a hush, thoroughly relishing the telling of his tale to such a responsive audience. “Well, there’s her big ring o’ keys hanging right on her bedpost. Ain’t no need to ask anyone which key’s the one to the Remembrance Room, ’cause it’s standing out clearer than a whale in a bucket o’ sardines, as Pa would say. So I lift up that key and press it into my muxed-up bread lump. I got me a perfeck image o’ that key, and this here one’s made right from that bread lump! What do you think o’ that, Emily?”
“What—what I think of it is that you might have been caught, and you shouldn’t have done it,” said Emily, and then added in a rush of words, “but I’m so glad that you did!
Kipper beamed. After that, they just sat on the bench, swinging their legs happily. Then Kipper picked up his lantern and shone it around the room. The little spot of light explored the walls and ceiling, and finally arrived at the floor. There it stopped. The spotlight had discovered a darkened slab of wood fitted so closely into the stone floor it might have been part of the floor itself, except that it was fastened on one side with a heavy, rusted padlock. Emily started when she saw it.
“Hey!” Kipper exclaimed softly. “Look at that, Emily. ’Pears to me to be the cover o’ some kind o’ well. But what’s a well doing here?”
“Long, long ago,” Emily said, “I remember Uncle Twice telling Papa of a well in the cellar of Sugar Hill Hall. He said he had never even bothered to open it up since it wasn’t needed. This might be that well, Kipper. But … but-”
“But what, Emily? Why do you got that pecoolyar look on your face?”
“I-I-I,” Emily stammered. “Oh, Kipper, if I tell you, you’ll say I’m addled again. I thought I was addled, too, and had imagined the whole thing.”
“What whole thing?” asked Kipper impatiently. “Ain’t any way I can decide ’bout it if you don’t tell me, Emily.”
“Well, some time before you came tonight, about eleven o’clock, I heard voices, and it seemed as if they came from under the floor. From under this very room, Kipper!”
“Voices?” Kipper looked curiously at Emily. “From under this room?”
“There!” exclaimed Emily. “You see, you do think I’m addled!”
“No such thing, Emily!”
“You—you mean you believe I did hear them?”
Kipper nodded. “O’ course I do! I ain’t surprised ’bout anything that could happen in this spooky mansion. Did you hear what the voices was saying?”
“They were too far away and hollow sounding,” Emily replied. “But—but do you suppose there might be another cellar under this one and not a well at all? Perhaps Uncle Twice just thought this was a well”.
“Ain’t anyone ever told me ’bout any cellar deeper’n this one, Emily, but that ain’t to say that there ain’t one. Nobody told me ’bout any well either.”
Kipper studied the old slab of wood, and then suddenly was down on his knees beside it. He twisted the old lock in his hands, and after he had studied it for a moment, tried jabbing his key into it. The key fit! Quickly, he wiggled it back and forth. There was the squeal of metal against rusty metal, and the old lock finally released its ancient, rusty grip. Kipper looked up at Emily with wild, excited eyes. “Now we’ll see what we shall see!”
“Be careful!” Emily cried. “If it is the well-”
“I ain’t going to drop into any old well. Never fear!” said Kipper. He removed the lock and then, with several sharp tugs and a long pull, lifted the heavy slab of wood. Clouds of choking dust flew out at the edges. Holding up his lantern, Kipper peered down over the ledge into the black hole.
“Dingus, Emily!” he breathed. “This ain’t any well. It’s steps going down someplace! Come look.”
Emily inched over toward Kipper. A moment later, she was looking down a flight of stone steps so long and blackened with filth and age they seemed like stairs to the middle of the world.
“Hello-o-o down there!” Kipper called out softly.
“Down there, down there, down there,” came echoing back.
“That’s a long stairwell,” he said. “If it goes to any other cellar, must be one what’s a jillion miles down.” He waved his lantern, and eerie shadows danced on the ancient steps.
“Would—would you like to go see what’s there?” asked Emily.
“Would you?’ Kipper asked right back. His eyes were huge in the lantern light
Emily hesitated a moment, and then finally nodded.
“All right then!” Kipper gulped. “I’ll go first with the lantern.”
As if some unknown horror was going to rise from the pit and grab him by the leg, Kipper put a hesitant foot on the first step and started down. Emily followed as close as she could behind him. It seemed half a mile later before they set foot off the last step and Kipper raised his lantern over his head to shine it around them.
“Wheeoo!” He gave a long, low whistle. “It ain’t a well nor a cellar. It’s a tunnel! Looks like the inside o’ a serpent’s belly, don’t it?” Kipper spoke with all the authority of having seen several. “Look at them walls black with the breath o’ his fire, and that slime oozing out o’ his innards.”
Emily shivered uncontrollably. The feeble glow of the lantern was barely able to break through the chill dark air, heavy with mold and decay, to pick out
