So the peddler went in search of a child, because while it is very difficult for an adult to pass through an adit-gate or even find one in the first place, children—especially the right sort of children—fall through them into other worlds all the time.
It wasn’t long before he happened upon a small boy being ganged up on by a group of bigger boys who, conveniently, were giving him hell for being gutless. The peddler didn’t catch what the boy called Pantin had done to deserve this, but he wasted no time in coming to the child’s defense. “I bet he’s braver than you,” the peddler said, hauling the loudest of the bullies away by his collar. “Let him prove he’s not a coward.”
“How?” the bully snarled, trying unsuccessfully to twist out of the peddler’s grip.
“Yes, how?” Pantin asked, curious.
The peddler thrust the bully away. “Let him stay a night in the house on Fellwool Street. I’ll wager none of the rest of you would dare it.”
They all shrank back at this suggestion; everyone knew the house on Fellwool was cursed. But poor Pantin was trapped. If he refused, he would be shown to be a coward, provably and perpetually. On the other hand, if he did it, he would be a legend. And so he agreed, because while small children are all prone to beastliness to some degree or other, they are also all capable of moments of most extraordinary courage.
That night, Pantin snuck out of his house with a lantern and a satchel full of supplies, and he met the other boys at the end of Fellwool Street. They walked over the broken pavement and through the twisted trees to the house, with Pantin, who figured he’d better start looking for his courage now, leading the way. Soon they saw lights in the thick darkness up ahead: candles glowing in the windows of the house. They found the peddler waiting on the porch. One side of the French front door was open, and through it they could see a cluster of lamps and candlesticks standing on a table in the center of the room beyond.
The other boys hung back, leaving Pantin to climb the porch stairs alone. “I thought I could offer some help, since it was I who got you into this,” the peddler said. “A night is a long stretch, unless you have some way to pass the time.”
“What sort of way?” Pantin asked, entranced by the dancing shadows inside the house.
“A treasure hunt,” the peddler said, and Pantin looked at him at last. His eyes were blue and cold, even in the darkness. “And if you find the treasure and bring it out to me when your night is up, I’ll pay you for it.”
The boy’s knees knocked. “What’s the treasure, then?”
“Inside this house,” the peddler said, “there will be an adit-gate. A . . . let’s say a sort of cabinet that, when opened, shows you something other than the inside of it. That is the adit-gate. It might be part of any sort of cabinet, big or small, old or new. It might be locked, in which case, you may try this.” And from his pocket he took a skeleton key. “Take care not to drop it.”
Pantin took it carefully. It was pale where it wasn’t marred by red and orange rust streaks, and it was rough to the touch, like unglazed china.
“When you find the right cabinet,” the peddler continued, “do not go into it, no matter what you might see. The treasure I want is the keyhole from that cabinet.” He handed Pantin a rolled piece of oilcloth, inside of which the boy felt long, thin shapes. “These might be useful. Or then again, they might not.”
Pantin stowed the peddler’s skeleton key and the rolled cloth inside his pack, took a deep, deep breath, and stepped past the peddler and across the threshold. “Thank you for lighting the candles.”
The man’s cold confidence wavered. “I didn’t light them.”
The door swung shut between them before the boy could reply. The moment it banged closed, all the lights—the ones on the table as well as the candle in Pantin’s own lantern—flared a deep blue. Then they blinked out, and he was swallowed by the dark.
He fumbled in his bag for matches as he lurched across the room. He struck a light and reached for the nearest candle, only to find his little flame casting its meager glow onto an empty table thick with dust that didn’t look as though it had been disturbed in a very long time.
He still had his lantern, of course, and it lit without trouble, burning a perfectly ordinary flame. Pantin swallowed his nerves, lifted the lamp with an unsteady hand, and set out to explore the house and find the peddler’s mysterious cabinet.
From somewhere in the darkness came the ticking of clocks, but there was no furniture in the big foyer except the dusty table. Opposite the front door, a sweeping curved staircase led up to the next floor. There was a single doorway in each wall: the front door he’d come in through and three wide entrances leading to rooms to his right, to his left, and straight ahead, the last of which was tucked under the curve of the big stair. Through the half-open pocket door to the left, he could just make out the vague shapes of furniture. That room, he thought, might also contain the source of the ticking. Through the arch that gave into the room on the right, Pantin’s straining eyes, beginning to adjust, picked out the shadows of large, unmoving animal forms. He bolted instinctively for the arch under the stairs.
This led him through a dining room to a swinging door that deposited him into a hallway, which, in turn, took him to the kitchens. There, at last, the boy found cupboards to try. Some were empty and some were not, but everything he found inside each of the cabinets—cutlery, glassware, mismatched
