faint light.
As she had no hope of lifting the headboard, she decided to try to slide it enough so that she might slip behind. Shifting her position, she lowered her head and applied a shoulder to the wood. In another moment she felt it give, and then it began to move across the hard-packed floor. Elated by her success, and curious to see where the passage might lead, she renewed her effort.
Then it seemed as though she'd been plunged into a painful night, under a sky full of swirling stars. The ground came to meet her with a crash, and she lay for a moment in a sort of twilight. Did she again hear music? Or was it only a roar of blood in her ears? Laughter seemed to sound as she continued to sink into a deep well. On its sides were faces, illuminated, laughing, passing by as the stars above receded. And there was a sound like the whirling of skirts, lulling her to sleep.
Beside her still form, the candle danced. Something brown scurried past her skirts, frightened from its burrow. But Charlotte was unaware of anything that might have harmed her further.
Some time later, she begin to revive. Someone called out to her from far away. The familiar voice drew nearer. Before long it came clearly.
“Mrs. Willett? Mrs. Willett!”
“Here!” she called back, but her voice sounded no more than a whisper. She stretched her neck to view the stairs. Soon a pair of legs strode toward her.
“Oh God—Charlotte?” His exclamation was rather strange, she thought, and it seemed that a part of his voice, too, was trapped in his throat. Could something have happened?
Richard Longfellow swooped to enfold her in his strong arms, protecting her at first, then settling his cheek against her own. She heard him murmur thanks as he cradled her, felt his warm breath, and saw a most unusual fear in his lovely hazel eyes. She recalled her earlier hesitancy on the steps, when she'd felt another hand on her shoulder. This touch felt far more urgent, and wonderfully real.
While an arm continued to support her, a hand began to run searchingly about her face and into her gathered hair, where its fingers prodded gently. She felt a sharp pain and cringed, giving a startled cry as she fully recovered her senses.
“I'm sorry, Carlotta,” he responded, his attention drawn to a growing bump that had caused her discomfort. “It seems there's no break in the skin, and no blood. By the sound of the crash, I imagined you'd found a way to bring the entire house down around you. What happened? And how did you nearly manage to crack your skull?”
“I'm not sure,” she said, feeling the bump herself, amazed by its size. “I was only trying to move the headboard—”
She looked to see that it had fallen to the floor; now it lay in several pieces. Pale tongues that had held the joints together were exposed.
“The thing must have been dried and warped, waiting to spring apart when you touched it,” Longfellow decided.
And yet she'd barely moved it, she recalled, while trying to see into the hidden passage—
Soon Longfellow, too, arched his neck to stare at what she'd uncovered. A haze of light still beckoned from beyond, while an eddy brought air from the outside.
“You saw no one else here?” he asked suddenly.
“My head was down,” she admitted. “But I… I don't think so.”
“I'm glad it was no worse. You gave me the devil of a fright. Do you suppose you can stand, Carlotta? I'll support you. Or I'll carry you, if you like.”
Her attempt to rise gave her a new thrill of pain, but it passed quickly. She tried putting one foot in front of the other, testing her weight. It seemed nothing else had been damaged.
“I'll recover soon. But where do you suppose this leads?”
“It looks to be no more than a few yards long. Shall we see?”
Longfellow picked up her candle and shielded it carefully, for they had no other. Holding her arm, he began to walk slowly into the mouth of the tunnel. In a few feet, it narrowed. It seemed they would have to walk one behind the other.
“Can you manage alone?” he asked.
“Yes. No one's been here before us; the floor is sandy, but there are no footprints.”
“It would seem so. This slight rippling must have been caused by the wind.”
They walked on, along the walls of a cleft filled from above by roots that clutched at