فصل 05 - بخش 01

CHAPTER 5

THE WOODS

“WHO’S UP FOR ONE MORE TOUR?” said Tom, waving a brochure at his wife and children, who were sitting on a sofa in the living room of the bed-and-breakfast where they were staying in Bath. “It’s a walking tour. Bath by Night.”

“Wouldn’t Bath by night be the same as Bath by day, only darker?” said Aidan.

Tom sighed, then looked toward Sarah.

“Dad, I’m really tired,” she said, with a huge yawn. “All that pedaling today wore me out.”

“Well,” said Tom, “you were the ones who insisted on renting bicycles.”

“I know, Dad,” said Sarah. “And I can’t wait to ride around some more tomorrow. But I think I’m going to bed early tonight.”

“Me too,” said Aidan, stretching dramatically.

Natalie frowned and said, “Are you two all right?” It was unlike her children to go to bed early.

“Really, Mom, I’m fine,” said Sarah. She rose from the sofa. “G’night,” she said, heading for the room she and Aidan shared.

“Me too,” said Aidan, following his sister.

“We’ll see you at breakfast, then,” said Tom. He turned to his wife. “What about you, Nat? Up for a walking tour?”

“To be honest,” said Natalie, “I’m pretty beat myself. What I’m up for is a nice cup of tea, a book, and bed.”

“Okay, then,” said Tom, a bit disappointed. “I guess it’s going to be a quiet night.”

Sarah and Aidan waited an hour and a half to be sure their parents had settled in for the night. As the minutes crawled by, Sarah verified, for the fifteenth time, that Aidan had entered the coordinates correctly into his phone’s GPS. She also checked and rechecked her backpack to make sure it contained the supplies they’d bought earlier that day while their parents were antique-shopping—two flashlights, some cheese sandwiches, chocolate bars, four bottles of water, and, from a camping store next to the supermarket, a “Survival Kit in a Tin.” This was a small, vacuum-sealed metal container, about the size of a coffee can, packed with supposedly useful items—a whistle, duct tape, a fishhook and line, a compass, first-aid supplies, and so on. Sarah thought it was stupid—“What, you think we’re suddenly going to need a fish?”—but Aidan thought it was cool and insisted that they buy it.

At nine thirty p.m. Sarah, wearing the backpack, quietly opened the door to their room and stepped into the hall. She stood outside her parents’ door for a moment, listening; hearing nothing, she gestured for Aidan to come out. They closed their door gently and tiptoed down the hall, through the empty living room, and outside. They went around the side of the building to the bike rack, unlocked the combination cable lock, and freed their rental bikes.

Sarah got out the Google map she’d had the concierge print out back at their London hotel. According to Google, they were three miles from the location indicated on Magill’s document, although by road it was more like five miles. They wheeled their bikes to the street. At the moment there was no traffic. The night was cool and clear; a bright half moon was rising.

“This way,” said Sarah, pointing up the street.

Aidan hesitated. “Are we really doing this?” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, are we crazy?” said Aidan. “Sneaking out in the middle of the night in the middle of England to go find something that…that we don’t even know what it is? Because of some weird old piece of paper? I mean, it seemed like a fun idea, but now that we’re actually doing it, it just seems a little…crazy.”

“Maybe,” said Sarah. “But after all this work, we’re here, three miles away from the place that piece of paper is taking us to. You can chicken out if you want. But I’m gonna see what it is.”

“I’m not chickening out,” said Aidan.

“Then come on,” said Sarah. She mounted her bike and began pedaling toward the end of the street.

Aidan, with less enthusiasm, mounted his bike and followed.

“Why couldn’t I have a normal sister?” he said, mostly to himself.

They rode on wide, well-lit streets, sticking to the sidewalk. They came to London Road and followed it out of Bath. In two miles the road turned gently right, following the curve of the River Avon and becoming Bradford Road. Here the setting was more rural, the road passing through fields and woods; there was no sidewalk, so Sarah and Aidan had to dismount and stand by the roadside to avoid the occasional car speeding through the night. The road’s name changed again, colorfully, to “Sally in the Wood”; it entered a forest, which closed in on both sides, blotting out the moon. Now, every hundred yards or so, Sarah stopped to check the GPS coordinates.

The fifth time she stopped, she said, “Okay, here.”

Aidan looked around at the looming trees.

“What do you mean, here?” he said. “There’s nothing here.”

“We’re at the right latitude,” she said. “Now we just need to walk that way”—she pointed at the forest on the left—“about fifteen hundred feet.”

“What about the bikes?”

“We’ll hide them in the woods by the road. Nobody’s going to be walking through here tonight.”

“Yeah,” said Aidan. “You’d have to be insane to be walking through here tonight.”

Ignoring him, Sarah carried her bike a few yards into the woods and propped it against a tree. Aidan did the same. Sarah got the flashlights out of the backpack and handed one to Aidan. They turned them on and shone the beams into the woods. There was no path—only trees, underbrush, and shadows. To Aidan the flashlights somehow seemed to make the woods seem even darker.

“Okay,” said Sarah, setting off. Aidan, with a glance back, followed quickly. They trudged forward on a course roughly perpendicular to the road, sometimes veering to avoid thicker patches of brush and bramble. Sarah checked the GPS constantly, making small corrections. After about fifteen minutes she slowed, then stopped, then began moving in a slow circle, her eyes riveted to the screen. Then she stopped again.

“It’s somewhere around here,” she said.

They swept their flashlight beams in circles.

“All I see is trees,” said Aidan.

“It might not be this exact spot,” said Sarah. “Look around.”

They separated, but not by much; Aidan had no intention of getting out of sight of his sister in these woods. They wandered among the dark trees, sweeping their light beams left and right. Ten minutes passed.

“I think we should go,” said Aidan. “There’s nothing here but trees.”

“There has to be something here,” said Sarah. “There has to.”

“Maybe there was something once, and it’s gone now.”

“I’m going to keep looking.” Sarah started off in a new direction.

“Okay, you do that. I’m going to…” Aidan’s light beam fell on a looming shape ahead. “Sarah! Come here!”

“What is it?” said Sarah, trotting through the brush toward Aidan.

“I’m not sure,” said Aidan. “But it’s not a tree.”

Sarah reached him and saw that he was aiming his flashlight beam at an outcropping of massive boulders, some ten feet high. She moved closer. There was a narrow space between the nearest two boulders. She shone her light into it and saw that the space closed up after only a few feet. She started walking to her left around the outcropping, playing her light on the boulders. Between the fourth and fifth one she came to a bigger opening, three feet high and perhaps a foot wide at most. She crouched down and shone her light inside. She saw a space large enough to crawl in; after a few feet it turned to the right.

She took off her backpack and pushed it through the opening.

“What are you doing?” Aidan asked nervously.

“I’m going in.”

“In there?”

“Yep,” said Sarah, dropping to her hands and knees.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Aidan.

But Sarah was already squeezing her shoulders through the opening. In a moment she was completely inside. Aidan watched nervously as she crawled forward, disappearing as the crawlway turned right. He glanced around nervously at the dark woods. He did not like being alone out there.

“Sarah?” he called into the opening. “What do you see?”

There was no answer.

“Sarah!” he repeated, frightened now. “Are you okay?”

Another pause, and then Sarah’s voice, muffled, excited: “Aidan! Come here!”

“Why?”

“Just come here.”

Reluctantly, Aidan dropped to his hands and knees and pushed through the opening, feeling the cold, rough stone through his jacket. Shining his flashlight ahead, he worked his way around the narrow right turn. The space became wider there and the path slanted downward, giving Aidan enough headroom to rise to a crouch. He could see a slightly larger area ahead, lit by the light from Sarah’s flashlight. He moved toward her, ducking to keep from hitting his head on the hard stone above him.

“What?” he said.

“Look!” Sarah said, moving aside so he could see where she was aiming her flashlight.

Aidan looked.

“Oh my god,” he said.

Sarah’s light was shining on a door.

It was made of dark-gray metal and it stood in a roughly rectangular space framed by massive boulders.

It had two symbols drawn on it: a star, and an arrow pointing down.

“Oh my god,” said Aidan, again.

Without a word, Sarah found a stick on the ground and used it to brush away the cobwebs from the door. Scales of rust fell off as the stick scraped against them. Sarah then crouched and used the stick to push aside several inches of dirt accumulated at the bottom of the door.

“What exactly are you doing?” said Aidan.

“We’re going inside.”

“You think that’s a good idea? There could be bats in there. With rabies. If you get rabies you have to get like six hundred shots. In the stomach.”

“If you’re chicken, you can stay here. I’ll go in alone.”

“Stop calling me chicken. I am not chicken.”

“Good. Then you can go first.”

Aidan frowned; this was not going as he’d planned. He stepped forward and pushed gently on the door. It didn’t budge.

“It’s locked,” he said, relieved.

“Step aside,” said Sarah. She raised her right foot and kicked the door hard. It eased open a few inches, still partially blocked by the dirt around the bottom. Sarah kicked again. And again. With each kick the door opened a little wider. On the fourth kick it swung fully open, its rusted hinges groaning. Sarah and Aidan peered inside at a narrow, low-ceilinged, pitch-black tunnel, sloping downward. They felt a slight movement of dank air wafting up toward them, stale and sour. There was another odor, vaguely familiar to both of them, although neither mentioned it.

Like a wet dog, thought Aidan.

“Go ahead,” said Sarah.

Aidan shined his light down into the tunnel. He couldn’t see where it ended—only cold, dark stone.