The Night Sister

A tower with a secret dungeon.

“Doesn’t the real Tower of London—you know, in England?—have a dungeon and a torture chamber and stuff?” Piper asked.

“I think so. I dunno,” Amy said, thumping and prying at the floorboards.

“So maybe he just added one to this tower to make it more like a real replica, you know? To be authentic.”

“Maybe,” Amy said. “But why keep it a secret, then?”

Piper had begun at the door, following that board to its end on either side, checking the boards that butted up against it. Row by row, she studied the floorboards, working her fingers into cracks, trying to pry them up, but the old rusty nails held fast. Across the tower, Amy did the same on her side, scuttling crouched-over, pinching at the boards like a crab in flip-flops.

They moved closer to the middle. Amy groaned in frustration. “It’s got to be here,” she said.

“Maybe there is no trapdoor, no oboe—whatever,” Piper said, trying not to sound too hopeful.

“You guys sure about this?” Margot called from the doorway.

Amy was staring at the ladder in the center of the room. “Of course!” she said, leaping to her feet so hard and fast that Piper could see the boards sinking beneath her.

“Watch it!” Piper warned.

You’ll fall straight through the floor and end up in hell.

“The ladder,” Amy said. “It’s not attached, right? It’s just kind of held in place by little stoppers at the bottom.”

Amy grabbed both sides of the ladder and lifted; the whole thing moved. It wasn’t all that sturdy: only a couple of two-by-fours making up the side rails, with short pieces of the same lumber cut for rungs. It rested on the floorboards, held in place by two sets of cleats made from strips of wood. Amy heaved the ladder up and clear of the cleats.

“I could use a little help here,” she grunted. Piper stepped forward and grabbed the right side. Together, they lifted it up, then angled it sideways, brought it down awkwardly, and laid it on the floor.

“Be careful,” Margot warned.

Amy crouched down, fit her fingers along the edge of the board the ladder had been resting on, and gave it a yank; it wiggled like a loose tooth.

“Come give me a hand,” she called to Piper. They both began to pry up the board that had been under the ladder, and soon discovered that it was attached to the board just behind it—these came up together in one solid piece.

“They’re nailed together,” Amy said, as they flipped the piece over, setting it to the side. On the underside, four strips of wood were nailed crosswise, holding the boards together. “They acted like one big piece. And with the ladder on top, none of it moved. No one would know they were even loose unless you got the ladder out of the way!”

Piper was only half listening. She was looking down into the hole left in the floor. There, between two heavy floor joists, was a trapdoor on rusted metal hinges. A large, sliding metal bolt was latched on the other side.

“Hand me the flashlight,” Amy said, scooting forward on her belly so that she could reach the latch.

“Wait!” Piper said suddenly. It was clear that the heavy metal bolt had one purpose: to keep whatever was down there from getting out. “Maybe you shouldn’t. Maybe we should get your grandma or something?”

“Just get me the damn light, will you?” Amy said, then wiggled the bolt. It slid open with the sickly scraping sound of metal against metal. Piper brought the red flashlight to Amy just as Amy heaved the trapdoor open.

The first thing that hit them was the smell: cavelike, damp, and dusty. It was the smell of lost things, of decay. Amy shone the flashlight down into the hole. The batteries were low, and it cast a dull, orangey glow.