Then Liesel realized that it wassupposedto look like the wall. The only reason she had recognized it as a door was because of the sharp shadows cast by the candlelight that showed her the door’s seam and the scuff on the stone floor beneath it that marked where it swung open.
Jürgen had a hidden door.
With the candle in one hand, she wedged the knife into the seam, levering the door open. It was heavy, and she had to move slowly to keep the hooks hanging on it from clattering together. When it finally opened, she was treated to a puff of the cold, musty air of deep earth. The wind howled outside. The bubble of light from her candle only extended down a few wooden steps. No sound came from the blackness below.
It couldn’t be a cellar. No one hid their cellar door, unless they were Gottfried and were paranoid someone was going to steal from them. It couldn’t hurt to check, though, just to see what was there. It was safer than going into the house, anyway, where Jürgen himself would be much more likely to appear.
Testing the steps to make sure they didn’t squeak—even with the wind outside, Liesel didn’t want to risk Jürgen catching the small sound of an intruder—she started down into thedarkness, candle in front of her. Very quickly the wooden stairs and narrow walls gave way to dirt. The passage descended under the house, then began to turn, spiraling downward. She couldn’t fathom how long it had taken to dig it. And Jürgen must have dug it himself; anyone who had helped him would have long ago spread word to the town about tunnels under the butcher’s shop. Unless it was dug long ago. No longer hiding the light, Liesel held the knife in front of her, palm sweaty. The sound of the wind faded behind her.
The deep earth was quiet. She came to a gate made of heavy wooden beams, secured with a lock. The gate was roughly made, nothing like Ulrich’s work, but looked solid enough. Beyond the gate was darkness, but she could sense the nearness of walls, the lowness of the ceiling. There was a fetid stench, like unwashed bodies and human waste. Cold settled in Liesel’s bones. This was not a cellar, and the gate was not there to protect food stores.
Metal clinked. Liesel clamped her jaw shut. She became very aware of something watching her, something she couldn’t see. She froze.
She heard the breathing.
Five
Liesel backed away from the door, stumbling, gasping, the candle flame fluttering with the sudden movement. A small voice inside the room cried out, “No!”
The voice was young. A child. Metal clanked; chains shifting. Out of the darkness scrambled a thin, pale figure. It was a young boy, his hair freshly cut, his face smeared with dirt. More chains rattled. Small hands appeared from the darkness to grab at the boy’s arms and shirt, to try to drag him back. He fought with them, scratched them away.
“Oliver?” Liesel breathed.
Oliver, Ada Bosch’s youngest, turned back to her. He looked like death in the candlelight, his eyes black and deep. “Have you come to let us out?” he asked.
Liesel swallowed the bile that rose in her throat and took a step closer to the gate. “Us?”
Eyes appeared in the gloom, glinting in the light. Liesel counted three others, besides Oliver. She could not see theirfaces, but if they were other missing children, they had been here for quite some time.
“He keeps the keys on the wall there, behind you,” said Oliver, pointing.
Liesel found them. A keyring hung from a peg nailed high on the wall, a ways back from the door, much too far and high for any of the children to reach. The two keys were heavy, old; it would be hard for Jürgen to carry them around on his person without anyone getting curious.
“How did you get here?” Liesel asked as she grabbed the keys. “Jürgen did this?”
One of the other boys nodded. His name was Curt; he’d been missing for almost two months. “He doesn’t talk to us. But sometimes he comes down and takes us upstairs. The ones he takes—we don’t see them again.”
The larger key fitted into the gate lock and turned with a rusty squeal. Liesel froze and listened, but all was silent above her. She slipped into the room. The four children shrank away from her candle, hiding their eyes; there was no sign of candle or lamp or lantern down here, and no way at all for them to see sunlight. They probably didn’t even know what time of day it was, or that there was a storm raging outside.
The smaller key unlocked the collars. They were odd bits ofiron crudely shaped. Like the door, the work of an amateur making do with what he had on hand and what he could craft himself. Liesel’s hair stuck to the back of her neck and her forehead as she pulled the chains free. The collars had apparently been pried open by brute force long enough to snap them around skinny necks, and she wasn’t strong enough to open them again. The children tolerated her, though Oliver was the only one who regarded her with any kind of trust. The other three, hair and clothes ragged, eyed her like wild animals, unsure if they were being led to another trap.
When their chains were off, Liesel held out her hand. “Come,” she said. “Hold hands. Stay together.”
Oliver grabbed her hand without hesitation. The sensation made her shiver; it could have been Tomas instead of Oliver. The others were more wary, but eventually followed.
She led them back up the winding tunnel. She lost track of how far they had gone and nearly crashed into the closed door at the top. She paused, confused. She was sure she had left the door open. Sheshouldhave closed it, because anyone who came through the cutting room would see it open and know someone had gone inside.
Could have been the wind, she thought.
That door is too heavy and the wind isn’t getting into this room.
Carefully, she pressed her weight into the door and wasrelieved to find it opened. She peered through the crack and saw and heard nothing beyond.
Maybe the door is so heavy it swings back into place.
She pushed the door open far enough to slip through. The room was empty. She urged the children out of the tunnel. Their eyes were huge. The howl of the wind outside sounded like demons descending on the village. Liesel shepherded them to the butcher’s shop, glancing back at the house door as she did so. It was closed, too, as it had been.
The deer skull watched her from the shelf.
