Page 2 of Written in Red

Tacey snatched up the other lantern, and together they stepped into the passageway. It was dark, but the lanterns helped. He could see well enough to guide them both.

“I’ve lived in the dungeon for years.” Wallaby floated in front of them from an adjoining tunnel. “I should have sensed this was here.”

“The man I purchased Aventine from said that, in all the years he lived here, no ghost ever suspected that the wall was anything but a wall,” Mercury said, “or that there was anything below ground other than the dungeon.”

“Odd place, Aventine.” Wallaby floated along, exploring the previously unknown space.

Testy Tolver peeked inside a room at the start of an offshoot tunnel. There were several in various places along the network of tunnels. “How is it the room has a window? We’d have seen it from the outside.” He sounded offended. Testy Tolver nearly always did.

“I have searched for years,” Mercury said. “Not one of the windows from any of the rooms in these tunnels can be seen from anywhere on the grounds. I know where they ought to be. I’ve looked for them. They’re not there.”

“Are they simply very well hidden?” Tacey asked, peering into a room with her lantern held aloft.

The room, like most of the others, had a smattering of very simple furniture. At some point, these rooms had been used, though whether as hiding places or cells, Mercury didn’t know.

“I’ve not ever been able to determine if the tunnels are discombobulating and one is not actually where one thinks one is, or if there is something more otherworldly at play.”

Tacey looked back at him. “You make it sound as if the house is magical.”

That brought a few of the ghosts’ eyes back to Mercury, curiosity in their expressions.

“Aventine is more than merely ‘magical,’” Mercury said. “In many ways it feels almost conscious, aware, active.”

“And secretive.” It was impossible to tell if Testy Tolver approved of that secretiveness or not, which was actually odd for him. The judgmental ghost usually made his opinions quite apparent.

Sweet little Baby Blue floated up next to Mercury, his ghostly eyes wide with amazement. “How many tunnels are there?”

“Ten,” Mercury said as they made their way down the main one. “Some longer than others. They all branch off this one.”

Baby Blue peered into the darkness of one of those tunnels. Many of the other ghosts were doing the same.

Mercury held his lantern high enough to illuminate the passage Baby was slowly inching down and followed him.

“This one feels different,” the tiny ghost said.

“It is different.” Mercury felt it as well. He had every time he’d walked through the tunnels, though he’d not done so in years.

Baby Blue peered into a room a few yards ahead, and a feeling of alarm immediately seized Mercury.

“Do not go in that room!” he called out.

The little ghost stopped on the instant, spinning back to face him, hovering a hair’s breadth from the threshold.

Mercury looked at all the ghosts, who had drawn near, no doubt shocked to hear Mercury speak so forcefully to Baby Blue.

“None of you must ever go in there,” he told them. “Not without Tacey or me nearby.”

“Why?” Zizzy inched closer to Tacey, watching Mercury with her usual look of concern.

“Ghosts cannot escape it. If the door is opened for them, they can leave. But ghosts cannot pass through the walls or the window or the closed door.”

Gary the Green earnestly waved Baby Blue closer to him and farther from the ominous room.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” the Quiet Queen said. “Ghosts can pass through any material, no matter how thick or dense.”

“Aventine is more than a house.” Mercury urged them all to return to the main passageway. “It is secretive but also dangerous. And it has countless unique fortifications.”

“That is fitting, seeing as we are going to battle,” Tacey said.