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Only to find Mother Hemlock right in front of her, inches away, smiling her wide, dead smile. “Can’t hide,” she said.
Ollie screamed. She hadn’t screamed at the dead bear, or at Don Voland when he turned out to be the smili
ng man, but now she shrieked, pure fright and shock, and fell backward, hitting the icy stone floor hard. Her match went out, and in darkness, Ollie heard Mother Hemlock’s whisper: “Not so disobedient now, are we? Well, up the stairs with you—”
Ollie smelled the old tombstone smell as Mother Hemlock reached down to grab Ollie by the ankle. But before she could, Ollie scrambled up and backward, and with shaking fingers, she seized and struck another match, all the while expecting to feel a cold, dead hand grabbing her.
But it didn’t. Instead, Mother Hemlock shrieked, a horrible dry sound.
By the light of her match, Ollie saw a couple of things very quickly.
The dead bear was coming laboriously down the stairs. Its formaldehyde-filled legs didn’t seem to work very well. Gabe had thrown an old sack of some kind over Mother Hemlock’s head. She was groping around in a fury trying to get it off. Mother Hemlock, Ollie thought with a slightly hysterical part of her mind, looked way less scary with a bag over her head.
Ollie’s match was about to start burning her fingers. Feverishly, she reached for the oil lamp, yanked off the glass cover, and relit the wick. The light wavered, steadied. She hoisted the lamp. Maybe carrying the light with her as she fled would give her away, but anything was better than facing that basement in the dead-screen dark.
Ollie turned toward the stairwell. The bear was almost at the bottom of the stairs. Its shoulders seemed to fill the whole space. She wasn’t getting out past that, Ollie thought. She prayed that Gabe had been right about knowing another way out of the basement.
Gretel was crouched hiding in a corner. “Please,” she was whispering. “Please, please, please go away. She’s chasing you. Go away and she’ll go too. But don’t take my lamp. It’s mine. It’s the only thing I have. Don’t take it.”
Feeling horrible, Ollie lurched forward and grabbed the girl’s wrist.
“If you don’t come with me right now,” Ollie said, “she’ll get you. Come with me and I’ll keep you safe. I promise. We’ll have your lamp with us too.”
Ollie was uncomfortably convinced that she was lying; she was pretty sure that Mother Hemlock wanted her more than Gretel right then, since Ollie still had a faint chance of escaping. Also she had no idea if she could keep Gretel safe. But she was desperate.
It wasn’t nice. But it did work. Gretel stumbled to her feet and Ollie dragged her back toward Gabe.
Mother Hemlock managed to pull the cloth off her face. She was knocking over boxes to get at them.
Gretel’s frozen eyes were newly horrified. “I told him no,” she whispered to Gabe. “But you . . . you told him yes.”
What did that mean, Ollie wondered. Gabe didn’t move. Well, she could wonder later. “Come on,” Ollie snapped. “We have to go.”
Gabe was already gesturing them on—hurry, hurry. Holding Gretel’s lamp high, Ollie followed him off into the basement shadows, gripping tight to Gretel’s dry-dead ghost hand.
Behind them came Mother Hemlock’s footsteps and the dry, heavy tread of the dead bear.
* * *
—
Coco was utterly frozen. Paralyzed by the darkness. It was like the world itself had blown out and left her in outer space. It was certainly cold enough for outer space. “Thieves stay in the basement,” Seth’s voice went on, snorting with laughter. “Until they have learned some manners.”
Coco shrank away from that cold voice, quivering. Then she gathered her courage. “You’re just a liar and a cheat!” she yelled into the darkness. “It’s just tricks—all tricks!”
But no one answered. The basement had fallen silent once more. Then the oil lamp flickered back to life, as quickly as it had gone out, standing innocently on the table. Coco looked around. No Seth. She wasn’t even sure she’d heard him at all. The watch had fallen silent.
But then Coco realized that in the darkness, two things had changed in the basement. The stairs were gone. Just—gone. There was only a blank brick wall where they had been.
The Ouija board was gone too.
He must have taken it, Coco thought. Seth must have taken it when the lights were out. She didn’t know which to be more upset about, the loss of the board or the loss of the stairs.
She stared at the place where the stairs had been, blinked, stared again. It was like the stairs hadn’t ever been there. But—maybe she wasn’t remembering right? Maybe she’d gotten turned around in the dark? Maybe the stairs came out in a different place?
It was possible, she tried to encourage herself. Coco got lost easily. She picked up the oil lamp, lifted it high. She spun in a slow circle, staring at the walls.
Couldn’t see any stairs.
