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Sitting up, Merritt registered that the sun was casting burnt-orange light through the kitchen above, suggesting the day was growing late. He listened eagerly and then slumped when he realized the house was likely up to its tricks again, creaking and shadowing and moving the walls. But the creaks turned into steps, coming towardhim, and he leapt to his feet at the same time he heard a woman gasp overhead.
“What on God’s good earthhappened?”
His eyes rolled back as utter relief washed over him. “Mrs.Larkin, you have the voice of an angel.”
The creaks and steps neared, slower this time. Then they stopped. A new light burned overhead, likely that enchanted lamp of hers, and two sets of fingers curled around one of the splintered floorboards. Hulda’s face peeked over next.
Her eyes widened. “Mr.Fernsby! What are you doing down there?”
Exhaling relief, he shoved his dirty hands into his dirty pockets. “The house and I got into a bit of a tiff, you see. I believe I’m being disciplined.”
She blinked. Pushed up her glasses. “Care to explain what happened?”
He didn’t, but he did it, anyway, keeping the tale as surface level as possible.
Hulda clucked her tongue. “I see the drawer. Really, Mr.Fernsby. I told you not to antagonize the place.”
The house groaned as if in agreement.
“In my defense,” Merritt tried to keep his tone light, “it antagonized me first.”
The housekeeper’s nails drummed against the floor. “Let me see if I can get you up.” She vanished.
Cupping his hands around his mouth, Merritt shouted, “Can’t you ward it or something?”
Farther away, she said, “You’rebeneaththe house now, Mr.Fernsby. Thebeneathis not enchanted, and I cannot compel the place to lend you a hand. Or a... floorboard, I suppose.”
Her voice grew quieter and quieter, until he couldn’t hear her at all. He waited a quarter hour before she returned.
She sat down near the hole. “Unfortunately, I did not think to bring a length of rope with me.” Her tone was such that Merritt could not determine if she thought the whole thing farcical or if she was taking it very seriously. “Even so, I don’t know whether I could pull you up. I hope you can climb.”
His shoulders and elbows ached from previous attempts. “I’ve certainly tried.”
A sheet dipped over the hole, tied to another, then another. The woman must have stripped the beds upstairs. A wonder that the house had let her instead of merely pushing her into the cellar, too.
The sheets reached him, and he waited while Hulda found something to tie the other end to. However, Merritt quickly learned that climbing up sheets wasverydifficult. Repelling down them might have been possible, but there was nothing to really grip except the knots, and by the time he managed to scramble to the first one, out of breath, it came undone and dropped him back into the mud.
“Bother,” Hulda muttered.
“Let me try,” he offered.
Hulda lowered the sheets until he could reach the second, and he tied the fallen one to it with a water knot. It held much better, but he just couldn’t pull himself up those damnable sheets, and though she tried, Hulda could not haul him up.
Merritt stood in the cellar, hands on his hips, digging a shallow grave for his mounting despair and burying it messily. “It was a good effort.”
Hulda sighed. “I feel I am to blame. I should have sent a message ahead instead of leaving.”
“Then we might both be down here.”
She snorted. “As if I would have let you near matches under my watch. Oh.” She vanished again, only for a moment this time. “Here.”
She lowered down a wrapped cloth. Merritt hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he saw the sandwich within it.
He ate it quickly. “Thank you.”
“I brought groceries as well, and a receipt for the collection and delivery of your things. Your landlord was rather compliant. The rest of my things are being delivered tomorrow. Trunks and such.” She worked her jaw. “Perhaps if you set the wards aside, we could—”
“No.”
