“It’s not much further,” called the Captain to the girls, who dawdled behind him chatting and kicking stones. They passed one abandoned shell of a house after another, until finally the Captain stopped. “It’s just through that door,” he said, his voice soft and solemn.
“But this isn’t a grave?” Veronica said.
The house looked much like every other house, but one thing stood out—the door. Or more precisely, the double doors. Two bronze doors—worn, weathered, and covered in a moss of rust—seemed to tell a story. But what story? Veronica was not so sure. Carvings of two bronze angels faced each other, floating over a bubbling lake. A diamond-shaped knob jutted out of each door, daring entry.
“Is this a tomb?” Veronica’s father asked, but the Captain said nothing. He dug in his pocket for a large skeleton key and placed it in the keyhole. The lock screeched like fingernails on a chalkboard. Both girls pushed, but the door would not budge. The two men pressed their shoulders to it, opening the door just enough for the group to slip through, one at a time.
Veronica looked around the dark chamber, its windows sealed from the inside. The sun shone brightly through the cracked-open doors, revealing an empty room with a staircase leading deep down into the darkness. A rat’s tail slipped out of the sun and into the shadows.
Veronica stashed her poem and blanket on the floor. “We don’t have to go down, umm, there, do we?” she asked. “I mean, I didn’t even bring my flashlight.”
The Captain unzipped his backpack and handed each girl a headlamp. “Here, put these on,” he said. “You’ll need them.”
From the topmost stair, Veronica felt a cool, moist breeze upon her face. The stairway had no railings and no walls, and, it seemed, no bottom. She pointed her headlamp at the next stair, knowing her first wrong step would be her last. The four descended more than one thousand steps into the abyss, the air growing damper with each one.
At the bottom, Veronica looked up. She ran her hands along the walls, exploring the narrow passage. “Is this stone?” she asked.
“Yes, and watch your head,” said the Captain, crouching. “This is a cave. You must mind two things: water and falling rock.”
Veronica squeezed her father’s hand, not quite sure how to mind either. She kept her lamp focused on the ground in front of her, afraid to discover what strange lifeforms might be oozing and slithering on the ceiling, just inches from her head.
