The bottom of the box sagged dangerously. He had to balance the torch on top of the bottles, under his chin. The floor was a pool of shadow. He couldn’t see if he was stepping on top of the beams.

“Hurry up!” called Uncle Davy. Although there were cracks in the walls and door, he sounded a long way away.

“I am,” grated Jack. Then a floorboard broke and his foot went through.

Maybe he didn’t hear the board fall because it hit the ground when the box hit the floor, and maybe it just kept falling. Short as he was, the hut wasn’t that high. He should have touched dirt with the toe of his boot, but it swung loose, and his leg was caught between the planks well above his knee.

Jack’s heart was beating so loud, he couldn’t hear his uncle. He could barely hear the clatter of bottles rolling around him. His only thought was to get his leg clear of—whatever was beneath the house.

When he was free and could breathe again, Jack looked for the bottles. They were small enough and had spilled low enough that most were unbroken. He swept them together, away from the cold velvet space in the floor. The bottom of the box had torn through, so he pulled off his shirt and filled that. Then he reached for the torch. It rolled from his hand, flickering, tilted a moment on the edge of the hole, and fell. It spun down into blackness, flashing as it twisted. Then it struck something and the light stopped, but the echoes kept going. Like a heartbeat.

Jack was cold with sweat. He scrambled through the dark, felt for his shirt, knocked a small, hard thing that rolled—another bottle—grabbed that too and backed away from the broken floor. He groped his way to the mouldering mattress, climbed it and pulled at the boards over the window. They came loose almost at once.

The sky was so bright, it stung tears into Jack’s eyes. The dark pines were glowing red smudges; his uncle was a skeletal shadow. “You’d be late for your own funeral,” said Uncle Davy. “Where’s the box?”

“It broke,” said Jack. He held the clanking bundle of his shirt down. “The floor broke. I dropped the torch.” His leg throbbed dully. “I think I cut myself.”

“Idiot,” said Uncle Davy, turning back toward the ute. He had taken the shirt full of bottles, and his pocket knife.

Jack crouched on top of the mattress, judging the distance from the window to the ground. The front of his leg was cold; when he touched it, his hand came away red. He heard the ute’s engine start.

“Wait!” he shouted, his fear of crossing the floor of the hut evaporating. “Wait for me!”

He jumped.