Margot struggled to pull her phone out of her jacket pocket with shaking hands. The flashlight came on, showing dirt walls reinforced in patches with wood and stone. It wasn’t quite a pit—two of the walls pressed tight at her sides—but a passageway led in either direction.

Kant’s voice returned to her: “A network of old passageways…with posts to mark the entrances.”

Margot grimaced. She’d discovered an access point for the old cellars.

This is fine. She held the phone in both hands, afraid that she would drop it and lose her light entirely. This is okay. You survived the fall, and that’s the worst of it over with. If this is an entrance to the tunnels, there must be a way to climb out.

She found it at her back: a ladder, fixed into the haphazard stones on the walls. It would have been installed when the tunnels were first built, and it looked it: the wood was soft and flaking, and when she pressed her thumb into it, she felt fibers collapse under the pressure. Parts had already decayed away entirely, corrupted by time and underground insects and damp. She was fairly sure it wouldn’t hold her weight.

Margot looked up, measuring the distance. Ten feet. Too high to jump.

She still had to try to reach it. She slipped her phone into her pocket, then put her hands around one of the higher rungs. She pulled to test its integrity. It cracked, collapsing in the middle before it had even taken half of her weight.

A low, creeping kind of panic was developing at the back of her throat, turning it tight and aching. She tried another, lower rung by resting her foot on it. Like its sibling, it crumbled with very little pressure.

This is okay. This is still fine. She took her phone back out. Kant’s number was in her recent calls list. Only, he was no longer on the estate. He would be hours away by that point and not returning until the following morning.

She bit her lip and tasted dust. The walls were pressing in on her, making her feel crushed and breathless.

Stay calm. She wasn’t out of options. She could call the fire department.

She could imagine people from the town watching the trucks turn into the driveway and what sort of stories that would spark. Only three days on the hill and she’s already trying to burn it down.

That would be worth it, though. As long as they got her out.

Her eyes flicked to the bar at the top of the screen. It displayed a no service symbol.

“No,” Margot whispered. She clung close to the broken ladder, stretching as she raised her phone high above her head, reaching it toward the opening. The display didn’t change. Gallows Hill was already remote; being underground killed any chance of reception.