I followed the forest as close to Dachev’s house as I could. With the full moon, I didn’t dare go around to the front door, so I crept up to the open side window. As I crawled through, I heard someone moving through the forest. I somersaulted inside, hitting the floor with a boom, then sprang to my feet. I was in the living room. Dachev said the crawl-space hatch was under his bed. I ran through the only doorway, and into the bedroom, grabbed the bed frame, and yanked. No rollers, of course. I dragged the bed aside, then grasped the edge of the hatch. Running footsteps thumped along the dirt road. I yanked open the hatch and jumped through.

Chapter 43

43

TO CALL DACHEV’S BASEMENT A CRAWL SPACE WOULD imply that it was big enough to crawl in. To even turn around, I had to scrunch down and duck my head.

Although the full moon had illuminated enough upstairs to see by, even with the open hatch, it was pitch black down here. I cast a light-ball spell. It lasted less than a second, just long enough to stamp an impression of dirt walls on my retinas before sputtering out. I cast it again. Same thing. I’d always thought of this as a child’s spell, and had used it so little that I hadn’t even bothered passing it on to Savannah. Since arriving in the nonelectrical ghost world, though, I’d used the spell regularly, so there must have been something about the conditions underground that were making the light go out. I tried it twice more, then gave up.

Dachev had said the book was on a shelf to the left, immediately under the hatch. The only thing I could feel there was a web of thin roots. As I ran my hands over them, the front door slammed. I wriggled around as fast as I could, and swept my hands across the right side, then the end wall. My fingers snagged on the roots and my nails filled with dirt, but I could feel nothing like a shelf or a book.

I cast the light-ball spell again. Then again. And again. Each time I cast, I got a split-second snapshot, all revealing the same thing—an unbroken expanse of dirt and roots.

Footsteps crossed the living room. I twisted around and scrambled to the other end, looking about wildly, hands running over the walls, knocking off clumps of dank earth, the stink of it filling my nostrils.

“Do you have the book?” Dachev’s voice reverberated through the room above.

I skimmed my hands over the roof. Splinters bit into my palms. It was a solid sheet of wooden planks.

“There is no book,” I said, teeth gritted.

Dachev’s laughter floated down.

“You said—” I began.