As they grew closer to the light they could pick out small details of the cellar around them. The walls segued from uneven stone to large, squared brick where additions had been built onto the original house. There were racks along one wall with a few small kegs still in place and a row of shelves along the other that might have held canned goods or homemade preserves long ago. They could also see that the cobwebs were thick and hung all around them like mosquito netting, undisturbed except along the path they were following.

They reached the ridge of garbage and, with much trepidation, peeked past it.

There was no one there. The weakening light was from a Coleman lantern in the farthest corner of the cellar, on the floor amid a collection of mallets and chisels and other tools, as well as a pile of chipped rock and powdered mortar. The wall that it best illuminated had been partially disassembled. Old-style bricks measuring nearly six inches wide had been pried from their places and discarded on the cellar floor, leaving a foot-wide gap in the wall there.

Bart ambled out into the light and began to survey the equipment and the damage. Del followed close behind. “Whose stuff is this, do you think?” whispered the younger boy.

Bart picked up the lantern and turned it around in his hands, then did the same with each tool. “No engraved names. But I think I know what they’re up to.” He motioned toward the wall.

“Vandals?”

“Treasure hunters,” he nodded. “There’s always been stories about mad old Sebastian’s ghost, guarding a pile of hidden dough. It looks like someone’s been taking them seriously.”

Del looked around at the chisels and crowbar and powdered stone at his feet, and his mouth dropped open with sudden recognition. The old man in the woods . . . his ax . . .

A pick ax?

“Hold on,” Bart was peering into the hole in the wall. He stuck his hand in and felt about. “You know, there’s two walls here, two entirely different walls.” His knuckles knocked against something solid. “Strike that. Three walls. The third hasn’t been broken yet.”

“So what? Let’s get outta here before whoever it is comes back.”

“Hang on a minute, Delbert. Don’t you know what this means? Our treasure hunter might be onto something. What would you wall up, three times, unless it was valuable?” Delbert muttered something about a dead boy or two, but Bart ignored him. “Wouldn’t it be something if there was money behind there? I’ll tell you, I’d—” He looked around warily. “Did you hear something?”

Del’s breath caught. “Oh, goddamn it, don’t do that,” he complained, clutching his heart. “What did it sound like?”

“Scratching.”