“One of the walls is a door. Its latch is recessed into the wall, with a stone cut to exactly fill the hole. You just have to pull out the stone and push down on the latch… like this—”

As she spoke, Sabina scampered up the stairs, stretched her arm around Matthew’s waist, and pulled a loose stone from the wall. Matthew saw the hidden latch immediately, reached in, pushed it down, and instantly a doorway opened away from him. He stepped forward and found himself at the end of the hall beside the guest Stube, back on the ground floor.

Sabina followed him, shutting the door behind them. As he heard it thud, Matthew turned around to see a solid wall.

“This is where I was the other day! I was right—there was a hidden door!”

“You said you wanted to know the mystery of it.”

“You sure found a roundabout way to show me—all that tapping on the wall.”

Sabina laughed. “I thought it would be more fun to show you the secret door from the inside!”

“It’s completely invisible,” Matthew said. “No one would ever know it was there!”

“No one’s supposed to,” laughed Sabina.

“Can you open it from this side too?”

“If you know how,” she answered with a sly smile.

“I want to know.”

“Close your eyes.”

“That’s not fair!”

“It’s my house,” she laughed.

“Your father’s,” he corrected.

“Well, almost mine—close your eyes.”

This time Matthew obeyed. The next second he heard the door open again. He opened his eyes, and there was the stairwell open to them once more.

“Take me back through,” he said. “This is great!”

Matthew had not had such fun in years. It was not only the excitement of hidden chambers or secrets, but that Sabina’s playfulness was injecting his otherwise serious existence with such fun.

“I want to see the whole passage from one end to the other!” he said.

“I’ll lead down,” said Sabina, “so you don’t fall. Here… pull the door closed behind you… now, hang on….”

Down they went again, retracing their steps, until once more they were standing in the empty room under the small library, which Sabina called the icehouse.

Slowly Matthew walked around its perimeter.

“It’s almost like a cave,” he said. “Except for the stones along this one wall here,” he added. “They’re arranged like shelves, with these indentations going into the wall here at even intervals. What are these containers here for?”

“I don’t know, just old pieces of pottery and flowerpots. They’ve been here as long as I can remember.”

“It almost looks like a gardening supplies room,” said Matthew, “which would be another reason for the tunnel leading outside from here. Isn’t the vegetable garden just on the other side of this wall?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe it’s not so mysterious after all.”