Instead, they were headed for the keeper’s shack—or that’s what Rector thought it must be. A tiny outbuilding at the edge of the cemetery gates, it was boarded up tight, but Angeline went around behind the thing and lifted a panel, then ushered all three boys through it. They scooted on their hands and knees, and just when Rector thought there was no way they’d all fit, he noticed the ladder.

He also noticed he was mere inches from bypassing the ladder altogether and toppling down to whatever unlit space waited below, so when Zeke crowded into him, urging him to make room, Rector socked him on the shoulder and said, “Watch it! I can’t go no farther.”

“You can if you head down that ladder,” Angeline said from outside. “Go on, move it.”

“But there’s no light!”

“There’s a light at the bottom, and I know where it is. Just stand by the ladder and don’t wander off. You’ll be fine.”

She was right, he was sure, but that didn’t make it any easier to descend an unknown depth into an unknown space, navigating by the feel of the rungs under his hands and feet.

When he reached the bottom, there was almost no illumination at all. Even the square overhead told him nothing, except that Huey and Zeke were leaning over to see how he was doing.

“You two get down here, would you?” he griped. “Don’t leave me all by myself. I can’t see a goddamn thing.”

Two minutes later, they were beside him—shivering and pretending they were cold, when they were only scared silly. They clung to the ladder and waited for Angeline, who joined them as fast as she could. She dropped down beside them, skipping the last four rungs. She struck a match, and within moments, had located not a lantern, but a stash of candles.

“Sorry. I’m not out at this end often. Nobody is. Seemed like a waste to leave a perfectly good lantern here where it’d wind up going to rust before anyone had a chance to use it.” She passed the stubs around and said, “These’ll do for now. We’ll pick up lanterns when we get back to the tracks.”

Half an hour later they were back at the Sizemore House. All of them were relieved to see the familiar spot, even though it meant they still had a ways to go before the Vaults. Even Rector’s recently changed filters were more clogged than he would’ve confessed—he was having real trouble breathing, his chest ached badly, and his heart hurt with every breath he drew. He switched them out again when they paused to reset the carts for the track, knowing they could take off their masks twenty minutes after that.