In the pitch blackness, his shin touched the edge of the cradle and set it into motion. And the floor creaked underneath it.

Tick-tick.

And then an answer came from somewhere in the walls:

Tick-tick. Tick-tick.

Storm was pouring sweat now. The fever of excitement and the hectic vapor in his mind had become a single confusion, a lightning-tortured haze. He hardly knew what he was doing, what he was thinking—but he was shoving the cradle aside with his leg, kneeling unsteadily—almost dropping—to the floor.

He flipped the lighter open, spun the wheel again, set off the flame. He saw that the cradle had stood not on a loose floorboard but on a trap. A square door with an iron ring set into it. Perfect! he thought. I love it. He seized the ring and pulled the door up to reveal the narrow wooden staircase winding into the blackness below.

Tick-tick. Tick-tick.

Now, at last, as if drawn from the house’s timbers, drawn from the air around him, from his own brain, the sound resolved itself upon a single center, a single source. It ascended in its unceasing, funereal tempo from the dark at the base of the stairs.

Tick-tick

Storm started down to meet it.

“Richard! Richard!”

From somewhere above him, he heard Sophia’s voice. It seemed muffled to him, far, far away.

He went down, kept going down. And as he descended, step by slow step, the damp wooden boards groaned thickly beneath his shoes, and the cry above him spiraled into a frantic skirl.

“Richard, be careful! Come back!”

His foot touched the bottom step, came off it onto a hard floor. He felt a clammy draft twine around his legs. The lighter’s flame swelled and, in the broadening glow, he saw before him a long stone tunnel with rounded walls. His heart was thudding in his chest now and there was a thickness in his brain again, making him dizzy and ill. He wasn’t even sure anymore if this was really happening.

But he moved forward slowly.

Tick-tick. Tick-tick.

Once more, the metal of the lighter burned his thumb. Once more, he covered the flame, put it out. But his feet kept sliding on over the stone floor, moving along the tunnel, deeper, deeper.

He held up the lighter. Cracked it. Spun the wheel. His own shadow dodged and capered in bizarre shapes on the stone walls around him.

And before him, he saw the tunnel widen into an irregular chamber. A crossroad. He had come to a crossroad. The passage went on ahead, another off to the left, another to the right. Storm moved into the broader opening at the center.