“Maddy.” Mr. Patel’s voice was not a whisper, but it was much softer and more concentrated than I had ever heard it sound before.

“What?” I answered.

“These doors,” he said, playing his torch beam over the three oak doors set into the stone walls. “They are going where?”

He walked over to the door to the right, looked back at me, and grasped the handle.

“Root cellar,” I whispered.

Mr. Patel pulled the door open and shone the flashlight inside. Nothing. It was empty as the Count of Monte Cristo’s cell after he tunneled his way out.

Mr. Patel stepped back and moved to the second door.

“And this?”

“Where they used to store the coal.” My voice was getting softer now. I wanted to turn and run away, run back up the stairs to safety, even though another voice was screaming in my head that we had to move forward, that we had to find Aunt Lyssa before it was too late.

Mr. Patel swung back the door to the coal storage room. Aside from the fossil glitter of a few chunks of coal, the beam of his light disclosed nothing more than the dusty walls and floor.

There was only one door left. The one I’d been dreading.

“It’s locked,” I said, my whisper so small and hoarse that I must have sounded like a baby raven. “We don’t even have a key for it.”

Mr. Patel’s long fingers wrapped around the handle as his thumb pressed the latch. With a rusty click, the latch moved down. The ancient hinges creaked loudly as Mr. Patel began to pull open that final, unlocked door.

24

THE OTHER SIDE

KUPHASH.

That is the Narragansett word to tell someone to shut the door. It was the one word that drowned out all the others echoing in my head. Kuphash. Shut the door. Shut it before we see what is waiting for us on the other side.

I thought I had been tense before, but now my whole body was like a violin string overtightened to the point where it is about to snap. I was sure that as soon as that door opened something would leap out at us. Mr. Patel may have thought the same thing because he held that heavy flashlight like a club, ready to strike a blow with it. Roger was attempting to position himself in front of me, trying to protect me from who knows what—while my old stubborness, despite my fear, was reasserting itself as I tried to push him out of my way.

“Move,” I hissed.

“Wait,” Roger whispered back, still trying to play the part of a defensive wall.

“Be quiet.”