The boys have an occasion to scream

“There it is, boys,” Malcolm whispered triumphantly when they had reached the darkened church. “It’s your last chance to turn back if you are frightened.”

Dunstan was nearly paralyzed with dread, but he knew that turning back – alone – was not a possibility. Better to face dead bodies in a crypt with the boys than the wide night all alone.

“Who goes first?” Bertie asked.

“I do,” Malcolm said. “I’m the oldest. And I’m not afraid.”

Malcolm marched up the stairs to the door.

The front of the church lay in the shadow of the moon, but he could see that moonlight lit the interior. However, there was not a hint of candlelight. No one was inside.

Malcolm pushed the door open and stepped inside. After a moment spent contemplating the dark church – it was indeed something to see – he waved the other boys in.

The three of them felt a Sunday hush descending on them, and they stood awkwardly behind the pews for a moment. The place was both familiar and strange, and even Malcolm lost his nerve briefly.

“Why don’t you light your torch?” Dunstan whispered.

“Not here, stupid sprout,” Malcolm said, regaining his self-​​assurance. “I suppose we can make it to the sacristy in the moonlight, anyway. Come on, boys.”

But once they had reached the sacristy and lit the torch, they found that the “tall chest” of which Iylaine had spoken was indeed a towering piece of work. And she had said the key was on the top shelf.

“I suppose we should simply leave,” Dunstan whispered, trying to hold the torch steady in his trembling hand.

“I’m not giving in yet!” Malcolm hissed.

“What do you mean to do?” Bertie asked. “Climb?”

“Precisely.”

“Oh, Malcolm!” Dunstan whimpered.

“Hush, little baby. I shan’t break anything.”

“Except your leg, maybe,” Bertie said.

“Shut up, Bertie-​​boy.” Malcolm already had one foot up on the lowest shelf and was pulling himself up onto the next. “Don’t distract me.”

Dunstan watched him go, fascinated despite his fear. The boy had more of a cat in him than merely his golden eyes.

“Here it is!” Malcolm whispered gleefully once he had reached the top. “Easy as you please.”

“Are you sure it’s the right one?” Bertie asked anxiously.

“It’s the only one. Step back, Bertie, I’m coming down.” Malcolm leapt away from the shelf and turned his body, catlike, as he fell.

Dunstan let out his breath in a gasp as he realized he had been holding it the entire time. His relief only lasted a moment, for he knew that this was only the beginning.

“Bring that torch, little sprout,” Malcolm said as he and Bertie trotted out of the sacristy.

Dunstan followed. He had no choice but to follow. Oh, why, why had he insisted on sleeping in the tent with them tonight?

“Wish me luck, boys,” Malcolm whispered as they gathered around the door.

But the lock fell away as soon as Malcolm turned the key.

“Easy as you please!” he cackled.

Malcolm pulled the door open and stepped through. “Here are the stairs!” he whispered. “Who goes first? I?”

“I guess so,” Bertie said.

“Does it smell bad?” Dunstan asked anxiously.

“Of course not, stupid sprout. They’ve been dead for a hundred years. Get that torch in here! I’m going down.”

Dunstan stepped through the door, but he froze at the top of the stairs. He held the torch, but the boys were descending into utter blackness… yet they walked as if they could see in the dark. He had long had doubts about Malcolm, but he had not suspected that there was anything eerie about his friend Bertie. Had the pagan necklace he wore given him strange powers? Or were they merely boys bigger and braver than he?

“Wait, wait,” he whimpered, torn between his desire to stay safely at the top of the stairs and his terror of being left alone.

“Come on, Dunstan,” Bertie said. “Nothing down here can hurt you.”

“Come on!” Malcolm whispered hoarsely. “I can’t see!”

If he couldn’t see, then it meant he didn’t have strange powers after all. They were only big, brave boys. “Wait for me!” Dunstan cried softly, and he followed them down the stairs.

They stood in a long, narrow corridor lined with arched doors. Dunstan was briefly fascinated by the mosaic on the floor. It looked very old – older than one hundred years, he thought.

Malcolm was chuckling with delight. “Look at this place. Don’t you wish we could be buried here when we die?”

“I guess I would rather be buried in the ground, next to my family,” Bertie said.

“Look! Here’s a torch,” Malcolm said. “Let me see if it lights,” he said, snatching the torch away from Dunstan and holding it to the torch that hung in a bracket on the wall. After a moment, it lit. “Perfect,” he grinned, passing the torch back to Dunstan. “Now, let’s have a look in the tombs.”

“Oh, Malcolm,” Dunstan whimpered.

“Hush! We shan’t touch anybody. We just want to look. Have you ever seen a dead person, Bertie?”

“I saw my brother.”

“Not that kind of dead. I mean a long time dead. Have you ever seen a skeleton?”

“Not a whole one.”

“Come on then!”

But the magnificent coffin in the first room was open – and empty.

“Did it rot away completely?” Dunstan asked, surprised and not a little relieved. Perhaps there would be nothing very frightening after all. Only empty coffins and many shadows.

“Of course not, stupid sprout. Skeletons can’t rot. I suppose this was simply never used. Let’s go to the next one. I’m certain somebody was buried here.”

But in the next room, the coffins were closed.

“Well, I didn’t think of that,” Bertie said.

“So we have to open them,” Malcolm said.

“Oh, no!” Dunstan moaned.

“Hush, baby. We shan’t touch them. We shall simply open, look, and close again. Easy as you please! Go ahead, Bertie.”

“Oh, no!” Bertie said. “It was your idea. You open one.”

“No, no. I went first into the church, and I got the key, and I opened the door, and I came down first… It’s your turn, Bertie-​​boy. I dare you.”

“If you dare me, and I do it, you must do it yourself,” Bertie said.

“Oh, don’t!” Dunstan pleaded.

“I know that, stupid,” Malcolm said, ignoring Dunstan. “Go ahead. You do one and I shall do another. You do this plain old coffin here, and I shall see if I can find a fancy coffin such as we saw in the first room. I bet there would be a noble person inside, and I want to see.”

“Maybe it would be the Baron’s ancestor.”

“Wouldn’t that be interesting?” Malcolm cried. “Maybe he would have red hair and be big and tall like the Baron!”

“Oh!” Dunstan cried.

“But I thought he would only be a skeleton?” Bertie said.

“Sometimes there is hair left,” Malcolm said quickly. “Now, you open this poor peasant here, as you are only a freedman’s son, and I shall open a nobleman’s coffin, as I am a nobleman’s son.”

“I guess my Da is a gentleman now.”

“Perhaps, but you were born a serf, Bertie-​​boy. Perhaps this will be your ancestor!”

“Oh, I don’t like that,” Bertie said, stepping back.

“Go ahead! I was only teasing. I am certain a serf would never be buried under the church. Go on, Bertie. Don’t be a baby.”

Bertie took a deep breath, bent down, and pushed the lid off the coffin.

“Oh!” he gasped. There was a skeleton inside. A whole skeleton.

None of the boys spoke for a moment. Dunstan could not see much from where he stood, but he could definitely see bones.

“There’s some stuff on the bones,” Bertie said after a while, gingerly leaning in closer for a better look.

“I suppose it’s clothes and dust,” Malcolm said.

“It doesn’t smell very good,” Bertie said.

“That’s only the dust. Do you suppose it’s a man or a woman?”

“Oh, I don’t even want to think about that,” Bertie said. “I hope it’s a man.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know – because it’s naked.”

Malcolm laughed aloud, and Dunstan was frightened by the way the sound echoed in the corridor.

“That’s a good one, Bertie. I shall remember that one. Some time, years from now, I shall remind you that the first naked woman you ever saw wasn’t even wearing her skin.”

“I guess you too.”

“I guess not!” Malcolm laughed. “I’ve seen a naked woman before.”

“Who?”

“I shan’t tell. Now, come on boys. Let’s get the lid back on this lady and go find a nobleman for me.”

It took some walking before the boys found anything similar to the grand coffin they had seen in the first room. At the end of a second corridor, though, they found another handsome coffin on a dais, and this one was closed.

“What is that on top?” Bertie asked. The head end of the coffin was decorated with a heavy golden crest.

“It’s a death’s head and a flower,” Malcolm said. “That isn’t the Baron’s family’s crest.”

“It is real gold?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps. If it is, it must be a nobleman. I shall open this one. Step back, boys.”

Malcolm put a foot on the first step of the dais and notched his hands under the lip of the heavy lid.

Dunstan stood in the corner, trembling with dread. Somehow he knew that what the boys were doing was wrong, but he was no more than a torch-​​bearer now. He could only hope they would be satisfied after this coffin, and they could go back to their tent. Oh, how safe and sheltering the flimsy tent seemed now!

As the lid began to tip back, the heavy crest suddenly slid back onto the floor behind the coffin. It hadn’t been attached to the lid at all.

“Oh, now you’ve done it!” Bertie said as Malcolm dropped the lid and took a step away from the coffin. “How will you get it back now?”

Malcolm did not have a chance to reply, for as he stood staring at the coffin in consternation, he thought he saw – no he definitely saw movement. The lid began lifting itself.

All three boys were now transfixed with terror. Dunstan found he could not even take a breath – his very lungs were rigid. Only his eyes worked, and he was able to watch as the lid lifted away, pushed up from beneath by the red-​​sleeved arm of… of a woman. A living woman.

Suddenly the three were released from their paralysis, and all three screamed as young boys seldom found occasion to scream.

Dunstan dropped his torch, but it was Malcolm who ran first, followed closely behind by Bertie. Dunstan was still too terrified to run – until he realized that he had been left alone.

Fortunately, the torchlight from the other corridor lit up the end of this, and he was able to run towards the light, and then around the corner towards the stairs, just as he saw Bertie reach them.

“Wait for me!” he squealed.

Bertie looked back at him and slowed, but continued up the stairs.

Dunstan reached the bottom as Bertie reached the top, but both boys ducked and cringed on the stairs as a flapping of wings came up at the backs of their necks and passed over their heads.

They crouched there whimpering for a moment, but Malcolm soon reappeared, panting, at the top of the stairs. “Come on, boys! It was only a bat!”

At that, they scrambled forward again and out through the door.

Malcolm slammed the door and locked it again, and the boys ran out into the night, back towards the safety and shelter of Bertie’s kitchen.