For once Will did not disagree. He gulped a quick yes, blinking as spots appeared before his eyes.
They both clambered back through the gap in double-quick time, then made their way to the armchairs in the main cavern and slumped down in them. Although they had said nothing of it to each other at the time, the inexplicable sensations had ceased almost immediately after they were outside the chamber.
"What was that in there?" Chester asked, opening his mouth wide to flex his jaw and pressing the palms of his hands against his ears.
"I don't know," Will replied. "I'll get my dad to come and see it — he might have an explanation. Must be a pressure buildup or something."
"Do you think it's a crypt, from where a church once stood… with all those names?"
"Maybe," Will replied, deep in thought. "But somebody — craftsmen, stonemasons — built it very carefully, not even leaving any debris behind as they went, and then just as carefully sealed it up. Why in the world would they go to all that trouble?"
"I didn't think of that. You're right."
"And there was no way in or out. I couldn't find any sign of connecting passages — not a single one. A self-contained chamber with names, like some sort of memorial or something?" Will pondered, completely befuddled. "What are we on to here?"
8
Having learned that Rebecca could be very unforgiving and that it was really not worth incurring her wrath — not just before mealtimes, at any rate — Will shook himself down and stamped the worst of the mud from his boots before bursting in through the front door. Slinging his backpack to the floor, he froze in astonishment, the tools inside still clattering against one another.
A very odd scene greeted him. The door to the living room was closed, and Rebecca was crouched down beside it, her ear pressed to the keyhole. She frowned the moment she saw him.
"What—" Will's question was cut short as Rebecca rose swiftly, shushing him with a forefinger to her lips. She seized her bemused brother by the arm and pulled him forcibly into the kitchen.
"What's going on?" Will demanded in an indignant whisper.
This was all very odd indeed. Rebecca, the original Little Miss Perfect, was in the very act of eavesdropping on their parents, something he would never have expected from her.
But there was something even more remarkable than this: the living room door itself. It was closed. Will turned his head to look at it again, not quite believing his eyes.
"That door had been wedged open for as long as I can remember," he said. "You know how she hates—"
"They're arguing!" Rebecca said momentously.
"They're what? About what?"
"I'm not sure. The first thing I heard was Mum shouting at him to shut the door, and I was just trying to hear more when you barged in."
"You must have heard something."
Rebecca didn't answer him immediately.
"Come on," Will pressed her. "What did you hear?"
"Well," she started slowly, "she was screaming that he was a royal failure… and that he should stop wasting his time on complete nonsense."
"What else?"
"Couldn't hear the rest, but they were both very angry. They were sort of growling at each other. It must be really important — she's missing Friends!"
Will opened the fridge and idly inspected a container of yogurt before putting it back. "So what could it be about, then? I don't remember them ever doing this before."
Just then the living room door was flung open, making both Will and Rebecca jump, and Dr. Burrows stormed out, his face bright red and his eyes thunderous as he made a beeline for the cellar door. Fumbling with his key and muttering incomprehensibly under his breath, he unlocked it and then banged it shut behind him.
Will and Rebecca were still peering around the corner of the kitchen door when they heard Mrs. Burrows shouting.
"YOU'RE GOOD FOR NOTHING, YOU PATHETIC FOSSIL! YOU CAN STAY DOWN THERE AND ROT FOR ALL I CARE, YOU STUPID OLD RELIC!" she shrieked at the top of her lungs as she slammed the living room door with an almighty crash.
"That can't be good for the paintwork," Will said distantly.
Rebecca was so intent on what was happening, she didn't appear to have heard him.
"God, this is so freakin' annoying. I really need to talk to him about what we found today," he continued, grumbling.
This time she did hear him. "You can forget that! My advice is to just stay out of the way until things blow over." She stuck out her chin with great self-importance. "If they ever do. Anyway, the food's ready. Just help yourself. In fact, you can help yourself to the whole thing… I don't think anyone else is going to have an appetite."
Without a further word, Rebecca spun around and left the room. Will moved his eyes from the empty doorway where she'd been to the oven and gave a small shrug.
He wolfed down two and a half of the oven-ready meals and then made his way upstairs in the now uncannily quiet house. There wasn't even the usual strains of the television coming from the living room below as, sitting up in his bed, he meticulously polished his shovel until it gleamed and sent reflections rippling across the ceiling. Then he leaned over to lay it gently on the floor, switched off the light on his bedside table, and slid under his blankets.
9
Will woke with a lazy yawn, looking blearily around the room, until he noticed the light creeping in at the edges of the curtains. He sat up sharply as it dawned on him that something was not quite right. There was a surprising lack of the usual morning hubbub in the house. He glanced at his alarm clock. He'd overslept. The events of last night had completely thrown him and he'd forgotten to set it.
He found some relatively clean items of his school uniform in the bottom of his closet and, quickly throwing them on, went across to the bathroom to brush his teeth.
Emerging from the bathroom he saw that the door to Rebecca's room was open, and he paused outside to listen for a moment. He'd learned not to blunder straight in; this was her inner sanctum, and she had berated him for entering unannounced several times before. Because there were no signs of life, he decided to take a look. It was as spotless as ever — her bed immaculately made and her home clothes laid out in readiness for her return from school — everything clean and shipshape and in its place. He spotted her little black alarm clock on her bedside table. Why didn't she get me up? he thought.
He then saw that his parents' door was ajar, too, and he couldn't resist putting his head around the corner. The bed hadn't been slept in. This was not right at all.
Where were they? Will reflected on the previous evening's argument between his parents, the gravity of which now began to sink in.
Although he'd never stopped to give it much thought, Will was aware that his home life was pretty strange, to say the least. All four members of the family were so different, as if they'd been thoughtlessly thrown together by circumstances beyond their control, like four complete strangers who happened to share the same car on a train. Somehow it had hung together; each knew his or her place, and the end result, if not entirely happy, had seemed to have found its own peculiar equilibrium. But now the whole thing was in danger of coming crashing down. At least that was how it felt to Will that morning.
As he stood in the middle of the landing, he listened to the disquieting silence again, glancing from bedroom door to bedroom door. This was serious.
"It would have to happen now… just when I've found something so amazing," he muttered to himself. He longed to speak to Dr. Burrows, to tell him about the Pits tunnel and the strange chamber that he and Chester had stumbled upon. It was as if it all meant nothing without his approval, his "Well done, Will," and his fatherly smile of pride in his son's achievement.