Hammer 12: Door

Corvan scrambled into the circle of stones to find Kate sitting in the dirt. The thick body of a large garter snake was stretched out toward her. A long stick from the ruined fort lay next to its crushed head. Relief flowed over Corvan as he knelt beside her.

“Are you okay?”

“You know I hate snakes,” Kate said, shaking her head.

Corvan grabbed the dead snake by the tail and carried it over to the edge of the castle rocks. It was a real beauty, one of the largest he’d ever seen. He tossed its thick body into the field down below. A coyote or owl would soon make a meal of it.

Turning back, he found Kate already on her feet and brushing the dust off her jeans.

“I thought the lizard was attacking you,” Corvan said, instantly wishing he hadn’t mentioned it again.

Kate nodded. “I came here to prove that the lizard was just in your imagination.” She pointed to where his pile of rocks had been. Kate had moved them to one side, and the dark hole through which the lizard had disappeared gaped at him.

Corvan tugged the hammer from his back pocket and held it out. “Did you see it?” he asked without taking his eyes off the spot.

“No. You said the lizard only comes out at night.”

“I don’t know for sure.” Corvan muttered as he was edging closer. “Did the snake come out of the hole?”

“No,” Kate replied. “The snake was on the other side. I was following the lines, so I could see the rest.”

“The rest of what?”

“The door.”

“There isn’t a door, Just a hole where the lizard . . . where it came out of.”

Kate shook her head and pointed to the central rock. “That hole is just a gap between the rocks that are holding two flat slabs apart. It’s like the two sides of an elevator door, except its flat on the ground.”

Corvan crouched by the large rock with the hammer in hand. Where Kate had scraped away the dirt, he could make out two parallel lines about 6 inches apart. Between them were the bumpy outlines of rocks under the mud. The two lines vanished under the large rock.

“It’s just a big crack the rain has washed stuff into,” Corvan said while glancing up at Kate.

Kate waved him on with a grubby hand. “You need to look on the other side.”

Corvan crawled around the rock. The parallel lines continued a short distance before each one bent out at precisely ninety degrees.

Corvan traced the lines with a finger. “This must be something the first people carved,” he said. “Like the rock paintings in the caves by the river. My father says this hill was a sacred place to them.”

Kate knelt beside him. “You could be right. I had just found some strange carved symbols when that snake slithered out.” She brushed a pile of dirt away from the base of the boulder. “I think we need to move this big rock to see the rest. I hope there’s no more snakes under it.”

Kate moved back as Corvan inspected the cleared area. The marks that had been cut into the stone weren’t strange to him. The looked the same as the glowing symbols on the hammer and also carved into his chest. If Kate was right, this was the door into the cave under Castle Rock. He stood, put his shoulder up against the rock and pushed with all his might. Kate joined him, and it rocked slightly.

“We need a pry bar,” Corvan said. “My father has some long pipes in the cellar.”

Retreating down the western channel, Kate cleared her throat and spoke from behind him. “I saw some tracks when I was moving the dirt.”

“Three toes with claws?”

“Yes. Are they from your lizard?”

“Yes. Those are the tracks I saw this summer.”

“And it’s three feet tall?” Kate asked.

Corvan stopped in the field at the bottom of the water channel and looked up at the rock. “Maybe not quite that high, but it’s almost up to your waist when it’s next to you.”

“I don’t want to see it that close,” Kate said, looking looked closely at his face. “What happened after … after it talked to you?”

“I told it to go away and held the hammer up in front of me,” Corvan replied, raising it up between them. “It’s really scared of the hammer. It won’t even touch it without cloth wrapped around its paws, so I think we’re safe if we have the hammer with us.”

Kate nodded and they walked together towards the house. Gravel crunched in the driveway out front, followed by the slam of the truck door. “Sounds like my parents are home. Do you think we should show my father the cracks and carving in the rock?”

“It might be best,” Kate said. “He must know something about how that rock was rolled into the middle. Maybe he did it to lock the door so the lizard couldn’t get out.”

They met Corvan’s mother at the corner of the house. She was walking slowly with her head down. Once she saw them, she wiped tears from her eyes.

“What’s wrong, mom? Where’s dad?” Corvan asked.

“Let’s go inside,” she replied. “I need to sit a minute.”

They followed her in, and mother sat at the kitchen table. “Kate, can you get me a cup of cold water.”

Kate filled a glass and joined them at the table but stayed standing.

Corvan’s mother held the cup in both hands, staring into it without drinking.

“We got a call from Fred Simpson this morning. He arranged for your dad to start a job up north at the Langdon mine. He had to go right away, so I took him into the Fenwood bus station.” She stared out the window. “It’s a long way from here. We won’t see him for a least a month, but we need the money if we’re going to make it through the winter.”

Corvan frowned. “Why can’t he keep working at the Red Creek mine?”

“At the meeting, the owners told the miners they are shutting that mine down for a while. They breached an underground river, and the lower shafts are filling up with water. The owners say the ground is too unstable in this area and they have lost too much money. They might close the Red Creek mine for good.”

Kate began to make her way nervously toward the door. Corvan knew she hated any sign of family tension or problems.

“You don’t have to leave, dear,” Corvan’s mother said. “Fred gave us a fresh chicken for supper. You’re welcome to join us.”

Kate stopped and looked at Corvan with a question in her eyes. He nodded to her, and Kate said, “That would be great, thanks.”

Corvan’s mother pushed her chair away from the table and took her cup to the sink. “I’ll get everything ready. You two go ahead and enjoy the outdoors while we still have nice weather.”

Kate left out the back door. Corvan rose slowly to his feet, and his mother stopped to give him a hug.

“Don’t worry, my only one,” she said, pulling away and putting a hand on his shoulder. “Things will work out. We’ll miss your father, but we’re fortunate that he found work so quickly.” With a gentle push, she directed him toward the back door. “Supper will be done in about an hour,” she said. “I’ll ring the bell when it’s ready.”

Kate was sitting on the porch steps looking up at the Castle Rock. Corvan jumped past her. “Wait here a minute. I’ll grab a pipe.” He headed around the house to the steep ramp that ran down to their cellar. At times, his dad would back his truck down the ramp and unload longer pieces of metal. It would take a pretty strong pipe to move the heavy rock, but there was bound to be something on the rack in his dad’s shop.

Descending the stone ramp, he pushed one of the cellar doors open. The shaft of light pierced the dusty air and fell on the pipe racks along the far wall. He took a step inside, then stopped. His dad said he was not to go into the workshop until after his birthday. If he went straight ahead to the far wall and grabbed a pipe without looking around, surely his dad wouldn’t mind given the circumstances. He wouldn’t even turn on the light. Besides, they wouldn’t be celebrating his birthday for a long time with his dad gone and he couldn’t just let a dangerous lizard prowl around their home. It was up to him to protect his mother and do his part as the soon-to-be man of the house.

Walking between the slender columns and arches that supported the cellar ceiling, he was reminded again of the small cathedral in Paris he had seen in a travel magazine. When his grandfather had built their home, he had cut the stone blocks for the walls of the house from below it. He even cut the workbench from the bedrock, complete with storage spaces and tool racks. Without looking in that direction, Corvan went straight ahead and lifted a long, heavy pipe from the rack. Gripping it with both hands, he intentionally turned away from the workbench to avoid seeing anything his father might be working on.

Instead, he saw a door.

Ever since he could remember, the north wall of the cellar had been completely covered with a set of high wooden shelves, but now the center section had been pulled away from the wall to reveal a dark space beyond. His father had created a secret storage compartment under their house. It was likely where he was hiding the long box and maybe the other surprise birthday present his father had mentioned.

As he took a step forward for a better look, the end of his pipe banged on the open shelving section, and it swung closed with a soft bang and a click as a hidden latch flipped into position somewhere on the shelving. From the echo beyond the door, it sounded like a fairly large room. Turning the pipe toward the door leading up the ramp he sidled up to the shelves and tugged on the secret door. As expected, it was now locked tight.

“Did you find a pipe?” Kate’s voice floated down from above.

Leaving the shelving door behind, Corvan left the cellar and climbed up the ramp. Dropping the pipe into the grass, he ran back and eased the cellar door closed. He desperately wanted to check out the door, but this wasn’t the right time. Actually, with his dad gone and his warning to stay out of the shop, he would need to wait until his dad came home. “Don’t let my mother know I was in there.”

“Why not?”

“My dad said I was supposed to stay out of there until after my birthday.”

She frowned. “Then you shouldn’t have gone in.”

“I forgot.”

Kate shook her head. “You’re very good at making up excuses to suit your own plans.”

Corvan grunted and picked up the pipe. Kate was right. Why did the truth hit so hard the last few days?

By the time they reached the top of the hill, the evening shadows from the rocks were halfway across the circle. The last wedge of sunlight was highlighting the dark hole next to the central boulder. It would be a good idea to block it up again, but he was anxious to see what was under the boulder and the lizard didn’t seem to like the sunshine.

Slipping the pipe under it, he grabbed the larger rock he had first stuffed into the lizard’s hole and used it to create a fulcrum.Stepping back, he leaned on the far end of pipe.

The rock began to tip back. Kate jumped in beside him to add her weight. The rock slowly lifted, then suddenly rolled away, dumping them onto the ground. Kate scrambled to where the rock had been sitting and started pushing away the dirt. She stopped and pointed down to where the central rock had been sitting.

“If this is a door, then this must be the keyhole.”

Corvan crawled beside her and stared in amazement. Off to one side, just beyond the gap that the lizard had used to escape into the rock was a shallow hole, rimmed by sunlight. Two circles and symbols were carved around it, just like the keyhole in his grandfather’s oak chest.

Kate picked up a rock and tapped on the symbols. A dull thump sounded from inside. “It’s hollow down there.”

Kate knocked again, and this time Corvan clearly heard the rustling of scales on rock in the silence that followed.

A shadow flitted across the hole directly below them.