Chase Read Free Page A

supervisor. Or so they say.”
    Her back went rigid. She glanced down at her husband. He nodded, jaw jutting. “We heard shots,” he said in a carrying voice. “What boy?”
    â€œChase, I think? Works in Murray’s.”
    Who was that? The voice was at once familiar and unknown—like the whole world, this morning. Reality slipping; the way land went liquid beneath your feet when it was undermined.
    â€œWhat’s your interest?” Mr. Lundy asked.
    â€œMurder’s everybody’s interest, isn’t it? I was told the lad came this way.”
    Lundy sat unmoving. From the shadowed inner room, Phin saw his profile and the bulk of his shoulder, edged with light.
    â€œI was told wrong, then?”
    â€œIt would seem that way, wouldn’t it?”
    â€œHow do I get up on that hill behind the houses? Is there a trail through here?”
    â€œAnd why would you be wanting to ride on that hill at all?” Lundy asked. “Can the beast fly, that you’d risk him falling down one of those holes?”
    â€œHe can about fly, right enough,” the man said. A laugh warmed his voice, and for a second Phin almost knew him. “But thanks for the advice.”
    The dogs took up their barking again. The children began to shout. As the hoofbeats receded, Phin gripped his bundle in his teeth, scrambled up the wall, and eeled through the window into the blackberry and goldenrod. He was running before he hit the ground.
    Mistake. He knew it, but couldn’t stop himself. Brambles caught him, clawed and slashed and whipped, but he tore through them, wanting only to get away, far away—
    Black yawned under him and his foot came down on nothing, down and down and down.

3
T HE D OG H OLE
    H is cheek itched.
    He raised his head—tried to raise his head. Stuck to the floor.
    Floor? Ground.
    He opened his eyes and saw only darkness, something dim and white at a level with his face.
    Was he blind? Or was it night? Or—what? He heard nothing, just a faint ringing in his ears. He wasn’t at Murray’s, then. Always noise there, even if it was just snoring.
    He tried again, and his cheek peeled away from whatever he lay on, with a sticky, jammy sensation. His headswam. He wanted to lay it back down, but what was that stuff? He pushed more upright—
    Something wrong with his arm. Left arm. Wouldn’t push. Felt like an interruption halfway down. Going to hurt soon. In the center of his head, a spinning blankness. He might vomit, or faint.
    Where was he?
    He remembered running. Man on a horse—what man? Couldn’t picture him—
    Because he’d never seen him. Voice at the gate—that was all, and he’d fled uphill through the brambles. Not smart, with all the holes—
    Holes. He looked up, way up, and there was sky, a small blue patch of it rimmed with blackberry leaves.
    His stomach whirled. He braced his good hand on the rock floor, and slowly, because quick movement hurt his head, looked down again.
    The white thing—he stared at it a long time, while the lattice shape of it slowly became apparent. Knowing crept from the corners of his mind.
    He was in the Dog Hole.
    Engelbreit was dead, and he’d been running, and he’d fallen into the Dog Hole.
    The countryside for miles around was riddled withholes—abandoned shafts, wildcat bores. Men went hunting in pairs, so if one fell in, the other could maybe get him out.
    This hole up in the briars was well known. A couple of years ago, picking berries, Phin had heard whimpering, looked in, and seen a dog. The mule boys were just knocking off for the day. He’d found Jimmy Lundy, who scrounged a rope, and they argued about who should go down. In the end it was Phin. Jimmy was stronger and should be on top to anchor.
    Phin had hated the dark closing around him, the smell of rock and root. A long drop; he remembered that, remembered knowing with every slither and catch down the