2
I stood beyond the secret doorway in a musty space the size of a broom closet. My nostrils prickled. The air smelled like burnt ozone and foul spices. Spiders scuttled from my torchlight as I scanned the slick brick walls and finally settled the beam just beyond my shoes, at the first narrow step of a spiral staircase that spun down into the darkness.
“Why would anyone bother hiding a bomb shelter?” Mouse nudged up beside me.
“They wouldn’t,” I said plainly, and started down the stairs.
With each step, the air grew colder and more pungent, until I reached the bottom, puffing nervous, frosty breath that looked like smoke in the torchlight.
“Creepy,” Mouse whispered in my ear.
I nodded. Gooseflesh shivered down my arms. Creepy was right.
A large chamber stretched out before us, part dungeon, part laboratory, all bizarre. Dozens—maybe hundreds—of dead light bulbs hung from the ceiling on frayed electrical cords, dangling over tables crammed with all manner of scientific equipment: flasks, test tubes, mortars, and beakers.
Cobweb-covered shelves crowded with oddly labeled jars and canisters lined the walls: unspoken water, toadstones, and philosophical mercury, just to name a few. One of the containers was translucent and brimming with either olives or eyeballs. I told myself they were olives and didn’t bother looking twice.
A fat black cauldron sat in the center of the room, surrounded by a hodgepodge of dead lamps and spotlights aimed at the far wall and the collage of star charts, anatomy diagrams, and strange artwork that covered it. Grandfather clocks—dozens of them—stood guard randomly in the shadows, keeping time with each other so that every
tick and
tock sounded like marching boots. Everywhere I looked, something weird waited.
“Nim?” Mouse said breathlessly. He sounded like I felt. “What is this place?”
“I don’t know,” I said. Which was true. I had no idea. I’d never been anywhere like it. Minding the electrical cables that crisscrossed the floor like sleeping snakes, I crept forward, sloughing Mouse’s death grip off my shirt.
“Can’t we go?” he pleaded quietly. “Please? I don’t like it here. Something feels . . . wrong.”
“I warned you not to come, didn’t I?” I winced at the nervous quiver in my voice. Not believing in ghosts and monsters had been a whole lot easier outside. Pausing before the giant cauldron, I cautiously peered into its depths. I’d half expected witch’s brew or bobbing body parts—at the very least a viscous tentacle or two—but it was empty. Bone dry.
Curiously, I turned my attention to the lamps. There were dozens of them, some tall, some squat, some oddly decorative, with lampshades in all the colors of the rainbow. Spotlights stood among them, miniature versions of the kind the Royal Air Force used to scan the skies for Nazi bombers. When the juice was flowing, the secret room must’ve shone like the sun. So many lights, and all of them aimed at the far wall. But why?
Pointing my torch, I illuminated the back of the room. My beam drifted across a coffin-size chart:
The Alchemical Table of Symbols, lingered on a gruesome anatomy diagram of a bisected octopus, and then, for reasons I didn’t yet understand, stuck on a large framed map. It was London, but not my London. The map was dark and faded, graffitied with illustrations of Grim Reapers, snakes, and skull and crossbones. It looked like the sort of thing you might pry out of a dead pirate’s grip. I squinted at the faded title:
LONDON and THE BLACK DEATH, 1666 AD.
“Nim?” Mouse whispered. “What is it?”
“I’m . . .” I tiptoed toward it. “I’m not sure.”
“We should go,” Mouse whispered. “Now. There’s . . . there’s a jar over here . . . labeled”—he gulped so loud it was like he was inside my head—“
Executioner’s Tears.”
I whirled the torchlight on him, blinding me for an instant with the reflection off his cap buttons and cracked glasses. I blinked until my eyes adjusted.
“Give me a minute, Mouse!”
Ugh. The frustration in my voice made me wince. I wasn’t used to having people around. With a sigh, I dragged a hand down my face. I couldn’t blame Mouse for being scared. I was, too. But I was even more curious. The room must have been hidden for a reason. There had to be something valuable somewhere.
“Go ahead and leave if you want. I’m not stopping you,” I said, snuffing some of the fire from my voice, “but if you wanna wait for me, I just need a few more minutes. Okay?”
Mouse hugged himself tight against the chill and nodded.
I gave him a curt nod and turned back to the map, a second before my torchlight came with me. And that was when I saw it. An almost imperceptible glow emanating around the map’s frame. It was faint, and then it was gone, swallowed by my torchlight. I paused, wondering if I had even really seen it at all.
There was only one way to know.
I clicked off my torch, engulfing Mouse and me in the kind of darkness that seemed thick enough to spread on toast. Bottomless-pit dark. Deepest-nightmare black.
“Hey!” Mouse cried.
“What are you—”
“Shhh!” I hissed. “Quiet!”
For a moment, the afterimage of the torchlight flared in my eyes. I blinked it away, and gradually my sight adjusted. I hadn’t imagined it. The glow was real. Faint light seeped out from behind the map as though it was backlit. But by what? I clicked on my torch and hurried over.
“What?” Mouse asked. “What are you doing?”
“I think there’s something back here.” I pried my fingers behind the frame.
With a little coaxing, the map swung open like a door, groaning on hidden hinges, revealing a cavity big enough to climb inside. I filled it with torchlight, gasped, and stumbled backward.
It was full of bugs.
Cockroaches mostly, but centipedes, grubs, and spiders, too, all jostling for position to get closest to the squat iron safe that sat at the back of the hollow.
MANCHESTER & CO. FIRE RESISTING SAFE was stamped across the front above a combination lock and worn brass handle, while every other square inch was covered in strange graffiti: nonsensical scraped equations, painted runes, and chicken-scratch engravings. From the seam of the safe door, a burnt-orange light escaped, along with a sour stink that made my eyes tear up and my nostrils sting.
“Yuck.” Mouse groaned, peeking over my shoulder from a safe distance behind me. His hand was clamped over his nose. “I don’t know what’s worse, the bugs or the smell.”
“What could be glowing in there?” I said, more to myself than to Mouse. Possibilities that weren’t really possible raced through my head. Shining gold coins? Shimmering gemstones? Twinkling diamonds like a safe full of stars? I only needed a pound or two, but I imagined I had just found a thousand. Whatever treasure waited inside had been hidden in a hidden room. It had to be special.
Shooing away the bugs, I grasped the handle. It didn’t budge. The safe was locked, which didn’t surprise me in the least. I turned my attention to the fat dial of the combination lock. It was brass like the handle, although the insect poop that crusted it had stolen its shine. I scraped the gunk away and took a better look.
The dial on the weighty lock was engraved with tiny numbers, so many my head began to spin. I frowned. I’ve always despised math. Mostly because at Waifs n’ Strays, math lessons plus me equaled mockery and embarrassment. How many possible combinations could there be? For a while I fiddled with the dial, cranking it left, spinning it right, flicking my hand like a maestro to keep the cockroaches from crawling up my shirtsleeve. That got old fast. It was getting me nowhere.
“What’s the combination?” I whispered.
Racking my brain, I drummed my fingers along the map’s frame. The hinges it swung from groaned, as if they were trying to give me a hint. I took a step back, bathing the map in torchlight, and scrutinized it. Could a clue from the map unlock the safe? Was the code hidden in the symbology? The tiny, barely legible labels? Maybe the—
My breath caught in my throat.
The title.
LONDON and THE BLACK DEATH, 1666 AD.
It was the title. The date specifically: 1666. I don’t know how, but suddenly I was certain of it. I could feel it in my bones.
My hand was on the combination lock before I’d even realized I’d moved, fidgeting like my fingers were possessed. Sixteen clockwise . . . six counterclockwise . . . six clockwise. I grasped the handle, held my breath, and wrenched on it.
The handle turned, and the safe creaked open.
Copyright © 2025 by Ryan James Black. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
