"A breeze," Providence said. "I feel a breeze." The flame of her candle flickered and she and Ottaline paused when they heard muffled voices coming down the tunnel. "Is there someone down here?"

"I don't think so," Ottaline said. "It's as though... it's coming from above." She held her candle up toward the ceiling. She looked ahead and narrowed her eyes. "Rovy I see stairs!"

"Thank goodness," Providence exhaled. She looked down at her mud covered brace and froze. "Ottaline look at these tracks. They look like wheels of a wagon. As though...as though someone was moving something underground."

Ottaline went up to the stairs and found a lantern and another box of candles. Overhead she could hear the muffled shuffling of feet. "I think we are under a house." She started slowly up the groaning wood steps until she came to a trap door. "Here, hold my candle."

Providence took the candle. "Ottaline this might not be a good idea."

Ottaline slid the latch to the left then pulled it. Immediately the door sprang open and she lowered it down. Sticking her head through she was met with planks of wood. She pushed her hands against them and they wobbled. She easily pushed them out of the way and welcomed the fresh air that drifted down on her.

Providence watched her disappear through the door then peek back down.

"Blow out the candle and come on up."

Providence followed her sister's instructions and when she came up she found herself standing in a closet. The voices were louder now and when the girls stepped out of the closet they found themselves standing in a dusty bedroom.

"Someone has been using this closet," Ottaline said. "Look at the path from the door. The floor is dusty save for it. Listen."

"Yes ma'am Mrs. Richmond I'll have it changed straight away."

"Hattie," Ottaline said. "Rovy this is the Richmonds' house. Their tomb; so it must be their tunnel." She thought. "Rovy, do you remember all those side tunnels we saw? I wonder where they lead."

"We don't have time for that," Providence said. "We have to get out of here before we are spotted."

"Right," Ottaline said. She went up to the bedroom door and cracked it open. She looked both ways up the hall then slipped out signaling Providence after her. They went up the banister and looked down at the ground floor. A maid walked by carrying flowers and the new butler stopped her to inspect them.

"That man has Daddy's job," Providence said and Ottaline nodded.

The maid suddenly turned away and screamed dropping the vase which shattered on the floor in a mess of glass and water.

"Woman, what the devil has gotten into you?" the butler demanded.

"A face!" the woman wailed. "There was a face looking down at me from the banister!"

"There is no one there!" the butler scolded. "Now clean this mess up before Master Richmond sees."

"Yes, sir," the maid said. "But what if it was a ghost? This house feels haunted to me."

"Clean up this mess and hush your nonsense," the butler said. "There're aren't any ghost in this house but there is about to be a fired maid."

Providence and Ottaline ran up another flight of stairs as the butler began to come to their floor.

"We have to hide!" Providence said. "But where? There are people all around." The girls tried ducking into another bedroom but a maid was in there scrubbing the floors.

Ottaline turned in a circle then looked at the end of the hall. "The attic!" She grabbed her sister's hand. They raced to the narrow door at the end of the hall and pulled it shut just as the butler came up.

"Were you running around up here?"

"No sir, I've been here scrubbing the floors."

"I swear I heard running."

"I thought it was you or Eliza on the stairs."

"Well keep working and if you see anyone making racket report them to me. Master Ishmael can't stand noise."

"Yes sir."

Ottaline and Providence listened as the butler's feet retreated then they exhaled. Ottaline let go of the door knob and turned around in the small space between the door and the stairs. "I really got us into a mess this time."

"We'll have to tell Mr. Idris and Mr. Heritage what we found," Providence said taking a seat on the stairs. She put the candles in her lap and rested her head on the wall.

"Mr. Heritage will be cross when we're not back on time," Ottaline said. She looked up the narrow stairs with a sigh then climbed them.

Providence got up and followed her sister. The two stood at the top of the stairs and looked around the attic. "I don't think anyone has been up here in years." Providence said. She went over to an old rocking horse and touched the yarn mane.

"Everything is just thrown about," Ottaline said. She went over to a stack of hat boxes with books on top of them.

"Ahhh!"

Ottaline turned around to see her sister fall backwards into a box. "Quiet, Rovy!" she warned her. She hurried over to her and offered her hand to help her out of the box.

"Sorry," Providence said as she was helped to her feet. "He startled me."

Ottaline turned around quickly and met a stone face that had been painted with flesh colors. A shawl was draped around the bust and a hat was on his head. "Well hello, my good man."

Providence stooped over and picked up one of the candles. "Do you see the other?"

Ottaline looked around then pointed under a quilt draped over a wash bin. "There." When Providence stepped out of the way to get the candle two letters jumped out at her from the box her sister had fallen into. "L.C."

"Got it!" Providence said as Ottaline went up and knelt at the box. "What is it?"

"L.C," Ottaline said. "Mama was called Little Catherine. These could be her things." She pushed off the cardboard lid and reached into the box. Slowly she lifted out a light blue dance costume. The organdy white tutu expanded as she lifted it into the light. The bodice shimmered as she turned it. It had puffed sleeves and petals that extended over the organdy tutu. "It's beautiful."

"Do you think it was Mama's?"

"I really do," Ottaline said. She reached into the box again and pulled out a book which she passed to Providence.

"It's Northanger Abbey," Providence said as Ottaline pulled out ballet slippers from the box. "There is something written on the flyleaf." She sat on another box that held her and read aloud. "I should have never come to this place. I didn't realize just how much a human could break another down. My own mother, rest her soul, would have said I am too smart for domestic service but it does not look like I shall ever dance. Master Ishmael has broken me down. Last night he caught me dancing instead of working and condemned me to dance all night for him until I collapsed. I don't know that I can ever love dancing again.

C.H.

"This was before she married, Ottaline. Ottaline?" Providence looked around for her sister.

"What do you think?" Ottaline asked as she stepped from behind a pile of junk wearing the costume. "Do I look like a real dancer?"

"It fits you perfectly," Providence said as Ottaline found a mirror and examined herself in it. "This is as close as I've been to her in years."

"Me too," Providence said running her fingers over the letters. She looked up at the sister rising on her feet. "Ottaline, Master Ishmael really hated Mama. And according to the butler he's back in town. Maybe he's coming with a vengeance."

Ottaline gasped. "The tunnels. Rovy, the rhyme. Brigit Heritage made the rhyme up so she could remember the way into the tunnel. Maybe Mama knew too."

Providence stood. "Do you think that's why they killed her?"

"Could be," Ottaline said. "Those other tunnels must lead somewhere and we've got to find out!" She pounded her first and was very surprised to see Providence nod in agreement.

"I'm taking her book."

"And I'm taking her costume."

"Good then let's get out of here," Providence said picking up the candles.

Ottaline changed back into her clothes and put the costume back into the box. They crept down the attic stairs and waited at the door. When they didn't hear anything they slipped out. Quickly they went down the stairs, one flight, then down again, another flight. Providence opened the front door and the girls ran into the late afternoon unseen by the dwellers of the house.

/

"You girls are late," Granville said when they came running into the parlor. "Why are you so dirty?"

"We were in the cemetery," Ottaline said breathlessly.

"Well you look more like you've been beneath it," Granville said sarcastically.

 Ottaline had to laugh. "Mr. Heritage, you won't believe it but that's just where we have been."

"The rhyme is the key!" Providence said. "We went into a tomb and the tomb took us underground."

"There are tunnels under the town." Ottaline said and one of them took us to Mr. Richmond's home. We came through the floor into a closet and then inside a bedroom."

"You went there after I warned you about him?" Granville asked raising a brow.

"Not on purpose," Ottaline said. "But we had to hide for over an hour in the attic."

"And we found this stuff!" Providence said and held out the book. "That's our mothers and so is this."

Ottaline took the costume out of the box and showed him. "You see," she said. "We found more clues. We think all the victims knew about something going on in those tunnels. It was your sister's rhyme that led us there, sir." They waited in silence as Granville processed everything.

"You girls are amazing!" he declared. "And very brave. But also very naughty. Now I know you are excited about your discovery and you have every right to be but I don't want you back in those tunnels. If this is what my sister and your mother were killed over then nothing stops the same people from harming you."

"Yes sir," the girls said.

Granville smiled at them. "Now go get cleaned up for supper. "We have much to discuss with this new discovery."

The girls hurried away to boil the water and fill the tub. They felt so dirty that they didn't mind the difficult task. Today they felt one step closer to justice.