The muddy walls were steep and vertical, and the bottom filled with ankle-deep water from the recent storm.
Lucy groaned.
She’d covered her head with her arms, so she didn’t sustain any injury, aside from a few scrapes and bruises.
She was caked with mud. Her bag soaked in the quaggy water.
Lucy tried to climb up the steep walls, but the earth crumbled beneath her fingers and she slid back again to the bottom.
It was getting dark. There was only one thing left to do. Lucy took a big breath.
“Heeeelp!”
There was silence. Even the birds had stopped chirping.
The silence, the steep, earthy walls, the descending darkness enveloped her, pressed down on her, choked her off her breath. It was too tight, too narrow, too dark. There was no space, they would not hear her cries. She was a little girl again, back in the cold, grim pit.
Mama couldn’t hear her. Maybe if she cried longer and louder.
Icy fingers crawled over her clammy skin, like tentacles spreading over her body, her neck, her face, digging deep into her erratically hammering heart, as if to squeeze out its life force.
Lucy gasped for air. Her throat emitted raspy sounds. She was so terrified she couldn’t even scream.
Wet earth everywhere. Darkness.
Cold. Hunger.
Mama.
Pressing her eyes shut, she rolled herself up into a ball, rocked back and forth and whimpered.
“Lucy! Where are you?”
“Where are you?”
“It came from down there. God’s teeth! There’s a little girl in the open grave. And she’s alive.”
“Pull her out, Jerry, pull her out. There, there, little girl. Joris and Jerry will help you out.”
“Be careful. Maybe she’s a spectre, or an undead one come alive to eat our souls.”
“That’s a horrid bag of moonshine. Can’t you see the coffin’s right down there? ‘Tis old Jeremy in the box. Bit the dust on account of a barrel fever. Why didn’t they close the hole? She must’ve fallen in. What’s a little one like her doin’ all alone in a graveyard? She can’t be older than two. There, there, little one. We’ll get you out. She’s got blue lips. God knows how long she’s been down there.”
“How pretty she is. Her dress is very fine. Can we keep her?”
“I don’t know, Joris. Someone’s bound to look for her.”
“But if she ain’t belongin’ to no one?”
“Maybe. Then we might as well keep her.”
A familiar voice penetrated through her fog of terror. But she must’ve imagined it, because she stopped hearing the voice.
Maybe she’d fainted. Maybe she’d fallen asleep. The voice sounded again, closer.
“Lucy!” The voice was right above her.
She jerked.
