“What?”
“Mom always said we couldn’t be burned by firestarters. Like the Chevelle. I wondered if we could be burned by regular fire. Doesn’t work.” I’d come here plenty after Mom disappeared, testing matches on my hands and arms. Burning paper and plastic, trying to see if any of that had an effect. I always came away unblemished.
Artemis squinted into my flashlight beam. “Do you think—my mom never brought it up—do you think it would hurt me?”
“Let’s hope there’s no reason we need to find out,” I said. “Come on—we still have a ways to go.”
10
“This mine was built in 1870.” Artemis’s voice echoed softly in the dark as we followed the old cart track. Talking had calmed her, so I let her ramble. “Salem Hillcroft was around five years old then. There was a record of poor labor conditions and abuse among the miners. The mine made Salem’s father very rich, and according to journals from the locals, it made Salem very entitled. As he got older, he went with his father to oversee mining operations, and when he was eighteen, he went by himself. He disappeared, and the stories say he fell into one of the caves inside the mine.”
I’d seen the miners—adults and children—but not Salem Hillcroft.
“Why’d he go all the way to the caves?” I asked.
“That’s not even the point,” Artemis said. “Why did he go into the mine at all? Why did he go so far? And hehappenedto slip at a place where the miners often wouldn’t even go? Into a cave where they couldn’t find his body? A cave the miners would know the location ofvery well?”
“You’re saying the abused miners kidnapped Salem and tossed him down a hole in the mines.”
“I’m saying it’s alotmore likely than Salem suddenly becoming a klutz at exactly the wrong spot.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of Occam’s razor?”
Artemis paused. “I’m surprised you even know what Occam’s razor is.”
I gave her the middle finger over my shoulder. “I read books.”
The uneven mine floor was doing nothing good for my ankle, but we were already here and we were probably late. The route through the mine to the north entrance was direct, though I’d figured out early on that whoever planned the mine, while smart enough to leave supports for the ceiling, had not bothered to leave any directions or signs to let you know which way you were going. You’d think it would be easy to navigate a big grid, but when every tunnel looks exactly the same and you’re not great at remembering how many left turns you took, you start running in circles pretty fast. I had explored this part of the mine before, but after I got lost the second time, I stuck to the south entrance.
“Okay, be quiet,” I whispered. “I heard something.”
We came around a bend in the tunnel. Several routes led to the north entrance, and most were still crowded with rubble, old supplies, or broken equipment, as if the day the mine closed down, all the miners dropped everything where they stood and left. A little boy in a dirty shirt huddled next to a broken crate, unblinking eyes tracking us as we moved past him. No sign of any firestarter yet, thankfully. A trickle of voices echoed off the walls. I waved a hand for Artemis to stay behind me and kneel down. We huddled behind a stack of rotted crates.
“No wonder people think this place is haunted,” a man said. A flashlight swept across the wall farther up the tunnel. “It feels like there are still people here.”
“Seriously, Mike?” Tad Thompson. What a dick.
“I didn’t mean ghosts; I meant—look at this.” Wood skidded on stone, then clattered to the floor. “Everything’s still here.”
“Can we hurry?” A feminine voice. Leila. “It’s cold out, and I’m already on so much Sudafed I can’t walk straight.”
“Eric, you have the infrared?” Tad.
“Yeah, hold on.” Probably the tech guy.
“Grant?”
“We’re ready to go whenever you guys are.” That had to be the producer. His voice was farther away, maybe still outside.
The voices faded, replaced by scuffling feet and theflickering of lights. Artemis tapped my arm.
“Shouldn’t we move?” she said. “What if they come this way?”
I didn’t think they would. Flashlights threw shadows on the walls and highlights in the wrong places. The tunnel we were in was camouflaged. The tunnel directly ahead of them was the one that would take them deeper inside.
“It won’t hurt to get ahead of them,” I whispered back. “Get up, go.”
As quietly as possible, we turned and headed back the way we’d come. After a few minutes, I pulled Artemis to a stop and redirected her down another tunnel that went deeper into the mine. It smelled of damp earth, and our flashlights made the shadows hard-edged and intense. Artemis scraped and stumbled over the uneven floor, her backpack rattling softly.
