The Fire Bay Adventure by Fleur Hitchcock

Author:Fleur Hitchcock [Fleur Hitchcock]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788001120
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Published: 2019-01-16T16:00:00+00:00

The steps turned out to be a spiral staircase, one that hadn’t been used for a very long time. In the light of Aiden’s phone torch the cobwebs appeared as a white wall in front of them, so it wasn’t until they’d walked quite a few paces that he realised it was a spiral staircase. It was so narrow that his elbows touched the sides, and so low that his head brushed the roof. It was also cold, super cold, down here under the church. None of this was nice and he imagined the millions of spiders that he must be picking up on the way.

“Urgh!” said Chloe.

Ahead and below he could definitely hear the sea, and the wall of cobwebs seemed to breathe – which made it even more unpleasant.

Behind him Chloe’s feet tapped on the stone steps and Bella’s claws made a scuffling sound. She sniffed and sneezed at the dust, but she wasn’t growling or whining, which made Aiden feel bolder.

“What can you see?” asked Chloe.

“Nothing, just—”

“Don’t say it,” she said. “Not if you’re going to say spiders.”

“I wasn’t. It’s just all white.”

“That’s almost worse.”

They carried on for another few seconds in silence. “I’ve been counting,” she said. “Fifteen steps.”

Aiden didn’t answer. He’d been counting too – and he’d been thinking about the small table that they’d put into the gap, and hoping that it would stop it blowing shut again if someone came into the church. He’d also been thinking about the cat and the hole and just how on earth he or Mr Tibbs had managed to open the door.

“There must have been a lever,” he said.

“Did you pull or push anything?”

“No,” he said, puzzling and counting, until at fifty steps he lost count and the cobwebs seemed to grow greyer and the ground beneath his feet yellower. The whiff of the sea became stronger, mixed with a damp smell of sea caves and dead fishy things.

“I think we’re nearly at the bottom,” he said, feeling the floor of the passage change from paving to something grittier. On either side the stone walls continued, but now there were no more steps, and there was definitely some light at the other end.

“We don’t need the torch any more,” he said, taking off his glasses and cleaning away the cobwebs. Ahead and slightly below him was a long horizontal slit of yellow, and the cobwebs had changed from thick and white and strong, to traily and grubby, as if perhaps the spiders down here had moved on.

“Yay!” said Chloe. “I can properly see the end. Come on.” She and Bella squeezed past him and charged towards the light. Aiden stumbled along the last few metres of the passage, and had to take his glasses off again to remove the last of the cobwebs. Ahead of him, Bella raced through the slot and ran back, barking. She repeated the exercise several times and then sat panting, and possibly grinning. Kneeling down, Chloe stuck her head through the hole.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.