Free Hexes and X's (Z&C Mysteries, #3) by Zoey Kane, Claire Kane Page B

one dim light in the roughly finished room of two-by-four boards cross-nailed and lying around.
    “When did Millicent get polka dots?”
    “Those aren’t polka dots, Mother. They are spiders!”
    “Keep lifting your feet, stepping. Don’t stay stationary!”
    They jogged in place. Claire shuddered. “Eeeeeeeeeeee, I hate spiders! Good thing I’m wearing boots.”
    “Me too. Do you see another door or opening anywhere?!”
    A hook on a long handle hung in a corner of the room, while spiders crawled all over it. “No, but look at that.” Claire pointed, still making spider jam under her shoes.
    Zo quick-stepped over to the hook. She braced her courage up and swiped at the handle, knocking off the octalegs. Two managed to flick onto her left hand. She had a fit swatting them off, choking off a scream as her back muscles tightened. She continued brushing until she hit the hook to the floor, jarring off the rest of the creepy crawlers.
    “I don’t see any exit. Nothing but spider webs on the walls everywhere, Mom.”
    “Good point.” Zo jogged over to the wall across the way. She ran the hook across it. “Spiders don’t live in old dusty webs. Oh! Wooo! But evidently they do crawl around under them.” She batted her hook on the floor, before knocking down the rest of the curtain of webs.
    “We have another squeegee door. Bring Millicent and the stick.” Claire aimed the flashlight with one hand, and with the other hand stroked the stick across Millicent, knocking off remaining spiders. She began rolling the form across the floor in between pieces of lumber. Her jog was excellent, even though her back had three unseen polka dots.
    When she joined her mother, Zo looked her over and brushed her back. She said, “I’m just giving you love pats for courage.” It seemed to soothe Claire’s nerves a little.
    “Push Millicent’s body through just a bit, so we can see what else could be lurking ahead.”
    “Wait, what’s that say?” She aimed her flashlight at the old wall. Something was etched and faded with time. “I see writing there.” Claire wiped the dust at the door jamb with her hand.
    “Down’s an… up. Okay, then, push her through.”
    The seamstress form got her wheels pushed through the rubber until there was only its metal neck showing. Before they could pull the mannequin back, the unexpected appeared, winding its way out from the next room—a snake.
    “Maybe I could learn to love these spiders. They aren’t so bad after all,” Claire squeaked.
    “Come on, dear. We’re trapped, and it is possible that Jack has lost too much blood already.”
    “Yes. You are right. Actually, it won’t be too long before that ceiling will drop another three inches.” Claire leaned forward, pushing in the form all the way. “Okay then, I’m following in behind Millicent.”
    A rank and dank smell slapped them in the face. The light was dim with dust, but the two could see they were sharing a floor with snakes moving here and there, some all balled up with anticipation of intruders into their domain. “Be careful!” didn’t need to be said. Their eyes darted everywhere on high alert.
    “I release you from your promise to kill and make designer boots if we ever ran across a snake,” Claire said. “We could start a boot corporation with this lot.”

“Use the stick and I will use the hook to whack these snakes out of the way,” Zo determined.
    There were two things of notice, besides the snakes: a door that could slide up, and a hanging net. The two were connected, so that any weight in the net would cause the door to move up. “Over there,” Claire was pointing to the wall on the right side of the room, “is a basket on a nail that says, ‘Come & get it.’”
    “That is nice. Do you see that all manner of snakes are slithering in and out of that wall there? And, that the basket itself seems to be a nest of hissers?”
    “It is part of the game, Mom. So, we better try and get it.”
    “And