Free Thornghost by Tone Almhjell

tilted her head as if there was something she didn’t quite understand.
    Niklas plastered a smile on his face. “I’m going. I’m just waiting for my eyes to get used to the darkness.” He gave her a brief nod and climbed down.
    He had expected the cellar to reek of mildew, but instead it smelled sweet like dry wood. A small lantern sat on the bottom rung of the ladder. He lit it.
    â€œSecret,” he called out softly as the light crept into the corners of the crypt. “You should see this! There are creatures down here!”
    Positioned along the walls, there were carved statues.
    On one side there were animals. Wolves howling at the sky, horses rearing up to strike. On the other side, there were monsters, skeleton birds fitted with tarp for wings, like the creature inside the nightmare castle. All his mother’s work.
    How had she fit the blocks through the hatch? Maybe she had added the outstretched limbs afterward. Niklas could picture her moving between these creatures, filling the crypt with wood chips, face screwed up with madness.
    At the farthest end of the cellar stood a cloaked figure. This statue was smaller, more straight-backed, and turned toward the wall. Niklas’s pulse whooshed in his head, louder than the Summerchild. But he had to look.
    He walked to the end of the crypt on watery legs. Holding his breath, he turned the statue by its shoulders. It came around smoothly, grazing him with its outstretched arms.
    It was a girl his age. The carver had made no effort to catch her in a pretty moment, but with the gathered mouth under the stubborn curls, she looked exactly like herself.
    â€œMom,” Niklas whispered.

C HAPTER F IFTEEN

    P
lease don’t come back,
Uncle Anders had said.
Please don’t be angry.
    Secret eased onto the chapel floor above. She moved so silently, but the boards creaked beneath her paws, loud enough to drown out Niklas’s heartbeat. “Cub? What is wrong?”
    He had to force the words out of his mouth. “I found my mother. Or not her, but her statue.”
    The floor creaked again, and Secret’s front paws stepped gingerly down the ladder, letting her dip her head just low enough to look into the crypt. She watched him stand there with the lantern, then said, “I can see how you’re her cub.”
    â€œYou can?” Niklas had studied every photo of his mother’s face, looking for signs of himself, and found none.
    â€œNot when you’re the boy of the farm, running aroundwith your friend. But when you walk the woods alone. When no one is watching.”
    â€œYou mean no one except Secret, the stalker lynx,” Niklas said, but the joke didn’t sit right. He didn’t want to look like this statue, all worried and lost.
    The statue dripped with water, which Niklas guessed came from Uncle Anders’s bucket. It had washed away the dust, bringing out the colors in her eyes and lips, before gathering in a puddle on the floor. Her eyelashes still carried drops.
    â€œUncle Anders keeps all my mother’s things clean,” Niklas said. “But I don’t think he’s been doing it here, at least not until tonight. All the other statues are grimy, and there’s still dirt in some of the folds of her cloak, see?”
    Secret sneezed in the dusty air and pulled back up through the hatch. But she hovered near the entrance. “Then why start now?”
    â€œI don’t know.” Niklas bit his lip. “But he plays his violin, which he hasn’t touched since she died. He told me he hears things . . . Maybe the magic taint is affecting him, too.”
    He couldn’t bear to meet the dead eyes of the statue anymore, so he turned and walked around the cellar. In the corner by the ladder, there was a piece of tarp that hadn’t been fastened to a bird statue. He pulled it aside and found a casket.
    â€œYou’ve been right all along, Secret,” he snorted.