Nick grabbed the book and started looking through it.

Marjorie laughed. “I thought you were hungry.”

“I am,” Nick said. “But we’d get home for lunch much quicker if we could fly. Hey! Here’s the spell to do it.”

Marjorie leaned over his shoulder. “It looks easy. All we need are seven feathers, each one a different color.”

“I once found a blue jay’s feather in the yard,” Nick said. “But I don’t have it anymore.”

“I’ll see if Stella has any feathers.” Marjorie went over to the shelf in the wall. She took the lid off a box. “Spiderwebs.” She peeked in all the other boxes and jars. “There’s nothing that even looks like a feather here,” Marjorie said. “Let’s go home.”

Marjorie went back to the table to get her flashlight. “Where’s the key, Nick? I left it right here.”

Nick shut the book of spells. He began to run his hand over the top of the table. Marjorie watched him. “Oh, I forgot. The key is invisible until you touch it.”

All at once Nick disappeared.

“I see you found it,” Marjorie said. “Would you mind wearing it on the way home? I have to hold the flashlight, and it bothers you to see things like that moving around.”

“Let me be first up the rope,” Nick said.

“All right. Just tell me when you’re out of here,” Marjorie said.

“Here I go!” Marjorie heard Nick’s voice from outside the door. She looked around Stella’s cave to make sure everything was in the right place. She went out and closed the door behind her.

The flashlight lit up the tangled roots in the dark hole under the tree. Marjorie saw the clothesline dangling down. It was jumping as if it were alive.

“It’s harder going up than it was coming down,” she heard Nick say. “There’s not much light coming down. Shine the flashlight over here, Marge.”

Marjorie turned the flashlight toward where she thought Nick was.

“How’s that?”

“A little higher,” he said.

Marjorie pointed the flashlight about four feet above her head.

“That’s fine,” Nick told her.

Marjorie began to shinny up the rope. It wasn’t easy to do with the flashlight in her hand. When she came to the first twisted lump inside the tree, she decided to stop and rest.

“Ow! Get off my foot, Marge.” Nick was already on the lump.

“If you want to go up the rope first, Nick,” Marjorie said, “you’d better give me the key, so I can see where you are.”

“Okay,” Nick said. “Hold still and I’ll hang it around your neck.”

Marjorie clung to the rope. She felt the string slip over her head. Now she could see her brother.

Nick began climbing the rope again.

Marjorie came after him with the flashlight.