EMPTY BOXES

The next three days were days of shaking heads.

We sat on wooden chairs in the library while a librarian with gray eyes searched the catalog for books about PAWPAW ISLAND.

“Isn’t PAWPAW also the name for a grandfather?” Jordan (pianissimo)whispered.

“Do you mean as a nickname or something?” Zeke (pianissimo)whispered.

“Isn’t PAWPAW also the name of a tree?” I (pianissimo)whispered.

The librarian spun on his chair, shaking his head at us.

“Nothing,” the librarian (forte)said.

We stood on swaying docks at the wharf while sailors in black waders(mezzo-forte) sprayed fish guts from the decks of their boats.

“Does anyone here collect BOTTLED SHIPS?” I (forte)shouted.

The sailors shook their heads.

“Has anyone heard of PAWPAW ISLAND?” I (forte)shouted.

The sailors shook their heads again.

We waited on a bench across from the antique shop while Zeke and the owner gestured at each other inside.

“Listen, Calculator, I’ve been thinking. What do we need Boylover for? Why don’t we split those heirlooms two ways instead of three?” Jordan (piano)whispered as the owner waved goodbye.

I shook my head.

“What did she say?” I (forte)shouted as Zeke trotted to the bench.

Zeke shook his head.

“NINE PACES INLAND, BOTTLED SHIPS, PAWPAW ISLAND, she can’t crack it,” Zeke (forte) said as we stood from the bench.

Jordan shook his head.

We cut through the graveyard, shuffling across graves overgrown with weeds, above coffins of bones, or the empty coffins buried there for people whose bodies were never found.

There was one place we knew we should have tried looking. But going there was basically suicide. None of us had even dared to speak its name.

My mom bought me a cheap backpack with money we didn’t have. Every morning she wandered the neighborhood, wrapped in a jacket, searching for some sign of Grandpa Rose. My brother drooped. The rain didn’t come. I watered his roots, brushed the leaves of other trees from his branches. Every night I sat scrawling PAWPAW ISLAND THERE BOTTLED SHIPS BONES FROM BOW NINE PACES INLAND = ? on a notepad, chewing the insides of my cheeks, switching my lamp, off on, off on, off on, off on, off on. The equation made me feel angry^imprisoned. I hated the equation, for being difficult, for being impossible, for being everything. I hated myself, for being beaten by the equation. I threw my pen, left a hole in the wall.

At school, in the cafeteria, the Gelusos recounted a story to a table of kids, interrupting each other, waving their arms.

“Last night, this was,” The Unibrow (piano)said.

“Cutting through the meadow,” Crooked Teeth(mezzo-piano) said.

“Freaky things were happening in the ghosthouse,” The Unibrow (piano)said.

“Lights floating around,” Crooked Teeth(mezzo-piano) said.

“Singing. Laughing,” The Unibrow (piano)said.

“Worse than laughing. We heard hooting,” Crooked Teeth(mezzo-piano) said.

“The ghosts were hooting,” The Unibrow (piano)said.

“Nothing’s as evil as a hoot,” Crooked Teeth(mezzo-piano) said.

Then Mark Huff carried a tray to the table, dark turkey and green beans and mashed potatoes, and everyone made fun of Mark Huff for getting tripped out the attic window.

Every evening, when we got to the ghosthouse, we found the grandfathers in a different room. The first night, Grandpa Rose and Grandpa Dykhouse had carved a chessboard in the floor of the entryway, were using tools from the shed as pieces. The second night, Grandpa Rose was(mezzo-forte) singing jazz numbers in the kitchen, Grandpa Dykhouse(mezzo-forte) coaxing him to remember the words. The third night, Grandpa Rose was dancing along the hallway with an imaginary partner while Grandpa Dykhouse bravoed and (fermata)encored. Afterward we built a fire in the fireplace, sat hunched under blankets, ate canned peas and hunks of bread. Embers (piano)snapped from log to log. Grandpa Rose was feeling talkative. While he taught me chess, we quizzed him about the ancestors of kids we knew.

“Huff,” Jordan (forte)said.

“Samuel Huff supervised the carton plant, hosted poker games there after hours,” Grandpa Rose(mezzo-forte) said.

“Geluso,” Jordan (forte)said.

“Busoni Geluso worked fishing salmon, had a fat face, tiny hands, skin as rough as a brick’s,” Grandpa Rose(mezzo-forte) said.

“Dirge,” Jordan (forte)said.

“Vern Dirge had the loudest sneeze in the state of Michigan,” Grandpa Rose(mezzo-forte) said.

“Keen,” Jordan (forte)said.

“Jan Keen was a sleepwalker, wandered the streets in pajamas,” Grandpa Rose(mezzo-forte) said.

Jordan was dying (fortissimo) laughing.

“How can he remember the names of people who have been dead for fifty years, but he can’t remember ours?” Zeke (piano)muttered.

While Grandpa Dykhouse and Jordan played chess, Grandpa Dykhouse talked about sailboats. Even though he called us kids, he never talked to us like we were kids, but instead just people. I liked that he would tell us anything.

“Every summer we would sail across Lake Michigan, under the bridge at Mackinac, through the locks to Lake Superior. Pitch a tent in the forest. Roast marshmallows over a fire,” Grandpa Dykhouse (forte)said. “Like Saint-Amour, I should have taken a vow to kill myself on my sixtieth birthday. Just when things seemed perfect—I had retired, Holly had retired, for the first time since high school we had all of this time to spend together—then we lost everything, and I lost Holly.” He scooped a spoonful of peas, the spoon (piano)rattling against the can. “We were happy when we were sixty. We should have left then, together, so we could have left happy.”

“Yes, okay, Mom and Dad hardly ever visited you, but, still, they were trying to take care of you. The rest home was just the best they could do,” Jordan (forte)said, squinting at the chessboard.

“And if they ever find me, they’ll take me back there, and they’ll never let me die,” Grandpa Dykhouse (mezzo-forte)said, setting aside the can. “They’ll feed me pills, and hook me to machines that will keep me alive for another ten, twenty, thirty years, until all I can do is blink and breathe and get meals pumped into me through a tube.”

“What’s wrong with the rest home?” Zeke(mezzo-piano) said. “My grandpa loved it there. When we would try to bring him home for holidays, he wouldn’t want to leave. The nurses called him Mr. Smiley.”

“The fumes of gold cyanide,” Grandpa Dykhouse (piano)said. His eyes were > his normal eyes. Twice as big, maybe. He took a pawn with a pawn. “That’s what we should have done.”

Jordan pointed at the pawn. His gap-tooth surfaced with his grin.

“King Gunga, you’ve fallen straight into my trap!” Jordan (forte)cackled, doubling over himself, (forte)drumming his fists on the floor.

Grandpa Rose (pianissimo)stirred the embers with a charred stick, (pianissimo)laughing. His tattoos were covered with stubble again already, thick gray and white hair. The rate that he grew a beard at was just freakish. This didn’t make sense, but for some reason seeing the tattoos starting to disappear like that worried me—made me feel like we had been given a chance to find the heirlooms, and that our chance was fading, and fading, and fading, and soon would vanish forever.

Leaving the ghosthouse, we yanked on sweatshirts and (forte)argued with each other about the notes Grandpa Dykhouse had made of Grandpa Rose’s memories. Rippled clouds drifted over the moon. The weeds already were wet with dew. I had gotten desperate enough to consider going to the place we had never considered going before.

“The smugglers’ tunnels?” Jordan(sforzando) said.

In band class, everyone had learned new terms. Sforzando means “play this with sudden force.” Staccato means “play this sharp and choppy,” means “let none of these notes touch.”

We stopped at the stone well, the empty bucket swaying (staccato)creaking in the wind.

“He worked for the smugglers. Maybe there are clues in the tunnels. Papers, artifacts, something,” I (forte)said.

Jordan waved his hands at me, stepping backward.

“You’re out of your mind, thinking about going there,” Jordan (forte)said.

Zeke hung his head, then nodded.

“Tomorrow, after school, let’s try it,” Zeke (forte)said.

Kids our age were strictly forbidden from going into those tunnels, on pain of death.

I woke that night to the sound of thunder(mezzo-forte) rumbling in the sky, rain (forte)lashing at the window. My breath fogged the glass. I watched trees buckling, snapped limbs bouncing across the backyard. The rain had come, but way too much.

I kicked into my high-tops and grabbed my raincoat and ran to the backyard, slipping across puddles, stumbling. Water (staccato)hammered the hood of the raincoat. Lightning flashed white across the woods. My brother was pitching from side to side, like someone about to collapse. I dropped to his roots, pressed my back into his bark, propped his trunk with my body. Wind slammed the trees. I dug my high-tops into the mud. I dug my fingers into the mud. Wind slammed the trees again. I would have let it break my backbone before my brother. Thunder (fortissimo)blasted. Snapped limbs somersaulted and cartwheeled through the woods. The rain’s tempo was breathless. I couldn’t speak without music, and my brother wasn’t speaking, was way too afraid. We just sat there together, quietly, through the storm.

In the morning the trees were still (pianissimo)dripping rainwater. The deck was littered with branches, muddled leaves, small round berries. Birds pecked at the berries, flew away again. I was eating cinnamon oatmeal from a cracked bowl.

“Did Grandpa Rose ever work?” I(mezzo-piano) said.

My mom carried a plate of eggs to the table.

“He never had normal jobs. He was never home. When he was, he would just follow around Grandma Rose,” my mom(mezzo-piano) said. “He wasn’t a deadbeat or anything. He would fold laundry for her, help her cook, move furniture around, this wall to that wall, that wall to this wall, wherever she pointed next. They were wild about each other. When she came into the room, he would break into this goofy smile, like seeing her face made him, just, overflow. But, of course, then a week later he would disappear.”

She dipped toast in the yolk of the eggs. She blew some hair out of her eyes. She chewed a bite.

“Once, at sunrise, before school, we took a walk in the woods,” my mom(mezzo-piano) said. “I still remember how, that morning, whenever we heard a songbird, he would say, ‘Finch,’ or ‘Cardinal,’ or ‘Whippoorwill.’ Then he would sing back. He knew all the birds’ songs. Note for note. Perfectly. I remember thinking, my father shouldn’t have been a crook! My father should have become a ranger, become a biologist, worked at a museum! I was outraged and amazed, simultaneously, by this secret talent. Maybe we took walks other mornings. I don’t remember. He tried to teach me the birds’ songs. I couldn’t sing them. But I still remember which sang which. He did teach me that.”

She forked a bite of eggs. I had stopped chewing. I had never heard Grandpa Rose singing birds’ songs. He had probably forgotten.

A bird landed on the deck, (glissando)twittering. I swallowed a mouthful of oatmeal. My mom pointed at the bird with her fork, still looking at her plate.

“Sparrow,” my mom (piano)said.

In math class, I was solving problems about the golden number. The golden number is a ratio that’s majorly powerful. If there is a blueprint to the universe, it’s the architect’s favorite number. It’s the shape of everything. It manifests in the order of trees’ branches, the curve of shells’ spirals, the scales of pinecones, the seeds of sunflowers, the dimensions of bones, the bodies of galaxies, the trajectory of falcons, the ancestry of honeybees. It’s been used in the design of books, of symphonies, of the tombs of pharaohs. Its first nine digits are 1.61803398, which is approximately equal to a ratio of 809/500, which you can’t simplify any further because 809 is a prime number.

Jordan slid a note onto my desk.

“From the homeschooler,” Jordan (pianissimo) muttered, pretending to fix his high-tops.

I gaped at the note.

“The black spot?” I(piano) whispered.

“I don’t know,” Jordan muttered. (pianissimo)Then the math teacher spotted him and (forte)called him to the chalkboard to solve a problem for the class.

I got a nervous^uncertain feeling. If I had been given the black spot, that would mean death was coming for me. I shoved a lock of hair out of my eyes. I took a breath. I unfolded the note.

It wasn’t the black spot. It was binary. It said,

01100011011101010111010001100101

I translated it. It meant “cute”? I didn’t understand. What was “cute”? Normally the fortunes were warnings. How was “cute” a warning?

I met Zeke at our locker after school.

“I need to stop for my knife before we head to the tunnels,” I (forte)said.

“I have to round up my dogs. Won’t take long. I’ll meet you at your house,” Zeke (forte)said.

Zeke was rooting through crumpled schoolwork on the floor of our locker. His dictionary was on the shelf. I had thought the dictionary had been burned in the garbage bin with our backpacks, but it was back again, like a ghost of itself, its cover as tattered and stained as always.

“How did your dictionary survive the garbage bin?” I (forte)said.

“It was never in it. When the Isaacs broke into our locker, the dictionary was at my house,” Zeke (forte)said. “Nothing could have been luckier. I need those words in it.”

Zeke (forte) shut the locker, trotted off toward the door.

“I’ve been thinking about what Grandpa Dykhouse said,” Zeke (forte)shouted, glancing backward. “Those holmgangs, those duels, that might be the only way to settle things with the Isaacs.”

I imagined Zeke waving a pistol.

“The only way?” I (piano)murmured.

Leaving school, I saw the Geluso twins perched on tables in the cafeteria, reading a magazine with the Isaacs. A kid with dreadlocks walked past (piano)humming “The Ballad Of Dirge And Keen.” Emma Dirge and Leah Keen walked out of the bathroom. The kid pretended to be humming something else.

When I got home, a black station wagon was parked in the driveway.

There was another showing.

I peeked through the kitchen window. A couple without children was sniffing our wallpaper. Both with black hair, both wearing grayish suits. The agent was opening and closing our cabinets, running through the usual ostinato.

I dropped through the bathroom window. I crept to the door, listening.

“Big big big backyard!” the agent(crescendo) said, standing at the window.

The woman frowned at the glass.

“We would have to remove those trees to build the pool,” the woman (forte)whined.

“Don’t forget the lake is practically next door, Ms. York,” the agent (forte)said.

“Dead fish rot in that water,” the woman (forte)said.

“Ms. York, a pool sounds heavenly,” the agent (forte)said.

It was a new worst. If this couple made an offer—if this couple made a closing—we wouldn’t just be leaving my brother. After we had gone, this couple would chop him down, would hack him apart.

Zeke stood at the bottom of the driveway clutching an unlit lantern. Today’s high-tops were a shiny black, with black straps. Zeke (forte) barked at the wolfdogs. They galloped into the road from where they had treed a squirrel.

“If you had something that could save Jordan, would you save him?” Zeke (piano)said.

“What do you mean save him?” I (forte)said.

“I mean nobody would hate him anymore,” Zeke (piano)said.

“Yes, I would save him,” I (forte)said.

I belted my knife to my leg.

“Wouldn’t you?” I (forte)said.

We walked to Jordan’s house, past the ghosthouse, to the wharf almost. Jordan’s house had gray shutters and a gray van in the driveway. Music(mezzo-forte) throbbed, muffled through a second-story window. Zeke(forte) knocked on the door.

Jordan’s mom answered, with dark pits at her eyes, plus maroon stains on her sweatshirt.

“Genevieve!” Jordan’s mom (fortissimo)shouted.

“We want Jordan,” Zeke (forte)said.

“Oh. Sorry. You didn’t look his type,” Jordan’s mom (forte)said.

A girl wearing neon elbow pads and neon knee pads ran to the door. She was younger than us—probably some sort of elementary schooler. She had twice the number of Jordan’s freckles, but her hair was only half red, was half gold too.

“Will you fetch Jordan?” Jordan’s mom(mezzo-forte) said.

Genevieve bolted upstairs.

“You kids wait here,” Jordan’s mom muttered,(mezzo-piano) shutting the door.

A window(mezzo-forte) scraped open. Jordan peeked out. He wasn’t wearing a shirt.

“What?” Jordan (forte)said.

“We’re going to the smugglers’ tunnels,” I (forte)said.

“Enjoy,” Jordan (forte)said.

“You’re not coming?” I (forte)said.

“I’m grounded,” Jordan (forte)said.

“Again?” I (forte)said.

“Somehow my sister’s dollhouse got sawed in half,” Jordan (forte)said.

“Somehow?” I (forte)said.

Jordan scratched his shoulders.

“Anyway, I wouldn’t come along even if I weren’t grounded. The smugglers’ tunnels are my brother’s territory. Save me some heirlooms, if you find the treasure,” Jordan (forte)said.

“You don’t get your share of them unless you’re there when we find them,” Zeke (forte)said.

Jordan frowned. Jordan (piano)sighed. Jordan (piano)swore^unwritable.

“Let me get a sweatshirt,” Jordan (piano)muttered.

Jordan tossed out a sweatshirt, which fluttered past the kitchen window and onto the wood chips. He snaked backward, hung from his bedroom window—his high-tops kicking above the kitchen window—then dropped.

Jordan’s mom was bent in the refrigerator, rummaging. Jordan wriggled into his sweatshirt as we ran into the trees, headed toward the wharf. A molehill caved under my high-tops, making me stumble. At the farm where the Gelusos lived, their lone cow was (fermata)mooing, and their lambs were (staccato)bleating, and their turkeys were (pianissimo)ticking at acorns in the grass.

“Ty, my brother, is just like Grandpa Dykhouse, although they haven’t spoken to each other for three years,” Jordan(mezzo-forte) said. “They’re both obsessed with history, especially the history of the lake. I try to care, I try and I try, but I can’t. I hate memorizing things that already happened.”

“Grandpa Dykhouse seems happier, now that he has the memory project,” I(mezzo-forte) said.

“Maybe, but that’s temporary,” Jordan(mezzo-forte) said. “Your grandpa’s memories won’t stay long. When the memories vanish, the project’s finished, and King Gunga’s sad again. No, what he needs is a boat.”

Running past the wharf, we saw the Isaacs and Mark Huff perched on a sailboat, their arms hanging over the railing, their legs dangling between the bars. The Isaacs were sipping from ceramic mugs, pretending they didn’t see us. Mark Huff was tossing cubes of sugar to gulls bobbing on the lake below.

“Do you ever wish you could be Mark Huff?” I(mezzo-forte) said.

“I hate Mark Huff,” Jordan(mezzo-forte) said.

“You do not,” Zeke(mezzo-forte) said.

“And you can still want to be someone that you hate,” I(mezzo-forte) said, frowning.

“Nobody would want to be that Flatface,” Jordan(sforzando) said, shoving the sleeves of his sweatshirt to his elbows. “His mom moved to Florida to live with some home-wrecker she met at a concert. Now she works at a record store by the ocean. She mails him postcards that say, ‘Be good, eat your vegetables, birthday presents coming soon,’ but she never mails the birthday presents, she always forgets. I was there the day he heard that she had left. His dad had told him that she was visiting his grandparents. For a month, that’s what he had thought. After he heard where she actually was, he told me he wanted to jump off the pier and drown on the rocks. Instead we went into the street and played soccer until it got dark.”

Mark Huff was (pianissimo)laughing, dropping sugar to the gulls.

“Ty says everybody’s stomach has this gray pod, and when you grow up it swells up and splits open and spills this thick gray slime into your stomach that makes you crazy and obsessed with something weird or illegal or just totally freakish, like how Mark’s mom ran away with the home-wrecker from the concert, or how the Gelusos’ dad names his motorcycles, or how the Gelusos’ mom thinks about jigsaw puzzles like nonstop,” Jordan (mezzo-forte)said.

“What’s Ty’s thing?” I(mezzo-forte) said.

“Torturing middle schoolers,” Jordan(mezzo-forte) said.

We (forte)crashed into the woods, scattering (forte)hissing raccoons, leaping gray mushroom caps growing from the craggy trunks of fallen elm trees, heading to the dunes. Wind(mezzo-piano) flurried through, shaking leftover rainwater from the leaves above.

“If I could be anyone, I would be Ty,” Jordan(mezzo-piano) said.

“I’ve never met anybody I like more than myself,” Zeke(mezzo-piano) said.

“Nobody?” Jordan(mezzo-piano) said.

“I would miss me, if I wasn’t,” Zeke (piano)said.

There was only one way in and out of the tunnels, in a shady nook on the backside of a giant dune. A thorny raspberry thicket had overgrown the entrance, where tilting wooden beams kept the tunnels propped. Nearby, a ∞ had been notched into the bark of an ash tree—one of the symbols the high schoolers used to mark their territory. The wind had died. All of the birdsong had gone quiet. Jordan tugged the sleeves of his sweatshirt over his hands and shoved through the thicket. We followed, ducking into the darkness.

Something (mezzo-forte)snapped and (mezzo-piano)crackled and a lit match flared between Zeke’s fingertips. Sand from above trickled through cracks between the wooden beams of the ceiling. The tunnels smelled like Grandpa Rose—like stale cigarettes and unwashed clothing. Zeke bent over the lantern, lighting it, the flame gleaming across the silver mermaids on his arms. Outside the entrance, beyond the thicket, the wolfdogs were (piano)whining. Zeke (forte)barked at them, and then they went quiet.

Zeke unfolded a piece of paper pocked with burn marks.

“I brought a map,” Zeke (piano)said.

“Wasn’t that the homeschooler’s?” Jordan (piano)said.

“I didn’t steal it,” Zeke (piano)said. “Kayley wanted a blueprint of the ghosthouse, and we needed a map of the tunnels, so I swapped the blueprint for the map.”

“What did she want a blueprint of the ghosthouse for?” I (piano)said.

“I didn’t ask,” Zeke (piano)said.

Jordan took the lantern. Zeke held the map to the light. In faded charcoal, the map was marked with different rooms—LOVERS HAUNT, THE OPIUM DEN, FAR FAR HIDEAWAY—connected by different tunnels.

Zeke pointed at the room named THE BOTTOMLESS PIT. Underneath, someone had drawn a row of dead faces with all exed-out eyes.

“I’ve heard rumors about THE BOTTOMLESS PIT,” Zeke (piano)muttered.

“Rumors?” Jordan (piano)said.

They crept into the tunnels, (pianissimo)whispering.

The kids in my brain were (forte) shouting, “These tunnels could collapse!” (fortissimo)shouting, “A high schooler might catch you!” (crescendo)shouting, “Run home, run home, run home!” but I shoved a lock of hair out of my eyes and crept after the others.

We hiked through a maze of tunnels, room to room, the rooms all empty. THE FIREWORKS PARLOR empty aside from boxes of fireworks and scorch marks across the wooden beams. THE GRAFFITI CHAMBER empty aside from boxes of spray-paint and neon messages across the wooden beams. WIDOWS LAMENT empty aside from spiders and an overturned rocking chair.

“We may have walked over the heirlooms already, if the trunk is buried here,” I (piano)whispered.

We headed to THE BOTTOMLESS PIT.

After countless forks and bends in the tunnels, we still hadn’t found THE BOTTOMLESS PIT. We passed a pair of black rubber boots, then another pair of black rubber boots, and then still another pair of black rubber boots. They may have been the same pair. The lantern swung on its hinges, throwing light from wall to wall. The tunnel snaked through tilting wooden beams. Something was yowling or(pianissimo) wailing. We passed a pair of boots.

“Are we going in circles?” Jordan (piano)said.

Sand from above trickled onto our hair. Zeke stopped, chewing a lip and squinting at the map.

“Do you know where we are?” Jordan (piano)said.

Zeke spun the map 90°, 270°, 180°, like someone wrestling with the wheel of a sinking ship. Jordan hung the lantern from a nail.

“Do you know how to read a map?” Jordan (piano)hissed.

“I’m reading it!” Zeke (piano)hissed.

“Give it here,” Jordan (piano)hissed.

Jordan(mezzo-piano) snatched the map. Zeke(mezzo-forte) snatched the map. Jordan(forte) snatched the map. It slipped from their hands, swooped past the lantern, arced toward the ground beyond the light. Jordan lunged into the darkness, grabbing for it.

He tipped.

His arms flailed.

He dropped over the edge of the pit, (decrescendo)screaming.

THE BOTTOMLESS PIT was a room with a hole for a floor. I stood near the edge of the pit, clutching the lantern. Zeke lay at the edge of the pit, peering into the darkness.

“Jordan?” Zeke (piano)hissed.

The pit was silent.

“I never heard him land,” I (piano)whispered.

“Maybe he’s still falling,” Zeke (piano)whispered.

Sand from above trickled into the pit.

“We’re going to need some rope,” I (piano)said.

We ran back, winding uphill, curving downhill, guessing which tunnels to take. At a fork in the tunnels, we stopped, trying to remember which tunnel led aboveground.

White flashlight beams swept across us. We squinted, shielding our eyes with our hands. Silhouettes hovered at the end of the tunnel.

“It’s that thief!” a silhouette (forte)shouted.

Zeke (forte)yelped. The silhouettes pounded toward us, the beams of their flashlights chopping back and forth. Zeke bolted into the tunnel, turned into a silhouette himself, vanished into the darkness.

“You better run, freak!” a silhouette (forte)shouted.

The silhouettes turned into high schoolers in black hoodies. I dropped the lantern. Someone grabbed me by my shirt.

“Bring that one in, Isaac!” a high schooler (forte)shouted.

The high schoolers (forte)skidded through the fork, turned into silhouettes again, bolted after Zeke. The kid who had grabbed me was an Isaac, then. He was the biggest Isaac I had ever seen. His jaw was shaped like the bottom of a box.

“You snuck into the wrong place,” Biggest Isaac (forte)said, (piano)wheezing.

His voice was boomy, monotone. His hoodie said HILL 61 (prime). In high school, instead of your first name, hoodies have your last name. I tried to slip out of my shirt. He grabbed me by my hair.

“We’re going to FAR FAR HIDEAWAY, once I’ve caught my breath,” Biggest Isaac(forte) said, (pianissimo)wheezing.

“My friend needs help!” I (forte)said.

“Any other day I would have caught your friend myself,” Biggest Isaac (forte)said, (decrescendo) wheezing, “but today at tryouts we had to run about fifty suicides thanks to Coach Q. And that after a few hundred down-and-back layups. And that after the three smokes I had between school and tryouts. So, I’m lucky you didn’t run. Although, really, kid, you should have run.”

Then Biggest Isaac took me into his arms like a bundle of firewood and carried me away.

FAR FAR HIDEAWAY was the size of three or five bedrooms. Hammocks had been hammered into the rafters, each hammock sagging with swaying bodies. The ground was littered with the stumps of dying candles, making the kids flicker gold.

“Ty, we’ve caught a trespasser,” Biggest Isaac (forte)shouted.

A hand rose out of the farthest hammock, its knuckles furry with reddish hair, its fingers (forte)snapping like COME CLOSER. Biggest Isaac shoved me ahead. I stumbled past (piano)snoring bodies, stepping between candles. A trio of girls in homecoming hoodies stared at me from a (pianissimo)creaking hammock, clutching black bottles. Root beer was made from roots. Birch beer was made from sap. Spruce beer was made from twigs. What they were drinking, it was water, and sugar, and trees.

Ty had swung himself sitting, planting his boots on the floor, twirling a scuffed golden lighter from knuckle to knuckle. He had a gap in his teeth like Jordan’s, and the same messy hair, but his eyes were twice as dark. His forehead was marked with a white scar the shape of a saxophone. Jordan had said the scar was from their dad.

“He was with the thief kid,” Biggest Isaac (forte)said.

Ty(staccato) knocked a cigarette from a pack, then lit the cigarette. He puffed it a few times so the tip went gold, then dark, then gold, then dark. His hoodie said ODOM 67 (prime).

“How old are you?” Ty (forte)said.

“Eleven,” I(glissando) said.

“You were caught trespassing in high school territory. Worse yet, you were caught in the company of that kid with the buzzed head, who’s a known thief,” Ty (forte)said. “The customary punishment for trespassing is getting tossed into THE BOTTOMLESS PIT.”

My hands trembled.

“Why were you trespassing?” Ty (forte)said.

“We were trying to find artifacts from the smugglers,” I(mezzo-forte) said.

“Artifacts?” Ty (forte)snorted, spewing curling spirals of smoke at me. He shook his head, impatiently, and then leaned forward, candlelight glinting in his eyes. “It’s been years since the smugglers used these tunnels. By the time I found this place, looters had carted away everything. The moonshine. The pistols. The metal for scrap.” He waved his cigarette at the room. “Everything but ceiling beams and empty boxes.”

My knees trembled.

“So there’s nothing?” I(mezzo-piano) said.

Ty leaned so close to my face I could smell the ketchup on his breath.

“Nothing,” Ty(fermata) said.

Ty twirled the lighter from knuckle to knuckle. Ty stared at me. Ty nodded.

Then Biggest Isaac dragged me (fortissimo)screaming into the tunnels.

Biggest Isaac tossed me into the pit.

I(piano) slid along the pit’s walls, (forte)bounced off something that sounded wooden, and(piano) hit the sand at the bottom.

“Goodbye, kid,” Biggest Isaac (forte)shouted.

Biggest Isaac(mezzo-piano) stamped off into the tunnels. I wiped sand from my face. Ty stood in the oval of light flickering above, like someone peering into the depths of a well. I felt afraid^gallows. I couldn’t see myself. I fumbled for my knife, but the knife dropped somewhere onto the sand.

Ty tugged his hood over his head, like an executioner, then pointed into the pit.

“Here’s what I’ll leave you with,” Ty (forte)shouted.

Something was (piano)grinding through the sand in the pit.

“This village was founded by settlers from Scandinavia. The settlers shored their boats on the beach just beyond these tunnels, and they built some lopsided houses, which couldn’t keep out the wind, or the dust, or the maggots, and they built some weedy farms, which grew about a vegetable apiece. By winter all of the settlers were sick with cholera or smallpox. Most of them died. But, in winter the ground freezes. You can’t dig a grave. So, that first winter, instead of burying their dead in the village, the settlers dragged the bodies to these dunes. That’s where they buried them. In the sand,” Ty (forte)shouted.

Something was (forte)grinding through the sand at my feet.

“But windy days, the sand would blow, the dunes would shift, and the bodies would surface—an arm sticking from a dune here, a head sticking from a dune there—and the settlers would have to bury their dead again. They buried them deeper, and deeper, and deeper, and still, on windy days, the bodies would surface,” Ty (forte)shouted.

Something was rising from the sand.

“That’s what’s in the sand above us, below us, around us. That’s what the sand is, now. Bits of hair. Bits of bone,” Ty (forte)shouted.

Something bumped me.

I (fortissimo)screamed.

Something grabbed my shirt.

“Relax, Calculator,” Jordan (piano)muttered.

The truth is that, even after I heard it was Jordan’s voice, I (forte)screamed a bit longer.

“I got knocked out, for a while, I think,” Jordan (piano)moaned.

Ty had heard the voice. Ty gaped into the pit.

“Jordan?” Ty (forte)said.

“Hello, brother,” Jordan (piano)said.

“Why are you in THE BOTTOMLESS PIT?” Ty (forte)said.

“I tripped,” Jordan (piano)said.

Ty couldn’t stop (forte)laughing.

“Let us out,” Jordan (forte)said.

“No,” Ty(forte) laughed.

“I’m your brother,” Jordan (forte)said.

Ty twirled the lighter from knuckle to knuckle. Sand trickled from between the wooden beams above him, twinkling sometimes. He opened, then closed, then opened his mouth again. His face was ticking like a metronome between opposite emotions.

“Do you remember, when we were younger, that weekend I went missing?” Ty (forte)said.

I heard Jordan(piano) shift, somewhere in the darkness.

“First grade. On your birthday. When you ran away,” Jordan(mezzo-piano) said.

Ty stepped toward the pit, the toes of his boots crossing the edge.

“First grade for you, fifth grade for me. I didn’t run away. That’s what I told Mom and Dad, but that isn’t what happened,” Ty (forte)said. “What happened is I found these tunnels. And, like you, I fell into THE BOTTOMLESS PIT. But, unlike you, I was alone.” Ty squatted at the edge, coins and keys (piano)tinkling in the pockets of his jeans. “I spent three days here, in the pitch dark, in an empty pit, feeling sorry for myself. Crying. Barely moving. Asleep, awake, asleep, awake. It wasn’t until the third morning that I stopped feeling sorry for myself and started thinking about what else was here with me.” Ty twirled the lighter from knuckle to knuckle. “Don’t ever feel sorry for yourself. It can kill you. And you’re never totally alone.” Ty frowned, rubbing his scar with his thumb. “When I got home, I lied to Mom and Dad. I told them I had run away. They grounded me for a month. If I had told them the truth, they wouldn’t have grounded me. They would have felt sorry for me. But I didn’t want them feeling sorry for me. I didn’t want anybody feeling sorry for me ever again.” Ty twirled the lighter from knuckle to knuckle. “If you want to understand why I toss trespassers into THE BOTTOMLESS PIT, you need to understand its true nature.”

Ty smiled, his face a mask of light and shadow.

“It’s not a prison,” Ty (forte)hissed. “It’s a riddle.”

Ty twirled the lighter from knuckle to knuckle. Ty smiled into the pit. Ty stood.

“But knowing you, you would starve before you solved it. So, since you’re my brother, I’ll give you the solution. Build yourself a staircase. Stack the crates,” Ty (forte)said.

Ty tossed the lighter, the flame pinwheeling into the pit.

There was a moment where the bottom of the pit was lit by the flame and we saw each other and the shapes of the crates surrounding us.

Then the lighter hit the ground and the pit was dark again.

Ty (forte)cackled, (piano)tramping off into the tunnels.

“I hate how much he loved that,” Jordan (mezzo-piano)grumbled.

Jordan crawled around, bumping crates, (piano)bumping me again, feeling for the lighter. There was a (mezzo-piano)scraping sound. There were (piano)clicking sounds. Jordan lit the lighter. He squinted. His chin was bleeding. He was clutching a crumpled paper in his fist.

He grinned.

“I caught the map,” Jordan(mezzo-piano) said.

He wiped blood from his chin. He blinked at the pit. Then his face changed.

“Calculator,” Jordan(piano) whispered.

He pointed.

Some crates were stamped THE SPIRIT OF LANGHORNE.

Some crates were stamped MADAM CRISTO.

Some crates were stamped PAWPAW.