Are You Haunted (part forty-three)

Are You Haunted

(part forty-three)

He carried a flashlight, skidding after Tovey down the hill. “Hold up! “Listen, I hope…”

Tovey slowed, squinted at the trodden grass, and dropped his tools. “Yeah, this is good. Throw me down the light.”

“I hope…” It had taken the whole walk to decide on these words. “Isobel is feeling okay? She wasn’t tired from all the work?”

Powell distrusted the smile that bloomed on Tovey’s face.

“Eh, Bel ain’t gonna work herself too hard. Did more tidying for you than she does at home.” He cocked his finger like a gun. “Don’t you worry about her.”

“You know how I found out we could get in the tunnel this way?”

“You got a pocket knife?”

Tovey hacked at grass obtruding the bolts. “Too bad if you don’t. Use your hands.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I know you’re done up in your Sunday best, but we talked about this job yesterday.”

“Not this job.”

“Fuck it ain’t. Tell you what, though. You let me do the work, and you can be first one down. One of us has to stay on lookout anyhow.”

“Do you want to know…”

“I heard you already. Howlin Fritz.”

“No. Mr. Rohdl knew about this vent, but he didn’t tell me about it.”

Tovey jimmied the chisel against a bolt and swung the mallet. The metal rang. He wedged the chisel deeper into the cut, banged the mallet again, and the head flew. “Ha. Won’t be too bad.” He grinned, sitting back on his heels. “Only need three of em. Don’t hurt my head, Kenzie. What’s the secret?”

For a moment Powell held off. For any sign Tovey, like Alfin Doyle, might accept the ghost as a natural phenomenon. Tovey made an exasperated noise, and struck another bolt.

“It was Lettie who told me to look here. She said there was an easier way in.”

Tovey plied tools. “This last one oughta snap. You take hold of the other side, and heft’er up with me.”

The bolt, not snapping, slipped the ring that held it, sending the two of them dancing out of harmony into the stream bed.

“Christ fuck! Let go, dumbass!” Trying to swing the grate wide, Tovey let it fall, scooting back in a panic for his shoes that made Powell laugh. Then he muttered to himself, saving a red face. “Okay, take a look.”

He played the flashlight over the tunnel’s interior.

Powell climbed to the path. But he thought a dome of cool air had feathered from the subterranean frontier, to probe his face.

Tovey perhaps felt it too.

He did not feel apologetic, but shoving the flashlight under his belt, pushed to his feet. “We’ll do this after a while. There’s a place you oughta have a look at. Anyways, it’s lunch time.”

42

Haunted
Are You Haunted (part one)

(2019, Stephanie Foster)