The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

It was a door such as a dwarf might pop into in the side of a forest oak: a half-rounded hatch with an iron opening for a skeleton key. And, needless to say, the stupid thing was locked.

I let out a hiss of frustration and sat down on the top step, breathing heavily.

"Damnation!" I said, and the word echoed back with startling volume from the walls.

"Hallo up there!" came a hollow, stony voice, followed by the scraping of footsteps far below.

"Damnation!" I said again, this time under my breath. I had been spotted.

"Who's up there?" the voice demanded. I put my hand over my mouth to stifle the urge to reply.

As my fingers touched my teeth, I had an idea. Father had once said there would come a time when I was grateful for the braces I had been made to wear, and he had been right. This was it.

Using my thumbs and forefingers as a dual pair of pincers, I yanked down on the braces with all the strength I could muster, and with a satisfying “click” the things popped out of my mouth and into my hand.

As the footsteps came closer and closer, climbing relentlessly up to where I was trapped against the locked door, I twisted the wire into an “L” with a loop on the end and jammed the ruined braces into the keyhole.

Father would have me horsewhipped, but I had no other choice.

The lock was old and unsophisticated, and I knew I could crack it—if only I had enough time.

"Who is it?" the voice demanded. "I know you're up there. I can hear you. The tower is off limits. Come down at once, boy."

Boy? I thought. So he hadn't actually seen me.

I eased in and out on the wire and twisted it to the left. As if it had been oiled this morning, the bolt slid smoothly back. I opened the door and stepped through, pulling it silently closed behind me. There was no time to try locking it from the inside. Besides, whoever was coming up the stairs would likely have a key.

I was in a space as dark as a coal cellar. The slit windows had ended at the top of the stairs.

The footsteps stopped outside the door. I stepped soundlessly to one side and flattened myself against the stone wall.

"Who's up here?" the voice asked. "Who is it?" And then a key was inserted, the latch clicked, the door opened, and a man stuck his head in through the opening.

The beam from his torch shot here and there, illuminating a crazy maze of ladders that twisted up into the darkness. He shone the light on each ladder, allowing his beam to climb it, rung by rung, until it vanished in the blackness far above.

I didn't move a muscle: not even my eyes. In my peripheral vision I had an impression of the man silhouetted against the open door: white hair and a fearsome mustache. He was so close I could have reached out and touched him.

There was a pause that seemed an eternity.

"Bloody rats again," he said to himself at last, and the door slammed shut, leaving me in darkness. There was the jingle of a ring of keys and then the bolt shot home.

I was locked in.

I suppose I should have let out a shout, but I didn't. I was nowhere near my wits' end. In fact, I was rather beginning to enjoy myself.

I knew that I could try picking the lock again, and creep back down the stairs, but quite possibly I'd creep straight into the porter's clutches.

Since I couldn't stay where I was forever, the only other option was up. Sticking my arms out like a sleepwalker, I slid my feet slowly one in front of the other, until my fingers touched the closest of the ladders I had seen illuminated by his torch—and up I went.

There's no real trick to climbing a ladder in the dark. In many ways, it's preferable to seeing the abyss that's always there below you. But as I climbed, my eyes became more and more accustomed to the darkness—or near-darkness. Tiny chinks in the stone and timbers were letting in pinpricks of light here and there, and I soon found I was able to make out the general outline of the ladder, black on black in the tower's gray light.

The rungs ended suddenly, and I found myself on a small wooden platform, like a sailor in the rigging. To my left, another ladder led up into the gloom.

I gave it a good shaking, and although it creaked fearsomely, it seemed solid enough. I took a deep breath, stepped onto the bottom rung, and up I went.

A minute later I had reached the top, and a smaller, shakier platform. Still another ladder, this one more narrow and spindly than the others, trembled alarmingly as I set foot upon it and began my slow, creeping ascent. Half way up I began counting the rungs:

"Ten (approximately). eleven. twelve. thirteen—"

My head smashed against something and for a moment I could see nothing but spinning stars. I hung on to the rungs for dear life, my head aching like a burst melon and the matchstick ladder vibrating in my hands like a plucked bowstring. I felt as if someone had scalped me.

As I reached up with one hand and felt above my broken head, my fingers closed around a wooden handle. I pushed up on it with all my remaining strength, and the trapdoor lifted.