Curiosity overcame tiredness and everyone left the chapel, with lanterns in hand.

‘This time we’ll be sticking to the paths. Now’s the best time to see who we share this place with. We don’t have it all to ourselves,’ Henry told the others.

Henry led the others on a path towards the light beam, which had turned from icy blue to moonlit white. Moving a way ahead, he refilled and lit lanterns along the route.

The others observed how on the way Henry stopped and appeared to talk aloud at something in the gloom, or talk up close to one of the withered, dead trees. Sometimes Henry would jab his stave at something or respond to snatches of dialogue that apparently only he could hear.

Henry paused to let the others catch up at the peak of a rock pile.

‘Who were you talking to?’ Zachary asked Henry.

‘Can you not see the crows up in the tree?’ Henry muttered, as he crouched and scanned the way ahead.

Now they were nearer, the radiance from the flowing light was brighter. Sure enough, they could see a gleam of feathers and blinking eyes. They had mistaken the shapes for dead leaves. The dark carrion-birds regarded them in return with silence.

‘You’ve got to be more observant. How do you think crows would have got down here? Real crows that is?’ Henry asked in hushed tones.

Zachary had no response, but looked with apprehension now at the eerie creatures that seemed ever more unnatural and out of place.

‘Crows belong on the surface; not down in caves. But down here there are things which take the form of others. They delight in the chance to mislead and deceive.’ Henry said in a monologue, as he picked and tapped at the path ahead with his strange stick.

‘The crow is an old omen; as old as the hills. They’re an omen of mortality; of death. They’re one of the many creatures that pick bones clean and release the spirit. They return the once-living back to the earth from which they came,’ Henry rambled.

‘Stop it, Henry,’ Irene whined in fear. Henry gave a dark chuckle.

‘Those aren’t real crows, at least not ones born from eggs and that ever saw the sunlight. Watch yourself; and it always pays to be polite!’ Henry gave his cryptic advice, and chuckled once more.

Henry guided the miners to a side path. It wasn’t visible from the track they were on before. One would have to know where it was to find it. Together, they wound their way past stalagmites and ducked under a rocky outcrop before they came to a wider opening.

‘This is my allotment, out of the way where the Company might find it,’ said Henry. ‘Here’s how I get by in between the visits from the surface.’

‘The only light is the glow from the beam. Magic, as you called it. These plants are pale and thin. There’s hardly any green on them at all!’ remarked Flora.

‘Ya don’t say,’ responded Henry, with voice heavy with sarcasm. ‘Good job I called in a favour to help…’ Henry’s mutter trailed off.

‘Favour?’ asked Dale.

‘I’m resourceful.’ Henry gave a cryptic chuckle.

‘How many visits have you had? How many people have come down here?’ Irene asked.

‘Were they the same age as us? What happened to them?’ Zachary couldn’t help but interject.

‘This has been here so long it’s established a bed of proper soil. Where did it come from? And the trees, how old must they be? I never heard of a tree that grew in a cave,’ Percy stooped to roll some dirt between his fingers.

‘How long have people been mining here?’ asked Dale.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

‘Questions, questions! So many questions!’ Henry uttered in exasperation. ‘Listen, the Company mustn’t know about me or where I do my planting. Growing your own food is against Company regulations. It’ll be in the handbook in your supplies.’

‘Why wouldn’t they want us to?’ Flora asked.

Henry sighed. ‘The Company wants its workers to be dependent on it. When they want to punish you they’ll do so by withholding supplies, so growing your own food undermines their authority. Also, no-one knows the long-term effects of eating food grown near magic.’ Henry gestured at the luminous beam.

‘And that’s what we ate for dinner, is it? Food near … magic?’ Aisling demanded.

‘It’s fine. Never did me any harm!’ Henry responded with a chuckle that turned into a bout of coughing.

‘Well, now you know where this place is. The hobs and bogles haven’t seen fit to tamper with it, it seems. Let’s move on,’ Henry wheezed.

‘Here’s some of the glowing mushrooms!’ Flora exclaimed and rushed to the cave wall, when they were back on the path. ‘They’re tiny, but there’s so many of them, all glittering, in patches. And the mosses and lichens too! Purples, pinks; greens and whites! Regular little flower beds! If you look close enough they look like tiny meadows, even.’

Flora ran her fingers along the banks of coloured subterranean life, and her eyes brightened with wonder at how the colours changed beneath her fingertips. With a touch, she drew shapes along the soft blanket of moss.

‘Careful what you’re touching there,’ Henry called. From his tone it sounded like he knew full well that Flora wasn’t listening.

‘Oh, look! This one has a flower lit up like… the moon! An orchid!’ Flora remarked in a voice full of childlike wonder.

Flora reached for it, and then screamed aloud.

‘Something bit me!’ cried Flora.

‘I told you to stay on the path and keep in the light! You shouldn’t go touching things down here however you like!’ Henry scolded.

‘There’s teeth marks on my finger! They look like little human teeth!’ Flora wailed, holding her hand to her lantern.

‘I heard something laugh as it ran off,’ whispered Zachary.

‘Nonsense, they can’t be like human teeth, and no-one heard any laughing. Your mind is playing tricks. There’s too much nonsense going on down in these mines and I want things to start making sense,’ Dale retorted, as his anger bubbled up.

‘Oh no, and the flower withered. The light’s gone out!’ Flora moaned.

‘It looks like you folks are intent on learning things the hard way, every step of the way. You’re not the first…’ Henry grumbled.

‘Now look, I can tell you’re hardly overflowing with sympathy but people are scared and they’ve got a right to know some facts about what’s going on round here! They don’t want superstitions and make-believe!’ Dale shouted as he rounded on Henry.

‘I have told you nothing but the truth ever since you got here! If you’re the kind of person who won’t believe anything they see, even when it’s right in front of you, then that’s on you!’ Henry’s voice glowered like the coals in the chapel hearth.

‘Don’t accuse me of not understanding things! I see things perfectly well – and I want things to start making sense. I don’t want to hear any more foolishness about magic and little hob-goblins or whatever they are. It’s ungodly and I won’t hear it!’ Dale blurted in fury.

‘Alright! I’ll show you! I’ll show you what I mean in person so you can see it for yourself! We’ll see what’s foolishness, or not!’ Henry yelled. ‘And I haven’t yet mentioned the hobgoblins.’

‘Fellas! Fellas!’ Irene consoled. Both she and Aisling tried to get between Dale and Henry who squared up to each other.

Henry turned and limped along the path ahead. The others followed. They picked their way around boulders and crunched their way along mounds of loose shingles, and huddled close to the lantern light.

‘You’ll see that we’ve long since run out of path, but I know the way,’ Henry called back to the others. ‘It’d be one thing for the Company to find the vegetable patch, but I couldn’t have it if they found my next little hideaway.’

‘Do you hear those sounds around us?’ Flora whispered to the others, her voice trembling.

‘I keep hearing footsteps, and whispers,’ Zachary whispered back.

‘I can see a pair of eyes, reflecting in the dark!’ exclaimed Percy.

‘It’s a cat!’ said Dale.

‘It looks like a cat,’ Henry replied. He rapped the end of his stave on the ground. ‘Go on now, Shoo! Get!’

The cat melted back into the dark, and made an all-too-human chuckling noise.

From next to the group’s feet, a flock of crows burst into flight with an explosion of beating wings.

‘Bah! Bloody foolish little tricksters,’ Henry cursed and swung his stave at them. He turned to the others. ‘And why’d you have to go and scream like that? You trying to deafen me?’

The others took a minute to steady their nerves.

The miners came to a small grotto in the cave wall. Inside was a heap of coal and iron ore, and a roughly-shaped clay structure that looked like a stubby chimney.

‘This is my forge,’ said Henry, with a degree of pride. ‘I can’t claim credit to have made it myself. This was the work of a bright lad who used to be apprentice to a blacksmith. It took forever to sift enough clay for it.’

‘What happened to him?’ asked Percy.

‘He paid off his dues and made it back to the surface. Thomas, wherever you are now, I hope it’s somewhere good,’ Henry intoned a quick prayer.

Henry drew an iron rod from a stash of rough pieces of metal. He wrapped it in a pocket concealed somewhere in his layer of sacking cloth, then ushered everyone back out.