Chapter 32: Chapter 32: There was a chapter title here, but the frogs stole it because they’re THE WORST. FROGS!

Hineni pulls the trap-door open and stares down it. It is, indeed, exactly where Sockel’s voice had said it would be. Hineni bends down and peers into the hole, holding the lantern in front of himself to illuminate the small space.

 

He can feel the hot breeze of the heating shaft rushing past his face. But it seems to be clashing with some… indiscernible cold coming from the deeper end of the house. The man shudders. He had no idea that the bones of the old house were this cold. It almost feels as frozen as the outside world does. He hopes that they don’t have a hole anywhere in the walls.

 

His family’s old room in the attic is right next to the forge-tower. He supposes that he’s on the same height as the high windows in it right now. This must be the shaft that Obscura had flown Rhine into.

 

Leaning downward, he calls out into it. “Can you hear me?” he asks, listening to his voice echoing down the tight passage. He receives a hoot in reply. “I’m at the trap-door,” says Hineni. “But I don’t think I’ll really fit down here,” he explains. It would indeed be a tight squeeze for someone with his build.

 

Maybe this is some kind of maintenance entrance for the heating system? It makes sense. But he has no idea how anyone qualified for such work could reasonably fit in here, let alone get to it unnoticed regularly. He and his family lived up here and he never heard anyone thumping around beneath them and he certainly never saw anyone use the trap-door, considering that he had never even known about it.

 

The man squints, looking at the walls of the shaft. There are markings carved into it. Sigils? Or maybe letters of some kind. He doesn’t recognize them. But they’re tiny.

 

“Hey, did you guys see these too?” he asks. “The marks?”

 

“Marks?” asks Sockel’s voice. “Look. It’s getting kind of stuffy here,” she says. “Can you just… I don’t know. Crawl in and pull us out?”

 

Hineni raises an eyebrow. “That seems like a terrible idea, Sockel,” he says. “If I go down there, I will literally never fit out again. It’s too tight.”

 

“Should I use my magic?” asks Rhine. “It’ll fill with water and we’ll float up again.” Rhine yelps as something hisses and clacks next to him. Hineni recognizes the sound as that of a beak snapping shut, biting only air.

 

“FOOLISH BOY!” hoots Obscura. “Obscura was wrong! He is as crude and dumb as her Hineni!”

 

“Pretty sure we’ll drown,” says Sockel.

 

“Please don’t flood the house anymore,” sighs Hineni. “We’re running on fumes as is.” The man pulls his head out of the hole and looks around in confusion. Where in the world are they supposed to be? The shaft runs around to every room, which means it also goes downstairs. Rhine said something about floating up, so maybe they fell down into one of the shafts and are actually down below? Wedged in some chimney or something?

 

Hineni shudders. What a grim way to die that would be.

 

“Look, just… just crawl in and get us, okay?” asks Rhine. “I’m scared.”

 

Hineni rubs his head awkwardly at this statement. He’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, he really doesn’t want to crawl in there. It seems like a one-way trip for someone of his size. On the other hand, the people he has in his life need his help and he might not have time to get anyone from outside. If they’re really stuck, getting air could be a real problem.

 

- Should he break the walls…?

 

Hineni nods. That’s the only reasonable choice.

 

“I’m going to bust the walls open,” he says. “Do me a favor and knock against them so I can find you.”

 

“Please! Just come and pull us out,” says Sockel. “You’ll fit back out. Worst case, just crawl backwards to the forge opening,” calls her voice, echoing down the dark shaft.

 

“I’m running downstairs now,” he says. “Don’t wor-”

 

The door to the attic opens behind him. A pair of light boots come up the stairs. “Hey, there you are,” says Sockel, rubbing her forehead with her free hand. She has a book in the other one. “I was just in the library and… uh…” She stops, looking at him for a moment. “- Are you okay?” she asks. “You look a little, um…”

 

Hineni stares back at the dark shaft and then back towards Sockel, who is standing at the staircase. “Sockel. Weren’t you just stuck in there?” he asks.

 

She tilts her head. “Huh? I was in the library. I just told you,” she says, lifting the book in her hands. “Why would I be stuck in some weird hole in your house?”

 

“I thought…” Hineni blinks, looking back at the darkness of the shaft beneath himself. The hairs on his neck stand on end.

 

Something giggles.

 

Hineni’s eyes, wide, scan the room. “Sockel. Where’s Rhine? Where’s Obscura?” he asks, getting up and rushing past the elf.

 

“Huh?” she shrugs. “Didn’t you tell them to clean the heating system?” she asks. “Hey, wait.” Her gaze falls to the trap-door. “Isn’t that it? Weird. Anyway - Hey! Wait!”

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“There’s a problem,” says Hineni, rushing past Sockel as he runs downstairs to the forge and looks up to the heating shaft. Obscura and Rhine are nowhere to be seen. The man’s eyes, paranoid, scan the forge. Quickly, he turns around and sprints back to the front area, looking around the restaurant as he rushes past a confused Sockel who is tailing him.

 

“You good?” asks Sockel, her ears twitching as she looks around. She sniffs the air, perhaps not even noticing that she’s doing so. But Hineni catches it out of the corner of his eyes, as he likely has also already done the same. But there is no scent of frog in this room or in any of the others.

 

“No,” says Hineni. He wants to tell her what the problem is. But it’s kind of a weird problem and he doesn’t know how to even start explaining what just happened. What if she thinks he’s some weirdo who’s hearing voices? He needs Sockel. He can’t scare her away by being…

 

Hineni stops himself. That was close. This time, that man had almost caught up to him again.

 

He gestures for her to follow him as he walks around the house, listening to every wall as he explains what his predicament is in clear, shameless detail. Sockel simply listens intently, waiting for him to finish. She doesn’t smirk or laugh or shake her head or roll her eyes, she doesn’t even yawn. He’s very thankful for her right now.

 

“- And then you showed up,” finishes Hineni, pressing his ear to the wall of the kitchen.

 

“Oh,” says Sockel, thinking. “Uh, fairies, maybe?” she asks, looking around.

 

Hineni sighs. That stings a little. And right after he had just finished appreciating her in his thoughts. That makes it worse. “Sockel,” says Hineni, listening to the wall with an empty glass. “I’m being serious. Please don’t make fun of this.”

 

“Huh?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. “This is typical fairy wobble-woo,” she says, spinning a finger in the air. “Sounds like a mean one though.” Seeing his gaze, she shrugs. “- What?”

 

“Sockel,” says Hineni sternly. “People who are important to me are missing and I’m worried,” he says, making his case clear. “Fairies aren’t real.”

 

“- Huh?” she tsks once and shakes her head. “City boys…” mutters the elf. “Fairies are real. Why wouldn’t they be?” asks Sockel, taking her turn now to sigh.

 

Hineni blinks. “Wait. Fairies are real?”

 

“Of course fairies are real. I know at least three. Or, well, I did when I was a kid,” she explains, shrugging. Hineni stares. Memories of his past, of his mother come to him. She always had what they had assumed were episodes in which a common theme was her explaining that she saw fairies. “They’re more common in the south because of all the wild ambient magic.” She leans in towards him. “You literally have books on fairies here,” she says. “In the library. Your library.”

 

“Huh…”

 

She looks around the kitchen. “They’re usually okay if you keep your distance, but they’re real jerks if you go into their homes.”

 

“The shaft?” asks Hineni.

 

“Hmm… maybe…” She considers it for a moment. “The little guys usually like to live in dead-ends,” explains Sockel. “Hollow trees or underground holes in the forest. Caves.”

 

Hineni’s eyes open wide and he drops the glass, rushing to the side of the kitchen, across the door, where the hatch to the ice-cellar is. It's a room he has ignored entirely up until now. He grabs it, tearing it open and looking down into the dark underground.

 

A biting cold comes against him, rising up to nibble on the skin of his face, despite the fact that he’s confident that there hasn’t been any ice delivered to the cellar in at least ten years. Grabbing his lantern, he holds it down into the hole and looks around.

 

Ice. There’s ice clinging to the ladder, climbing up it like growing ivy.

 

“Sockel. Are fairies dangerous?” asks Hineni.

 

She frowns. “I mean… they like to bully kids, you know?” she asks. “They take it too far a lot though,” she mutters, looking a bit sour. “…Rhine?” asks the elf, looking back up towards Hineni, who is already in the process of jumping down the shaft, sliding down the ladder and into the depths of the icy maw. A thousand distorted reflections come to bounce out all around him, as his own visage greets him from every angle, projected by the orange glow of his lantern.

 

Hineni’s boots crack against the ground, breaking the ice that was there with a loud, noisy crunch. It’s not just ice as in a few blocks of it here and there, packed in straw. Rather, it’s like he’s in a frozen cave system. Where did all of this come from? Has it just been growing this whole time?

 

His breath escapes him, pressing out through his scarf as visible, thick vapors.

 

Hineni lifts the lantern, stepping into the ice-cellar, looking at the many jagged, frozen protrusions all around himself. The man stops, staring at the thing that he sees. A core, a solid mass of ice, suspended on the far end of the room. Inside of it, is Obscura, hunched forward into a ball, a hint of azure blue clutched in her grasp.

 

Something giggles behind him.

 

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