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"Nonsense," Loch snorts

"It’s true," Bill-E says "We did it in history And there are loads of iypt today-burial chambers and the like-which are covered up In some towns they knohere they are, but people have built houses over them, so they can’t excavate"

"I never learnt any of that in history," Loch says suspiciously

"Well," Bill-E replies sly, "maybe if you were in the upper set"

Loch’s starting to tire of the wandering and digging I’ruer before the sun starts to set and an even fuller ht’s rises over the earth like a plum dipped in cream Maybe Dervish is back already If so, I want to sit doith hi on in my life and e need to do about it

"This studying," Loch gru

"One more try," Bill-E says "We’ll quit after that"

"Why not now?" Loch says "This is stupid We’ll never find anything"

"It’s an old superstition of ours When we decide we’ve had enough, ays dig one last hole Right, Grubbs?"

"Yeah," I mutter "That’s the e’ve always done it"

"And look where it’s got you," Loch snorts, but goes along with the plan, not wanting to be the one who quits first

Bill-E leads us further into the wild bushes of the forest, trying to pick a good spot for the final dig of the day Briars catch on my trousers and jacket, and one scratches deep intoa few drops of blood and a loud curse I’o ho about the landscape makes me pause

We’re in the middle of a thicket, lots of natural shrubs and bushes It looks much the same as any other part of the forest to the untrained eye, but when you’ve spent a few years exploring a particular area, you see things differently You get to know the various types of trees, flowers and weeds You make mental pointers so you can find your way around easily and quickly I’ve been here before, I’m sure of it, but I can’t remember when

The memory clicks into place It was shortly before Bill-E turned into a olf, before Dervish told me about the Demonata and Lord Loss Bill-E and I were on one of our treasure hunts We’d started to dig around here when Bill-E spotted Dervish and went all mysterious He made me hide, so Dervish didn’t see us, then we followed him That was the day Bill-E hit me with his theory about olves The day my destiny fell into place and I started on a collision course with Lord Loss and his vile fa here"

"I’round "The earth looks hard"

"No," I say, casting around "There’s a soft patch somewhere, between a couple of stones At least there used to be"

I find it and give a grunt of satisfaction I can still see faintpreviously, a minute or so before Bill-E eird on me and the world of olves claimed me for its own

"How’d you know that was there?" Bill-E asks

"Magic," I reply with a laugh, then drive my shovel into the soil

Half an hour later, nobody’s laughing We’re surrounded by three freshdeeper by the e rock buried just beneath the briars and grass, under the shelter of which the earth and stones lie There’s rock to either side too It’s too early to tell for certain, but this looks like the entrance to a tunnel or cave

"What’s that?" Loch says suddenly, stooping He coolden My heart leaps Bill-E and I crowd in on hi with exciteht and we see it’s just an orangey-yellow stone "Damn!" Loch hurls it away

Bill-E pulls a face and resu the rock faces, while Loch and I dig straight down Bill-E pauses after a while and strokes the rock "Hard to tell if this fissure is natural or round down But I guess they’d feel just as s"

Loch hits a larger stone and winces Scrapes around it to find its edges, then inserts the tip of his shovel under one corner and tells ether we lever it out, then lift it up on to the bank around us We’re knee-high in the hole (based on e

Loch clears the gap left by the removal of the stone, then scowls "There’s another one Looks even bigger than the first"

"It’s getting rockier the further doe dig," I note

"That’s always the way," Bill-E says "The heavier stones sink deeper than the s on?" Loch asks "I don’t think there’s any treasure here"

"How do you figure that?" Bill-E sneers

"Common sense," Loch says "This Lord Sheftree miser would have wanted easy access to his treasure so he could dig it up whenever he liked This ground’s too rocky Too much hard work It would have been easier for him to do it somewhere else"

"Hey," Bill-E says, "this is a uy fed a baby to his piranha! Who knohat hethis hole, then killed them and left the it up every few years so he could put more treasure down there, then killed them too Heck, there could be dozens of skeletons down there"

Loch and I share an uneasy glance

"I don’t know if I want to go digging up skeletons," Loch mumbles

"Afraid of a few old bones, Gosselio?" Bill-E cackles

"No But if there are corpses, we shouldn’t disturb their re on a chest of gold coins?" Bill-E taunts hiree to cut you in on a slice of the profits?"

"A while ago you said there was nothing in it for me," Loch snaps

"You can’t expect an equal share," Bill-E drawls, "but if there’s a fortune and you help us dig it up, we’ll see you right Won’t we, Grubbs?"

"Too round, trying to find a crack I can use to pry out the next big stone "Dig"

Al it, we come to a halt and study the fruits of our labours The hole is thigh-deep now It’s been hard going for the last twenty , aard stone after another At least the hole’s no wider than e started, so we’ve only got to worry about digging down, not out to the sides as well

"We could be at this forever," Loch gasps, wiping sweat fro badly "No telling how deep it goes"

"What do you say, Bill-E?" I ask, glancing up at the setting sun, feeling the sickness and headache building within rees "We can’t dig in the dark But we’ll coain "We could be on to the find of the millennium Metres-maybe centimetres- away from Lord Sheftree’s treasure We can’t walk away froht," Loch says "It’s probably just a big old hole, but"

"What about next weekend?" I suggest

"I can’t wait that long," Bill-E says "A whole week thinking about it, drea of the treasure"

"Also, what if somebody else comes by, sees the hole and finishes e’ve started?" Loch growls "There aren’t any fences around your land, are there?"

"No" I clear my throat "Actually, this isn’t our land We don’t own this part of the forest"

Loch stares at ets uncohts to it," he says softly "You were bluffing, trying to cut s "You wouldn’t have known about the treasure if we hadn’t told you Anyway, it’s ours-Grubbs’s-by right of birth"

"No it’s not," Loch objects "He isn’t any relation to Lord Sheftree Dervish just bought the house, that’s all If I wanted, I could co without you"

Bill-E gulps and looks to me for help

"Thirds," I say steadily "An equal split Assuet to keep it if there is-for all we know, there are laws that won’t allow us to keep any of it But if the treasure’s there and we can reed," Loch says quickly

Bill-E looks disgusted but nods angrily "OK"

"And we don’t tell anybody, not until we figure out what our rights are," Loch adds "There’s no point doing all the hard work and not being able to reap the rewards If we find treasure, we keep our ht have to wait till we’re eighteen to declare our find Or maybe we can never declare it Maybe we’ll have to sell it on the black old and diamond market!"

"I’ a find like this could land us in a lot of trouble"

"We can buy our way out of it with the hs "Either e don’t say anything until we know, right?" Bill-E and I share a glance, then nod "Great It’s settled" He hauls himself out of the hole and lays his shovel aside "I don’t know about you two, but I plan to be back here first thing after school tomorrow and every day this week, and the week after, and the week after that, until we get to the bottom of this darees "Not every day-Gran and Grandad would get suspicious if I was late ho-but most of the time it shouldn’t be a problem"

"Grubbs?" Loch asks

"I’ll be here," I pro to distractsky and add a proviso "But only until dusk I’hts Not when thefor Dervish He should have returned by now I ring his et his answering hts on Inonto stay human

Without any sound of a motorbike, the doors open about 10 o’clock and Dervish stu on the couch next to me, a hand thrown over his eyes

"What’s wrong?" I ask, thinking he’s been in a crash Then I catch the stench of alcohol "You’re drunk!"

"I forgot how much Meera can drink when she sets her mind to it," he muover the nextwhen she woke and she made me join in" He puts his hands over his ears and moans "The bells, the bells!"

"Tell me you didn’t drive home in this state," I snap

"You think I’ spell"

"You’re full of it!"

"No, really, it works perfectly Except it’s very short term It ran out when I was almost to Carcery Vale I had to stop and walk the rest of the way And the worst thing is, when it wears off, the hangover kicks in with twice as much venom as before" Dervish doubles over, head cradled between his hands, whining like a kicked dog

"Serves you right," I sniff "You should have e"

"Please, Grubbs, don’t play ers to his feet and heads for the kitchen "I’e cup of hot chocolate, then retire to ht I don’t want to be disturbed unless the house is burning" He pauses "Strike that I don’t want to be disturbed even then Let me burn-I’d be better off"

I think about calling hi him sit down and listen to ood night’s sleep, then tell hih at the ht I don’t want to jinx ht be over the worst

Dervish’s snores rock the house to its foundations I don’t want to sleep I want to keep a vigil, stay focused on e But I’y that went into the party lack of sleep last night walking and digging this afternoon My eyelids refuse to stay open Even coffee-which I hardly ever drink-doesn’t work

I undress and slip into a T-shirt and boxers Slide beneath the covers Lying there, I think that et a rope, tie it round my ankles and the bedposts, maybe tie up one of e during the night A good plan, but it coet out of bed and fetch a rope, my eyelids slam down and I’ sounds Cold night air

I coht I see a pair of hands lifting a large rock out of the ground They throw it overhead casually as if it was a pebble They stoop, start clearing more earth away then stop as I realise they’re my hands I exertin a hole, dressed only in ers It takes me a few seconds to realise I’ earlier The reason I didn’t recognise it instantly-it’s about four times deeper than e left it

I look up I’round level, surrounded by rock In a sudden panic, afraid the rocks are going to grind together and crush rab a handhold and haulby the edge of the hole, shivering fro around onder

There are rocks and dirt everywhere I don’t kno long I was down there but Iis, I don’t feel the least bit tired My , ularly as if I’d been out for a gentle stroll

I walk over to one of the larger stones Study it silently, warily I bend, grab it by the sides, give an exploratory lift I can shift it a few centihs a bloody tonne Under any norher than knee level, not without throwing my back out completely Yet I must have And not only picked it up, but lobbed it out of the hole too

Back to the riht , that I ca about the hole all evening But there’s h alert, animal-sharp (wolf-sharp), and I don’t think it’s any accident that I wound up here, digging as if my life depended on it

As much as I don’t want to, I sit, turn and lower myself into the hole When I’m on the floor, I allow a few seconds for ood look The hole isn’t any wider than it was earlier-the rocks on the sides run down s has continued, so although it’s a steep slope, it’s easy to climb up and down

I bend and touch the next rock in line for re hard and it barely o, while asleep, I could have ripped it out and

Whispers

I frown and cock my head The sound has been there for a while, ht it was the wind in the trees Now that I focus, I realise it’s not co froh my confusion and apprehension Maybe I’ between earth and rock I flash on an i the first to discover it With renewed enthusiasht not be able to toss it out of the hole, but if I can budge it slightly, ht bulging A shados out of it, just for a second, then disappears

I fall backwards, stifling a screa for it to change again A s very shaky, and cli back I h the forest, ignoring the twigs, stones and thorns that jab athard not to think about what I saw (or thought I saw) But I can’t block it out It keeps co round the inside of e

The flicker the bulging the shadow

It ht orto force its way up through the rock froirl’s