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Sitting up, she tested her body to see if anything was broken Her ankle hurt and she was going to be bruised, but she was all right

When she looked up, she could see the sky overhead It was going to rain soon, and she was at the bottom of a wide, deep hole Part of the sides were stone, so the top was a vine-covered roof made of very old iron bars They had rusted to the point that, when she’d stepped on one side, the bars had given way

The question noas how she was going to get out

Standing, she checked her phone It orking The s to do would be to call for help One of the farmers would shoith a rope and pull her out

And then what? She here she shouldn’t be People would delight in yelling at her Treating her like a ally, she could be denied permission to roam the estate She didn’t want to think w

hat her mother would say

The consequences weren’t worth asking for help

As Puck looked for a way out, she wondered what the place had been e? A root cellar? From the look of it, it was a few hundred years old At some point, the top had been covered—and then left to rot There were a few anis had fallen in and couldn’t get out

She ood, since she was going to have to cli for cliht she could make footholds in the dirt part of the wall

Looking up, she saw that a few feet down from the top was a place that had been hollowed out to for the lip They looked like they’d been stacked there Above the ledge, the ground tapered back and there were hanging roots she could use to pull herself up If she could just get to that shelf, she could get herself out

The soles of her shoes were thick and not flexible enough for cli She’d be better off barefoot She untied her shoes and took the the

She tossed a shoe up toward the ledge The first one et the second shoe up there When some of the rocks rained down, she covered her head

The cliht it would be Years of tree cli helped her place her feet