She searched the walls for what seemed like hours to her young, impatient mind, but it was likely only minutes. They were smooth for the most part, definitely carved purposely by someone, long, long ago before they were apparently forgotten. But along one she found a crack with her fingertips. It was thin and almost imperceptiple, but she could just feel it, so faintly that she didn’t believe her senses until her she flexed her fingers and hooked the thin tips of her claws into it. It ran vertically, from floor nearly to ceiling, a perfectly straight crack in the wall.
She pulled at it. Nothing. She pushed and there was a crackling, grinding sound. A door. She’d found a door. She’d followed an overgrown tunnel beneath the forest and now she was about to find out why.
Excitement rose in her, and she rammed her small shoulder into it. The crack became a splitting sound, and the grinding became a shriek of protest that plastered her ears flat back against her head. The door budged, slowly, painfully, and she pushed harder, fought with it, strained until her legs ached and her arms complained.
And then, finally, there was just enough of a crack that she could see and smell the room beyond. That scent from before was stronger. It swept, salt and stone and ocean and fish, stronger than anything that had ever come back wafting off of her father’s cloak. She paused there, breathing it in, realizing the truth of it – she’d found a lot tunnel into Tieke City.
She’d found a place forgotten and sealed.
Childish glee took her. Her father always brought back such wonderful things from the marketplace. To see it on her own, now, that would be a treat. To bring something back for her father and her mother for a change? How wonderful an idea.
She pushed the door a little harder, widening the gap and then he slid on through into the room beyond.
It was dark, but not as dark as the tunnel or the closet-space. its walls were still stone but the seemed… better kept. Although there was little furniture – only a bench and a few empty crates in one corner – none of it looked old or as if it had been abandoned, just placed. The floor was swept and smooth. Her enthusiasm seeped out of her, replaced by caution.
There was a door across the room, and a hallway beyond that. Light streamed down it, and that, it seemed, might have been faint daylight.
Something else was coming too, and it made her heart race to hear it and to finally understand it. A rhythmic tapping sound that got louder and louder…
Until she realized it for exactly what it was. Footsteps. Footsteps coming towards her, coming to see what it was that had made such a loud noise in an empty room where nothing should have made such a noise.
She panicked. She had no reason to know terror except that she had no real explanation for whoever would find her there, and so she did the only thing she could think of. She dove back the way she came, and she struggled to close the door again. If she didn’t close it, there was nothing to stop them following her. There was nothing to stop them from catching her, and pulling her back, suspicious because she’d run. She’d run away.
So she pulled.
But the door wouldn’t budge.
And the footsteps were nearly at the doorway.