The Curse of Deadman's Forest Read Online Free PDF

something sparkled on the floor. Ian glanced down and realized, to his surprise, that in his mad dash to the staircase, he’d dropped the sundial on the ground. As he bent to pick it up, his eyes strayed to the shadow that had just formed on its surface. The thin gray line pointed to his left, toward the bench where he kept his treasures.
    From down the stairs Carl called, “Ian! The door still won’t open! Bring something to whack the hinge with!”
    But Ian was hardly listening. He had immediately recognized that the rhetorical question he’d asked was being answered by the sundial, and his eyes moved frantically to the bench again. Without hesitating a moment longer, he snatched the dial off the floor and raced to the bench. The dial’s shadow became thicker the closer he got to it—almost as if it were pointing down. Quickly as he could, Ian began pulling the slats out of the bench, thinking perhaps the dialwas pointing to one of them, but the shadow didn’t change as he tugged each slat up and set it to the side. “What?” he asked, frustrated when his efforts revealed nothing. “What are you pointing to?” The shadow began to pulse, as if sending him an urgent message. At that moment he heard a scream from two floors below, and he knew that one of the other children had caught a glimpse of the cyclone.
    Carl had clearly heard it too, because he shouted up to Ian, “They’ve seen it too! Oy! Help us out of here! We’re trapped in the tower room!” Carl pounded on the door, but to no avail. No one heard them with all the shouting and thundering of footfalls echoing about the keep.
    Meanwhile, Ian was desperate to discover what the dial wanted him to find in the bench. He tugged hard on the very last slat, ready to give up and head back down the stairs to help Carl with the door, when, suddenly, there was a loud groan, and to his amazement a small section at the bottom of the bench fell away, exposing a dusty metal ladder leading down into darkness.
    For the briefest moment Ian was so stunned that all he could do was stare, and then Carl’s banging brought him to his senses again and he shouted to his friend. “Carl! Come quickly! I’ve found a way out!”
    Without waiting for him, Ian put the sundial into his pocket and stepped into the bench, lowering himself to the top rung of the ladder. He dug into his other pocket, pulled out his pocket torch, and switched it on, thankful that he’d had the foresight to change the batteries recently. “Carl!” heshouted again when his friend continued to pound on the door below. “Quit the door and come up here,
now!”
    Carl ran up the stairs only to stand frozen, staring at Ian, whose head was barely visible from the lip of the bench. “Crikey!” Carl said at last. “What’s that, then? A secret passageway?”
    “Yes!” Ian replied impatiently, and gave one last glance toward the window. “I asked the sundial how we could get to Theo and it pointed to the bench. Now hurry along, we’ve no time to waste!”
    Ian and Carl got to the business of rushing down the ladder, which was slippery with dust and grime. Before stepping into the bench, Carl clicked on his own torch, and Ian was grateful for the extra light. As he climbed down, Ian wondered how old the iron rungs were, as they did not appear to have rusted much over time. Then again, the atmosphere appeared quite dry within the narrow space where the ladder had been secured. He just hoped the rungs were secure all the way to the bottom.
    “How far down do you think it goes?” Carl asked from a few rungs up.
    Ian angled his torch awkwardly in his fingers while holding fast to the iron bars, trying to peer down into the darkness. “I’ve no idea,” he said, moving as quickly as he dared down the ladder. “But I suspect it goes to the main floor.”
    Ian soon discovered that he’d guessed wrong. The ladder extended well past the main floor, all the way belowground to a cavern that ran under the