“Stay here, Aiden,” Michael commanded, but the five-year-old shook his head.

“I’m a detective too!” he insisted, gripping Michael’s shirt.

The four of them crept toward the basement door. The old house was full of strange noises during a storm, but this was different. There were footsteps—slow, deliberate, and heavy—moving across the concrete floor below.

Michael slowly turned the knob and pushed the door open. The stairs groaned under their weight as they descended into the cool, damp air of the cellar. This part of the house was ancient, built on a foundation of rough-hewn stone that predated the Civil War.

Michael clicked on the flashlight. The beam cut through the darkness, illuminating stacks of old trunks, dusty jars of preserves, and the massive furnace that looked like a sleeping iron beast.

“There!” Emma pointed.

The heavy wooden door to the “Root Cellar”—a room tucked deep into the earth—was standing wide open. It was always kept locked.

They crept closer, their hearts hammering like drums. Olivia noticed something on the floor near the door frame. She knelt down and picked up a small, gold-colored button. “This doesn’t belong to Papa,” she whispered. “It looks like it came from a uniform.”

Suddenly, the heavy door slammed shut with a deafening BOOM! The sound of a heavy iron bolt sliding into place echoed through the room. They were trapped in the pitch-black darkness of the root cellar.

“Michael! The light!” Olivia cried.

Michael flicked the switch, but the flashlight only flickered and died. In the darkness and sudden silence, they heard a muffled voice from the other side of the door.

“Enjoy the dark, kids. I’ll take that box now.”

Then, to their horror, they felt the floor beneath them begin to vibrate. The back wall of the cellar—the old stone one—was slowly sliding open!

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