Martha opened the last door and walked in, turning on the ceiling light. The bedspread was rumpled. There was pie with crust and stickiness on the carpet. The pie tin was left on the lamp table. There were streaks of dirt coming from the fireplace. She began to shiver uncontrollably. Tears sprang into her eyes. Martha sucked in her breath. She wasn’t aware when she began to shout, “Walter! Walter! Help! Help! Walter, they’ve taken the boys!”

Thomas got to his mama first. Mr. Small was right on his heels.

“Oh, mama!” Thomas said. He saw the rumpled bed, the dirt trail on the carpet.

“They’re gone!” Mrs. Small said. “The babies are gone!”

“Oh no. No …” Thomas cried.

“Talk, son!” his papa said sternly. “Do you have any idea where the boys are? You said there was a tunnel. Behind a wall. In this room? Quickly!”

“They must’ve seen Great-grandmother Jeffers and me—oh, Papa! There’s a way behind that fireplace—”

“Show me! Hurry!”

“Hurry, Thomas!” Mrs. Small said.

“Get up on the hearth,” Thomas told them. “Hold on to the mantel. The whole thing swings around.”

They did as Thomas told them. He climbed up and pushed the stone. They began to move.

“Oh my goodness!” Mrs. Small whispered.

Slowly they turned with the wall. On the other side Thomas told them to step down. He led them down the stairs. He still had his flashlight; that was good, he thought. Soon they were in the secret room.

Walter and Martha Small stood there staring for a moment. Then Mr. Small took up the lantern that was there and held it high, so he could see the room better. Priceless furniture was the least of his thoughts. “The boys,” he said to Thomas, “they’re not here!”

Thomas remembered that he’d turned out the lantern his papa held; now it was back on. But he couldn’t think beyond that. The underground horrified him.

“Thomas, where are they?” Mrs. Small demanded.

“I … don’t know!” he cried.

“Think, Thomas! What is beyond this room?” Mr. Small said.

Think. Where are they? He did have an idea. “You— you go through this room, and there’s a tunnel ... to Mrs. Darrow’s bedroom.”

Mr. Small started through the room. Before he had gone two steps, Pesty appeared out of nowhere. “Everything’s all right,” she said. “Just follow me.”

“Pesty! The boys …” Mrs. Small gasped.

“Uh-huh,” Pesty said. “They’re just over here.” She slipped by in front of a dark rocker with a velvet cushion. She went over to the wall.

Mr. Small lifted the lantern, throwing the light up. The room was a perfect treasure, but it must wait. As if by magic, a niche in the wall appeared where there had seemed to be nothing before. It was a natural opening, an entranceway. Its position was such that it could easily be missed.

“Come on,” Pesty told them.

They followed, not daring to imagine what would come next. Mr. Small held the lantern in front of him through a narrow way. Thomas was right there on his heels. Mrs. Small had slipped her hand in Thomas’s.

In a moment they halted on the other side of the niche. “Papa, here’s a little table!” Thomas said. There was light all around them now, more than from the one lantern his papa held. “Set the light down, Papa.”

Mr. Small set his light down on a low table. He saw there were quite a few of the tables. Lanterns. The row of little beds had two sleeping occupants.

“Mama!” Thomas whispered, squeezing his mama’s hand. He could have cried, he was so happy. “They’re here!”

“I see them. Oh thank goodness,” Mrs. Small whispered back.

“See, they’re just fine,” Pesty said sofdy. “We were playing awhile, and they went to sleep. But I was going to bring them back home when they woke up.” She looked pleadingly at Mrs. Small and Thomas.

Thomas thought the evening lantern light made her face look sunburned.

“I should’ve brought them back to start with,” she said. “I just didn’t think. See, this is my place. I wouldn’t let nothin’ bother the boys here.”

“What is this place?” Mr. Small asked. “You called it your place? And that other room. How long has this ... all been here?”

“Mama’s always known about the other room, and here, too,” she said. “Least that’s what I gather. She likes it kept neat and clean. I do that.”

Thomas spoke up. “And, Papa, Mrs. Darrow is ... I mean—” He paused, feeling sorry for Pesty, for Mrs. Darrow.

“See, my mama been sick all so many years,” she said to Mr. and Mrs. Small. “Long as I can remember, her mind mostly carry on in a time long ago.”

They were silent, listening to her. Finally Mr. Small said, “I see.”

“Pesty, these are children’s beds,” Mrs. Small said. “Children slept here. …” Her sleeping sons stirred at the sound of her voice.

“It’s the orphans’ place,” Pesty said. She told them about the orphans of slavery. They were the many children whose mothers and fathers had been sold away from them or had been killed. Next, she told about the doomed Indian maiden.

Thomas sat down on one of the beds. The Indian maiden wasn’t a ghost, he was thinking. Mrs. Small sat down beside her little sons. They had awakened. Billy crawled into her lap. Next came Buster, It was natural for them to wake up and find their mama.

Mr. Small leaned against a table. “It’s a sad tale,” he said, “but one of heroism, too. I assume the Indian maiden was part Indian and part black?”

“Mama just say that Coyote Girl was a native and a relative,” Pesty said.

“I understand,” said Mr. Small.

“Does Macky know that the Indian maiden was such a real person? Such a—a heroine?” Thomas asked.

“He knows,” she said.

So he meant to scare me out in the woods just to be mean, Thomas thought.

Mr. Small looked around the low room, aware of a vague scent from far-off times. “Does your brother know about this room,” he thought to ask, “and the other room?” He nodded toward the way they had come.

Pesty shook her head no. “You can go to there and on down the tunnel and into my mama’s closet and her bedroom,” she said. “He don’t know about that. You can’t get to this orphan room unless you know to. And he don’t know that either. Nobody but me and my mama and Mr. Pluto know about it. And now y’all.” She looked relieved to have them know.

“So many secrets,” Mrs. Small said. “Is it right for part of a family to keep secrets from the other part?” she asked gently.

“It’s what my mama wants,” Pesty said. “Everything to be as it was in the time of Coyote Girl—ain’t that a pretty name?”

Mr. Small smiled and nodded.

Something had caught Thomas’s eye. A box over there full of things. What looked like— He walked over and peered into the box of triangles. He picked up one, two and found that the triangles forced him to flex his arm muscles, they were so heavy. “Papa! There’s treasure here, too. Another treasure!” And another reason to keep Macky from knowing about this place, he thought. He’d surely tell his daddy, River Lewis, to get in good with him.

“Walter, let’s get the boys away from here,” Mrs. Small said.

“Just a minute, Martha,” Walter said. He went over to the box, picked up a triangle, and was astonished by its weight. With both hands he held it close to a lantern light. “A real one,” he murmured. “Martha, this is real gold! This whole box is full of solid gold triangles!”

“I told you about them in the picture frame on Mrs. Darrow’s bedroom wall,” Thomas said. “I knew they had to be real.” He looked at Pesty. She wouldn’t meet his gaze; she looked down at her hands.

“We should leave all this alone,” Mrs. Small said. She glanced around, shivering. “I don’t think we should bother anything. They have kept this secret so long, Pesty and her mother. It’s Mrs. Darrow’s. …” Her voice trailed off. She stared at Pesty, at a place behind her.

Pesty turned around, grinned. There stood tall Mrs. Darrow, darker than shadow and larger than was possible. But there she was. Something about her in this … evening light, Thomas thought. She’s not so odd in here.