Mattie tugged at his arm. She turned her hooded eyes on Pesty.

“Mama better get back before folks figure she ain’t in the bed,” Pesty said.

Meaning her brothers, Thomas thought, and her papa, Mr. “Mean” Darrow. He took his own brothers’ hot chocolate and a plate of crackers upstairs, then hurried back down again.

“She’s with me,” Pluto was saying when he came back.

“Mama, I’ll be along in a little while,” Pesty said.

“Best I take her back through the house?” Pluto asked Pesty, as solemnly Walter Small watched them.

What’s Papa thinking? Thomas wondered.

“Better, she slipped off out walking and stopped to see you,” Pesty told Pluto, “you bring her on back home. Then no chance of somebody bein’ in the bedroom and seein’ her come through that closet.”

“Huh,” Pluto said, nodding his agreement. “I’ll take her as far as the boundary of my place.” He knew Mattie would not want him to run into Darrow. He wouldn’t walk in on River Lewis for anything. “I’ll need something to keep her warm.”

Mr. Small got up. He walked around Pluto to the hallway, saying to him under his breath, “You knew about those rooms down there and the entrance to upstairs. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“There was no need!” Pluto murmured. “It was Mattie’s secret. ...”

“She won’t get cold,” Pesty said. “Mama don’t feel the cold.”

Mr. Small called up the stairs to Martha for a blanket. She threw it down to him.

Pluto wrapped the blanket around Mattie. He patted her hand, said to Pesty, “She may not notice it, but she gets cold like anybody else. Mattie, let’s take us a walk in the snow. We’ll go for a little stroll.”

“Will there be war?” she asked in her odd, wispy voice.

“Mattie, Mattie! The war been over!” Pluto said.

She clapped her hands. “Daylight!” she exclaimed.

They went out the kitchen door, and Mr. Small, Pesty, and Thomas listened to their footsteps crunching in the snow.

“Still cold out,” Thomas said after a moment.

Mr. Small remained silent, looking at Pesty. Thomas sat next to her. His papa sat across the table from them. “Whew! Some morning!” Thomas said. But slowly he began to feel his papa’s somber mood. Pesty’s, too.

“I sure know what the orphan is like,” she said sadly.

“It’s nothing to dwell on, Pesty,” Mr. Small said.

“S’what I am, though,” she said, “just like them slave orphan children.”

“Being an orphan is no shame, never was, and you have a family,” he said.

“Some family,” she said. The Darrows were the only family she’d ever known.

“Dwelling on the past,” Mr. Small said gently, “it has confused your mother’s mind. We don’t want that to happen to you, Pesty.”

“Who cares about me?” she said, the weight of the world on her.

“I care about you,” Thomas said. “You’re my friend.”

“We all care about you, Pesty,” Mrs. Small said, coming in. “You’re just like one of the family.”

“Thank y’all,” Pesty said. She took a deep breath and said, “My mama didn’t mean nobody any harm. Did she come in upstairs? Guess she must’ve.”

“She came down the hall and scared Great-grandmother Jeffers. But she didn’t mean to,” Thomas said.

“My mama been almost in bed since y’all came to the Drear house. That’s why you never seen her,” Pesty explained. “Then she start talking and walking.”

“I see,” said Mr. Small. “But why did she come here?”

“Well, wasn’t never nobody here,” Pesty said. “But everything change when you folks come to live here. But it won’t change for Mama. She keep on walking through. That’s why folks always say this house be haunted. The town kids. They probably seen Mama with her lantern going through the rooms late at night. Made her out a ghost.”

“I’ll be darn!” Thomas exclaimed.

“She got in here before I could stop her,” Pesty said.

Pesty and Thomas commenced talking about what had happened earlier in the day, when Pesty revealed the secret way into Mr. Pluto’s cave.

“I am still amazed that you never told us about the rooms underground,” Mr. Small said to Pesty. “They are valuable places historically.”

She shrugged. “Everything was just going so well. Me and Mr. Thomas, getting along,” she said. “I sure liked being around Billy and Buster and y’all.” She looked shyly at Mr. and Mrs. Small.

“Well, they love being around you, and Thomas, too, Pesty,” Mrs. Small said. “They consider you their big sister.” Mrs. Small touched Pesty gently on the cheek. “We made everything different, didn’t we, when we moved here? You’ve been worried to death about your mama and everything, haven’t you?”

Pesty nodded, all choked up inside.

“Well, don’t you worry anymore. Your mama didn’t hurt anything. Now she can come visit aboveground anytime you want to bring her over. And you know we love having you here. Nothing about that has changed.”

Pesty looked delighted. “I thought maybe my brother Macky and Mr. Thomas might become just as close as me and Mr. Thomas.”

“I don’t think we ever will, if he’s after treasure,” Thomas said, “trying to get Mr. Pluto to tell him something. If he did come through that hole the way Pesty and I did, then some treasure was what he was after.”

“We found footprints, and they looked about exactly Macky’s size,” Pesty blurted to Mr. Small. She looked relieved to be telling the truth at last.

“But when your brothers and your father came to Pluto’s cave,” Mr. Small said, “that night months ago, when they thought Pluto was sick in the hospital and they could search their way to treasure, Macky wouldn’t have any part of it.”

“And so they cold-shouldered him,” Pesty said. “Nobody won’t talk to him all this time, except me and Mama. Won’t let him hunt with them, or go into town, or work with them, or nothing. They cut him out cold.”

“Pesty, that’s terrible,” Mrs. Small said.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mr. Small said. “That kind of thing can hurt very deeply.”

“Un-hum,” Pesty murmured. “Guess Macky thought if he could find something, maybe gold—I bet for sure that’s what got into him—he could make it up to my papa.”

“He probably thought to end all of the strife in your family,” Mr. Small said. “Maybe he hoped to make your mother better somehow, too.”

Thomas thought to say, “Macky’s a real good hunter. You can just tell by the way he gets around in the woods up there.”

Mr. Small said, “Pesty, I wanted to ask you something. Does your mother know about the—” He paused and glanced toward the kitchen wall that could rise.

No telling who might be behind it, Thomas thought, following his papa’s gaze.

“Does she know about the great … you-know-what?”

Pesty knew he meant the treasure cave. “No,” she said. “Least she never mentioned about it. She sometimes slip off, to go see Mr. Pluto. He wouldn’t tell her about it.” She sighed. “Mr. Pluto, he don’t want me to come over, go in there no more. Guess he’s worried, just like you are.”

“There’s a lot to worry about, to consider,” Mr. Small said. “I don’t like all these secrets. Who knows how many more secrets there may be?” His voice shook slightly. “It’s all so astounding.”

“There’s glass missing,” Thomas said out of the blue.

“What, Thomas?” Mrs. Small said.

“Glass,” Thomas repeated. “The old glass on the shelves of the you-know-what. Some of it’s missing. Some broke on the cavern floor. I found the pieces, but I didn’t tell Mr. Pluto.”

“Somebody has gotten in!” Mr. Small exclaimed.

Thomas shook his head. “No, Papa,” he said. “The broken glass was an accident. Wasn’t it, Pesty?”

Sadly Thomas turned to her. “I saw the missing glass,” he said to her. “Two bottles, in that first room underground. You put them there, didn’t you?”

“Pesty! You didn’t take rare glass from—” Mr. Small began. He stopped, seeing tears fill her eyes and spill down her cheeks.