It was morning.
It takes girls a long while to dress, and Keith was always downstairs long before Immy. This morning he was quicker than ever. He wanted to get to that cellar and see it by daylight.
He met his father in the hall, pacing up and down. His father looked at him queerly as if he were afraid. That was a silly thing to think, of course, but his father looked sick—as if he hadn’t slept well or any at all.
The boy thought it best to be frank.
“Papa, was that a dream? All of it?”
“Was what a dream?”
“About me being in the cellar and seeing you taking stones out of the wall.”
“Let’s go down and look at the cellar.”
Keith loved that. When in doubt, visit the scene of the legend.
He went down the steps. The morning light came in through little windows smeared with cobwebs.