Chapter Seventeen

I don’t know how skeletons or a giant spider or a zombie sigh in relief, but that’s what we all did.
“Are you OK under there?” Jeff asked. “‘Cause it’ll take some time to get all that stuff moved, so … Might want to make yourself comfortable?”
“I don’t understand how it came down so fast.” Said Yorick, approaching the pile of wreckage. “The damage didn’t look that bad, but some of this debris is … “
“Ancient.” Headcrow completed the thought. “The wood I can see above me is almost crumbling to dust in places, and the shingles are just rotten.”
That sounded odd, somehow.
I looked at Jeff, who had the same look of “that’s odd” that I did, then to Anj and Archie, who were also wearing looks of confusion.
“Something’s not right there.” Archie suggested. “We’re missing something; What else can you see?”
Headcrow’s little glowing pumpkin sprite grinned widely.
“I can see the thing I was trying to get a look at when I fell in; There’s a tunnel down here, in the side of the hole.”
“Something tunneled in? This isn’t the right place?”
“I don’t think so?” Headcrow replied. “There’s a bunch of loose soil down here, and … I’d assume that the soil piles up at the start of the tunnel, not the end?”
“It’s the way it works in cartoons.” Said Anj, distractedly. “Jeff. Nameless. How did you recognise this as writing? I can barely see it.”
She’d gone up to one of the fallen sections of wall and was peering at it.
“Not sure how keen I am on ‘Nameless’.” I muttered as we all wandered over. “I’m pretty sure I had a name, even if I do have this vague memory of people misspelling it a lot.”
“What do you mean by ‘how’?” Asked Headcrow. “It’s right there on the walls; Can’t miss it when you’ve got a clear view.”
“Not any more, it’s not.” Said Jeff, scraping a claw through the thick layer of moss and damp slime coating the stone, tracing out letters I couldn’t identify. “This is what I was wondering about when the roof fell; It looked like this stuff grew while we were in there.”
The pile of wreckage creaked a little more, and Archie gave a sudden hiss.
“Headcrow? Did you say you could see shingles from the roof?”
“That’s right.” Came the reply, in a drawn-out thoughtful tone.
“But … Wasn’t it tiles when you were on the roof?” I asked. “I heard a tile fall and break.”
The back wall creaked, and a thick crack worked it’s way down one side.
“What a nice tunnel!” Exclaimed Headcrow in a high pitched tight tone. “I wonder where it goes?”
“Get Out Of There!” Yelled Jeff and Archie as we all grabbed chunks of debris, then hurled ourselves back as the wall collapsed over the roof, the pit, and Headcrow.
The little orange pumpkin sprite faded out.
For a moment we all just stared at the wreckage.
Jeff, Archie, and I lunged forward, all headed to grab the stone chunk on top to start the excavation, not paying as much attention to the pile shifting underneath us as we probably should.
“Oi! Stop!” Anj yelled.
Even Yorick looked startled.
“If he follows that tunnel, he’s either gonnae find the exit, or go right up the arse of whatever dug it.” She pointed at Jeff and Archie. “You two start looking for the other end; You move the fastest.”
Archie and Jeff looked at each other.
“You go low, I’ll go high?” Suggested Archie as they climbed down from the pile. “Spiral outwards ’till we find it?”
“Yorick, get looking for anything that’s changed.” Anj continued. “This thing fell apart from old age in front of us, and if we didn’t do it, someone else did, and they’re probably who we’re looking for.”
Yorick nodded as Anj pointed at me.
“You see if you can do your Carribbean Pirate Voodoo Zombie thing and find Headcrow.” She ordered, fishing around in her pockets and drawing out the lace parasol and popping it open. “I’ll see what I can see from the air.”
“I would ask who died and made her the boss.” Said Yorick softly as he walked past me. “But those are good ideas, and the answer is ‘all of us’.”

I looked intently into the eyes of the little figure in front of me. Grass twisted together around sticks to make limbs and the torso, and a ball of flower petals making a lumpy orange head.
“The person I’m trying to contact looks like you.” I told it. “And they’re probably in trouble, and I’d like you to try to relay a message, or get in contact, or something. Let him know that we’re trying to find him.”
The little figure sat up, looked around, and stretched it’s arms. It pushed itself upright and stood on my hand, turning slowly as it looked around the boneyard.
After a few rotations, it seemed to find a direction it liked, pointed that way while looking over it’s shoulder at me, then dropped into a strange prone position, holding its body off my palm and balancing on the very tips of its limbs, crawling very slowly forward.
“Headcrow is over there?” I asked it.
Somehow, without having any features at all, it looked over it’s shoulder at me with a look of distain, then went back to its crawl.
Headcrow’s voice, very faint, drifted out of nowhere.
“Voodoo People Zombie Guy? Is that you? How is that you?”
I leaned close to the little figure, who I now realised was miming its crawling actions, not actually moving across my palm despite the impression of forward motion.
“It’s me; I … I built a little Headcrow out of grass and sticks and flower petals, asked it to get in contact with you, and it’s currently pretending to do a weird crawl across my palm.”
A long pause.
“That’s pretty weird.”
“Not entirely what I expected, but to be fair, I wasn’t sure what to expect.”
The little figure stopped and patted its head, then continued with its mime.
“It just patted its head.” I reported. “Not sure what that means.”
“It means that it’s mirroring what I’m doing right now.” Headcrow replied. “Crawling through a very narrow tunnel, trying not to dislodge any more dirt than I have to, and hoping that it comes out somewhere soon.”
I looked around the boneyard, trying to see someone I could communicate with. Anj had somehow drifted high up into the sky, carried my her umbrella, and Archie was leaping from structure to structure in an expanding spiral. There was no sign of Jeff, and Yorick was looking thoughtfully at a crypt, prodding it with the other end of his scythe.
“Anj has us looking for the other end of the tunnel.” I said as I headed towards Yorick. “Though we haven’t found it yet, so … There’s maybe a chance that whatever dug it is still digging it?”
“Not an immediately comforting thought.” Headcrow replied.
The little figure crawled slightly faster for a moment, then jumped to its feet and pointed off towards Yorick.
“Over that way?” I asked, receiving a very pointed look in response. “Not really sure how you’re managing to be that condescending without a face.”
The little figure shrugged. I used my free hand to make a rude gesture at it, then started walking towards Yorick; It returned the gesture, then turned back towards our direction of travel, pointing to direct me off to one side of Yorick.
“I’m obviously not an expert in this, Headcrow.” I commented. “But I seem to have conjured a really sarcastic little critter to find you.”
Yorick joined as we passed nearly, pointing back along the meandering path he’d walked.
“There is a definite trail of old graves and crypts.” He explained. “Older than they should be, though not as decayed as the first one.”
A simultaneous cry of “Found Something!” from Archie and “Wooo!” from Jeff drifted over the boneyard. I glanced at the little figure, which looked in the direction of the shout and gave a satisfied nod.
“Is someone navigating to old bits?”
“I think not.” Yorick replied. “I think it makes them old by being near them, or maybe by touching them, and that it’s having a hard time navigating.”
I thought about that as we walked around a row of gravestones and saw Jeff and Archie standing over a hole in the ground.
“So it’s digging a tunnel, running into things, and making them old?” I asked. “Is that a normal thing?”
“Absolutely not; Never heard of anything like it before. I’m hoping Headcrow found some clues about what or who it is in that tunnel.”
As we got to Jeff and Archie, the little figure on my hand turned to me and made a little palms-up head-tilt gesture, as if to ask “Are we done?”.
“Yeah, I think we’re done.” I replied, raising it to eye level. “Thanks for your help. And the sarcasm.”
It somehow smirked at me, bowed, then collapsed into a tangle of grass, sticks, and petals.

Jeff, Yorick, Archie, Anj, and I stood around the rough hole in the earth, watching Headcrow carefully working his way out on fingers and toes, trying not to disturb the crumbling dirt. He inched his way out and collapsed facedown on the grass.
“Was there any …” Yorick started to say, then stopped as Headcrow flopped onto his back.
“No sign.” The scarecrow said, staring vacantly into the sky. “Just the tunnel.”
After a moment, he sat up, and we all looked at the collapsed stone crypt a short distance away, watching as dust slowly settled.