Chapter 14: Milo Asks About Monsters

The trap door was already unlatched when Arthur got to it, which meant Pela had been down that morning and hadn't bothered to relock it, which meant either she trusted him or she was too tired to care about the distinction. He thought probably both.

He went down feet-first, the way you descended when you weren't sure of the footing, and pulled the door shut above him.

The cellar smelled of straw and tallow and the particular close smell of a small space inhabited long enough that it had taken on a person's character. Someone had wedged a stub of candle into a crack in the support post, lit. The light it made was yellow and insufficient and Milo was sitting in it with the picture-book open on his knees, not reading, watching Arthur come down the last step with the patient attention of a child who has learned that the way a person descends a ladder tells you something.