"You have to see this!"
Sharon rolled her eyes at her sister's I-want-to-scream-but-not-mum-and-dad-to-hear-it order. "What?"
"The wardrobe goes on forever!"
"It's a walk-in, closet, silly."
Kimberley grabbed her hand and dragged her over. "It leads to a cave! Come, look!"
She did, so she could tell Kim "told you so". Looking was not all that easy, the light in the closet being broken. Even for a walk-in closet, this one was big; Sharon couldn’t see a thing in front of her.
Kimberley laid Sharon's hand on the wall. Her sister yanked it out of her grip, off the wall, startled by the cold and damp.
"If you're pranking me..."
"Am not!"
Sharon snorted and reached for the wall. It was rough, bumpy, and so damp that something slimy had grown on it. Mold was not a good thing, that she knew, but the wall being as uneven and cold as it was felt thoroughly off. "Let's fetch a torch. You should have thought of that if you were here before, silly."
"Maybe you're just too blind."
They went back to their new room bickering.
Soon Sharon led the way armed with the little torch she kept in her bedside table. She found nothing like a seam on the wall; the white paint became grey concrete, which grew pitted and cracked, turning into dark stone.
"All right. It does lead to a cave." Which was impossible, seeing how the closet was in the second storey. Maybe grown-ups were lying about magic, after all.
"You know what that means?!" Kimberley was bouncing with excitement, and Sharon could not help but smile.
"Sure." She played the light across the floor ahead. "Want to try for a little adventure?"
***
The family near the old mine huddled around the well, now and then splashing water over themselves for solace. They had hoped their post was an honorary one, but defense was needed. Voices had been sounding out of the underground. The second youngest child was sent to the master of the riverbend for reinforcements, and one parent and the eldest went inside, armed with knives chipped from hunterbird bones. They could not risk waiting for daylight, and it would make little difference in the cave, anyway.
When their night-trained eyes caught a glimmer of unnatural light, the parent gave a sign to backtrack. There was a crossway where they could wait in ambush.
Pale light flitted over the ground, like a fish in a quick stream, jumping up to the walls occasionally. The guardians heard high, harsh voices growling and hissing, coming closer along with footfalls.
Banking fear with silent prayers to their ancestors, they crouched so they could spring to attack.
The parent felt some relief upon seeing the demons had heads, and necks. Its knife found its target before the guardians were noticed.
The smaller demon shrieked, a horrible sound that might destroy a mind. With the light tumbling uncontrolled, and the voice filling the air completely, it was a hard aim, but a swipe from the eldest child connected.
Still shrieking, the demon turned to run. The guardians brought it down after a few steps.
While they caught their breath, the younger one looked at the light that now streamed along the ground in a long and narrow triangle. It seemed to be carried in a kind of baton. “Do we take anything with us?”
The parent followed its gaze and considered. “We need to take the bodies for proper disposal, before they wake up again. Do not touch that. Nothing good can come from light that’s not in the sky.”