Beneath by Dani Carr

What lies in old houses should not be disturbed.

It was their first night in their new home, but there was very little that was actually “new” about this place. It was supposedly built in the 18th century, but it felt far more ancient. Unyielding, like the hill it was built upon. Sarah stared at the cracked ceiling, watching the drip drip drip of the water leaking through the roof. It was useless. She wasn’t going to be able to sleep in this terrible house. 

What would help, she decided, was if she got up to explore. To remind herself that the creaks were just an old house settling and the whoosh was just the wind against the window. If she learned the house more, she would feel more comfortable. 

So up Sarah got, pushing her feet into fuzzy teddy bear slippers, and roused her little brother Colin from the bedroom next to hers. Colin, ever the Boy Scout at 11 years old, produced a flashlight, and the two stepped carefully through the house, investigating its nooks and crannies in the middle of the night. 

It was a fairly boring search, producing nothing but dust and cobwebs in corners and behind furniture. But then Sarah opened the door to the room beneath the stairs and Colin shined the flashlight on one corner, then the other. And there they saw in the circle of yellow light three built-in shelves. A spotless wooden box sat upon the middle shelf. 

“What is that?” Colin asked.

Every instinct in Sarah’s body told her to close the door and go back to bed. And if she’d been alone, she might have done it. But she was the older sister, 13 and wise, and she didn’t want Colin to be afraid. So she would be brave. 

Sarah stepped inside the little hidden room under the rickety old stairs and examined the pristine box. It was large and rectangular, made entirely of polished wood. The top of it was intricately carved with leaves and vines that wrapped around one word:

BENEATH

“I… I think it’s a game,” Sarah said. She carried it out to Colin, who was steadily holding the flashlight without trembling. 

“Like a board game? Neat,” Colin said.

Sarah carried the box over to the large dining room table and placed it carefully on the table top. She opened the box, its seam splitting the middle ’E’ of BENEATH. A strange twisting path of ivy made up the game board. Words were written in cursive on the sides of the board, and Sarah read them out loud.

Beneath. A game for those with nothing to lose and everything to gain. Delve into the Great Forest and traverse the twisting tangled roots of the trees whose canopy has grown so thick that no light touches the forest floor. Find a way to the tops of the trees and bring light back to the soil, or be forever cursed to the darkness…beneath.“Cool,” Colin said, sitting beside his sister. “Wanna play?”

“Yeah, but I feel like we should wait til morning,” Sarah said, but when she went to close the box, the carved vines that created the game board’s path sprang to life. They wrapped around Sarah’s wrists and pulled her forward, where she was lifted off her bench and into the air, shrieking in terror. 

“Sarah!” Colin grabbed her arm, trying to keep the vines from pulling his sister away, but it only resulted in him joining her in the air. 

The two siblings were pulled down into a swirling mass of twigs and leaves, leaving behind the creaky, creepy old house and entering a forest of darkness and danger. 

Their game was only beginning. 

for more brilliant works from Dani Carr, check out: @thisdanicarr on Instagram, @itsdanicarr on bluesky