Samuel first checked every door and window.
He secured the barn latch, brought the horse into the sheltered stable, and inspected the deep snow around the house for tracks.
Clara watched from the kitchen doorway, wrapped in a heavy shawl.
Samuel moved slowly around the northern side of the cabin.
The snow was undisturbed.
At least, that was how it first appeared.
Then he noticed something near the springhouse.
A narrow depression crossed the white surface.
Not footprints.
A long, shallow line.
As though someone had dragged a heavy board through the snow.
He followed it toward the back of the woodshed.
There, beneath a fallen stack of firewood, he discovered a small iron ring protruding from the frozen ground.
Samuel stared.
He knew this place.
He had stacked wood there for seventeen winters.
Yet he had never seen the ring before.
He brushed away the snow.
Beneath it lay the edge of a wooden trapdoor.
Samuel crouched and pulled.
Nothing happened.
The door had frozen shut.
He looked back toward the cabin.
Clara stood in the doorway.
"Did you find something?"
He hesitated.
Then called, "Bring the lantern."
She hurried across the yard.
The cold air bit at her cheeks.
Samuel helped her over the drift beside the woodshed.
Together, they looked down at the trapdoor.
Clara frowned.
"How long has that been there?"
"I don't know."
She touched the edge.
The wood was dark and old.
But the hinges were surprisingly clean.
Someone had used them recently.
Samuel inserted the strange black key into a small lock hidden beneath the iron ring.
It fit perfectly.
For a moment, neither moved.
Then Samuel turned it.
The lock clicked.
Clara gripped his arm.
He pulled the ring.
The trapdoor rose with a groan.
A dark opening appeared beneath them.
Cold air rushed upward.
It smelled of damp stone, old timber, and something else.
Something unmistakably familiar.
Fresh beef.
Samuel lifted the lantern.
Beneath the trapdoor, a steep wooden ladder descended into darkness.
Clara looked at her husband.
"Samuel..."
He stared into the opening.
"My father built this."
"How do you know?"
Samuel pointed toward the first ladder rung.
Three small notches had been carved into the wood.
His father had marked his own handiwork that way for as long as Samuel could remember.
Clara swallowed.
"What are we going to do?"
Samuel looked at her.
Then at the cabin.
Then down into the darkness.
"We're going to find out what he was hiding."
The passage beneath the woodshed was narrow enough that Samuel had to turn sideways to descend.
He carried the lantern in one hand and the iron poker in the other.
Clara followed carefully.
The wooden rungs creaked under their weight, but held firm.
At the bottom, they found themselves inside a small underground chamber.