I thought maybe he was stressed about something at work. I thought maybe he was just talking. You know how people say things sometimes and they don't mean them as literally as they sound. Did you ask him what he meant? He said, "Just don't.
Promise me." And I said, "Okay." And I changed the subject because he was looking at me in a way that scared me and I didn't want to be scared. She pressed her fingers to her eyes for a moment. I've thought about those seven words every single day for 6 years. Don't trust the ground and I never understood them. She lowered her hands until this morning I called Rick again.
He picked up this time. I described what I'd found the depth of the collapse. The hollow sound when I'd probed around the edges. The way the soil composition changed as you went deeper. Sounds like it could be over an old drainage infrastructure.
Rick said pre-1970s construction out that way sometimes used a French drain system with perforated tile, clay tile, not plastic. Those break down over time. The soil washes in and you get these voids. Then eventually the void gets big enough and the surface gives. What would it take to reopen something like that?
To access it from below there was a pause. What do you mean reopen? I mean, if someone wanted to access the drainage channel, get in there, use it for something, what would that look like? It would look like a lot of work, Rick said. You'd need to know where the access points were, and you'd need equipment.
You couldn't do it quietly. He paused again. Caleb, what exactly are you into over there? I'm not sure yet. You want me to come take a look?
Not yet. I'll call you. I went back out to the yard and started systematically walking the property. Not working, just walking, looking at the way the ground moved. The slight dips and rises you don't notice unless you're looking for them.
And what I noticed was this. There was a faint, almost invisible depression running in a line across the yard. It was maybe 3 4 in lower than the surrounding soil and only about 2 ft wide. If the grass hadn't been cut recently, if the October light hadn't been hitting at exactly that low angle, I might not have seen it at all. The depression ran from the sinkhole straight toward the garage.
I stood at the garage end of that line and I looked at the padlock doors. Then I walked around to the side of the garage and looked at the wall. There was a vent near the base, low to the ground. Standard looking. Except it wasn't standard looking to me because the screws were too new.
Bright silver against old painted wood. Those screws had been put in recently. Someone had opened that vent panel and closed it again. I went back to Clare. She was still at the kitchen table.
She hadn't moved. She was looking at the box I'd set on her porch. I'd brought it up from the hole when I came in. Wrapped it in the tarp. Set it on the porch railing.