Chapter Twelve

Will felt so foolish, his whole plan depended on him not being noticed. Then he got noticed on the first morning after settling in. He rushed to the corner opposite to the entrance he had used and started digging, the ground underneath was just regular dirt so he managed to get a pretty big hole done in no time. After he figured the hole was deep enough, he grabbed his things and with them laid down in the whole. It was pretty dark under the church, so even if they did find the entrance, they wouldn't be able to see him from the opposite side.

Will waited, the unnerving suspense had his muscles tensed the whole time. He kept a close eye on the crack to see if he could tell if any shadows passed by. He didn't see anything, however he did hear a couple of voice, but he didn't understand what they said. One voice was the woman who had shrieked, and the other was a deep gruff voice. They talked for a while, but nothing came of it. Will still didn't take any chances and waited in the hole the entire morning. He figured it was safe around noon and relaxed, he was sweating and tired from the stress. He had a quick lunch and relaxed for about an hour, before deciding to start his work.

The plan now was to make this his temporary home, so the first thing he did was digging. He dug alongside the edges of the foundation and pushed the dirt against the walls, this would reduce the sound that would come through and fill any cracks. He left the entrance unblocked and continued digging, as he moved more and more dirt to the edges, the middle of the 'room' got low enough for Will to stand comfortably without hitting his head on the floorboard above.

Now that the digging was done, it was already evening, but Will still had much to do. He grabbed some mushrooms from a pouch in his backpack, the pouch itself was very soggy and was starting to smell moldy. He had gathered all the rocks he found while digging into one corner of the room and made pile. He covered the rocks in some old tree bark he had brought from the forest the previous night, and put the mushrooms there. He poured some water from his water skin on the bark to make it damp and soggy. He didn't expect the mushrooms to flourish, but they would at least be kept fresh enough for him to be able to eat them over time.

Will then cut up his backpack thinking he didn't need it anymore, and created a makeshift bed in one of the other corners. Since he had dug for a while, the soil was soft enough not to be too uncomfortable. The sun was already setting, and Will had noticed the noise outside had started fading out. He had taken advantage of the noisy daytime to do all his preparations, it was too risky now to keep working. So instead he laid down in his new bed and chewed on the last of the dried meat. He tried to listen and see if he could find out where in the church people were still staying at after dark. His main focus from now on would be to infiltrate the church from under the floor, but that would require him to find a spot where no one would regularly enter and spot him. Maybe a pantry or a closet, but he would also require to knock the floorboards loose, and that was going to be loud.

He smiled and let out a sigh as he heard the same voice from the previous night singing again, Will felt the exhaustion from today's work in his whole body and quickly fell into a deep slumber.

When Will woke up, he was a bit grumpy. He didn't wake up on his own, there was noise of children screaming and shouting outside. Will rubbed his eyes and stretched his hand to a pile of dried fruits and nuts next to his bed, and grabbed a handful of whatever his hand landed on. He stuffed his mouth and chewed slowly, drank a mouth full of water while chewing and swallowed it all. Now that breakfast was out of the way, he started listening in on the noise. The children were all ushered into the church, and Will heard the large wooden door close behind them. Was the woman going to watch the children, or maybe teach them? Will got curious enough to finally leave his new home.

Will removed the board covering the entrance and looked around. It was still quiet around, he ȧssumed most of the people in the town were off working so he didn't worry too much. He slowly walked around the church trying to find a way in or at least something he could prop up against the wall and climb. To Wills surprise and delight he found a small ladder behind the outhouse, there was also a wooden shovel, which irked Will as he remembered all the digging he did the day before.

Earlier when he had circled around the church, he had noticed voices from the eastern side of the church. He carried the ladder to one of the bigger windows on the eastern side, and quietly propped it up against the wall. Once Will got to the top of the ladder, a huge grin appeared on his face. As he had thought, the woman was some kind of nun from the church, and she was teaching the kids how to read. She had set up some small papers with some letters and pictures on a board, and the children were paying attention to her and nothing else. So Will spent the entire morning watching the class.