The Problem with Dreams

Chapter 6 - A Visit for Matt

            "Nice to meet you, Matt. Welcome to this interesting space your step-dad's developing. I would say creating, but he didn't. This cave was already here. He just added the tunnels and lights and things," Mr. Van Kirk explained.

            "Actually Mr. Van Kirk and his crew added those things," Greg clarified. "You said Lee is here?"

            "In here, Greg," Lee Sato called. "Hi kids."

            "Hi Mr. Sato," Zackary said and he hung back from where the workmen were congregating. "You've kinda gotta' stay out of their way when they're working on stuff," he explained to Matt.

            "Okay. This is cool just being here," Matt said. "Does all this belong to Mom and Greg?"

            "Yup," Zackary said.

            They waited while Greg consulted with his landscape architect and contractor, but eventually youthful impatience and curiosity led Matt to look into some of the other spaces, especially those with lights. He wandered back out onto the bridge first, looking down into the deeper recesses of the cave.

            "Hey, Zack!"

            "Yeah?"

            "What't that down there?" Matt asked when he spyed a misshapen heap of light colored canvas up on a ledge to the left, away from what seemed to be the main cooridor running through the cave.

            "It's an old tent Greg found," Zack said with a shrug.

            "Where did he find it? Down by the pond or something? Maybe back under the trees?" Matt wondered.

            "No. He said it was in here ... in the cave I mean. They found it the first time they came in here," Zack said.

            "Really? There was somebody's stuff in here?" Matt asked.

            "Yeah. I think he found a coffee pot too. It belonged to some guy named Max. I guess he was here a long time ago," Zackary told him.

            "How do you know that?" Matt wanted to know.

            "We found some letters in a box. Greg got to read them," Zack explained. "But that's all I know."

            Matt nodded as he began to explore the other way.

            "Where does this go?" Matt asked as he came to what looked like a short tunnel that ended in wood instead of stone.

            "That goes into the house, but we'd better wait for Greg," Zackary said.

            c

            They returned to the ledge just as Greg emerged from the passageway leading to the shaft.

            "We can't get down that way yet," Greg told Zackary.

            "Should we use the ropes?" Zack asked.

            "We could," Greg agreed. "Back this way Matt, across the bridge, down the tunnel then turn right. Here's a flashlight."

            Greg once again followed the boys across the bridge and back through the tunnels to the ledge which was still serviced by Neil's ropes. Under Greg's direction, they used those to climb to the bottom level. Greg and Zackary took a moment to examine the newly widened opening to the shaft that would soon become a stairwell while Matt took a closer lookat the canvas which his brother said had once been a tent.