Tunnels 02, Deeper

Nothing wrong with that! Must be from a spring."
    "Well, at least we've solved our water problem," Will congratulated him.

    * * * * *

    Having gorged himself on food, Chester slept for several hours atop the library table. When he finally awoke and learned of the washroom discovery from Will, he slipped out to have a look for himself and didn't reappear for some time.
    When he finally did come back, the skin on his face and neck was red and blotchy where he'd evidently aggravated his eczema in an attempt to scrub off the ingrained dirt, and his hair was wet and slicked back. The way he looked now, in his cleaned-up state, reminded will of how they'd once been. It brought back memories of less troubled times before they stumbled upon the Colony, of their life back in Highfield.
    "That's better," Chester mumbled self-consciously, avoiding the others' gazes. Cal, who had been taking a nap on the floor, propped himself up and, still not fully awake, regarded Chester with a kind of bleary amusement.
    "Why'd you do that?" he asked wryly.
    "Smelled yourself lately?" Chester fired back at him.
    "No."
    "I have," Chester said, wrinkling his nose. "And it's not very pleasant!"
    "Well, I think washing up's a great idea," Will instantly spoke out to spare Chester any further embarrassment, but Cal's comments seemed not to bother him in the slightest. Chester was totally preoccupied by something on the end of his pinkie finger, which he'd just been using to pick away energetically at his ear.
    "And I'm going to do just the same," Will proclaimed as Chester started on his other ear, ramming a finger repeatedly into it.
    Will rummaged around in his rucksack for some clean clothes, then took a second to examine his shoulder, wondering whether it was time to change the dressing on the wound. Through the rends in his shirt, he gingerly probed the area around the bandage, then decided he needed to remove the shirt altogether in order to see what state it was in.
    "Will, what happened to you?" Chester said, forgetting his ear for the moment and turning quite pale. He'd caught sight of the large patch of dark crimson showing through the bandage on Will's shoulder.
    "From the stalker attack," Will told him. He bit his lip, then groaned as he lifted the dressing to look underneath. "Yuck!" he exclaimed. "I definitely could do with a new poultice." He turned to his pack and hunted through the side pockets for the spare bandage and the small parcels of powder that Imago had given him.
    "I didn't realize it had been that bad," Chester said. "Want any help?"
    "No, really... feels better now, anyway," Will replied, lying through his teeth.
    "OK," Chester said, his face still displaying his squeamishness as he tried to smile but only managed a grimace.
    And, despite his initial reaction at Chester's efforts to clean himself up, Cal, too, took the opportunity to slip out of the room and wash himself in the tepid water once Will had returned.

    * * * * *

    The hours seemed to pass more slowly within the house, as if it was somehow isolated from everything outside. And the absolute hush that pervaded the interior gave the impression that it was itself asleep. This stillness affected the three boys; they made not the least effort to talk and instead took catnaps on the long library table, using the backpacks as pillows.
    But eventually Will began to feel restless and found that he couldn't sleep. To pass the time, he resumed his investigation of the library, wondering who had lived in the house. He went from shelf to shelf, reading the titles on the ancient hand-tooled spines, which mostly had esoteric religious themes and must have been written centuries ago. It was an exercise in frustration, because he knew all the pages inside would be nothing more than confetti and dust. Nevertheless, he was fascinated by the obscure names of the authors and the ludicrously long titles. It had almost developed into a contest to try to find a book he'd actually heard of when he came across something curious.
    On a lower shelf, a set of matching books appeared to have no titles at all. After wiping off the grime, Will could see they had covers of deep burgundy, and that the tiniest gilt stars were picked out at three equidistant points on each of their spines.
    He tried to take out one of the volumes, but unlike the other books, which had disappointed him with the usual avalanche of silt from their disintegrated pages, this one resisted, as if it was somehow