Mira eases back against the grain sack and draws out the paper, holding it close in the dim light. The scratching overhead continues its steady rhythm. She tilts the scrap until the amber seeping under the upper door catches the symbols just so — and the hidden shapes sharpen: the door, the flame, the two reaching hands. She sweeps her gaze slowly across the ground floor and freezes. There, half-buried under a scatter of old flour dust, is a wooden hatch set flush into the floorboards — square, iron-ringed, just the size of the door-shape on the paper. The sharp electrical smell is stronger near it, rising through the gap like breath. Whatever is below is not a root cellar. Mira's ink-stained fingers hover over the iron ring while the waterwheel turns its slow syllable outside and the figure upstairs goes on writing, still absorbed, still unaware. She could lift the hatch right now.