I just tried to enter, and I can’t. It’s like there’s an invisible wall blocking the door that burns when I touch it, Vincent said.
“Vincent says he can’t get in,” I said. Arthur placed his hand on my shoulder. “We should probably inspect this initial passageway before you enter. I’ll give it a go,” he said gallantly. As he stepped into the black tunnel, a bright light flashed before his head. He leapt back, yelping in pain and rubbed his face frantically. Something smelled like roasted marshmallows.
“Let me see!” I said, and pulled his hands from his face. “It singed your eyebrows and the front of your hair!” I exclaimed.
Ambrose’s face was red from suppressed laughter. He gave up. “Oh, man,” he sputtered, tears leaking from the sides of his eyes. “You should have seen your expression.”
Arthur’s cheeks grew as red as Ambrose’s, but he wasn’t laughing. “You try,” he challenged.
Ambrose patted his short-cropped hair protectively. “The ’do is sacred,” he said, and leaning cautiously back, he reached his arm through the doorway. An orange spark flew from the end of his index finger. “Ow!” he yelled, and stuck the burned finger in his mouth.
“See,” Arthur said, looking mollified.
You can’t go in there, Vincent said.
“I was able to reach in for the flashlight, so it looks like I actually can,” I said. “And I guess I’m going to, if you saw that I had disappeared with your future-sight or whatever.”
But, Kate, he said as I walked unscathed into the mouth of the cave. I was enveloped by a musty wet-chalk odor. It smelled like the tunnel had been recently excavated, although the walls and ceiling were blackened by centuries of torch soot.
I glanced back to Arthur and Ambrose, who watched me from as near the door as they dared. “Should we close the door to the cave?” I said, pointing to the signum that was still stuck in the wall.
“No!” they said together.
“We’re staying right here. No one can get in,” Ambrose reassured me.
Be careful, came Vincent’s words, sounding as if he was already yards away.
I shined the flashlight into the dark, swallowed hard, and before I could talk myself out of it, set off into the tunnel.
SIXTEEN
AS THE PATH DESCENDED, THE TUNNEL GOT smaller, and soon I was hunching over and bending my head to clear the ceiling. The increasingly tight space made me more and more anxious. The farther downward I walked, the heavier the pressure grew inside my chest, until it felt like my lungs were going to implode.
Finally, I couldn’t go any farther. My heart beat so hard that I felt it pounding in my ears. I leaned back against the tunnel wall and slid down into a crouch. Clutching the flashlight in a death grip, I attempted to talk myself out of a full-blown panic attack.
“Close your eyes and imagine being somewhere else,” my mom had said to me, deep inside the mountain at Ruby Falls. Okay, Mom, I thought. Where else can I be? And suddenly, I remembered the roof terrace on top of La Maison, where Vincent had taken me last month. Stretched out around us had been a panoramic view of Paris by night, the city sparkling like it had been decorated with a million strings of Christmas lights.
Vincent had kissed me there—in that most romantic of spots. We had rolled around on a sun bed kissing and laughing and—for a few blissful moments—forgetting that fate conspired against us. For a short while we loved each other without caring about anything else. It was on the rooftop that Vincent told me he loved me. That he couldn’t imagine a life without me.
I felt the cold winter air on my face, and Vincent’s finger brushing my lips, outlining my mouth before he leaned in and touched his lips to mine.
Then, in my fantasy, he disappeared and I was alone on the roof. The delicious warmth was gone—suddenly and violently—and the coldness of the winter night stung my face and hands. And suddenly I remembered our situation in the here and now: Vincent’s body was gone and his spirit was bound to a madwoman. And I was within mere yards of something that might help him.
My eyes snapped open and I stood back up, hunching over into an old-lady shuffle to make my way down the narrowing passageway. There were so many twists now that the flashlight illuminated only the few feet ahead of me. I was so deep that the rock walls were damp against my fingertips.