Father Antoine sat wrapped in a blanket, arms crossed above his knees, head resting on his arms. It looked as though he’d folded up, but she didn’t think he was asleep. His lips moved silently, and his closed eyelids shifted. In a while Quillan lay down on the mine floor beside her, his back to hers. The three blankets Quillan had brought gave them one apiece, but the cold grew steadily.
“We could light the timbers and melt our way out.” Carina said drowsily, expecting no answer.
But Quillan said, “It might come to that.” Then he pressed his back closer.
She drifted into sleep thinking this was the third time she’d slept in a mine. Once in the shaft where she’d fallen during the flood, once after the vigilantes hung Berkley Beck and all the roughs, and now under a massive blanket of snow. Signore, is there something I should know?
NINE
Walls of stone, iron bands, rope around my mind.
Air that thins, darkness deep, reasoning confined.
Fear, fear, fear.
—Quillan
QUILLAN LAY STIFFLY ALERT. Carina’s breath sounded like a soft breeze, Father Antoine’s a leather bellows. But he couldn’t get anywhere near sleep. He kept picturing Jack and Jock on the circular shelf outside the mine with a mountain of snow rushing down on them like a train. He prayed their demise had been swift—a broken neck, a blow to the head. But he guessed they’d been pummeled down the slope, then suffocated where they stopped, the powder more deadly than the icy boulders that carried it.
He pressed his hand to his eyes. How could he have known? Could he have? The day had been so clear and promising. He’d thought they’d spend an hour or two in the cave, then go back out to lunch by the horses and be home again before the sun set. Nature never considered his plans.
His team had survived the flood, both Jack and Jock swimming to safety. Was that only months ago? He pressed closer to Carina. He had thought he’d lost her then. It was the first time he realized how much she mattered.
His plan to escape was a good one—to wait until he could delve the snow. And he’d tried to make the waiting as easy as he could. He’d sensed Carina’s fear, and the word games had helped. Yes, his plan was sound. But what if the snow didn’t pack? What if it was too deep to get through with nothing but poles? How long could they stretch one lunch? Would someone come? Alex Makepeace? Possibly. He forced his eyes to close. It did no good to ponder it now.
Could they burn the timbers and melt the snow? They’d likely bring the tunnel down on their heads. Was there another way? Quillan couldn’t think. Had the horses seen it coming? Had they run? Why hadn’t he put them inside? They’d have been safe inside. There was just room for them all in the short tunnel before the shaft. He groaned. If he’d only brought them inside.
His thoughts circled again. They were driving him crazy. Crazy like Leona Shepard? His foster mother spent her days trapped in a mind that had lost touch with reality. His mother, too. Would his do the same? How long could he stay in here before he cracked?
Quillan rubbed his neck and searched the space around him. Something was different. Was it morning? The darkness was not so complete. If he moved his hand in front of his face, he could almost see it shift. Or did he imagine it? He raised up on one elbow. No. There was an almost imperceptible lightening.
Now if the day dawned clear and the sun could penetrate . . . He folded his blanket over Carina and felt for the candle he had used last night. He shuffled on his knees to his pack and took the box of matches from the outer pocket. He struck a flame and lit the candle. Neither Carina nor the priest woke up.
Quillan stood and studied the wall of snow by the dim light of the candle. Trying to melt the snow would be futile. And if they didn’t get out soon, they might need to burn the timbers to keep from freezing. What if they pulled the snow inward and pushed it down the shaft? How much would they have to move? And what if it rushed in and covered them?
He turned back and surveyed his father’s mine. Wolf had hewn and timbered these walls. Why? What would he want with a mine? Was it greed, as Leona Shepard claimed, or was he trying to find himself, as Rose suspected? Either way, it had ended tragically, both his parents dying in the flames that left only the burned-out foundation outside.
Outside. Would they ever get out? Quillan paced to the edge of the shaft and back to the wall of snow, to the edge and back again, then stopped as Father Antoine stood up. He looked old. He’d be as old as Wolf would have been or older. Fifty? Sixty? Older?
The priest joined him. “Is it morning?”
Quillan nodded. “I think so.”
Father Antoine carefully tugged each sleeve of his coat at the wrist, then pulled it closed at the neck. His breath formed a cloud. “We need to consider a certain matter of hygiene.”
Quillan glanced at Carina, who had not yet stirred. Now that the priest mentioned it, his own bladder needed attention. “Any ideas?”
Father Antoine shrugged. “We’ve no container, so a space will have to do. Your wife will need privacy. We could hang a blanket.”
The thought was infuriating, that a basic human function would soon make their space unbearable. Trapped and contaminated, like animals. He felt the nerves fuzz up his back and shook his head. “I’m getting us out of here.”
Quillan grabbed a pole and thrust it deeply into the snow outside the opening. Powder still, and something hard. A chunk of ice. But ice wouldn’t pack either. He thrust again and again, harder and harder. Powder flew. He almost lost the pole, pawed frantically at its end and yanked it back.
“Don’t break it.” Father Antoine spoke softly. “Nothing we have is expendable.”
Quillan turned, teeth bared. He threw the pole to the floor with a loud smack, then whama-whama-whama as it rolled to the wall.
Carina jerked her head up. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Her face, still softened by sleep, sent a poignant stab to Quillan’s ribs. He hadn’t meant to wake her. He pressed his palms to the splintered, spongy timbers of the entrance and dropped his forehead to his arms. His chest heaved.
Father Antoine gripped his shoulder. “Be calm. With God all things are possible.”
Quillan tensed. Did he believe or didn’t he? If God was in control, what was his part? He forked his fingers into his hair. He needed air, needed space. The cave. There was more room in the cave below. Thoughts of the spacious cavern set his heart rushing. He turned. “We’ll move down to the cave.”
Carina sat up, pulling the blanket around her. The priest neither moved nor spoke.
Quillan grabbed the candle and held it over the shaft. “There’s more room down there.” He shot the priest a glance. “Room to accommodate needs. I’ll climb up hourly and check the snow.” He hoped no one would argue. He was set on moving them down. If nothing else it gave him something to do.
“How are we for food and light?” The priest gathered his blanket and folded it.
Quillan frowned. “Not as comfortable as I’d like. Two more sandwiches, some dried apples and plums. A dozen candles and a full box of matches.”
“I wonder . . .” Father Antoine hung the blanket over his arm. “Are bats edible?”
Carina missed the humor and shuddered.
Quillan quirked an eyebrow. “Pray that we don’t have to find out.”