“Mom?” Ruthie called, moving forward, gun raised as she kept one eye on the dark passageway.
Her mother didn’t turn around. Didn’t speak. Ruthie held her breath as she approached. Her mother appeared to be twitching, wriggling, having some sort of seizure there in the chair. She reminded Ruthie of a woman being tugged at by invisible strings.
Ruthie froze, suddenly afraid that maybe this wasn’t her mother at all—that she would turn her head at any moment and have the gray face of an alien or some hideous, pale underground monster.
“Mom?” she said again, her voice shaky and hesitant now. She forced herself to keep walking, on rubbery legs, first one step, then another.
It was only when she got close that Ruthie understood: her mother was tied to the chair and had a scarf gagging her mouth. Her hair was disheveled, her clothes were rumpled and filthy, but her eyes were alert, and she looked uninjured.
“Mom!” Ruthie exclaimed. “Hang on, I’ll get you out of this.” She set the gun down on the table and went to work untying the scarf.
“Who did this to you?” she asked once the scarf was off. “How’d you get here?” Ruthie began to work on the rough hemp rope that bound her mother to the chair.
“Shh,” her mother hissed in a warning voice. “We’ve got to be quiet. And we’ve got to get out of here. Now.”
“Mommy,” Fawn cried, leaping out of the shadows and throwing her small arms around her mother, burying her face in her chest.
Mom’s face was tight with worry. She looked at Ruthie and said, “You shouldn’t have brought her here.”
“I know—it’s complicated,” Ruthie said.
“Never mind,” Mom said. “Just untie me. We’ve got to get out of here.”
Ruthie was getting nowhere trying to untie the complicated knots in the thick rope. She grabbed the small Boy Scout knife she’d shoved into her pack and began sawing at the rope with the dull blade.
“Hurry,” her mother whispered urgently. “I think she’s coming back.”
“Who?” Ruthie asked.
Ruthie listened. Yes, there were footsteps coming down the tunnel they’d just passed through. Someone was moving in their direction.
“Ruthie,” Mom said, her face twisted in panic, “never mind me. You’ve got to take your sister and go. Follow the other passage, and run. Now!”
“No,” Ruthie said flatly, “we’re not leaving you. I wriggled into this pit of hell to find you; I’m not leaving you behind now.”
Through the fear, she saw something else in her mother’s face—something softer. Pride, Ruthie realized.
Ruthie stopped working on the rope and grabbed the gun, holding it in both hands like she’d seen in movies, pointing it at the passageway behind her mother’s back, even though her arms shook. The footsteps were now louder, closer, and they could hear someone breathing hard and heavy.
“The gun won’t help,” her mom said quietly, sounding almost resigned to whatever fate they faced. Fawn was at her feet now; she’d picked up the little knife and was cutting desperately at the rope.
Ruthie didn’t have time to ask why the gun wouldn’t help.
A figure burst into the room—a blur of movement with a clatter of footsteps and heavy breathing. Ruthie took a deep breath and was about to squeeze the trigger when she recognized the runner.
“Katherine!” Ruthie said, lowering the gun. Katherine’s hands were bloody; her face was sweaty and panicked. “What happened?”
“Something’s coming,” Katherine panted, terrified.
Something, Ruthie thought. She said, Something.
Fawn sawed through the last fibers of the rope.
“Come on,” Ruthie’s mother said, as she shook off the ropes and stood up. “I know a way out.”
From somewhere close by—it was impossible to tell from which direction—they heard a scream.
Candace, Ruthie thought. Something’s got Candace.
Sara
September 23, 1910
The winter people, Gertie calls us, though I myself am still living. But we exist outside the known world, on the fringe. And, truth be told, I feel I am little more than a phantom.
Gertie is still not able to speak, but will, on occasion, spell out words in my hand. If I close my eyes, she’ll come out of the shadows, sit by my side, and take my hand. Her fingers are as cold as icicles, and I cannot help cringing a little each time she touches me.
“H-U-N-G-R-Y,” she spells, and I tell her she needs to wait. “When it gets dark, I’ll go see what I can find.”
Sometimes her touch is so light I’m not sure she’s there at all.
We have made ourselves a home in the cave, the same network of caverns and tunnels I went to over two years ago now, when I first decided to bring Gertie back.