“It’s all right,” I say. “They came to help us.” I feel Seeri and Pek beside me—I feel them flinch as I say that Noni can trust even Morsk.
And something about their reactions makes me flinch, too. I don’t want to admit it, but their doubts are making me doubt, too. Could they be right? Could it be that I’ve been foolish to trust Morsk, just because my brother did?
But if Morsk was hoping to help the Bosha find us, why would he have carried Kol to the top of this cliff?
“You can trust all of them to help you,” I say, trying to believe my own words.
“And what about them?” Noni asks. She lifts her hand to point to the other end of the lake.
I don’t need to turn my head to know who’s there. I knew they would come. As soon as Lees let out her cry, I knew.
I turn, and there they are. Dora and Anki. Standing in the very place I stood when Lees called out my name.
EIGHTEEN
I usher everyone back from the ledge, hoping we haven’t been spotted yet.
“Why are they here?” Lees asks, her hand rising to her mouth. The look of fear on her face tells me she already knows.
“We need to stay ahead of them.” I don’t offer any more of an answer, and Lees doesn’t ask. “Where’s the cave you’re so excited about?”
Standing here on this shelf of rock—a flat plateau that stretches only twenty paces before a higher cliff springs up behind it—I see no openings in the walls. Rivulets of water crisscross the stone—offshoots of the stream that feeds the falls—but these all meander through grooves they’ve dug in the rock, dropping over the edge or snaking into crags. But nowhere do I see an opening we could walk through.
Then Lees sits down on the stone we all stand on, and slides her feet into what I thought was a depression in the rock.
And disappears.
Running to the place she just stood, I see what I couldn’t see before. What I’d thought was a depression is actually the entrance to an underground cavern. Looking through the opening, I can see Lees standing on the floor of the cave below.
“How big is it in there?” I ask. “Will we all fit?”
“Twice as many would fit,” Lees calls back. She climbs halfway out again, clinging to a few protruding nobs of stone that serve as toeholds, lifting her head and shoulders out of the hole. Her smile beams.
“Good work,” I say. “We’re coming down.”
The opening is narrow, requiring some twisting and turning, but Seeri and Noni get through with little trouble. Morsk and Pek still stand over Kol, who is stretched out on the stone in the exact place Morsk set him down. I squat beside him. His eyes are closed as if he’s sleeping. He doesn’t stir. My heart sinks in my chest.
“What if I lifted his feet and Morsk lifted his shoulders?” I say. “Pek, you could go down first. Maybe you and Seeri could help take his weight from us—together we should be able to set him on the floor of the cave without letting him fall.”
Pek’s eyes scan Morsk’s face. Distrust hardens his mouth and jaw, but he nods. “Be careful with him, Mya,” he says. At first I think he means Kol—be careful lifting him—but then I realize he means Morsk. As he drops down into the hole in the rock, he throws one more watchful glance back at him.
“Don’t worry,” Morsk says, “I won’t let him fall.”
Kol never opens his eyes as we transfer him through the opening into the cave. I’m the last to go through after Morsk, climbing down out of a windy world bright with sun, into a still, dim space.
I don’t know what I had imagined, but I never imagined this. I stand in a small room with curved walls of rounded rock, as if it had been carved to serve as a drinking cup for the Divine. The ceiling is high enough that we can all stand at our full heights—even Morsk. The floor is pitted and pocked, carved by water that runs down the walls and trickles into several small waterways that flow farther underground, disappearing into the dark. It’s cold down here. On the surface, I’d thought my clothes were nearly dry. The hides had shed most of the water, and they’d warmed so much in the sun. But here, in this damp, dark place, my clothes feel chilled and wet against my skin.
“Well, we’re hidden. That’s certain,” I say. My voice, not even a whisper, but a breath of a whisper, fills the room and reverberates around me. I take a tentative step downhill, following the flow of water deeper into the ground. “How far have you followed it?” I ask Noni and Lees. “Do you know where it goes?”
“Not to the end. It narrows into a passageway you have to crawl through. Lees and I went all the way down to a tight corner, and even followed it around the turn. It leads to another space a lot like this one—one lit by a sinkhole that opens to the surface. As you crawl along you can hear water, like the creek might be running right overhead,” Noni says.
I take this in. I remember hearing the creek right before I first saw the bear this morning. I wasn’t far in from the cliffs that overlook the sea. If we could crawl that far through the dark—all the way back to the cliffs above the sea—we might be able to get back to the beach and to the boats without being seen by Dora and Anki, or Thern and Pada, or whoever else might be out there stalking us.
But before we try crawling that far, we have other things to worry about. I crouch beside Kol where Pek and Seeri placed him on the floor of the cave, and his eyes flip open.
“That was a terrifying trip to the top.” A twitch flickers across his lips—an attempt at a smile? If it is, the attempt fails, as his lips twist into a grimace.
“You were awake?” I glance up at Morsk, who looks away. “I thought you were out. I thought maybe—”
“No, I was all too aware,” he says. “I’m still alert. Just terrible at walking. Even worse at climbing.”
He laughs a bit at his own words, but no one else makes a sound. Noni drops down beside him across from me. “If you could let me go outside, there’s feverweed near the lake. I saw a whole patch of it. If he chewed it—”
“No,” I say. Kol’s eyelids, which had already dropped shut, flip open again. I touch his hand. It’s scalding and dry. His eyes are clouded with fever. “Not yet,” I say, squeezing Kol’s hand. “Once we know we’re safe—that they didn’t follow—then I’ll let you go.”
But even as I say these words, I don’t know that I could really ever take that chance. Could I risk the welfare of the whole group to get a plant I hope will help Kol? Maybe if they all pressed on, if they all got through to the beach, maybe I could get to the lake and gather some feverweed myself? “Noni, is there feverweed near the beach?”
“On the cliffs there’s lots of it . . . more than here.”
“And can we all get through the opening—the space we need to crawl through?” I stare into the dark, imagining the trickle of water I hear running into another tall, well-lit room. Still, I hear nothing but the echo of close rock and I see nothing but blackness.