It’s so dark, I can see Kol and Lees only as shadows. Every small sound hits me like a clap of thunder. I thread my arms through the opening. The floor of the passageway is lower than the floor I kneel on, and I tumble forward onto my hands. Lees catches me around the shoulders and I slump onto the stone floor. The thud of my hip is echoed by a low yowl from Black Dog.
“It’s all right, boy.” Noni’s voice is soft and reassuring. “We’re going to get out of here soon.” The dog settles and quiets, and I try to settle too. My pulse hammers in my temples and my thoughts race, but I push those things away.
It’s so quiet and still, and the walls of rock are so close around all of us, even Noni’s hand stroking Black Dog’s fur makes a sound. Shh . . . shh . . . shh.
My eyes have adjusted to the hazy light. We’re in a narrow tunnel of rock. The sides curve and wrap above our heads, rounded and smooth like the inside of a hollowed-out bone. I can feel where flows of water have seeped in and dug channels into the rock—some wide, others narrow. In places, thin trickles still ripple along. A drip . . . drip . . . drip . . . reverberates, faint but persistent, lending us a faltering heartbeat.
The ceiling is too low to stand, but there’s room to crawl—or slide, as Kol will need to do. The dog whines, and his voice sounds like my soul feels. We need to get moving.
“Noni, are you ready to lead us out?”
Her only reply is the shuffle of her pants along the floor, her quiet whisper of assurance to Black Dog. She slides away. I can barely distinguish her outline as she reaches a spot in the passageway that dims. She twists her shoulders and disappears around a tight turn.
I gulp in a sharp, quick breath. How will Kol maneuver that bend in the rock? I say nothing. First we need to get him that far.
In front of us, Pek, Seeri, Morsk, and Lees all follow Noni and Black Dog, disappearing out of view. Kol and I draw closer to the turn, creeping along as he slides slowly on his back, pushing off again and again with his right foot. His eyes are on the rock above our heads—he hasn’t seen the turn yet. But I’m sure he remembers what Noni described, and the sound each person makes as they pass through—grunts and groans mixed with the scrape of elbows and knees against rock—leaves little doubt of what’s ahead.
When his shoulders finally touch the wall—when he can go no farther without contorting and curving to follow the bend—he looks back at me. The light filtering in from beyond the turn illuminates the right side of his face like the glow from a dying fire. He squints at me, as if trying to read my face.
“And now?”
“Like you did back there. You’ll need to thread your arms through first. Then your shoulders. Twist your upper body through, then let your hips follow—”
“Pull my hips through. Like escaping a capsized kayak.”
I think for a moment. “Yes. Like that.”
A long, rippling sigh pours out through his lips. “And you’ll be right behind me?”
“Of course.”
“All right then.”
The yellow glow of light shrinks to a dull gray haze when his body begins to slide through, filling the narrow space. His head and shoulders disappear, and then I hear his voice. “It’s wider in here,” he says. “It’s another room, but smaller than the first one. It’s a bulge in the passageway—like a mouse passing through a snake.”
I bite my lips, suppressing a smile. “Thanks, but I’d rather not think of it that way,” I say.
Kol’s body rolls over, until he’s lying on his right hip. Then his belt, hips, thighs all slide through. When his feet disappear, I know it’s my turn.
Looking around the corner, I see the open room with its higher ceiling and wider floor. Beyond Kol, Noni and the dog huddle against a small opening that I hope leads to the outside.
But I doubt it. If we were that close, sounds would filter in—gulls and wind—and the light would be brighter. If we were that close, Noni wouldn’t be able to keep the dog from running out. “How much farther?” I ask, calling as I take my first crawling step around the turn.
“Not too far. Ten paces . . . maybe twelve.”
“Then start through. Just be careful. Let Seeri go first. She can be sure it’s clear before she climbs out onto the ground. But don’t wait. I’m almost there.”
I try to crawl another few steps forward, but I have to stop. My hips won’t fit. I slide back a half step, sitting back on my heels. I notice Kol’s eyes on me. It feels wrong to go backward—to go away from the only way out—but I have no choice. I slide back until only my head and shoulders are on Kol’s side of the turn. I twist. I angle my torso to slide forward again.
Now I’ve found the right position. Now I can slide my body through. I reach with my left hand to crawl forward, but all at once the ground drops away.
Everything shudders—the walls, the ceiling, the floor as it crumbles and caves into black space. I feel Kol’s feet fall against my hands as they tumble into the ever-widening hole that opens where the ground just was.
Black Dog howls, and Noni screams, but both voices sound muted and far above us. The light goes out, then returns, as a new gap in the rock opens over our heads. Sunlight pours in, and with it, water.
We must be right at the edge of the creek. The gap in the ground above us becomes the lip of a waterfall as a torrent splashes against the folded and crumpled rock.
“Go!” I snap. “All of you—get out before the water rises.”
And they go. I can’t see them—the quake has broken this room away from the passageway—but I hear them moving, shuffling along the stone, the sound fading as they draw farther away.
But Kol doesn’t move, and neither do I. Instead he lunges forward from where he sits, splashing his hands into the water and clawing at the floor.
My arms and his legs are already submerged—hidden under dark water—but I don’t need to see them to know. The pressure of the rock digging into my wrists tells me. The way Kol frantically claws at the ground beneath the water tells me.
The shifting rock has pinned us both in place.
And the water is rising fast.
TWENTY
The sun reflects off the moving surface, throwing a rippling pattern of gold against the walls. Interwoven lines of light shimmer and glow like a golden spiderweb. I crane my neck and twist in place, both hands wedged tight between rocks that fell with such force, they feel like they have always been here.
Like they will never move again.
The ceiling overhead is broken open to the ground, and above it, a clear blue sky. Tall grass clings to a strip of dirt that hangs into the gap above our heads, like a torn hide in the roof of a hut.
This same gap that lets in the sky lets in the creek. Water splashes over the lip, filling our room of stone.
I lie facedown, my weight on my wrists and elbows, as cold water creeps up to my chest and over my shoulders. I struggle, trying to stay calm. Trying and failing as I thrash harder and faster in the deepening water.