She thought of piling all the rotted wood together, stacking it carefully in a cross-hatch pattern, hoping that by some miracle of geometry she would be able to climb the pile like a footstool and reach the top of the well. But the wood was soft and rotten and there wasn’t much of it to begin with: it boosted her barely a foot. Her voice was still shot, still coming out in a bare croak, like the throaty wail of a dying frog.
Stretching onto her tiptoes, she managed to get a hand around a root exploding through the rot between stones. Maybe she could climb it, brace her feet against the wall and get some leverage—it would take her only a quarter of the way toward the top, but a quarter of the way was better than nothing.
But here again, she failed. She could barely support her weight with one arm, and her feet slipped as the wood rot crumbled beneath her. She slammed into the wall with a shoulder and dropped on her knees—remembering, at least, to shield her left hand, so she didn’t accidentally put pressure on it.
She sat there, panting, her nose leaking snot into the mud. She was too scared even to cry. She might actually die here. Here, at the bottom of some shitty hundred-year-old well, in a state she didn’t even like. She would die a virgin, alone, unloved.
Funnily enough, it wasn’t Pete she thought of then, or April, or even her mom. It was Lyra, the way she looked when Gemma had last seen her: still fragile but also full of life, something hatching. When Gemma closed her eyes, she could hear Lyra’s voice, whispering to her across a distance.
Gemma, her voice said. Gemma.
Gemma’s heart nearly cracked. She opened her eyes again.
But still she could hear Lyra’s voice, louder now.
“Gemma, Gemma.” And Caelum’s, too, a lower, deeper echo of hers: “Gemma, Gemma.”
She climbed to her feet. She couldn’t quite believe it. They were so distant, she almost feared she really had snapped, and that what she heard was just the transformation of her memory into sound. But no—there was an unfamiliar voice, too, a man’s voice. And how could she remember something she’d never heard?
That meant they were here. Close.
Instantly, she was seized by terror: they wouldn’t hear her. They would leave, like the police had left, and no one would ever think to look for her here again.
The rock was still where she’d dropped it, exhausted, after an hour of banging fruitlessly, hoping someone would come. She picked it up again and slammed it hard against the slick wall, and the noise it made was of an old stone mouth, clicking its tongue in disapproval.
Not loud enough. Was it her imagination, or were the voices receding already?
She banged the stone again and again. Now she was crying, from terror and frustration. How could they not hear? How could they not see? Of course, she hadn’t seen it either: the well was separated from the houses by a hundred yards, and tucked behind a stand of trees.
She thought of throwing something into the air, in case they happened to be looking in her direction. But it was no use. She could barely lob the rock ten feet in the air, much less hope to break through the wood that Calliope had used to conceal the opening.
The well smelled like her own sweat, like a hard panic. She wasn’t imagining it. Lyra’s voice was receding.
They, too, were going away.
She was shaking and burning hot, too. She shook off the wool vest she’d taken from the farmhouse—a sudden vision of the boy, red-faced, enraged, pointing at her, as the wagon crested the swell of the hill, overwhelmed her—and as she did, the cigarettes and the peeling lighter thudded out of one pocket.
Gemma’s breath seized in her throat.
Could she . . . ?
It had been raining on and off all night. The wood was damp, although not as damp as it could have been—Calliope had done her this favor by covering the well.
She bent down. The lighter was cool in her hand. She thumbed a flame to life and was shocked by how vivid it was, how bright against the darkness.
Could she . . . ?
It was risky. It was dangerous. She remembered how quickly the airport bathroom had filled with smoke, how quickly she’d felt she couldn’t breathe. She had no idea how far Lyra and Caelum had traveled already, and whether they’d even see the smoke.
On the other hand, she didn’t know how much longer she’d survive.
And what had Calliope said?
In all the stories, there’s always a fire.
Turn the page to continue reading Gemma’s story. Click here to read Chapter 25 of Lyra’s story.
TWENTY-SIX
AND THEN, WHILE SHE WAS still hesitating, still trying to decide, three gunshots cracked out in the silence.
That settled it. Three gunshots meant a gun and someone to fire it: someone was still near, and she would take her chances that it was someone who would help, and not Calliope or some psycho Amish guy with a rifle from the 1800s. Maybe Lyra and Caelum had even gotten hold of a gun. Maybe they were trying to signal to her.
She hoped and prayed that they weren’t on the wrong side of the bullet.
Either way, she would have to take her chance.
Gemma had never built a fire before—three of the four fireplaces at home were electric and functioned at the push of a button—but she’d watched her mom do it a few times, amused that Kristina had once been a tomboy and had spent her summers camping and hiking and hitchhiking between different beach towns, and amused, too, that Kristina always got so offended when Gemma said she couldn’t imagine it.
Quickly, quickly, before they went away.
She tore handfuls of paper from the old textbook, saying a silent apology to the Book Gods for ruining the binding—and was pleased to find many of the pages at the center very dry. They lit up easily, flaming quickly into little bright universes that soon shriveled and burned up to nothing.
The wood was harder. She discarded all the wettest pieces and wound up with a small pile that she layered on top of a pyramid of crumpled pieces of paper. It would have to do.
She was shocked by how much smoke there was right away: smoke curled off the wood as if being planed by an invisible machine. The chemical smell of ink made her cough. She crouched as low as she could, suddenly very afraid. What if the wood did burn, so well, so quickly she couldn’t control it?
Smoke climbed up the well, rolling from one side to another, like someone rappelling down a cave but in reverse. Gemma tilted her head and gasped with relief: the smoke had sniffed its way to the open air, had begun to trickle through the narrow gaps in the wood and lift toward the trees.
Someone would have to see.
Please, God. Let someone see.
The wood was still smoldering, releasing long tendrils of blue smoke that reminded Gemma of dark hair, that felt like hair in her mouth and in her throat. Her eyes and head hurt. Already, the air was very bad.
Should she put out the fire? Her head hurt so badly, she had trouble thinking through the pain. One more minute. She would wait one more minute.
The wood burst into flame, at last.
Gemma began to cough.
Her head now hurt so badly she couldn’t think of anything at all.
She was very tired and thought, maybe, she should just lie down for a while, down in the mud, where it wasn’t so hot. . . .
Turn the page to continue reading Gemma’s story. Click here to read Chapter 26 of Lyra’s story.
TWENTY-SEVEN