Jillian and Beckett follow me inside. The way is hazy in our pale lights, the air we breathe partially water. I look back and see Beckett, hair frosted with mist, running his hand down the smoothness of a wall. He wants to know how the tunnel was made. I want to Know why it was made. Maybe my ancestors came this way, I think, the people of Canaan, to build my city in the fog and dark.
The tunnel spills us into another cavern that is roaring with falling water. The stone is almost completely black here, like the insides of the city, everything dripping from spray and swirling haze. We’ve found the Torrens again, bigger, faster, more like the Torrens I Know at home, and I see that it’s really two rivers, joined by a waterfall emptying down from above, one of them much colder than the other. The temperature has dropped enough to make me shiver.
And then, where the water eddies around to a shallow pool, I see the boats. Three of them, tied to posts driven into stone, made of treated fern wood, silver-gray in our light, big enough to seat four, maybe five. Much like what we use on the Darkwater beneath the city, only sleeker, slimmer. The boats are half in the pool, half pulled up onto a slanting slab of black rock that disappears beneath the lap of water.
Beckett is already moving toward the nearest boat, but I put out a hand, making him pause. He remembers without me saying it, and puts just a bit of weight into the shallow part of the water. When he discovers the bottom is solid rock, he wades in to the tops of his odd shoes to examine the nearest boat, caressing it with his eyes and his hands. Jillian shakes her head.
“We’re not really taking boats?”
Beckett looks up, stares at the way forward. I see his eyes looking at something that isn’t behind the glasses. “There might be another way,” he says. He gives me a quick glance. “But it could be longer, less direct. I would guess there’s a way for cartage. To haul the boats back.”
And I see that he’s right. There are five mooring posts here and only three boats, and the current of the Torrens is too fast for traveling in more than one direction. The boats must be carried back, and that means these caverns have been used not only to leave the abandoned city, but probably to go to it as well. The danger of walking right into one of the Council suddenly seems very real.
I wade into the cold water and look over the boat in the light of my jar. It’s not new. There’s a change of color in the wood at the waterline that says it’s been sitting like this for a long time. But it isn’t ancient, either. It’s watertight, the rope better than the one I took over the cliff. I look at where the current is moving, whitecapping in the fog. If it was dangerous, they wouldn’t have bothered to bring all these boats down here, would they? Or is the danger that these boats will take us straight into New Canaan? I’ve never seen a boat on the Torrens. The origin of the river in the city is a black stone arch in the Forum, water shooting out like a fountain.
I go back into my mind, moving between the memories. There is Uncle Towlend, the tattered book, the delicate pages, and the red ink. I can’t see the cartage way, though I think Beckett probably can. I leave the map, think back to our steps through the cave, the time that has passed, each pound of my sandal on the dry and dusty plain.
I open my eyes. It’s hard to say how much extra walking up and down we’ve been doing underground. I’m sure I ran the plain faster. That the Council probably did, too. But my best guess is two more days to get to the city if we’re walking. Maybe three. I’m not sure where these boats are going to land, only that it can’t be in the city, and that it will be impossible to meet another person on the way. “We should take the boats,” I say.
Jillian looks at Beckett, defiant, and a kind of silent conversation begins. No matter what Beckett says about not having a partner, he really must know her well for them to understand each other this way. Beckett shrugs, drops the pack from his shoulder into the boat, and with only an instant of hesitation and an abundance of pique, Jillian walks to Beckett’s boat and throws her pack in as well. The conversation, it seems, is over.
I climb into the boat without rocking it much, sitting in front of Jillian. There are no seats, so I cross my legs in the bottom, trying to keep my pack out of the puddle I’ve already made. Beckett opens his pack and pulls out the folded red blanket. “Here,” he says. “It’s waterproof. For your book.”
I have a piece of oiled canvas, which is the only thing that saved it from my jump over the cliffs. But this will be better. “Thank you,” I say without looking at him.
I am in so much danger.
“Samara,” he says, working at the knot of the mooring rope. “How far is it to New Canaan?”
He’s asking the same question I asked myself. And because Beckett is not stupid, it occurs to me that he is never going to enter my city willingly without information. I don’t want to think about this. Or bargains. I cache the problem for later, and just say, “Not yet.”
He accepts this, hands me his light jar, and shoves us away from the shelf of rock, hopping over the side and nearly tipping us. He’s not used to boats, I see. Maybe they don’t have water like this on Earth. As soon as he’s in, I hand him his jar and hold up my own. The boat is turning in the current, toward the main force of the river beyond the reach of my light. There are no oars, no way to steer or paddle. The water is going to take us where it wants now, and there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s scary. And a bit of a thrill.
“Hang on,” Beckett says. I don’t Know what he means, but when I see him put the light between his legs and grip the sides of the boat, I do the same.
We pick up speed, a smooth glide, and then we are in the main current, moving fast through the mist, the river funneling us into another tunnel. The fog thins into wisps and is gone. I smell rain and soil, and for a long time we are a circle of light speeding through darkness, casting shadows against walls of water-smoothed rock. I don’t Know what Beckett sees through the coming dark, but he sits still in front of me, concentrating, hair damp on his neck, Jillian tense and silent behind us. The boat tilts, slapped by a wave, water spraying over the sides, the walls narrow, my hair blows, and the sound of splashing becomes a roar. I clutch my pack tight between my legs. We shoot forward and Beckett yells, “Down!”
I throw myself forward while he throws himself back, and for a moment I think we are airborne, soaring, and then the boat hits water and we tumble around inside it, water drenching us from every side. The wood creaks, and when I open my eyes I am on my stomach and the boat is alive with spilled light, glowworms floating in a shallow pond of water, lighting it like white fire. Beckett is beside me on his back, my face near his chest, Jillian lying on my legs, but when I try to lift my head to see beyond the boat, Beckett pushes it down again. He points up, and I see black rock zooming close above us.