by Holly Hook
"Help!" I yell, rushing into town.
Ned's there by the fire, ready to oversee our dinner. Others sit on the half logs. Jaden's sitting next to Weslie.
“This had better be an emergency,” Ned says. I stop in front of him.
“I think Antoine falling into a hole right out here in the field is an emergency. We need to get him out.”
"There are no holes around Wompitt,” Ned says, approaching me.
"There is now," I say. "He fell down one. If you don't believe me, come and have a look for yourself. Do you have any kind of ladder here?" These people must have figured out how to make rope ladders by now. I look at the log catwalk that lines the inner walls of the town.
There. A rope ladder hangs from it, ready to help the guards up for the night.
"Grab that," Ned barks. Maybe he does believe me after all. “I'll follow you.”
For a few horrible minutes, I wonder how to pull it down, but Weslie climbs it with ease and practice and unhooks it from a couple of logs on the top. She's pale. Worried. We grab the ladder and run out across the field and past a couple of guys who are hauling a log down from the hills. They've cut down a tree. The two guys stop and stare at us.
Weslie gets to the hole first. "Antoine!"
"We're coming," I shout when I catch a glimpse of the hole. I peek down. I still can't see a thing. "You still there?"
"Yes. I don't like it."
"We got the rope ladder. You can climb, right?"
"Of course I can."
Weslie and I go and lower the rope ladder into the pit. It's so dark down there and not even. We have to scrunch up the ladder a bit to get it down. "You still there?" I ask.
"Yeah.”
Ned stands over us, breathing down our backs. I half expect him to push me in, headfirst, and every muscle in my body is tense while I wait. Another snag. Then, at last, the ladder falls the rest of the way in and I have to grab it.
"We got it!" I yell.
"I'm here. You see the ladder?" Weslie asks.
"I do!" he says. "I can reach it if I jump. Here."
He grabs it and the entire ladder about pulls out of my grasp. Weslie grits her teeth as we struggle to keep our grips.
"Hold on!" Weslie shouts. "Climb up." She looks up at Ned for help. He nods and leans down next to us, grabbing the end of the ladder. All three of us are holding it now, ready. I swallow.
There's another jerk on the ladder. "I'm on! Now pull! It's major creepy down here."
We do. This is so much like the time I rescued Pit from that hole. This is so similar. So alike. Pit would understand this completely. I still don't know how he got in that hole out there in the woods to begin with.
I pull. Dig my feet into the ground. Next to me, Ned grits his teeth as Antoine shouts something. "We're almost there, girls," he says. Ned sounds like a sports coach right now rather than a dictator. I'm glad to see a different attitude. "Keep pulling."
We do. The ladder extends over the grass as we pull out the length. And then, there's a hand, reaching for the grass and tearing out a clump of it.
"Man, I wasn't expecting that to end my day," Antoine says, panting and standing up. The end of the ladder flops onto the ground as he drops it. "I'm just glad someone was with me, or I might have been spending the entire night down there."
"What exactly did you fall into?" Ned asks. The demanding tone is back.
"A hole." He shrugs.
"I know that." Ned steps forward and stops at the edge of the hole. He looks down, studying. "I can't see. Did you see anything down there? Was this hole man made? Or Dweller made?"
"Dwellers can't dig," Antoine reminds him.
"You know what I mean," he snaps. I back away. I don't want to be around Ned now, even if he did help get this guy out of the pit. "Man made, with the guidance of Dwellers."
"I don't know. I wasn't going to explore."
"I'm not dismissing the possibility of there being caves under this ground after all, but I need to be certain. We have an entire town here to protect." Ned's turning gray, almost, like he's stretched and tired. "I can't have anything happen to the people here."
"I don't know," Antoine repeats. "I was just focused on getting back up and waiting for these two ladies to get me out."
Ned puts his chin in his hand. "Go and grab your torches," he orders Antoine.
He runs back behind the waterfall and returns a minute later with two of them. "It's scary down there. You sure you want to go down?"
Ned faces us. "I'm sending someone to investigate. I'm too big, or I would do it myself." He faces the hole and then looks at Weslie and I in turn.
Uh, oh.
We look at each other. Weslie's eyes shine with fear in the dying light. The sun behind her touches the cliffs, threatening to cast darkness before we can get back to town.
Ned gets up. Grabs the ladder and heads back towards the hole. "You two," he says, waving us closer. "I need to know what this is. You're going to see if there's some kind of passage or tunnel down there. Don't venture too far in. Then, Antoine and I will pull you guys out of there and you will report to me what you find."
"You can't send these girls down there," Antoine says. He backs away, torches in tow. They cast a dull light on the grass.
Weslie shifts. "Down there?" She's shaking. Nervous. My heart goes out to her. She's spent more time underground than I ever have. Her terror level must be higher.
"Yes." Ned snaps his fingers at Antoine. "I will hold the ladder. We do not have time to go and get someone else.” He faces me. “Remember that you need to prove your worth here."
We're going down there. God.
Ned must still suspect me. Maybe he's sending me because he wants to see if I try to run to the Dwellers or try to drag Weslie away. He's willing to sacrifice her.
My mouth's dry. I open it to say something to Ned, to tell him that it's not a good idea to send someone so inexperienced down there, but I can't. Every muscle in Ned's arms is tense. He's scowling. Watching and waiting for me to protest. If I do, he can easily banish me out here and leave me out here all night for the Dwellers to find.
"What if this is the hole the Dwellers came out of last night?" I ask. It's better than a flat out refusal.
"It could be for all we know," Antoine says. The flames make the air ripple.
"How...how are we supposed to climb down the ladder holding these?" Weslie asks.
"I have to admit that's a very good question," Ned says. "Extinguish them. The two of you climb down first. We'll throw them down to you, and then you'll light them again. We'll toss you down some Flamestone and the chisel that Antoine keeps somewhere. You did bring that, didn't you?"
He nods. "Of course I did. I wouldn't climb down those ladders holding open flames, that's for sure." He looks at Weslie and swallows. “Are you sure you want to send them down there? I don't think it's a good idea.”
Ned snatches the torches from him, throws them on the ground, and rolls them out. Then he points at the hole. It's a lot darker now.
"Now," he orders.
"Hey. There could be Dwellers coming up that tunnel right now," Antoine says. "You're seriously going to send a sixteen year old girl down there to look? Why don't I go instead? I'll go down there. Alone.”
"I can't afford to lose you," Ned says.
Translation: he can afford to lose Weslie and I. We're just the people who milk the cows and pick berries. Anybody can do that.
Weslie stands close to me. She's very quiet. And she's shaking. What happened to her down in the mines, anyway?
She's seen the underside of the Megapede. That might have a lot to do with it.
"I'll go down first," I tell her. "I'll get a torch lit and I'll yell when it's time for you to come down. Sound good?" My heart thuds but I know it's the right thing to do. Weslie's going to have a panic attack down there. I'm not going to fare well myself.
"Hurry," Ned says. "Ladies first."
"More like ladies only,"
Antoine says.
"I need you here to help me lift the ladder once they're on," Ned tells him.
Antoine doesn't protest. He kneels next to Ned, scowling.
I kneel and find the rungs of the rope ladder with my feet. I'm dizzy. Even though this is the opposite of heights, this is the scariest climbing job I've ever done.
I descend.
The smell of earth gets overpowering and for a second, I'm back at the entrance to that stairway that brought me to this world to begin with. I'm back at that crossroads, with danger above and danger below.
The light's gone.
It's all soil, squeezing in and trying to suffocate. I hold my breath. There could be worms right next to me for all I know. And worse things, waiting at the bottom of the unknown. Down, down. Another rope rung. The dirt presses in on me on all sides. Ned's right that he wouldn't be able to fit down here. Antoine must have barely made it. But he was coming up, not down.
At last my feet kick through empty space and hit bottom.
I get off the rope ladder and hold in with one hand just in case Ned decides he wants to lift it up and leave me down here. I reach out for a wall but it's gone. I can breathe now, even though the air is stale and dirty and moist.
"What's down there?" Weslie asks.
I look up. There's a tiny bit of light coming down the hole, but not much. I shudder. This is what Antoine had to stand here and look at while I was running to get help. At least he didn't have a free fall and didn't wind up with a broken ankle or something. It reminds me of that story I read one time about that boy in Italy who slid down that well about two hundred feet and they couldn't rescue him. I had nightmares after I read it two years ago. It was awful.
This must be how he felt before he died.
"I'm coming down," Weslie says. I can still hear the terror in her voice. The rope ladder trembles in my hand. She's scared of the dark. We're a whole town of people scared of the dark, and with good reason. And Ned hasn't thrown down the torches yet.
"It's okay," I say. "Just keep coming. I'm right below you and I'm not dead." I know I sound a bit like a jerk and I take it back. "I mean, I don't hear anything down here, so I think we're good. At least for now." I keep my voice level for her sake. If Weslie hears me breaking down, she's going to break down and we won't be any good here. Ned might punish us for that.
"I've got the ladder," Antoine says. "We won't let you go."
"It's almost dark," Ned says. "Hurry. I'll toss the torches down once you're at the bottom."
Weslie descends slower than I do. She's breathing fast and shallow.
"Weslie," I say. "Take deep breaths. You won't suffocate. There's an opening down here at the bottom."
"Okay." She's hyperventilating.
"You can do it."
And then I feel a moccasin brushing against my arm. Weslie screams.
"It's me!" I say. "It's just me. There's a floor here. You can jump down."
She hesitates and starts to breathe in shallow gasps again. "Okay," she manages at last, and jumps. "We're down!"
"Here come the torches. And the Flamestone," Antoine says.
There's a thump next to us and I kneel, feeling the packed dirt under my feet. I pick up two sticks. They're still warm.
"Here's the rest," Antoine says.
There are more thumps, one heavier than the others. Weslie scrambles around next to me and her elbow goes into my side. "Sorry," she says. "Here it is. We've got to get these lit. I can't stand this anymore."
I find a piece of Flamestone on the floor—at least, I think it's Flamestone—and hold it against the moss of the torch. I hold the Flamestone up against it and Weslie bumps into me. "Here's the chisel," she says. "And the hammer. We might have to put these on the floor, and them light the Flamestone on top of it." She sounds calmer now. There's something besides the dark for her to focus on.
"I'll trust you. You've lit these before."
There's a metallic strike and a spark. A flame bursts to life. I have to squint since my eyes have adjusted to the dark. Weslie's face is shadowy and horrified right above it, but even as the fire spreads over the moss torch, she manages a smile. "I can breathe now, at least," she says. "If you knew...well, I guess I had better light yours. Hand it to me.”
I do.
She touches my torch to hers and it blazes to life. I take it from her, relieved to have some light. If Dwellers run this way, we have some defense.
We hold up our torches as Weslie drops the hammer and chisel on the floor.
We're standing in a tunnel of earth. I turn in a circle. The tunnel extends into the dark, but ends here—right in a wall of gray stone. It's as if the digger has hit a wall of rock here and couldn't proceed any further.
"What do you see?" Ned asks. He's demanding.
"A tunnel!" I shout. I turn around. "It ends here, and it comes from the direction of the hills. I think, at least. I'm down here, so my sense of direction isn't the best."
“Can we come up now?” Weslie asks.
“Let them up.” Antoine sounds just as nervous as us.
"Go down the tunnel and tell me what you see down there. Don't go too far. I want to see what it leads to, and that's all."
Weslie shoots me a look of horror. The fire on her torch blazes and shudders, casting huge shadows on her face. For a second, she looks like a starving girl. A fragile girl who might break if she falls. She will break down here, if I don't stay close.
"Come on," I tell her. "If there were Dwellers, we'd hear them coming from a mile away. So far, nothing. And I don't hear any of those screams, either."
Weslie's quiet. We have to do this, get out, and get inside the walls. Or it won't matter if we're down here in this tunnel or not.
We walk. I go in front, as much as I hate walking into darkness. I look behind me. I can no longer see the gray stone where the tunnel ends. It's all earth down here, packed tight. We must be about ten or fifteen feet under the ground. Not deep enough to see much stone, but not close enough to the surface to see any roots from the grasses. We're in some limbo zone.
"How far does this go?" I ask. We must have walked forty feet into the tunnel by now. I study the floor to see if there are any other footprints in the dirt besides ours. It all looks very smooth like someone has traversed this before. Someone—or something—must have. I stop and lean down.
"What are you doing?" Weslie asks.
"Looking."
I hold the torch close to the floor, searching. Searching for any sign of little clawed feet. Searching for even a human shoe print. Wouldn't a dirt tunnel have collapsed by now? It should have. This must be new.
"Wait," Weslie says. "Check this out."
She holds her torch up and shines it ahead, holding it out in front of her.
I straighten up and I see.
There's a bunch of rocks piled in the tunnel ahead, blocking it off.
“We're safe in here,” I tell her. “Nothing's getting through that.”
I walk up to it, feeling better about our chances of getting out of here tonight. I push on one of the rocks. It's heavy. Only someone strong could move these.
"It looks like someone dug this tunnel, decided it wasn't a good idea, and blocked it off," I say. "Maybe someone in Wompitt dug this a long time ago and forgot about it, and Antoine had the misfortune of falling down here when he stepped on the wrong spot."
"Or someone tried digging in from the outside, realized they couldn't get through that stone, and blocked off this tunnel," Weslie says. She sounds hoarse next to me. She coughs. "We have to tell Ned. It looks like someone's tried to dig right into Wompitt at some point and missed."
My heart constricts. "What if they're still trying to do it?"
"Exactly." She's panicked. Weslie turns and runs back in the direction we came. I follow. I imagine some miners, digging underground for hours and hours and the Dwellers right behind them, ready to spring out and snatch everyone in town right out of their beds. I imagine one of the Fla
mestone Society members poking his or her head out of the ground, seeing that they've come up outside the gates, and cursing the workers for digging in the wrong direction.
But couldn't miners get through stone? They wouldn't have stopped there. It makes no sense.
Weslie's flame stops bobbing ahead. "Let us up!" She's in panic. "We have something to tell you.”
I can see the ladder there. It's still hanging from the narrow opening that I'm not looking forward to squeezing through again.
But I let Weslie go first. She extinguishes her torch and grabs the hammer and chisel. I do the same with mine. Darkness falls again. I wait for Ned to call for me to grab on, and I do.
The trip back up isn't as bad as the one down. I know that there will be people up here and not Dwellers looking for me. I hold my breath through the tightest part of the tunnel and don't dare breathe again until I break into fresh air and dying light. There's a red glow peeking over the cliffs like there's some giant fire taking place hundreds of miles way.
Weslie extends her hand and helps me stand.
"Don't step backwards, whatever you do," Antoine says. I can't believe how relieved he sounds.
But Ned has no thank you for me. He turns and gestures for us to follow, carrying the rope ladder. "Inside," he orders. "We are already late. It's dark enough for the Dwellers to come out now. They could be on their way for all we know."
The four of us run. Torches light on top of the wall that protects Wompitt. Or tries to protect Wompitt. If people are trying to dig into the town, we could all be in major trouble, even if we keep the fires going.
Two guards stand above us and shout something at Ned as we approach. We step over the gate and as soon as I cross, it rises, dumping me on the ground. These people waste no time.
Everyone's sitting down and eating now. There are four empty plates lying on one of the logs and the little girl stands there, waiting. We're too far away to see what everyone's eating. Ned stops and clutches the rope ladder as if it's the reason that hole appeared out there. "What did the two of you see?"
Weslie's shaking. There are crumbs of dirt all over her. She searches around her as if Dwellers are going to pop out any second. I glance at the fence right behind my cabin. There's still a pile of boulders in front of the hole that has yet to be fixed. No Dwellers are going to come through that.