Great and Precious Things

by Rebecca Yarros

  I blinked in confusion. “Rose is with you.”

  Charity moved her sunglasses to the top of her head. “No. She was with me. She said you needed her for some kind of ore hunt with the kids and ran off to find you.”

  Dread filled every cell in my body, and the noise of the crowd faded in my head, only to be replaced by a roaring in my ears. “When?”

  “It must have been an hour ago.” Her eyes flew impossibly wide. “Willow, where is Rose?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered, my head swiveling left to right, searching for her familiar braid.

  “Well, when is the ore hunt? Maybe she’s setting up for it?” Travis asked.

  “There’s no ore hunt.” I looked Charity square in the eye. “I never asked her to help me with it because it doesn’t exist.”

  “Oh God.” She pushed past me and ran for the reconstructed gatehouse that served as a ticket booth and launchpad for the train.

  “She never lies,” I told Travis. “Something is wrong.”

  “Excuse me,” Charity said into the microphone, and her voice blared across the crowd through the speakers Cam and his team had rigged for the event. “Has anyone seen Rose Maylard?”

  The crowd murmured, but no one threw up a hand or answered.

  “Rose?” Charity shouted into the microphone, the panic in her voice grating on my heart like nails on a chalkboard.

  I scanned the crowd again, then looked at the trains…and past the trains.

  “Oh no.” My heart sank. “Tell Charity to wait here,” I ordered Travis. Then I ran into the crowd, pushing my way through the thickest parts until I reached the construction trailers that had been moved to the far end of the cleared space to accommodate the crowd.

  I took the stairs two at a time and flung the door open. Everything looked the same at first glance. But there, above Cam’s desk. No. There sat Cam’s hard hat and my hard hat, but Rose’s was missing.

  I barely felt the ground under my feet as I sprinted from the trailer, jumping the stairs and racing through the crowd, which was now thickest at the steps that led up to the gatehouse.

  “Move,” I ordered as someone blocked my path.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but only—”

  “Shut the hell up and move, Scott!” I screamed at the man who’d been the biggest bully in my class.

  “Willow, sorry, I didn’t see you.”

  I shoved my way past him and ran up the stairs, where Charity stood under my father’s arm. Mom and Travis watched nervously while Cam and Gideon conferred with Xander and Tim Hall.

  “Cam!”

  He looked over at me and immediately came my way.

  “I know where she is.”

  “Where?” Tim Hall demanded, but Cam just watched me, steady and calm.

  “Her hard hat is gone,” I told him.

  His eyes flared wide, and he pivoted to look down the long black tunnel of the mine. “Why would she?”

  “She said something about me having that pin. The one I lost that day. And she was really upset that someone might find it before I did.” My knees weakened. “Cam, I think she’s looking for the ventilation shaft I fell down.”

  He glanced back at the mine, and when everyone burst into questions and demands, he was already gone, already mentally down that shaft.

  “What do we do?” Dad asked Tim Hall.

  “We get search parties going,” Tim answered.

  “How far was the shaft, Willow?” Charity grabbed my arms. “What do you remember?”

  “You were there!” My voice pitched high. “You were with me until you weren’t!”

  “I was eleven,” she whispered. “All I remember was walking so far, and then…it was dark, the batteries died on the lamp—at least that’s what we thought—so we put our hands on the wall of the tunnel and started walking back out. When the headlamp turned back on, you were gone. It was just us. I was eleven, Willow. I don’t remember the rest until Cam found us near the entrance.”

  “I was nine,” I whispered.

  The same age as Rose.

  “Everyone get in the trailer,” Cam ordered. “Gideon, you start rounding up volunteers to search.”

  “How far was that drop?” Dad asked Cam as we walked to the trailer, the crowd parting as we approached. “The shaft you pushed Willow up?”

  “At least fifty feet,” he replied. “I don’t know how she survived it.”

  “You did, too,” I told him as he took my hand.

  “I had a headlamp and could more or less skid my way to the bottom. It was a miracle that all you did was break your nose.”

  We filed into the trailer, and Cam pulled the blueprints of the Rose Rowan onto the drafting table. “We figured the shaft had to be one of these two.” He pointed to the longest ventilation shafts the mine had. They traversed three levels of the mine. “Xander, what do you remember?”

  Xander shook his head as he studied the blueprints. “God, it was so long ago.”

  “You were fourteen!” Charity cried. “That’s older than the rest of us. You have to remember!”

  “I can find her,” Art said as he walked into the trailer with Walt and Nikki at his heels.

  “Dad, not now,” Xander said gently.

  “Tim, get ten search parties of five together if you can. That’s how many hard hats and lamps we have on hand.” Cam looked at the police captain. “Now, Tim!”

  Tim nodded and left.

  “I can find her!” Art declared again.

  “Dad, what do you mean?” Cam asked, moving Travis out of the way so Art could come closer.

  “No one knows that mine like I do. I think I know where she is.” Art looked at the blueprints. “It’s not on the map. Not this one, at least.”

  “Dad, we don’t have time for this. Why don’t you go with Nikki?” Xander urged.

  Art ignored him and pointed to the blueprints. “It should be right there. I know I’ve seen it there on another set.” His forehead puckered. “It’s where the 1880s meets the 1930s.”

  “Dad, those tunnels don’t intersect,” Xander argued.

  “Be quiet. You never wanted to listen to me about the mine when you were younger. I don’t know why you’d start now.” He swiveled to look at Cam. “I can find her. Take me.”

  “No way!” Xander shouted.

  “Take me,” Art demanded, not even bothering to look at Xander.

  “You know what putting him under emotional strain does! He’ll lose it down there, and then you’ll both die.” Xander folded his arms across his chest.

  “Camden, I’m her best hope. There are only four people who have been there.” His brow wrinkled. “Five, when you count Willow.”

  Me. Xander. Charity. Cam. Who was the fifth?

  “I’ll go,” I said, already moving to grab my hard hat and Cam’s.

  “You’re terrified of the mine,” Charity countered, tears silently running down her face.

  “I’m the one who fell down it in the first place,” I told her. “Cam and I are the only ones who have actually been there.”

  “I’ve been there, too. That’s what I’m saying,” Art interjected.

  “Right. And Art.” Which made sense, seeing as he was the expert on the damned mine. “Charity, you have to stay here in case another party brings her back, in case they find her before we do.”

  “Are you sure, Pika?” Cam asked.

  “I’m sure.” I handed his hard hat to him, then put mine on the desk and began to braid my hair.

  “Take me, Cam. I’m the best chance you have at finding that little girl alive.” Art moved directly in front of Cam.

  “You can’t even be sure Rose can find that ventilation shaft! If you couldn’t find it again, then how can she? It was a miracle you stumbled onto Willow back then!” Xander argued.<
br />
  “I told her how to get there,” Art admitted. “It wasn’t on the map I had, either, but I showed her where it should be.”

  “It wasn’t on the map because it’s not there. He’s not going. I forbid it. I’m his guardian.” Xander’s voice rose with each word. “You can’t take him down there!”

  Cam locked eyes with his dad for a long minute, then nodded before stepping up to Xander. There was no physical comparison between the two, and Xander knew it, but Cam had never used it to his advantage before. “Stop me.”

  …

  Ten minutes later, Cam, Art, Gideon, Dad, and I piled into the train. Cam drove us into the mine, speeding faster than we had when Rose had been with us. I kept my eyes peeled for her pale-pink jacket and yellow helmet but came up empty.

  We sliced through the stale air of the tunnel, and I gawked at the difference now that it was lit. We passed the first antechamber we’d stopped at, then made our way past two ventilation shafts and several displays Cam had set up with historically accurate mining equipment.

  We finally stopped, and I marveled that we’d managed to walk this far in all those years ago, if this was really where I’d fallen.

  Cam showed Dad how to work the train so he could take it back for more search parties. “You’re sure about this?” Cam asked me, his hands cupping my face.

  “You won’t let anything happen to me,” I answered. “And I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  He leaned his hat against mine and took a deep breath. “Just promise me you’ll stay close. I almost lost you once in here, and that’s not going to happen again.”

  “I promise.”

  He nodded, but I knew he wasn’t happy about me being down here. Well, that made three of us, if the way my dad was staring at me was any indication.

  “It’s okay, Dad. Go.”

  “I love you. Your coat is too big. Are you going to be warm enough?”

  “I love you, too. And I’m fine. It’s Cam’s.” I didn’t bother arguing the logic of his statement.

  He turned to look at Camden. “You brought her out of this mine once, and I expect you to do it again. Do you understand me? You bring her and Rose out.”

  “What changed your mind?” Cam asked, hefting his pack over his shoulders.

  “When did I realize you didn’t break her nose?” Dad asked.

  Cam nodded.

  “First I pulled her X-rays when you started dating. The break was too symmetrical. Like she’d literally fallen flat on her face or walked into the wall. Then I realized I didn’t need the damned X-rays. Willow is a smart girl, and she would have kicked your ass if you’d hurt her.”

  Cam nodded again, but a smile lifted his lips. He didn’t demand an apology for the last twenty years of my dad being an ass to him; he simply accepted that Dad knew he was wrong.

  I took his hand, and we waved to Dad as he took the track switch and headed back to the mine’s entrance.

  The lights were on, but the smells, the sounds… They were all the same.

  “Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth,” Cam suggested gently as we started walking.

  “This way,” Art said at a random offshoot.

  “Dad…” Cam said. “I don’t remember coming this way or taking any downhill path until I found that shaft.”

  “That’s because you took the long way. I told your little Rose how to find the shortcut.” He sounded like he was slipping into an episode, but his eyes were clear and certain.

  “What shortcut?”

  “It was a ventilation shaft. What did you think it was ventilating? Look, you can trust me or not. I’m telling you it’s this way.” Art turned and started walking.

  “This should be a great story to tell at my funeral,” Gideon muttered.

  “Okay, I guess we’ll trust you,” Cam said, then took my hand and followed his dad.

  “How far do you think it is?” Gideon asked.

  “Probably ten minutes if you stop whining and start walking,” Art chided.

  Cam smiled and shot Gid a knowing look over his shoulder.

  The tunnel narrowed, and we passed the demarcation line of where it had been reinforced. The lighting ended, leaving us with only our headlamps as the tunnel began a steep descent into the mountain. The beams that supported the sides and roof were mostly intact, but there were a couple I had to climb over.

  “Here’s where it starts to get sporty,” Art said with a grin.

  Starts? I sucked a deep breath in through my nose and out through my mouth, then trudged on into my personal hell, praying we’d find Rose in time…or at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Camden

  We trudged down a tunnel so narrow, I could have touched both sides if I stretched my arms wide. The grade was steep, and bits of loose gravel slid where we stepped, but at least the floor was dry.

  “Dad, are you sure this is the way?” I asked, my fear growing every minute that his mind would slip.

  “I’m as sure as I can be. I know today is July fourth, you’re Camden, and you’re holding on pretty damn tight to Willow Bradley, so I’m lucid, if that’s what you’re asking.” He didn’t even look back, just kept moving down the dirt-covered floor.

  Willow tightened her grip on my hand, but the tunnel became too narrow to walk side by side, and she had to fall behind me. I hated not being able to see her, but I wasn’t going to let her walk across any ground my weight hadn’t tested this far into the mine.

  The air stirred from ahead, and Dad’s light bounced as he nodded. “See?” He pointed to the tunnel that appeared on our right as the path leveled out and widened into another large chamber. “This is an offshoot of one of the 1930s.”

  “It’s not on any of the maps,” I said to myself as I took in the expansive tunnel and its sturdy beams. To the left were dozens of smaller chambers, some with wooden half walls, trimmed and topped with vertical iron bars and swinging doors made of the same, and some barren, left from exploratory blasts.

  “I know it’s on at least one map,” Dad replied. “I just can’t remember where it is.” He touched his forehead. “I thought I gave it to you, but that can’t be right.”

  Apprehension landed in my stomach like a brick. “Dad, are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Of course. I’m fine.” But the lines in his forehead told me otherwise.

  “How deep do you think we are?” Gideon asked.

  “Sublevel three,” Dad declared, his headlamp illuminating the expanse of wall that was dotted with mined alcoves stretching as far as the light could reach on either side as the chamber narrowed to two tunnels that ran to either side. “Found a vein down here that wasn’t worth much, but something was better than nothing. But the miners needed air.”

  His headlamp shone right, then left. Where the hell did we go from here?

  “Them and me both,” Gideon said, walking past my dad and following the curve of the tunnel.

  “Are you okay?” I asked Willow, noting that the rise and fall of her chest had increased.

  “I just want to start screaming her name.”

  “I’d hold off on that,” Gideon said, shining his light on a rubble pile in the back left of the chamber. “The entire thing is caved in over there.”

  “Been like that for years,” Dad muttered. “Don’t just stand there—start looking. Don’t go moving rocks around or causing another cave-in.”

  “Left or right?” Gideon asked.

  My throat tightened.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Dad stated, his headlamp swaying as he shook his head. “It’s a fifty-fifty shot. Pick one and start looking.”

  “It matters,” I countered as Willow slipped her hand into mine.

  “Split up but stay in this section,” Dad ordered. “We can search twice as fast.”

  L
eft or right? There was no obvious choice as I looked both ways. It was a coin-flip dilemma.

  “Left,” Willow said, her lamp shining on the barred chambers.

  “You sure?” I asked.

  “Left,” she repeated, quieter this time.

  “We’ll take the right,” Dad announced and walked off with Gideon on his heels.

  The first alcove was empty, save a wooden desk and a flat, raised surface that must have served as some kind of bed.

  “Cam,” Willow whispered as her hands ran over the iron bars. “I remember this.”

  “You’re sure?” I asked, but the way her face drained of blood told me she was certain.

  She nodded. “The shadows from the bars, then darkness. Charity shrieking. Xander saying to keep calm…then I fell…” Her voice trailed off as she left the chamber, and I followed her into the next one, this one lined with shelves and an array of dust-covered canned goods. “I hit so hard. God, it still smells the same down here. It’s not this one,” Willow declared, and I got the hell out of her way as she pushed by me. “Or this one,” she said at the next and the next.

  “We found the shaft!” Gideon called out loud enough to make me cringe. Did I think shouting would bring a cave-in? No. Was I sure? Also no.

  Still, relief barreled through me. But…wait. Wouldn’t Rose have called out if she’d heard them? God, what if she wasn’t even here? There were miles and miles of tunnels in this place. What if she’d stumbled into bad air?

  “Stop,” Willow whispered, stepping farther into the chamber.

  “Willow, they found it.” I held out my hand, already focused on heading toward Gid and Dad.

  “It’s a door.” She looked over her shoulder. “Cam, it’s a door!”

  Ignoring the logic in my brain screaming at me to get to the shaft with Dad, I moved farther back into the chamber to see Willow tug open a rusted iron door. It swung clear of the floor, and my heart stopped as she stepped through the doorway.

  “Rose!” Willow cried.

  I jumped over a fallen beam and caught the heavy door before it shut.

  “It won’t open from this side!” Rose wailed, and I nearly let go out of sheer surprise and knee-weakening relief.