Down the Throat of the Mountain

by Jennifer Erickson

  But he did know. People always wanted to tell him things, maybe because they figured he had no one to share them with since Mom took off. Maybe because he seemed sympathetic. It was like talking to a grouchy old dog, talking to her dad. So every once in a while Melanie pried something out of him, but not enough.

  She had taken out old mine maps from the county archives, haunted the library. She skipped work to drive her dad's truck up washed out mining roads until she found it. And then, working on a hint from her wild-eyed, bathrobe-clad "grandfather" (she used that term loosely), she got in. Why didn't everyone know? It was so obvious. Long Shot, Colorado was a trap, a prison, as dead end as it got. And she'd found her escape. Or so she had thought.

  Underground, Mel scraped and banged and tumbled. She didn't feel the pain so much as saw it. It was flashy and lurid and exploded in her head like fireworks.

  The world thrummed and roared. She was in the heavy-duty wash cycle until she landed with a crash in a shallow pool. Miraculously, the water roared off without her.

  Melanie dragged herself onto jagged rocks, barfed up a bunch of water and passed out.

  It was silent when she awoke. Stabbing pain shot from her hip. The rest of her body throbbed. Melanie decided that throbbing was her new baseline for pain and it really wasn’t that bad-- kind of like when her dad gave her an affectionate thump on the back or a squeeze of her shoulder. It wasn’t the same as a hug, but it meant well.

  The water had receded, leaving silty puddles and slick stone. She dragged herself through the inky darkness. She must be closer to the source. She must.

  Sweet air breathed out of a narrow fissure. She wriggled into it, upward then downward.

  Melanie sang Christmas carols, pop songs, "Lose Yourself" by Eminem. Hours before, or maybe it had been days, her voice had bounced off the cavern walls and filled it, keeping her company. Now, it was little more than a whisper in her ear. Or maybe it never left her own head. She couldn’t be sure. Sometimes, her heartbeat drowned it out.

  She sang the song about the itsy-bitsy spider going up the water spout. The song had new meaning for her now. It was kind of funny, really. Puffs of rock dust blew up into her nostrils when she exhaled.

  A faint breeze touched her cheek every once in a while. She must be almost there, but her swollen hip was wedged. The pain was a part of her now, no longer surprising or new. She’d given up on strategy and planning. All she had left was rage, to give her the strength to fight her way toward the source of the cave's energy. Nothing could stop her, especially not her own body. She drew another dusty breath and pulled with all her strength.

  She saw the fireworks again. That was how she knew that she didn't exist, not really. If the pain were real, she'd feel it in her body.

  Then she was free, and she willed herself forward. The illusion of her body tagged along, but she didn't care about that any more. She was fog, she was rock, she was the sweet air that wafted toward her. It was all one. She melted into it, through it. And then there was a time that she could move no farther. Or maybe it had always been that way.

  When she started to become solid again, her mind ran away, back to the oneness, where everything was so much easier.

  She drew the sweet air up through her nostrils, plunged through space to become one with it. She was home.

  Don't worry, Dad, she thought. Everything is wonderful.

  Chapter 44

  Five months after Mel's disappearance, Ron rushed down to the cave to verify that her body had been found. After Ron left, Jeff sat alone in his stuffy room, tortured by regret. He slumped into his easy chair, face in his hands.

  The last thing Mel had said to Jeff before she disappeared was, "Thanks for the tip, Gramps!" She mocked him, but Jeff knew he was lucky she talked to him at all.

  In the weeks after Mel disappeared, Jeff had obsessed about that conversation. If only he could remember what he'd said to her, maybe he'd know where she'd gone or what she'd been looking for. But he had no memory of the conversation at all. He'd lived his life so long in a dream, he'd stopped noticing.

  Jeff knew that his granddaughter was entranced by the cave. She took after Jeff in that.

  So he'd taken a break from sculpting and from employee harassment, and when he wasn't giving oracles, he scoured the caverns, all except the one behind Ron's rock wall, the one that came and went. She couldn't be there. There was a wall. And the one other way to get there (from the upper entrance) was, well, fatal. His search had ended there. But still, he wasn't so sure.

  And then, one day, or perhaps it was night, Jeff had lolled on the floor of his underground gallery, head propped on a rock, bringing to shape things he saw in his mind, sculpting little people. People doing things, living lives. And their houses and trees and pets. A miniature community. He liked to imagine he lived there, too, was one of them. A whiff of disintegration disturbed this peaceful game and brought him to his feet. Following the scent he had been drawn to Ron's wall. The wall that protected the Golden Bear and kept Jeff from temptation. He put his palm gently to the cold stone. And then he knew. She had been there all along, and now it was too late.

  Too late. How could it be too late in a timeless place? Perhaps too late was just another way of saying the cycle has begun again.

  The worst part was that only then was Jeff able to recall his last conversation with Melanie.

  He remembered she'd been crowing about the cave's upper entrance. She'd found it on an old mining map from the county archive. It was just a matter of how to break through the bars.

  And he'd told her about Margaret's hidden gate, something she had no business to know. And now she was dead. No wonder he'd blocked it out.

  That was his wake-up call. His alarm. He'd had an alarm once, as a teenager. Every day before school the beeping had woken him with a pounding heart, a jolt of terror, a feeling that nothing good could come of the day. And so he'd stopped using it, started sleeping late. His parents hadn't understood. The vice principal hadn't understood. Was that when things had started to go wrong? When he'd started refusing to live by alarms?

  The day he smelled Melanie, Jeff left the cave for the last time. He'd refused to do any more oracles. He'd showered, shaved, washed his bathrobe. He was cleaning up his act.

  He passed the information to Pete: Melanie was dead in the cave.

  "You're sick," Pete said. "You're an effing whacko! You don't even know what you're talking about!"

  Pete tried to break Jeff's nose. They didn't discuss it again. Jeff hadn't been back to the cave since.

  Chapter 45

  Janie's enthusiasm and newfound self-confidence had waned shortly after she entered the cave to search for Aunt M and Roxy (no surprise there). It didn't help that she'd forgotten to bring a flashlight. This time, she wasn't the only one, however.

  In the darkness, someone blundered past Janie and climbed down into the Crypt. To steady herself, Janie grasped the shaft of the rickety ladder, the ladder she and Roxy had climbed all those weeks before. The hole punch clattered out of her hand.

  "Andrea?" she said. Janie could hear her scuffling around below, in the Crypt. "You can't ignore me forever, you know!" Janie said.

  There was a squeak, a clunk, then silence.

  "Andrea?"

  Nothing. Like magic, she'd vanished.

  Janie was still leaning on the ladder, dumbfounded, when she heard the squeak…clunk again.

  Ron Essing climbed up through the floor of the Crypt like an envoy from the land of the dead.

  He panned his flashlight over her. "What are you doing?" he said, not unkindly.

  "I want to help," she said.

  "Then leave."

  He jostled past her and climbed the ladder. He must have heard her follow him, but he seemed to forget about her after that.

  After a while, he slowed. His flashlight beam bounced around. He dropped to his knees and examined something, then stumbled upright, dry-heaving, and ran toward her. Janie shrank against th
e wall as he blundered away.

  Janie was alone in the darkness again. Decay forced its way up her nose. A step at a time, she groped toward the source of the odor. Her temple itched.

  "Janie, I'm so glad you decided to come after all!" Aunt Margaret's voice echoed in her head like a memory.

  "Aunt M? Where are you?" Janie whispered.

  "This cave is in your blood, Janie. You'll find the way."

  She stepped forward.

  "Where’s Roxy? I thought you were in trouble.”

  “Me? No. But I could use a little…assistance.”

  Janie shuffled sideways into a narrow passage. The odor rammed its way down her throat: the odor of death. "Sorry," she whispered as she stepped on something dead.

  Ahead, she heard overlapping voices. Her head boomed with the beat of her heart. Every stumbling step was a battle against fear.

  The crevice spat her out in another world. A world of beauty and light. A world of flowing white stone. She had heard of caves like that, with stalactites and stalagmites, but she'd never seen one in person. Janie had a moment of lucidity, where she thought, "Cool! The Chamber of Wonders!"

  A fluorescent camping lantern threw rainbows at Janie’s eyes. Just a few feet away, Aunt M leapt on Roxy with a war cry that made Janie's hair stand on end. Once again, Janie was impressed by her aunt's strength. Aunt M grabbed Roxy's arm and wrenched it up behind her, kneed Roxy in the backside. Roxy toppled forward.

  Smash! went a stone formation like a melting ice cream cake.

  Crash! went a formation like a white chocolate fountain.

  Boom, boom, boom went Janie's heart.

  With Roxy in a stranglehold, Aunt Margaret dragged Roxy all the way to Janie. Roxy choked and spluttered.

  Aunt M's breezy voice echoed in Janie's head, totally at odds with the situation. "Oh, Janie. I'm so sorry. I really wanted this to be special. But we've run out of time."

  Aunt M gave Janie an awkward hug, and thrust Roxy into her arms.

  "Take Roxy and leave now."

  "But I'm here to save you!"

  Aunt M laughed. "Good job. Now go."

  Aunt M shoved Janie back the way she had come.

  Behind Janie, the chamber with Aunt M vanished into darkness. The walls seemed to shift. Roxy fought like an angry cat. Janie doggedly dragged her up and out of the mountain, following Aunt M's order, yes, but also her own path, the one that was hers and no one else's.

  Chapter 46

  Andrea's Subaru roared up the street and swerved toward the curb. Pete leapt from the passenger side even before she stopped. He took the steps two at a time and pounded upstairs.

  Andrea drew a calming breath through her nose, let it out with a whoosh. Craned to watch Pete bound away.

  He had been upset. She had stuck to the facts: your daughter is dead, etcetera, etcetera. As if calm and logic could keep the nightmare at bay.

  She picked at her grimy fingernails, thought of the stained coveralls wadded in the back of the car. Her father hadn't killed Mel. He had been far too shocked by Andrea's news. He was a good man, not a murderer. Essentially, (she drew another steadying breath) Andrea had killed Mel: the Mel who had still lived in Pete's mind. The daughter he had imagined might still be alive.

  What to do now? Those gapers hanging out in front of the casino might wonder about her, sitting in her car at the curb (Didn't they have anything better to do?). Andrea needed to make a decision. She should either stay and do something to help or...she could slip away. Opt out of all the recriminations, the repercussions. She didn't know how much more she could take.

  Andrea scanned the street, undecided. Then there was a crash, and Janie hurtled through the glass lobby door and sprawled at the top of the sandstone steps. Roxy tumbled through on top of her.

  Andrea groaned and got out of the car. Andrea had started all of this. She had better finish it.

  Chapter 47

  Pete, Ron and Jeff faced off in Jeff's Spartan room, where just an hour before, Andrea had dropped the bombshell about discovering Pete's daughter's body.

  "Weeks ago, I told you she was down there. I told you and him." Jeff jabbed a finger toward Ron. "Nobody believed me."

  Pete said, "I don't want to hear about it, Dad."

  "If you gave me a little more credit, maybe you would have gone down there and found her." Jeff jutted his chin indignantly.

  "Effing shut up! You're not helping!" Pete had searched the cavern. Jeff damned well knew it. He'd spent days scouring hidden passages. He'd explored every bit of it he could: the Crypt, the Corkscrew, the maze of passages and chambers and hidden tunnels. And with every day he'd felt his grasp on reality slipping until he realized he couldn't go back there any more. He'd climbed through the upper entrance, peered down into the water-filled shaft while his balls crawled up into his stomach. A shiver ran through his body just thinking about it. But Pete hadn't explored the passage behind the wall. Why would he? Even now, he couldn't imagine how Mel had gotten there.

  "I'll help you carry her out." Ron spoke quietly. Pete had almost forgotten about him. "I've got some garbage bags, and--"

  Pete turned on him so quickly, Ron was caught off guard.

  "My daughter," his voice shook, "is not garbage."

  "I meant--well, the body, she's, well...I think you'll see when we get down there that...she's pretty decomposed." He finished with a rush.

  "And you want her out of your cave the easy way, the clean way, is that right?"

  Ron was confused.

  "Cover your ass, pretend it didn't happen, just like usual? What am I supposed to do with her then? Toss her in the dumpster? Bury her out back by the propane tank? Don't you think people might ask questions? Don't you think maybe they should ask questions?" Pete's voice rose to a roar.

  Ron clutched his box of Hefty bags to his chest.

  "She will have paramedics and police and a proper funeral, just like anyone else. She deserves that respect." He wheeled on Jeff. "Yes, respect!"

  "I don't think there's time for that," said Jeff mildly.

  "Effing bloody effing goddamned hell! What now?"

  "Because," he continued, "this is the end of the cycle."

  Ron closed his eyes, said, "Could you be a little more specific?"

  But before Jeff could elaborate, Pete slammed his father into the wall. The hidden panel hinged open, spilling them into the secret stairway behind. Pete sprawled on top of his father, head-first on the spiral staircase and slammed Jeff's skull into the stone steps.

  "The cycle? Fuck the cycle! My daughter is dead, you asshole!"

  "But you might not come back," Jeff croaked. His bathrobe had fallen open, exposing his under shorts.

  Pete got to his feet, bracing himself against the walls of the staircase and towered over his father. "I am so effing sick of your effing prophecies!"

  Jeff lay limp on the stairs, screwed up his face, thinking. "I don't do prophecies any more. I retired weeks ago, as soon as I found out Mel had passed," he said. "This isn't a prophecy. It's just something I know."

  Pete wheeled away from him back into the room and punched the paneled wall, then doubled over, clutching his fist.

  Ron peered down at Jeff from the top of the stairs. His hand strayed to his breast pocket, but there were no cigarettes there.

  "I'm not sure I understand," he said.

  "Did The Sparkler tell you about the surge?"

  "Margaret?"

  Jeff drew a breath. "Did she tell you this is the big one? Can you feel it?" His voice rose. "Did you even wonder why we're going to hell in a hand basket? Did you realize that she planned this all along?"

  Chapter 48

  Andrea flung her car door shut and marched up the steps of Long Shot, Inc. Roxy shrugged away from Janie and bolted back into the building.

  The crowd in front of the casino across the street chatted and sipped highballs and gestured with their cigarettes.

  Jaw clenched, Andrea said, "Janie, get up. You're makin
g a scene."

  Andrea hauled Janie upright by her armpit and tried to pull the shattered door open. It wouldn't budge, so they stepped back through the hole Janie and Roxy had made. Andrea heard chuckles from across the street.

  Andrea dumped Janie into the chair behind the front desk, banged open a drawer and thrust a box of Kleenex at Janie.

  Taking a tissue for herself, she mopped grime from her eyes and said, "What's up with your aunt?"

  Damn Aunt M, Janie thought. She wanted to stay in the cave, she could just do that. "I dunno."

  "She wanted me to find Mel for a reason, Janie. What is it?"

  "Pete's daughter? I thought she died or something."

  Andrea's nostrils compressed.

  "Oh, no!" Janie's eyes widened in horror. "The smell. Oh, God! I stepped on her."

  "Never mind that. What's your aunt's plan?"

  Janie pressed a wad of tissue to a gash in her eyebrow. Why had Aunt M lured Janie in just to send her away again? And why was it so important to take Roxy out with her?

  And what was up with that awkward hug? What was that for?

  Andrea gave up on Janie and started pacing furiously.

  Janie hunched forward and flicked up the hood of her sweatshirt. Something cold tumbled past her cheek and plopped into her lap. Something shiny and gold. Quickly, she palmed it. And suddenly she understood what Aunt M had been doing with that awkward hug. It was reverse pickpocketing.

  The elevator dinged. Jeff and Ron stepped out, and as they strode toward the lobby, Ron hissed, "Does that mean it's opening?"

  Jeff jabbed a finger at Janie and gave her a bug-eyed glower. Then he stepped through the shattered door and strode off.

  Ron wheeled on Janie. "Jeff seems to think you have something to tell me about Margaret."

  "Like what?"

  Ron shouted, "Like what does she want? What more could she possibly want? I gave her everything!"

  Janie shrank back.

  "Janie doesn't know anything," said Andrea.

  But, dammit, this time Janie did know something. And she was sick of Andrea thinking she was a moron. She said, "There's a story, a family story--"

  "About the Golden Bear," Ron cut in.