I hear the climbing panic in her voice, how her breathing sharpens into gasps.
“We’re going to be all right,” I say firmly, rubbing her arm more vigorously. “We’re going to get out. Just leave it with me, Cora. OK? We’re going to be fine.”
“How?” she says, sounding more like herself. “What can you possibly do against them?”
I find her scorn comforting. There might be monsters in the world, and we might be in their lair, but Cora Reid still thinks I’m worthless. The whole world hasn’t turned completely upside down.
“I’m going to get us out of here,” I say, with more certainty than I feel. “We need to figure out exactly where we are. Were you awake when they brought you in?”
“No, I fainted. I woke up in here. Did you see anything?”
“No. I passed out too. I hit my head.”
“Where are Gavan and Murren?” she asks.
I can’t think about Gavan, a hard lump forming in my throat when I remember the desperation in his eyes as he reached for me. But Ren might have made it. If he stayed in the kitchen and managed to keep them out, he’ll be alive. He’ll be able to alert the village and tell them what’s happened.
Or he might be dead, like James.
I swallow, fighting to stay calm. “I don’t know.”
“What if the monsters come back?” Cora asks.
“We’ll be long gone,” I lie. Both of us panicking is the last thing we need. “Come on,” I say brusquely. “Let’s see if we can find a way out. Give me your hand so I don’t lose you.”
Cora slips a slim hand in my left, and I stand again, reaching out with my right, feeling blindly. What I need to do is find a wall. If we follow a wall, eventually we’ll find a door, or an opening. And then we can follow that, and so on, until we get out. Easy, I tell myself, pushing down the bubble of fear that threatens to burst and drown me. One step after the other.
I move slowly, hand stretched out before me. I can’t make anything out, the black so perfect and penetrating I can’t imagine ever seeing again. I thought the darkest it could ever get was after blowing out my candle on a moonless night, but this is true darkness.
After a few paces my foot nudges something that gives, and I bend, groping for it. My fingers press against something cold and waxy, and I frown into the darkness, feeling around…
I snatch my hand back with a muffled yelp, staggering into Cora.
“What is it?” she asks, gripping my hand.
I fight to steady myself, pushing down the surge of horror that threatens to overwhelm me. “It’s nothing,” I say. “I just gave myself a fright.”
“Good.” She says it too fast. But for once Cora doesn’t question me, and I’m grateful.
“When you woke up, was anyone else here?” I ask her, trying to keep my whisper as casual as I can.
“I don’t think so. I didn’t hear anyone – I called out, but there was no reply.”
“Was anyone brought in after you?”
“I heard a thud, like something had been thrown in. It must have been you. Unless there’s someone else here. Is there someone else here?”
I ignore her.
Though it’s dark, I close my eyes. I have to know. I have to know if the body I just felt is Ren or Gavan.
“I’m going to let go of your hand for a minute,” I say. “I need to check something.”
“What if you can’t find me again?” Cora says.
“I will. I promise I will. Just stay still.”
I shuffle forward until my toes find the body again. Then I bend slowly and reach out. Swallowing my revulsion and gritting my teeth, I feel for the shoulder and follow it to the neck, trying not to gag at the feeling of the cold, unyielding skin beneath my hands. I force myself to breathe slowly and concentrate on that.
My fingers meet hair, long and soft, and in my mind I see it: red, curling around a finger as its owner gazes at Gavan Stewart.
Poor Hattie.
There’s no point in telling Cora I’ve found her missing best friend; I need her to stay calm. I reach back and take her hand again. “Come on,” I say.
There’s a reason they’ve kept us alive. I just don’t want to think about what it is. I edge past the corpse, keeping Cora behind me. Then we creep on in the dark, taking tiny steps forward, ducking and straightening as the ceiling lowers or allows us more room. When my fingers finally connect with rock, I could cry.
“Cora, I’ve found a wall.”
“Congratulations. But we need a door,” she snaps.
I take a deep breath, counting to five. “So we do. And now we have a wall, we can use that to find one.”
She gives a soft snort, and I bite back a curse and begin to move again, right hand in constant contact with the wall, occasionally dislodging small stones that fall to the ground and make us both freeze at how loud it sounds in the dark. We walk, and walk, and walk, and yet there is no gap.
“How big is this place?” Cora asks, giving voice to my thoughts.
Without light it’s impossible to tell. It could be huge, or it could be tiny and we’re walking in circles; the careful steps we’re taking are so small I have no idea.
“Cora, do you have anything in your pockets? Like a knife?” I ask hopefully.
“I don’t have a knife,” she says wistfully. I hear the soft rustling of cloth as she checks her pockets. “A bit of paper and a pencil,” she adds. “That’s all.”
“Can I have the pencil?”
She places it against the hand I’m holding. From there I take it, and, measuring the height of the wall against my shoulder, I feel around, fingers tracing the rock, until I find a crack. I wedge the pencil in it, hoping it stays.
“Let’s go,” I say.
Instead I count our steps, this time leaning against the wall instead of using my hand to feel it, listening for the sound of the pencil falling, praying that it doesn’t.
One hundred and fifty-two steps later, my shoulder knocks the pencil from the wall and it clatters to the ground with a hollow wooden rattle. And I have my answer.
“There is no door,” I say.
“What?” Cora’s voice is sharp with fear.
“I put your pencil in the wall and I’ve just hit it again. Which means we’ve been walking around in a circle and not found a door.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “Maybe it’s a wee one. Only big enough to crawl through.”
“No,” I say slowly. That doesn’t make sense. She said she heard a thump when I was brought here. I was dropped in.
I look up, seeing nothing. I need to find the body – Hattie – again.
“What are you doing?” Cora asks as I move past her, stepping away from the sides and moving tentatively towards what I think is the centre of the cave.
“Looking for—” I stop as my toes nudge Hattie’s body. Closer than I’d thought. This place is small.
Then I reach up, finding only air above me. Fresh, moving air, I feel it against my fingertips. There is no ceiling here.
“We’re in some kind of hole,” I say. “It can’t be that deep, because neither of us have broken necks.”
“How are we going to get out of a hole?” Cora asks, her voice high with fear.
“We’re going to climb. But first I have to let go of you. I need both hands to feel. I need to find the top.”
“Alva… I …”
“We don’t have time. You’re going to have to trust me,” I say, pulling my hand from hers.
I begin to feel above me, waving my hands back and forth, jumping a little. When I find what I think is an edge, I follow it around, until I can see it in my mind. The hole is about three feet across, in roughly the middle of the chamber. Wide enough to drop a prone body through, and far enough away from the sides to stop us easily climbing out. But not impossible…
“I think I’ve got it. You have a choice. Either you kneel down and I climb on your back to see, or you climb on my back to see.”
“I’
m not kneeling for you.” I can hear the scowl in her voice, and it gives me courage.
“Fine,” I whisper breezily. “You climb up. And if you come face to face with one of the creatures, punch it in the mouth.”
A pause. “I’ll kneel.”
She kneels and I climb on to her back, then fall straight back down again. Balancing is hard enough normally, but without my eyes it’s impossible.
I try again, and again, ignoring her swearing and moaning, snapping at her to hold steady.
Until finally I’m slowly straightening, raising my arms out, then up. When I find the lip of the hole, I dig my fingers into the rock and start to pull myself up.
Only for Cora to wobble, and once again I fall.
“Maybe you should get on my shoulders?” she says, eager now.
“Let’s try.”
She crouches down, taking my hands to guide me, grunting when I slide a leg over her back, settling myself there, fingers knotted together, arms held out to help us balance.
Cora lifts herself slowly, and I feel the breeze on my face.
“Walk forward,” I whisper, more scared now that my voice will carry and bring the creatures to us. “Slowly.”
Cora is struggling under my weight; I can feel her trembling, rocking me back and forth. I have to fight not to tighten my legs around her so I’m not unseated. Slowly, carefully, I shift my weight back, let go of her hands and put my own out in front of me.
When I feel the lip again I move my hands over it, then my elbows. I haul myself up, unhooking my legs from around her.
The moment I try, I realize with terror that I don’t have the strength to pull myself up.
“Help me!” I hiss, and she does, grabbing my legs and pushing them upwards as I dig my fingers into the rock and drag myself out of the hole, scraping the skin on my arms as I do.
I roll on to my back, panting, my shoulders burning from the effort, my forearms stinging.
Moving on to my belly, I inch forward, finding the hole.
“Are you all right?” I call softly down to her.
“Yes. What’s it like up there?”
I look around, but can still see nothing.
“Dark. I can feel a breeze, though. That must mean a way out.” I shuffle forward and reach down. “Grab my hands. I’ll pull you up.”
“No you won’t.” Cora sounds strange. “You can’t. You couldn’t pull yourself up. If you try to pull me up, you’ll end up back down here.”
“Cora, we can try—”
“And what? You land on me and break something and then we’re both stuck. No, thanks. You need to get out and find help,” she says firmly.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Then we’ll both die. And so will everyone in Ormscaula because they won’t know what’s happening.”
“Cora—”
“Every second you’re wasting here is a second closer to me dying in this pit,” Cora spits at me. “Just go and get some proper help.” Her voice is firm. “Please.”
It’s the last bit that gives her away. I hear how brave she’s trying to be. For me. She’s trying to be brave so I’ll go. She’d never normally say please. Not to me. She’s trusting me to do it, and to come back.
“All right,” I say, my heart heavy. “Just hang on.”
“Aye, I’ll wait here,” she says, the faint tremor in her whisper the only sign she’s as petrified as I am. “Nowhere else to be.”
I sit up, turning my back on the hole, facing the breeze. Then I look over my shoulder. I have to tell her about Hattie. I don’t want Cora to stumble across her body.
“There’s something you need to know…”
“I really don’t,” she says. “I don’t plan to move a muscle until help gets here. So I don’t need to know anything. You can tell me everything later.”
My new-found respect for Cora grows.
“I promise I’ll come back,” I say. Then I get on my knees.
I move sideways until I find another wall, then begin to crawl forward. I stay on my knees, partly in the hope that the smaller I am the less attention I’ll draw, and partly because if I come across any more pits in the ground, I’m less likely to topple into one if my body weight is spread. Still, I move slowly, testing every time I put a hand down.
It’s so silent here. So still. And endless. I keep going, and going, and the only thing giving me hope is the cool air, stronger on my face as I move. The fact there’s no sign of light isn’t encouraging, but I put that thought aside, telling myself it might still be night. Instead I concentrate on the breeze. I just have to follow that. That’s all I need to do.
One hand in front of the other. Then a knee. Repeat.
Easy.
The wall comes to an end, and I stop. Bracing my foot against it, I stretch forward and feel around the edge, relieved when I find the tunnel continues on my left, the breeze on my cheek reassuring me.
But when I do the same on the right, I find there’s a passage that way too, and the faintest whisper of air on my face. So which way do I go? Left or right?
The choice is made for me when I hear clicking, echoing from the right. Calling and answering, heading towards me.
It’s enough to send me to my feet, my heart thudding in my chest as sweat prickles across my back, the heat of panic spreading.
They’re close.
Dread wraps me in its fist and squeezes. I stop thinking, stop breathing, stop being quiet and careful. Instead I run.
I have enough sense to keep my hand on the wall, knowing I have one chance. One chance to get out of here and get help. I can’t think about the darkness, or that I don’t know where I’m going, or what might be ahead of me. I know what’s behind me and that’s enough.
My feet pound the rock, and I slip and stumble, the dark so complete it makes my ears ring, but I manage to stay upright, one hand outstretched before me, the other on the wall, following it as I run, my breath too loud.
There’s a bright, beautiful moment when I realize I can no longer hear the clicking sound, and I think I’ve left them behind.
Then one of them screams: a cry of pure rage and hunger that echoes through the caves, making my blood run cold. The bones in my legs turn to liquid and I know with blinding certainty I’m not going to make it.
I’m going to die down here.
TWENTY
Somehow I keep moving, splashing through puddles I can’t see, the water soaking into my skirts and making them heavier. Behind me I hear stones skittering and the thuds of powerful feet gaining on me, more screams further back, as others join the hunt. There’s a stitch under my ribs, my head is throbbing once more, my shoulders still aching from where I pulled myself out of the pit. I’m too weak for this.
When the tunnel turns, it takes me a few seconds to realize, and I almost miss it, veering sharply around.
And I see it. The most beautiful sight in the world.
The soft, safe light of dawn.
I pelt towards it, the shrieks of the things behind me desperate now. I stop feeling the wall and use my arms to drive me forward, pumping them hard as my feet pound the earth.
As I get closer there’s another moment of sheer terror when I realize the tunnel is narrowing, closing in, but I keep going, throwing myself to the ground when it’s too low to run, crawling through the puddles leftover from when the loch must have been high enough to flood these tunnels.
Then I have to get on my belly, elbows digging into the rock for purchase as I wriggle towards freedom.
I’m almost there when something grabs my foot and pulls, dragging me back, but I kick out with the other, viciously glad when it connects and my ankle is freed. I lunge forward again, pulling at the rocks.
My head breaks the entrance, my shoulders following and then the rest of me tumbling out, as if the cave has birthed me.
When I land in the boggy ground I don’t even pause for a breath, pushing myself to my feet and turning.
I see a stark w
hite arm scrabbling for me, and watch as it starts to blacken and burn, before vanishing back into the dark.
The sunlight. We were right. They can’t bear the sun.
It can’t get me.
With that my legs give out, my body exhausted as the last of my adrenaline vanishes, leaving me a weak, shaking mess. But alive. Gloriously, miraculously alive.
I let myself lie there in the mud, the warmth of the sun on my face, but only until my limbs stop trembling. Carefully, I push myself to a crouch, keeping back from the hole, and peer towards it. I think I catch the reflection of light in a set of black, hateful eyes before they vanish.
I want to lie down in the dirt and sleep; I’m so tired the edge of my vision is blurry, every step swaying side to side. But I can’t. Cora is still down there, and I need to get help. So I walk.
I let my brain empty of everything, push all the terrible things I’ve seen and that I know to the back of my mind, locking them away. I think of nothing but putting each foot in front of me. I stop twice to bend to the loch, cupping water in my hands and drinking it, sluicing it over my head to try to soothe the headache there, the coldness of it buying me a few moments of alertness. The sun climbs in the sky, drying the mud and blood on my skirts, making them heavier. I take off the outer ones, discarding them, walking on in my underskirt and blouse.
When I reach the road that leads down the mountain, I pause. I want to go back to my cottage, but I don’t think I have the mettle to face it. I don’t think I’ll survive seeing Gavan, throat torn out on my hall floor. And Ren…
I can’t. I can’t think of it. Even testing the thought of it is too much.
I turn towards the path down the mountain instead.
Once again I’m grateful it’s downhill, and I offer myself up to momentum, allowing it to work with my body as I half-jog, half-stumble along the track. When I round the bend and look on to Ormscaula, I see the lanes are deserted, the square empty. For a moment I’m filled with the frightening conviction there’s no one left alive down there. They’ve all gone, and I’ll be alone in a ghost town, waiting for nightfall when the creatures will come and finish me off.
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