When they pulled onto the dirt shoulder and stopped, Lydde saw at last what her uncle had been talking about, what had so upset Aunt Lavinia. She opened the car door and stepped out, scarcely able to breathe. Once there had been mountain after mountain, shedding fog in the morning, soaking up light and turning it to purple and gray and green in the evening. Once there had been mountains higher even than the one on which they now stood. Now there was empty sky. Reluctantly Lydde dropped her eyes, lower, lower, to a vast plain of grass and rock. Where the crest of Fallam had been, past where Black had been, and Droop, stretched a flat featureless scape, dotted here and there by a gray pond. At the near edge a few stunted trees clung to life.
“How big is it?” Lydde whispered when she could speak.
“Four square miles for this one,” Aunt Lavinia said. “And it goes on farther than you can see. They blew apart the mountains and they filled in the streams and hollows. The blasting was terrible. Enough explosives to blow up Manhattan, John told me. All those trees, and the poor animals too.” She shook her head. “They destroyed the groundwater down below, of course, and the people with wells lost those. And the dust—just be glad you weren’t here. White silica dust. It coated everything. The trees around us looked like they’d been sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar.”
“So people left,” Lydde said.
“Bought out by the coal company. Everyone except John. He refused to sell. They weren’t going to cover us up like some of the other places, he said, because we were near the River. So he was hanging on. Besides, before they bought people out they made everyone sign a deed saying they would never live in this county again, not for the rest of their natural lives. John said no one would ever get him to sign such a thing. You know how stubborn he could be.”
“Well, you hung on,” Lydde said, trying to see something good in the situation. “And from the farm you can’t see this.” But you know it’s there, she thought, and it eats at you.
“That’s not all,” said Aunt Lavinia. “I wish it was. But after the blasting was done, after the dust settled, we had an inspector in. The foundation is cracked. Ten, twenty years from now everything will be falling in. I’ll never be able to sell. So I’ll stay, and I reckon the house will outlast me, but just barely.”
Roundbottom Farm. Built in 1840, now on Death Row. With the spring vegetation, it was hidden just then, but Lydde knew where it was, behind a fold of land down and to the left. Farther east, once midway up the mountain and now at the top edge, was the familiar jutting rock of Fallam Point.
“Is Montefalco totally gone?”
“You can walk up there and see,” Aunt Lavinia said. “Myself, I don’t want to go again. The valley fill starts right there where the house was.”
“Valley fill.”
“A nice term for taking what’s left of the top of the mountain and throwing it over the side and covering up the head of Shades o’ Death Creek. The creek floods down below and it never did before. We had water in the house two years ago.”
Lydde sighed. “I guess I’ll have to go look at it just to get an idea of what they’ve done.”
“Oh, you’ll see. If the Devil built a fortress in the middle of your daddy’s land, that’s what it would look like.”
LYDDE didn’t believe in the Devil. But when she had climbed the gravel road above the Mystery Hole, hoping against reality that she would find the foundation again, she thought of the book she had devoured three times in her high school years, The Lord of the Rings. “The land of Mordor,” she said aloud. They were appealing to different literary metaphors, she and Aunt Lavinia, but speaking of the same thing. Blocking her way was a gigantic terrace, a pyramid of obscene size, each level the height of a five-story building. A straight channel lined with rocks cut its way straight down the middle. The new Shades o’ Death Creek. Somewhere beneath that massive pile that Lydde had to crane her neck to glimpse the top of, somewhere beneath it Carlo Falcone had tried to raise goats and pigs and grapevines, and Lydde had lived with her family.
She had been carrying a stick, a talisman of hope, to dig with. She dropped it. Fallam Mountain, old as creation, had found its own grave atop the remains of her family’s pyre.
LYDDE spent a restless night in her old bedroom. The weather was unseasonably cold and she closed her window and piled on the blankets. Still she slept fitfully. At last, when her digital clock glowed 5:30, she gave up and crawled out of bed. Since most of her things were in storage she had little in the way of warm clothes, and after pulling on some jeans she looked around. Aunt Lavinia had kept some of her old things in a chest of drawers, and there she found a gray sweatshirt from her college days emblazoned with the word DUKE in navy blue letters. She pulled it over her head, pleased to find it still fit, though it was no longer fashionably sloppy, and laced up her black Reeboks. She studied herself a moment in the mirror, running her fingers through her short hair, now peppered with gray. Maybe she should get it colored. Her hands looked the oldest part of her, the veins beginning to stand out more than she had noticed before, her knuckles wrinkled and the skin dry.
In Uncle John’s study she grabbed the handwritten directions and the keys and stuffed them into her pocket. In the kitchen she found a flashlight. Then she set out, climbing the winding gravel road to the Mystery Hole. Dawn was graying the world around her. Gauley Mountain, still intact across the way, was wreathed in fog. Below, the River was hidden beneath the ethereal mist that flowed above it like a second current. She was sorry to leave the crisp air for a hole in the ground, but dug the smaller key out of her pocket and let herself in, following the beam of the flashlight.
The air was close, for the Mystery Hole had been closed to tourists for several years. Lydde stood for a moment, playing the light over the walls with their goofy posters, hung sideways for effect, the tourists’ bench bolted to one side, the ramp for rolling balls uphill. The place was weird enough in the dark, weirder still to see everything turned on end, as though she were standing on a wall looking at the ceiling to her right and the floor to her left.
Above was the red door. She should have recalled that when Uncle John stepped from the door, he appeared to be coming from the wall but was in fact entering from the ceiling. He had built a series of discreet hand-and footholds which he used to keep himself from flying into the laps of the seated tourists. So she would have to find them and haul herself up through the door. It took a while. At last she discovered a light switch and flipped it on. Then she could tuck the flashlight in her waistband and use both hands. She found herself marveling that Uncle John had been able to enter and exit with such seeming little effort. He must have practiced for hours to get it right.
Then she was up and in, and pulled the door shut behind her so she wouldn’t fall back down into the main room and break her neck. It took a moment to get her bearings, to relax and let gravity tell her where down was and where to put her feet. The red door had become a trapdoor outlined by the light from the main room below. She flicked on a light switch. A desk and filing cabinet stood in one corner, probably where Uncle John kept his business accounts and props. For some reason Uncle John had tacked a mirror on the wall. There was nothing else except a small passageway opposite. Lydde stepped closer and felt a damp draft that smelled of rock and moss. What had the note said? Go through red door past skeleton. She took a deep breath and edged forward, wielding the flashlight in front of her like a weapon.
She had to bend to fit through the passageway and soon found herself on her knees, scrabbling along on a floor of damp stone. From somewhere in the distance came the plunking sound of water dripping into a still pool. She seemed to be inside the clamshell rock outcropping. The knees of her jeans were soaked through and she stopped to wipe her hands on her hips. Then the beam caught a glint of white. Lydde steadied her shaking hands and aimed the light. There was a rib cage, its shadow magnified on the wall behind it. She nearly dropped the light, then rocked back on her heels, lost her balance, and sat d
own hard.
After a moment she gathered her courage. “It can’t hurt you,” Lydde whispered to herself. “It’s dead. Poor person, poor sad person.” She said a quick prayer, and that helped calm her. Then she moved closer and ran the beam of light over the skeleton’s length. The skull, backbone, and rib cage were intact, though turned slightly on their side. Other bones—arms and legs, perhaps—lay farther away as though scattered by animals, and the pelvis had disappeared entirely. Decayed strips of cloth hung from a few of the ribs. Lydde reached out and touched the top of the skull, pulled her hand back as though the bone were hot, only it was fear that caused her reaction, then touched the skull again, her fingers resting momentarily on the temple. Poor person.
She could see no sign of injury to the skull, and the face seemed composed, none of the openmouthed screams you see on skeletons in horror movies. Someone who merely got sick or hurt, and then died. Alone, in a lonely place. Lydde sighed, and the movement of the flashlight caught a dull glint of metal near the breastbone. She leaned closer and saw the tangle of a necklace among the ribs. Carefully she tugged on the chain, pulled it up to the light and cradled it in the palm of her hand. It was a tarnished silver cross, a Celtic cross. She placed it back in its bony nest.
So she had found the skeleton. She was to go beyond it, and then? For not far beyond the skeleton was a crack in the rock ledge and beyond it a straight drop through space into the Gorge.
Lydde wished with all her heart that the note had been written in Uncle John’s hand. She would have trusted his directions, trusted them with her life. As it was, she should leave, go home to Aunt Lavinia and tell her about the skeleton and call the police, get it a proper burial. Maybe it could be identified, maybe someone had gone missing years ago—
She thought with a shock of her brothers and sisters. No, this didn’t fit. But it seemed they weren’t the only ones who had vanished in the New River Gorge.
Lydde stared at the insistent words on the scrap of parchment. GO ON.
So she did, despite all reason, despite the alarm bells going off in her head as she went on, despite the sudden change in the atmosphere as though all the oxygen had been sucked from the space and all was suddenly colder still and then she felt herself falling. She must have gone too far and hurtled down into the Gorge, only she seemed to be falling up. Then she landed with a jolt and all the breath knocked out of her.
Part Two
Chapter 4
The Arrival
FOR A LONG time Lydde lay still, afraid to move, thinking herself on the edge of the cliff and perhaps in danger of pitching over. She was in a dark place, so dark she blinked her eyes hard to convince herself they were open. With one hand she reached out and felt cold damp stone, as before. And yet everything was different. The odor now was close and musty, with not a breath of fresh air, more like the inside of a closet than a cave.
Cautiously she stretched out her arms and legs, moved them around to test that the ground beneath her was solid. She was lying on a ledge whose depth she couldn’t fathom, so she edged away and raised herself into a kneeling position, then froze in surprise. Her movements had been easy, extraordinarily so, and a strange surge of energy flowed through her limbs. On the other hand, her jeans seemed larger, for they slid down so that the waistband rested easily on top of her hipbone.
For a while she groped for the flashlight, then gave up, realizing she had lost it somewhere along the way. She could make out the faint outline of a door, and light beyond, so she crawled on hands and knees toward it. She stood and again felt the surge of energy. When she took a deep breath, it seemed that her lungs had also gained strength.
The door proved to be locked. Lydde banged and kicked and cried out, then thought of the large key in her back pocket. Feeling with her fingertips, she found an equally large keyhole and soon enough was pulling the door open with a loud creak. She stepped into a dank stone passageway at the foot of a strange set of stairs. She locked the door behind her and climbed up. There she met another door, this one unlocked, and pushed it open.
She was in a church. The light wasn’t good, even though the windows were opaque glass. It seemed either late in the day or especially cloudy, but as she came farther inside she could tell this was a church she had never seen before. She closed her eyes and shook her head. She must have lost her mind, or else she had fallen into a dream, or worse, a coma. But she could pinch herself and feel the pain. She could take deep breaths and smell the church smells of old books and polished wood. When she opened her eyes again she took in what she had only glimpsed before. On all four sides she was surrounded by walls covered with paintings, scenes done in glorious hues, reds, blues, and greens. She turned slowly in a circle. There Mary knelt before a golden angel. Next Jesus pulled a man, part skeleton, still living, from a tomb. Across the way a man on horseback, clad in armor, jousted with a serpent. Above the far doorway Jesus again, enthroned and presiding over two processions of naked people, one group with arms raised in praise, another covering their heads in anguish. A judgment.
Something stirred in Lydde’s memory. Her father, back from his travels when he was feeling unusually talkative, telling of the church he’d seen in Italy, in the village of Montefalco. And she’d heard of such churches in Austria and Germany. But not in West Virginia. And in any case, how on earth had she gotten here, wherever she was, from the Mystery Hole?
What had Uncle John said when he visited her in Norchester?
It’s impossible to explain, so you have to come. That’s the only way.
And something about a physics experiment. She remembered the quote from Hamlet on his wall and whispered it. “‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.’”
Yes, indeed.
There was nothing for it but to go to the door and see what lay beyond. Lydde stepped out into a churchyard like the ones she’d seen in England with their gravestones standing close, inscriptions as faint as if they had been written in water with a stick. But these stones were recently chiseled, their inscriptions clearly visible. She knelt beside a grave newly dug, the grass not yet growing upon it—noticing again how easily she knelt, without any aches—and read.
Thomas Lanckford
Born 8 October 1602
Died 23 August 1657
“Impossible,” she said, so loudly she startled a robin in a nearby hedgerow. She hurried to another tombstone, then another. Each erected in the 1640s or 1650s, each with inscriptions cut deep as though new. In her panic she didn’t wait to search for a gate but clambered easily over the stone wall and found herself in a dusty dirt lane that disappeared into a thick wood. It seemed to be early fall, for there was a bite to the air, and some leaves among the green had turned orange and yellow. She faced in the opposite direction and there in the distance was a walled city. Ambling along the road was an old man herding a small flock of geese.
Lydde froze, not knowing what to do or where to turn. The man, as he drew closer, was eyeing her first with curiosity, then with alarm. He stopped and called to a small brindled dog trailing behind him, which came forward at once, back bristled. Then they stared at one another, Lydde and the old man, each afraid to speak or move. She was noting his clothes, a filthy shirt of rough brown material, a much-patched pair of trousers, and high boots. Then she caught the smell of him.
The gosherd was even more astonished by the outlandish outfit worn by the boy standing in the lane. His pants were of a faded blue fabric such as the man had never seen, his shoes were black and oddly shaped, his formless gray tunic was inscribed with a word in blue letters which the old man could not read, since he was illiterate. He had heard that fairies were garbed most strangely and wondered if he was even now face-to-face with one of the fey folk. Automatically, he crossed himself for protection, then recalled this gesture had been forbidden by the Puritans and looked around guiltily. But the boy, who had an open face with nothing of artifice about it, seemed not to notice, and
in truth he appeared to be frightened. The old man gained his composure first, perhaps because, unlike Lydde, he knew where he was. So he addressed her.
“That is a strange manner of dress, lad.”
Lad. She looked down at herself—blue jeans, black Reeboks, baggy gray Duke sweatshirt. She was wearing a sports bra, and that, plus the heavy fabric of the sweatshirt, concealed her breasts. She put her hand to her head, felt the short hair.
“It is,” she said.
The old man was relieved that the boy’s voice, at least, sounded human or thereabouts, though there was a strange flavor to his speech.
“What are the characters on your blouse?” he asked. “Is it a word of some sort?”
Lydde looked down, then back up, her mouth open. “D-Duke,” she stammered.
“Duke!” He took a step back. “You’re a duke, are you?”
“No, no!” She was winging it, not knowing what best to say. “Not a duke. I—uh, I work for a duke.”
“You work for a duke!” He pondered a moment, still puzzled but inclined to be respectful. “There are few dukes in England just now. They’ve all taken themselves to France with”—he looked around furtively—“you know…” His voice dropped to a whisper. “The King. Or at least, son of him that was the King.”
England? The King? She tried to recall her history. If it was truly 1657 as the gravestone indicated, then it was after the English civil war. King Charles the First would have been defeated by the armies of Parliament and beheaded at Whitehall. And Charles the Second would be waiting in exile in France to return in 1660.
“Tell me.” Lydde took a step toward him and he took a step back. “Who’s in charge now?”
He looked at her as though she’d grown another head. “Why, Oliver Cromwell, of course! Unless you know different.” This was a strange, perhaps heathenish lad after all. “Who are you? Where do you come from, that you ask such a question? And why does your speech have such an odd sound to it?”
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