The Down Below

by matthew lewis

  Part 5

  Miracles

  Were she older, Milly would not have understood any of it, perhaps blaming it all on aliens or even god. Children know things others do not, dreaming different dreams, and she could tell that it was something there, in the middle of the ravine, making contact. Many would have found this disconcerting, fleeing and never looking back, but she was different.

  She needed to know what it was that had quite possibly saved her life.

  After spending most of the day doing some experimentation, it slowly dawned on her that it was the falling food that had done it, that she had somehow traded those scraps of bread and tiny pinches of meat with something that gave back health. It came to her almost as an afterthought, thinking back to the motion and the deeds beforehand, the assumption needing proof, Milly needing to know, casting tiny flecks of bread into the hole to see what transpired.

  At first nothing happened because she only threw in food. She just stood there, looking down, hoping for favors but noticing no changes. When she asked for it to do something, it had not been fruitful either.

  Move that rock for me. No luck.

  Turn the grass into Cola. Nothing.

  When she thought more on it, wishing for proof, she saw the rock jump in the air and float for a moment, touching down on the ground like some strangely spoken Hello.

  Wishes. That's how it works.

  Ecstatic, Milly threw the remains of her lunch into the hole, thanking whatever stood in the depths for everything it had done, telling it that she would be back soon with more for it to eat.

  Real life suppositions on what might transpire if something odd was encountered began that day, continuing on throughout several weeks, Milly wandering the countryside and back each and every sunrise, walking to the hole with anything she could carry. Her grandparents asked her what she was out there doing , why she looked so cheerful, if she were being careful, if she was out with Petey. She told them she was just happy to be here, that Petey was a distant memory, that she loved being around them. They smiled and left it with that, allowing her to roam, so she did just that, packing heavily, telling her grandparents that she was off to explore.

  Snacks, she carried so many snacks.

  A bologna sandwich thick with mayonnaise and a whole rotisserie chicken were the first things forced down below as she attempted to understand the ravine's prowess. A packets of cookies and a jumbo sized bag of chips were thrown somewhere into the depths that same day, topped off by a bag of popcorn. She heard rustling and sometimes grinding, the snapping and cracking of bones coming from the darkness, motions that sounded like a mountain with legs dancing down below. She contemplated attaching a camera to a rope to look before dismissing the notion, afraid of the repercussions.

  It might leave, she told herself, or grow mad and do something terrible.

  There was no need to offend something that seemed to be able to do almost anything , the what seemingly dependant on just how difficult it would be to obtain and just how much she offered as payment.

  Milly tried to establish how things worked, wanting to understand how to ask it to do things like it had with the rock, understanding the idea of wishing but finding the notion troublesome. Asking for something and truly wanting it were totally different concepts, and the thing only seemed to understand the language of need. This meant asking for something by attaching the notion of wishing simply did not work. She truly had to want it.

  The first item she truly wished for was a new pair of shoes.

  She had not meant to, simply thinking to herself that hers were old, clutching at her feet, but the way she thought it, standing by that crevice while rubbing her toes, denoted something truly wanted and not just asked for to prove a point.

  That was the requirement, she found out later, just as she found that things were not so straightforward as items appearing directly in front of her.

  Going home after she had thought of the shoes, she wondered if she had done something wrong, why nothing she did worked, only to find a pair of shoes waiting by her bed the next day. Her grandparents told her they were a gift, giving her the exact pair she had been longing for, a purchase they could not recall making.

  Milly carried the hole a steak that afternoon, wanting to thank it for the most comfortable footwear a girl could own.

  Another time Milly asked it for a fortune, thinking how she could possibly use money to keep in touch with her mother. She loved being at her grandparents but the cost of phoning cost a fortune, her grandparents limiting contact because they simply could not afford it. This caused her to think of a cellular phone and the last bill she had seen her mother pay.

  As she walked around outside her grandparent's house that afternoon, she saw something shiny sticking out of a stump. Walking closer, she found quarters, piles and piles of them, almost two hundred dollars worth crammed into a stump outside her bedroom, left by some unnamed party for what seemed like years.

  Milly tried other, more unattainable wishes, asking for her grandparents to have perfect health and youth for as long as they wanted. This did not seem to work. Neither did asking for things that did not exist, like superpowers or imagined technology, no time machines suddenly appearing or terminators to carry her bags.

  She started to understand that the size of the miracle seemed dependent on more than just her imagination; the larger the thing envisioned, the larger the meal had to be. She wondered, if fed enough, whether the thing would be able to accomplish anything, even notions she considered impossible.

  For part of a snack and a few pieces of bread, she had been given the boon of footwear, and for a few cold cuts she had been granted currency. A bag of chips made fifteen stones rise in the air, and a package of cookies had given her a revitalized feeling when she accidentally thought about not being so tired.

  When Milly hoped for a larger, more accessible opening that posed no danger to her as she continued her trials, it had cost her the exorbitant sum of one bird, a rabbit from her grandparent's cages, a small sack filled with miscellaneous tokens, and a handful of Raisonettes.

  Over the span of three days Milly delivered all the boons, each time expecting a change, each time imagining how much easier it would be to not have to crush up an item and stuff it down the crevice with a stick. On the fourth afternoon she saw the glinting reflection of water as she started getting closer, the cracked surface she recognized lying in pieces, scattered hundreds of feet, dug up and smashed into portions.

  A well ringer.

  She had never seen one, but knew that was what the item had been. She had snuck a peak at a horror movie once, and had seen the item in it.

  A covering for a forgotten spring welling up from the ground.

  Milly could hear the pawing below the earth more clearly now, the trundling still somewhere far from sight as she tried her best to see whatever it was tucked away in the expansive hole, every move seemingly shrouded by shadows, with no amount of motion revealing her benefactor's form. It was like the place created darkness, not like it was doused in it, and Milly wondered why something would live like that.

  Was it nocturnal or had it had bad dealing with humans, or did it have ulterior motives and didn't want her seeing it fully?

  Something inside told Milly that this was nothing to trifle with, that some things are best forgotten, that a hole that swallowed whole things was perhaps best left to comic books and the imagination of television reruns.

  She wished she never had to leave her grandparent's house, but she needed time to think about what to do next.

  The idea of forgetting the hole stayed with her for some time, Milly attempting to stay away for a day, then two, then three. She felt compelled to go back and thought the hole was probably best if forgotten, thinking the dreams she was having had been triggered by something outside herself, but circumstances did not work out that way.

  The most interesting things in life sometimes become those we feel, deep
down, we cannot truly escape. Milly felt that way sometimes, first thinking of the cola and the kiss and of walking through the tall grass on her way to that daily feast, all reason collectively ignored, all introspection thrown somewhere out-of-view.

  When Milly went to see Petey, to ask him to come and see what she had found, she thought he seemed different somehow, more energetic perhaps, like he was looking at her in a different light, listening more intently to what she had to say. He always had been but Milly didn't realize it, just as most girls do not realize the power they possess when they are still young and naive to the ways of the world.

  It took most of an afternoon figuring out what to say, the promise of a folded one hundred dollar bill to collectively absorb all negative dispositions, and an ocean of words to convince him that there was something out there worth exploring.

  He feared his parents and their wrath, knowing somewhere deep down that Milly was trouble. Despite that, he listened, allowing the promises of something exciting to outweigh his doubts, Milly eventually convincing him there was something out there, that it would be a marvelous sight to behold, that he needed to be there - with her.

  She promised him something nice and he thought she meant more time together, seemingly stunned when she handed him money and told him there would be more where that came from. The only catch was that she would not inform Petey of the what, only that he would be happy to see it. Milly told Petey he should crawl out of his window one morning and that he could tell no one. For them to share a secret would be imperative, that no adults could be looking for them, not if Petey wanted to know anything about the money or what Milly had found.

  Desire reigned when the day finally came and the two met, as planned.

  They met early, cutting through a field and hopping a fence, climbing through the bramble, the two walking hand-in-hand as his house disappeared from view. Petey stole little glimpses of the girl he had once locked lips with.

  They picked a path that took them deeper and deeper into the some foreboding expanse, toward a destination all-but-forgotten in a countryside that sprawled on forever. Words were exchanged, nervous glances thrown her way as she moved from his side to the front, Milly seemingly knowing her way and Petey following her blindly. Truth be told, Petey had been dreaming about her lately, ever since she came to his home, wanting things to be this way for some time.

  He planned on apologizing to her today, telling her that she had secretly stolen a portion of his heart.

  Those were the thoughts he was thinking as Milly came to a stop, motioning for him to stand beside her, and those were the thoughts he was thinking as he stared into the hole in the ground, Milly examining it with all the concentration of a monk. Petey looked from it to her and her to it, clasping her hand nervously as the space in the ground yawned wide, showing him a portal to nothing, his face nervously preparing for the sensation of a nervous peck on her lips once more.

  She was like a drug to him, the feelings like a torrent running straight from his soul.

  Milly would have thought that weeks ago perhaps, had in fact, perhaps even wishing this a few days ago, wanting the connection so badly. Had events not transpired and the world not erupted into a volcano of hurt and need, this would have been perfect and the two would have been happy, sharing their secret together. Today Milly thought nothing of the beautiful or the glamorous, or of the events that would emerge and redirect a possible ruin.

  Her thoughts looped though her mind and stuck in her throat, skipping beat after beat as they repeated a phone conversation she had overheard the morning before she decided to show Petey her treasure. The hushed tones and her grandmother's stifled cries kept repeating, hugging and shuffling and monotone voices echoing eternally on, the crying and tears becoming pellets that stung like bullets barraging the heart. Hands on her shoulders to prevent her from fainting, her grandfather sitting her down to tell another story in his chair.

  Only this was no remembrance like he normally recollected. It was something new, something tragic, something he told her to sit and listen to as he stammered through what he had to say.

  Her mother had been travelling to pay them a visit, driving the two states separating her from her daughter, wanting so much to visit. Apparently she, too, disliked the way conversations worked while away, thinking that holding Milly close would make things all-the-better.

  Somewhere along the way she had careened around a curve, going into the wrong lane before being struck head-on by another vehicle in the middle of a winding highway.

  Dozens of miles from the place Milly was temporarily calling home, her mother was hurt and dying.

  Hand placed on a shoulder, Milly looked into Petey's eyes deeply one last time, understanding she ultimately despised him. He was standing there, facing her wantonly, hoping to revisit the memories that she had clung to initially, playing the fool outside his door. She returned the glance, hoping to make him feel better, leaning in close, the promise of another stolen kiss just inches away.

  While he was thinking how perfect that would be, her only thought was about her mother lying in a hospital bed, wires running in and out of her flesh, and what a miracle would cost her in terms of food as she shoved Petey toward the hole. She hoped he would be enough.