“It’s strange is all,” he said, completely avoiding her question as he pulled his hand away from hers. Alice was afraid he was going to touch the scar again but instead he brushed some damp strands of hair away from her forehead. “It would be nice if we could just stay here like this forever.”
“We can,” Alice said, looking into his eyes. In spite of the dim light she could see him perfectly. He was smiling down at her and she knew somehow that when she did tell him it would be all right. That he would love her anyway and they could have a real life together. All she needed was a little more time. “Someday we will.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” George said, kissing her gently on the forehead, and Alice fought back a fresh round of tears.
“Don’t worry,” she said, somehow managing to sound normal. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
Seventeen
The cave was dark this time. Not so much as a single torch was burning, which made it feel all the more ominous to George. He looked at Nadir.
“Are there lanterns or something we can use?”
“I saw some in the supply tent,” Nadir said. “I’ll get a couple.” He disappeared into the night and Alice pulled her notebook out of her messenger bag. It was far too dark for her to be able to read anything but he had a feeling she had memorized everything on the trip back.
“You really think this is going to work?” Phillip looked into the darkness and Alice nodded, a gesture that seemed confident on its face. George knew better. He had always been able to tell when she was hiding something. Or at least I thought I did.
“It should,” she said. “I can’t think of any other way through, and it all seems too perfect. If we can’t get through, oh, I just don’t know.” They saw the light of the two lanterns Nadir was carrying before they saw the man himself and it revealed Alice’s smile to be a nervous one. “Oh good.”
“Perfect,” George said, taking one of the lanterns and leaving the second for Nadir. They all looked into the cave hesitantly and he saw Alice’s fingers close around the pendant he’d given her. Then she stepped forward into the cave, holding her breath. Determined that if she was going to fall she wouldn’t fall alone, George went after her. The others followed and they made their way to the wall. Alice looked down into the notebook, then pressed her hand to the wall.
“What does it say?” Nadir looked at her in the glow of the lantern and she ran a finger backwards over the words carved into it as she read them.
“Beyond here lies the destruction of the world.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Phillip said, looking up at the wall. “At all.”
“There’s a good chance that if we go through we’ll find something amazing,” Alice said, her eyes still on the words. “And an even better chance that it will change us forever.” She looked at the men around her. “None of us can go in unless we all do. We have to be united.”
Phillip and Nadir looked at one another uncertainly and George could feel their hesitation extending to Alice. Not about to let her hard work go to waste, he put a hand on her shoulder and smiled at her.
“I’m behind you all the way,” he said, hoping she would understand all he meant. Alice returned his smile with relief and Nadir nodded.
“As am I. Provided we don’t destroy the world, it will be something to tell my grandchildren.”
The only one left was Phillip and the other three looked at him expectantly. George knew he would say yes, if only out of whatever misguided feelings he had developed for Alice. To his surprise, however, Phillip took a step backward.
“I don’t know,” he said. “There was something dangerous in my dreams. Something that wanted to drag me under the water. I have a bad feeling that whatever it was is through the wall.” George stifled a groan. Leave it to the boy to do the exact opposite of what he was supposed to do.
“Phillip,” Nadir began, only to have Alice interrupt him with a shake of her head.
“It’s all right.” She smiled kindly at Phillip. “As I said, none of us can go in if all of us don’t. If you’re not comfortable we can’t force you,” she said. “But I would like you to reconsider. If we don’t go in and find out what’s causing all this, it will never end. No one will want to work on this site and eventually it will be abandoned, along with all the history it holds.” The way she was talking made George want to agree to go in, even though he already had. She’s good at persuasion, Our Alice.
“All right,” Phillip said, forcing a smile. “I just want to get this over with.”
“Thank you,” Alice said, holding her notebook to her chest. “I’ll do my best to make sure nothing happens to you.” The look of trust that Phillip gave her when she said this was enough to make George’s stomach turn. The boy was seriously deluded.
“The question is,” George said, putting his hand to the wall, “How do we get through it? It’s one thing to know what the words mean but how do we get into the bloody thing?” He ran his hand over the words, then pulled his fingers away from the wall and rubbed them together. “Even if we could just dig our way through it would take months.”
“There has to be an opening,” Alice said. “Something behind the dirt that will let us in.” She looked the wall up and down and George’s eyes followed her progress. His eyes fell on the spot where she had been scratching in her sleep and he knelt down, holding the lantern close to it so he could see.
“There’s something here,” he said, scratching at the earth the same way Alice had. “Some stone.”
“Like the platform?” Nadir looked at the white stone platform and pedestal and George shook his head.
“This is different. It’s black.” He could only see a line of smooth black stone where Alice had partially uncovered it but he could tell that there was more buried inside the wall, just as everything in the cave had been buried before they arrived. “We need a shovel.”
“I’ll wake Kiran,” Nadir said, hurrying out of the cave and taking half the light with him. George used his fingers to try to clear away a little more of the dirt, then stopped when he had the unsettling feeling that someone was watching him. The black stone felt warm when his fingers brushed against it and he pulled it away as if he had been burned.
“Are you all right?” Alice knelt beside him, her voice worried, and he nodded.
“It’s fine,” George said. “I was just startled. It feels warm. Almost like it’s alive.” He had hoped this would be enough explanation for Alice but he couldn’t say he was surprised when she reached down and ran her finger along the same stone line.
“It does,” she said, so softly he almost didn’t hear it. She fell silent and he was certain she was holding her breath. A moment later she exhaled. “It’s like it has a heartbeat.” Before Phillip could object to going further again, Nadir arrived with Kiran and two shovels. He handed one to George and they immediately began digging dirt and a few rocks out of the wall, completely obliterating the carvings that had brought them to India in the first place. George could hear Alice talking to Kiran and knew she was explaining the information they had found at the Vidyapith but he didn’t stop until he and Nadir had uncovered a rectangle of jet black stone set into the wall.
“It looks like a door,” Phillip said. “But there’s no handle on it.”
“Maybe we just push it in.” Nadir put his shoulder to the wall and pushed as hard as he could. Either he didn’t notice the warmth of the wall or it had stopped when Alice wasn’t beside it, and George was glad he’d given her the necklace. It might not block all the influence of the goddess but it was something. “It’s no good,” Nadir sighed. “It won’t move.”
“What if all of us pushed?” Phillip pressed his hands against the stone and both Nadir and George pushed with their shoulders but they couldn’t make it move even an inch. “So how do we do this?”
“Let me see,” Alice said, cradling her open notebook in one arm. She lightly ran her fingers over the black stone, pausing when she came to the cent
er of it. George knew she’d found something when she scratched at the surface and there was the faintest click of a nail skipping over a crack. “There are words here too,” she said and George held up the lantern. “It’s the same thing that was carved into the wall.”
“Maybe we’re supposed to pull on it,” George said.
“With no handle?” Nadir inspected the stone. “Perhaps we’re meant to pry it out?”
“Do any of you well-prepared gentlemen have a penknife?” Alice looked at her companions and Phillip nodded. He took a small knife out of his pocket and handed it to her. In return, Alice handed him her notebook. “Hold onto this for me, all right?”
“Sure. Be careful with the knife, though,” he said. “I just sharpened it.”
“Unfortunately I’m afraid it’s going to get dull very quickly,” Alice said. “Either that or break. But if it does, I’ll buy you a new one as soon as we get back home.” Without waiting for Phillip to ask what she meant, Alice put the tip of the penknife onto the thin crack she’d found, then slammed the heel of her hand onto the end of the handle.
Miraculously, the knife did not break. A good-sized portion of the stone did, however, and it crumbled away to reveal a long, flat handle that was raised just enough to let two pairs of hands grasp it. Without a moment’s hesitation, Alice seized the handle and George automatically did the same. If she was going to try to pull a heavy stone door out of a wall, he wasn’t about to let her do it alone. Their hands were almost pressed together and for a moment George found himself wishing that it was just the two of them going through the wall.
Their combined strength was only enough to allow them to pull it out slowly, a little at a time, but there was no way the others could get their hands in to help. When they had it out, George was able to see two small stone bars on either side of the door.
“No wonder we couldn’t push,” George said. “Not with those doorstops in the way.”
“What next?” Phillip handed Alice her notebook back and she tucked it into her bag.
“We go inside,” Alice said. The door was so small that even she had to duck down to go inside and George almost had to sit down. They crouched their way down a short passageway with Alice in the lead, stopping when she did. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?” George held his breath and listened, trying to figure out what she was talking about. The only thing he could hear was the sound of water traveling over rocks and he looked at Alice. “The water?”
“I don’t hear anything,” Nadir said, shaking his head. Phillip did the same.
“I don’t either. You two hear it?”
“Yes,” Alice said, stepping forward and standing up straight. The tiny passageway emptied out into a room tall enough to admit the three men and George held up his lantern so she could see. There was no water to be seen but the sound had gotten closer to where they were and George found it hard to believe that he and Alice were the only ones hearing it. “We should be careful. There’s no telling how long it’s been since anyone’s been down here.”
“If ever,” George said, looking around the walls. The smooth black stone of the passageway was gone and the room they were standing in was made of stone that looked as if it would crumble and bury them at the slightest touch. “Alice is right, we should watch our step. It could be dangerous.” Just as he said this there was a clattering sound and several chunks of rock came tumbling down the wall. The majority of them were small and easy to block as they rained down on the group, but the largest one hit George in the temple when he tried to duck away from it. It was more surprising than painful but caught him off guard and sent him stumbling backward to trip over the same piece of rock that had hit him. He fell back on the stone, bracing himself for more of it to break away but nothing happened.
“George!” Alice hurried over to him and knelt beside him. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” he said, pressing a hand to his temple. He wasn’t surprised in the least when it came back bloody but Alice looked horrified. “Don’t worry,” he said, trying to keep things light while Alice dug through her messenger bag. “Scalp wounds tend to bleed a great deal but they’re rarely fatal unless they’re deep. So do gut wounds, but they’re far more dangerous.”
“I hope I never have to find that out,” Alice said, pressing a handkerchief to his head. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Should we keep going?” Nadir leaned over George, concerned, and the doctor stood up. Alice followed as best she could with the handkerchief on his head and he took it from her, keeping pressure on it more to make her happy than anything else.
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “It’ll stop bleeding in a minute or two.” Alice looked at him with the sort of worry he didn’t think anyone had ever wasted on him and he smiled at her in the hopes of putting her at ease. “I’m fine, Alice,” he said. “Don’t fuss so much.” He walked briskly toward a second door at the back of the room and the others followed.
When he got to the door he found that it was another black stone rectangle in the wall, but instead of words carved into it there were the outlines of four hands in a cross pattern. Alice put her hand onto one of them and George was forcibly reminded of his dream. He put his hand onto the one across from Alice’s and was not surprised to feel that this door was warm too, as if it had been baking in the sun.
“How do we open it?” Phillip put his hand in one of the remaining two spaces and Nadir did the same. George supposed it was human nature to do something like this but when the door didn’t move he couldn’t say he hadn’t been expecting it. It seemed far too simple. The three men looked at Alice, who took her hand away and looked at it.
“I know how,” she said, mostly to herself. “I dreamed it.” Before any of them could ask, she looked up. “I need to use your knife again, Phillip.”
“Why?”
“We have to give it an offering,” Alice said, looking back at the door.
“An offering? Are you seriously saying that this door wants your blood?” George watched Phillip pass Alice the penknife uncertainly.
“Not mine,” she replied. “All of ours. Apart from the trishula, one of the symbols of Kali is a severed head, another is a bowl of blood. It makes sense, in a way.” She turned her hand so the palm was up and moved the knife toward it. George reached over and snatched it out of her hand before she could cut herself.
“Are you trying to give yourself tetanus?” He handed it back to Phillip and pointed to Alice’s bag. “Look in there. There’s a small black box in it.” Alice fished around in the bag and took out a flat black leather box with a hinged lid.
“This?”
“Yes,” George said, tucking the bloody handkerchief in his pocket absently. He took the box from Alice and opened it to reveal a scalpel that shone brilliantly in the lantern’s light. “We can use this. I had it sterilized before we left New York in case there was a need to use it.” He looked at Alice. “If you’re certain this is what we need to do I would much rather use this.”
“All right,” Alice said. She reached for the scalpel, then looked up at George. “Is it sharp?”
“Extremely.”
“Good.” Alice held her breath and drew the scalpel across her palm. Blood rose in a straight line across her palm and she held out the scalpel. “Who’s next?”
“I suppose it had better be me,” George said, taking it from her. He hesitated for a moment, fully aware that he probably looked foolish. He had done hundreds of surgeries but he’d never had cause to use the scalpel on himself. Alice was cupping her hand to keep the blood from spilling onto the floor and George cut his palm quickly. It didn’t hurt as much as he’d expected. In fact, he’d hardly felt anything more than a slight sting. He held the scalpel out to the other men. “Next?”
Nadir went next, then Phillip, who handed the scalpel back to George. Its blade was red with all of their blood but he put it back in the box as best he could with one hand and stuck it back into Alic
e’s bag, resolving to clean it when they got back out.
“Are you ready?” Alice looked around at them, then pressed her palm to the door. Her blood ran down it and the others did the same. As soon as Nadir, the last to put his hand on the door, touched the stone it parted and slid into the wall as if on rollers.
“I have some bandage materials in Alice’s bag,” George said. “There should be plenty for all of us to---” He looked down at his hand and stopped when he saw that the blood was gone and the only sign that he had cut himself was a slim, white scar. The others saw that their hands were the same and turned their attention to the now-open door.
“Looks like we go deeper,” Alice said.
“I hope we don’t run into anything else like that,” Phillip said, inspecting his hand more closely to make sure it wasn’t going to open up again. “I thought it would hurt more. Maybe the trishula is right up ahead, though.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” George said. He had a feeling the tests they had passed up to that point were only the beginning, and there was more than a slight possibility that they would get worse rather than better.
Eighteen
On the other side of the doorway, a narrow passageway drew them further into the temple. It didn’t look particularly stable but it also wasn’t crumbling to bits the way the wall in the first room had. Alice glanced back at George, who was walking behind her, halfway expecting to see blood dripping down the side of his face. The door’s blood offering had driven it out of her mind for the moment but now that it was behind her she was concerned about the wound on George’s head again.
“Eyes front,” he said to her before she could ask him. “We don’t know what’s ahead.” He held up the lantern so she could look at her notebook. Alice thought for a moment that she should tell him that there was nothing in it that would help them, then didn’t. If he wanted to think he was helping her she wasn’t going to burst his bubble.
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