“I wish you wouldn’t go.”
“I know, dear. I’ll be back before you miss me. Time passes quickly down here.”
Clint had nothing to say when she told him. His silence spoke of his disapproval. She packed some gear and left without further discussion.
The door at the top of the stairs was open, as she expected. She knew Michael would leave it that way in case any of them cared to return. She spent two days at the bottom of the stairs, getting used to the light, then ventured up. It was hot.
How do I look now, she wondered. She skirted the woods and made her way to her mother’s house. Strengthening her resolve, she knocked on the kitchen door. Her mother looked dully out at her.
“You’ve come back.”
“Yes. Momma.”
“Well, come in and clean up.”
Not exactly a rousing welcome, but about what she had expected. After all, she had kidnapped Michael’s youngest daughter and given her a life in the caverns. Not an act to endear her to the family.
After she showered, she put on the clean housedress her mother had laid out. She examined herself in the mirror. Her face looked about the same. A few more lines around the mouth and eyes, maybe. Somehow she didn’t feel nearly as monstrous as she had the last time she was here. The smell of bacon frying came through from the kitchen. She joined her mother, wordlessly set the table, then sat down and waited.
“How’s Mary?”
“She’s fine. She’s happy, Momma.”
Her mother turned with fury in her eyes. “Don’t you dare talk of happiness to me. You. Living under the earth like a worm. Destroying all that Michael and Maggie had by taking their little girl like you did. You’re Satan himself.”
Sally Ann endured her mother’s venom. She knew it had to come out sooner or later, and was glad Cora could get it off her chest so soon. She stood up and put her arms around her mother as she stood at the stove. She felt the silent sobs shake her frail frame. Her mother had grown old. Very old.
“Oh, Sally Ann, why have you come back again? Just when a hurt has healed, you come back to pick it open again. Why do you do that?”
“I’ve come to see Michael.”
“I guess I knew that the moment I saw you at the door. Well, there’s the phone. Get it over with.”
The number was written on a list Cora kept on the wall. Sally dialed the number slowly, praying that Maggie wouldn’t answer the phone. She did.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Maggie. This is Sally Ann. May I speak to Michael, please?”
The phone bounced on the floor, and Sally Ann visualized Maggie’s open-mouthed shock. The idea gave her distinct pleasure.
“Hello? Hello, who’s this?” Michael asked.
“Hello, Michael. This is Sally Ann. Would you come to breakfast at Mother’s this morning?”
“Oh, my God . . .” The phone went dead.
Sally smiled, slowly hanging up the phone. “He’ll be right over, Momma.” Cora left the room. Sally heard the bedroom door close.
Michael pulled up to the front door in a cloud of dust, got out of the truck, and walked up the front steps. He paused for a deep breath, then opened the screen door and came in. “Sally Ann?”
“In the kitchen, Michael.”
He came in and sat down at the kitchen table. He was visibly trying to keep himself under control. “Where’s Mary, Sally Ann?”
She turned to look at him and he took in the black teeth, the scaly, thin skin, the ragged hair, and the arms so thin they were like little sticks. All his anger disappeared.
“I came back to tell you that you have three grandchildren.” His mouth fell open and he stared at her. “Three beautiful children, Michael. They play in the water and laugh and love. And they don’t believe in you.”
A new type of anger held him to his seat. The thought of three children in caves. What kind of a monster was this woman? Then he thought of Mary. Sweet Mary. Like a flower. She survived down there? But . . . who was the father? He laughed. “You’re insane, Sally. There’s no children. There’s just you and your twisted ways. I knew Mary. She was too fragile. She could never have survived down there.”
“You’re wrong, Michael, I survived. And your son survived.” Shock froze his face.
“My son?”
“Yes. Our son. And now he and Mary have three children. I’m sorry I don’t have pictures of them for you.”
He jumped up and grabbed her skull and started to squeeze. He could feel her thin, brittle bones, and he just wanted to pop her head like a melon. “You monster! I’ll kill you for this!” His rage was born of fear, and didn’t last. His hands slipped from her head to rest on her shoulders, and he started to cry. She put a comforting hand on his face.
“It’s not so bad, Michael. They’re really very happy. It’s a whole different type of existence down there, but it’s not a bad life.”
“We looked for you,” he sobbed. “We searched for weeks. There are so damned many tunnels down there. We all got sick. We couldn’t believe that anybody could live down there. Oh, Sally Ann.” He sank to the floor and hugged her legs. “My soul ached to think you have been down there all those years. All those years I had given you up for dead. I locked you down there that day and didn’t know it. And I’ve lived with that guilt ever since.”
She stroked his hair. “It’s okay, Michael. I thought it wasn’t, but it is now. Everything is all right. Our son is a good man, and he’s a good father to the boys and a good husband to Mary.”
“When Mary was missing and Maggie told me it was you staying here with Mom, I didn’t believe her. I hit her. She makes me so angry sometimes. But I had to believe her when your Mom said the same thing, and the lock was broken off the door to the stairs. Our life hasn’t been the same since.” Sally Ann smiled slowly above his head. “How could you . . . ? How did you raise a child down there?”
“One has to do what one has to do, Michael. His name is Clinton.”
“My God. Will you take me to see them?”
“Of course, Michael. You won’t be able to really see them, it’s too dark. But I’ll take you to them, if you like.”
Cora paled when Sally told her what had happened. “You can’t take Michael down there!”
“I can and I will. Besides, he wants to go. He wants to see his son.”
Cora looked at her in horror, then turned to her closet. She put on a jacket and scarf. “Where are you going, Momma?”
“To church.”
2
Sally Ann laughed when she saw what Michael brought with him. A whole backpack, with sleeping bag, food, fresh clothes, and flashlights. “No flashlights,” she said.
“I can’t go down there without a flashlight.”
“If you take a light, you go alone.” He saw the resolve in her grotesque face, Reluctantly, he left them behind.
They descended. She breathed the familiar air of the main tunnel. Refreshing. She urged Michael to walk faster, but he was unaccustomed to walking in the dark so their progress was stumbling and slow. “At this rate, it will take us a month to get to them.” He didn’t think that was very funny, but Sally laughed. He was amazed at her ability to navigate.
When they reached Monster Lake, Sally told him of the beast that lived in the waters to the left of the path. They rested near the entrance, and when Sally made a meal of the slugs they found on the floor, Michael found this practice so revolting that he quite lost his appetite. She laughed at this, too. “You’ll be eating them soon enough.” He didn’t believe that a monster lived in the lake and told her so. “Take a swim in there, then, if you don’t believe.” The thought of swimming in total darkness made his flesh crawl.
He found his backpack cumbersome, and Sally was quickly losing patience with his slow pace. In fact, she was not as thrilled to be with him as she had imagined she would be. He was foreign here. This was not his element. He didn’t belong. Well, she would take him to see his children and grandchildren, and t
hen he could go back.
They tiptoed through Monster Cavern, then resumed their normal slow pace. Sally found the temptation to leave him when he was sleeping deliciously irresistible. He would wake up and find himself alone. The panic in his voice as he shouted for her was comforting. Then she would return to him and he was so glad to have her back. At last she was needed. Clint had needed her, but that was different. This was Michael, the man she had needed for a long, long time. And now he needed her. Not for companionship, but for basic survival. She loved it.
They stopped frequently and slept. She convinced him that there were tunnels too small to take the pack into, so he agreed to leave it, taking with him only his essentials—sandwiches. Along the way she told him stories of Clint and his growing up and what a delight he was. He shared with her stories of his children. Justin, he said, was in the air force, thinking about making a career of it. The twins had been modeling and making television ads for some time. He spoke of his marriage to Maggie, how it had come about, how her father had died, the relationship between Cora and Maggie. She encouraged him to talk; it made her realize how little she missed that world. In fact, she was glad she was back where she was comfortable.
As they passed the tunnel with the dank smell, she told him of her grueling trip up the well shaft, adding bits here and there about how much she had missed him. He was horrified. She was glad.
They reached the first Home Cavern and she showed him where she had given birth, where for twenty years they had had their home. He was beginning to have an appreciation for her strength, her courage. She could feel it, and he made little comments alluding to the fact that he had no idea . . . Of course he had no idea. What a fool he was. She impressed upon him the number of smaller tunnels, some dead ends, some leading to huge caverns with hundred-foot drop-offs, the dangers of wandering without knowing where you were going. He insisted he would stick close to her.
She felt a growing surge of power in this relationship. The tables had indeed turned and she was enjoying every minute of it. She toyed with the idea of just leaving him and letting him find for himself the overpowering fear. Let him discover his own inner strength, she told herself with contempt. It takes no balls to ride a tractor. Was this the man she had pined for during more than thirty years in the underworld? This was her God, this weak man who carried peanut-butter sandwiches with him and whined when she wasn’t by his side when he awoke? She must have been insane.
They continued through tunnels barely large enough for Michael’s muscular body, up and down shafts, eating when hungry, resting when tired. They finally reached the lake, and the underwater doorway to Home Cavern.
At the large lake, they camped. Michael didn’t know that his children and grandchildren were so close, just on the other side of the wall. No sounds escaped the underwater entrance. Suddenly she didn’t want Michael to see them. She wanted to keep him under her control. She realized that he might want to take her babies back with him, and that was out of the question. She prayed Clint or Mary or one of the boys wouldn’t come out this way while they were there.
“Tell me, Michael. Does Maggie know you’re with me?”
“Oh, yes. She didn’t like it, but then she doesn’t like much anymore. I didn’t tell her about Clinton. I told her you were taking me to see Mary.”
“I see.” Sally Ann grinned in the darkness. A plan was taking form in her mind.
3
After sleeping three or four times, Michael was anxious to get under way. Sally Ann delayed their departure as long as she dared, then led him down a tunnel, far away from the Home Cavern where the children played. She remembered from long ago another cavern, much like the one Michael expected, and she took him there. It took them a long time. She doubled back down different tunnels, and frequently he would ask, “Didn’t we come this way?” and she would laugh at him and call him foolish. She enjoyed the power she held over him. It was time he learned something.
Finally, they stopped just outside the cavern. Sally Ann talked to Michael in a low voice, as if the others could hear. “Michael. They’re not used to anybody else, you know. Clinton doesn’t even believe in you, so he won’t let the boys believe in you, either. Mary has been here a long time, and she’s not sure who to believe, so don’t expect a major welcome. This is their territory, you know, and you’re an intruder. They may even ignore you, or tell you to go away. But they’re flexible. They’ll get used to you.”
How well he knew what an intruder he was. She had made him feel very uncomfortable since the beginning of this damned journey, and he was now sorry he had ever agreed to come. He was totally at her mercy, and he didn’t like that at all. She seemed a little crazed. “I’ll be all right. Let’s go.”
They turned the corner and Sally Ann went dancing into the cavern. “Clinton! We’re home! Mary? Boys? Come see the surprise I’ve brought.” Silence reverberated in the huge room.
“There’s no one here, Sally.”
“Oh, they’re probably just busy. Or maybe they’re hiding. They’ll come back soon.”
They sat down to wait. Sally fidgeted, as her mind raced. They didn’t wait long. “Here they are, Michael.” She got up and ran to the back of the cavern. “Hello, Clint. And Mary. How are you? I told you I wouldn’t be gone long. Come say hello to your daddy.” Michael was silent at the entrance to the cavern.
“There’s nobody here, Sally.”
“Nonsense, Michael. Here they are, right here. Clint, shake hands with your dad. Mary, where are the boys? Oh, here they are. Hello, fellas. My, you’ve grown, just in the short time I’ve been away. Michael, meet little Jimmy and Jerry and this is Jonah. Aren’t they sweet?” She worked hard to keep up the chatter in the empty cavern.
“Sally, stop it!” His voice echoed in the cavern.
“Why, Michael? What’s the matter?”
His breath stuck in his throat. She was insane. She talked such a good story that she had duped him into coming into this hellhole, and now he was stuck down here with a madwoman. He turned and darted down the tunnel.
“Michael, wait!” She could hardly suppress the giggles that seemed to have overtaken her. Whatever had gotten into her to do such a thing to him? She followed him out, her tennis shoes silent on the tunnel floor. “Michael,” she called out musically to him. “You’ll never make it out of here aloooone.” She heard his footsteps echoing in the distance. She skipped along gaily behind him. She would be sure he wouldn’t get lost. But a good scare never hurt anyone, either.
She was surprised at the way he circumvented her roundabout path. He seemed to know where he was going and didn’t get lost in the maze of tunnels and tributaries. He crawled through the smaller tunnels with amazing speed, and this gave her great amusement. All the way back she teased and tantalized him with bits and pieces of her thoughts. Always out of reach, her voice echoed around him. He remained steadfastly silent.
When he stopped to sleep, she would sneak around him and wake him with great peals of echoing laughter, eerie in the pressing darkness. The low curses he muttered to himself tickled her even more. What had gotten into her that she would act this way? No matter. He was close to the stairs now. They passed the well tunnel and she hollered ahead to him, “Michael. Cockroaches almost ate me in there while I was coming to you. Doesn’t that make you hungry, Michael? Have some slugs, Michael,” and her insane giggles echoed through the night.
When he’d had enough, he stopped short and hid quietly in a turn of the tunnel. When she skipped past him, he reached out and grabbed her. “Sally Ann. Am I on the right way out of here?” She laughed. “Tell me.” He shook her until she felt her eyes rattle in her head.
“Oh, Michael. Don’t be a spoilsport. Of course you’re on the right way. I wouldn’t let my little baby, the love of my life, get lost in these dark, dirty tunnels, now, would I?” He threw her to the side and continued on, weak from hunger, heartsick and tired. He entered Monster Cavern. She followed, making monster noises, taunting him,
wearing him down.
“Come here, Sally Ann.” His voice was calm, quiet.
“No. You’ll hurt me. You’ll feed me to the monster.”
“Don’t be a petulant child. Come here. I want to talk to you.” He was sitting on a rock at the edge of the lake. She heard him pick up a handful of pebbles and start throwing them into the water. They landed with little plops. “Sally Ann, I want you to come back with me. They have places for people who need help readjusting to a new environment. I’ll pay for it, and you’ll like it there. There’s no reason for you to stay down here and . . .”
“And ROT?” She shouted in his ear, surprising him. He stood up quickly, and his foot slipped on the rock. Arms waving wildly, he couldn’t regain his balance, and he fell backward into the water. Sally Ann sobered immediately and went to his aid, but she heard splashing and slapping sounds in the water and the old fear once again took over her mind. She crouched on the path and whimpered.
“Sally Ann . . .” he gasped. “Oh, God! Sally, help me. Something’s caught my leg. Sally! Oh, please.” There was silence while he ducked under the water. He surfaced with a splash. “Sally!” One last scream, then he was gone. The surface of the water continued to agitate, and the waves lapped at her shoes as she stood in the middle of the path, horrified. Then all was silent.
“Michael?” she called out softly. Silence. “Michael, don’t play any games with me. Come out of there.” She backed up, toward the entrance to the cave. “Michael?” A little louder, a little braver. “Oh, God, Michael!” She turned and ran.
4
Clint didn’t need to be told what had happened. He read it in her face, in her body, as they felt each other in greeting. He knew that an era was dead, that he no longer needed to view the other world as a threat. It was over; she was his now, like Mary, like the boys. He felt her loss. It was, after all, what had sustained her all this time. She would get over it. She was a survivor. Like him.
The angry meanness that had consumed him soon after his mother had gone vanished with her return. He lay on his bed of moss, the only one awake, and contemplated his growing empire. Mary was pregnant again, but it wasn’t soon enough. He told her she had to have a girl.
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