by Laura Resau
He shines it in front of us, but I can still barely see a few steps ahead in this dense fog. Wet moss makes the stairs slick. Holding on to the stone walls, which are also damp and coated in slime, I carefully step down, one stair at a time. A few times, I nearly slip in my worn leather sandals. Wendell reaches out an arm to catch me, his footsteps secure in his well-tractioned Tevas. The staircase is narrow, spiraling downward. The air grows warmer the farther down we go, and the mist grows thicker. From the ceiling, which is actually formed by the stones above us, water drips onto our heads, warm water, like tears.
Wendell’s voice slips through the mist, comforting, the only familiar thing to hang on to. “See anything ahead?” he asks.
“No. Just steam and this spiral staircase.”
We descend for what feels like a long time, although it might be just a few minutes, since we’re going so slowly.
From time to time, Wendell and I call back and forth to each other. “You okay?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Yeah.”
And just when I’m feeling that this staircase must spiral straight to the center of earth, I notice that the stairs are about to end, opening into a wide space. “Something’s up ahead, Wendell.”
When we reach the last stair, he puts his hand around mine. I hold on tightly, and together, we walk out of the narrow staircase passage into the open space as ribbons of mist rise and wrap around us.
At the same time, we gasp. It’s as if we’ve entered another world.
The chamber is round, with stone walls and a high ceiling. At the center are three circular pools, interconnected by short channels. A long channel on the far right side emerges from a tunnel, feeding into one of the pools. Another long channel on the left emerges from a second tunnel—this one steaming—and feeds into a second pool. Each of these pools flows into the third pool, a lightly steaming swirl of the cold and hot water. The water flows out along a third channel, into a tunnel.
Mist rises from the water, moves like phantoms around the room. In the flashlight beam, I can see individual droplets of water reflecting light. The chamber echoes with dripping and bubbling and flowing and gurgling.
“This must be it,” Wendell whispers.
“I can’t believe it,” I murmur as we walk to the pools and peer inside by the light of his flashlight. Through the water, which seems alive with thousands of tiny bubbles, I can make out a spiral pattern of white pebbles in the pools’ silvery floor. There’s one unending line that branches into three spirals, one in each pool.
I crouch by the closest pool, which I’m guessing is a mix of the hot and cold water. Holding my breath, I plunge in my hand. The water’s warm and tingly.
Wendell kneels beside me, dipping in his hand. “It’s like a vat of seltzer water,” he says.
“Or champagne,” I say. On an impulse, I kick off my sandals. Before I think about what I’m doing, I’ve lowered my body into the water, letting the tiny bubbles engulf me, feeling the currents of cool and hot water swirl around my skin. I unclip my hair, close my eyes, and submerge my entire body, thoroughly soaking myself and my red dress. Underwater, I open my mouth, swallowing a small sip. Just in case. Then, in a rush, I burst through the surface.
“Come in, Wendell!” I shout, my voice and splashes echoing.
But once I make out his form in the darkness, I see he’s already set down the flashlight, taken off his shirt. I catch my breath. I haven’t seen him without his shirt for a year. Even in the dim mist, I can make out his broad shoulders, muscular chest, lightly rippled waist.
He lowers into the water a few feet away from me, a respectable distance. He’s close enough that I see his arm muscles flexing, the water clinging to his skin. Slowly, his face relaxes, his eyes close. I’m glad his eyes are closed. This way, I can stare at him, unabashedly drinking in his face, his neck, his bare torso.
After a few minutes, my body feels as though it’s completely dissolved into the water, as though it’s made of a zillion floating bubbles. My insides feels different too, my feelings as clear as water. “Wendell,” I say softly.
“Yeah?”
“Did you sip the water?”
He nods, smiling. “Just a little.”
“Me too.” I blow a few bubbles, then ask, “Hey, does this water make you feel different?”
“Like relaxed?”
“Something more than that,” I say. “Things are clear.”
“What things?”
“Everything. Including why I freaked out a few weeks ago. Why I broke up with you.”
“Why, Z?”
I tilt my head back into the water, letting my hair fan out over the surface. “I was scared there wasn’t one single Zeeta. Scared I had no core. Scared I wouldn’t be able to love you. I felt like an empty box, one that’s filled with whatever country I’m in, then emptied again the next time we move.” I raise my head again, looking at him. “Do you understand what I mean, Wendell?”
He flips over onto his stomach, moves closer. He’s looking at me now, really looking at me. “Remember what Vincent found in his empty box?”
I think of the ruby heart in sunlight, the tinkling notes of “La Vie en Rose.” “You know about that?”
He nods. “I ran into Vincent that morning, just before he gave the ring to Madame Chevalier. He wasn’t sure if he should go through with it. He worried it might make her more sad, to feel she was leaving someone who loved her so much.”
I swish my hands around, making spirals in the water’s surface. “And what did you tell him?”
“I told him to risk it. I said that there will always be darkness and light. That she needs the ruby’s light now, especially inside so much darkness.”
I move closer to him, so close I could touch him if I extended my arm. Everything is so vivid to me now, despite the mist and steam. It’s as though my mind can rise up to see the world from a pigeon’s perspective. And what I see are questions, a whole landscape of questions I need to ask. “Wendell. Remember when you gave me those photos from Ecuador?”
“Yeah.”
“And you told me you’d always tell me who I was? When I didn’t know?”
He nods.
“Tell me.”
He looks at me for a while, then says, “You’re the Z sitting in the window, looking out with binoculars. Writing in her notebook. Observing, asking questions, noticing things that other people miss.”
He moves even closer, his chest nearly touching mine. There’s the faint smell of cinnamon on his breath, the droplets like diamonds clinging to his eyelashes, the water gleaming on his bare chest, beaded on his lips. “And more than that, Z,” he whispers. “There’s your music inside. A secret spring. A hidden ruby. There’s you.”
Our lips are about to touch, when there’s a click. It’s faint and far away, but a definite click. It echoes through the chamber.
“Merde,” I say under my breath.
“That wasn’t the—” Wendell’s eyes flick to the staircase.
“The door,” I finish. “I think it was.”
“Maybe it didn’t latch all the way.”
We scramble from the pool, and he grabs his flashlight. Barefoot, we head back up the staircase. “What if someone saw the door open and came in here?” I whisper, suddenly frightened. “What if it’s that scary bearded man?”
“Then we’re at his mercy.”
We stay still for a moment, listening. No sound from above. We keep walking. When we finally reach the top, we breathe out sighs of relief. Just us. No one else has come in.
But then Wendell shines the flashlight on the circular door. It’s shut.
“The stick must have fallen out,” he says.
“Or someone took it out,” I say, pushing on the door. It won’t budge.
Wendell tries pushing on it with me. Nothing.
We scan the wall for latches or levers, anything, but the wall is smooth stone.
“No one knows we’re in here,” Wendell point
s out.
Panicked, I start banging on the metal, yelling, “Au secours! Aidez-nous!”
Wendell puts his hands on mine. “It’s possible that if anyone does hear you, they’re not going to be happy we snuck in here.”
“Knife-wielding priestesses?” I say in a shaky attempt at a joke.
“Or giant bearded men,” he says, half serious.
“So what do we do, Wendell?”
“Maybe there’s another way out,” he says. “Remember those tunnels leading to the pools? We could follow one. See where it leads.”
I remember his vision of the fuzzy moon. Feeling a little hopeful, I head back down the stairs as he follows.
Back in the chamber, Wendell shines the light at the entrance of each tunnel. “Which one do we try?” he asks.
“You saw steam in your vision, right?”
He nods. “I think so.”
“Then let’s try the hot one.”
Wendell picks up the flashlight and shines it on his backpack and my bag and sandals. “Let’s leave our bags. We don’t know how deep the water will be. If my camera gets wet, it’s ruined. We’ll just have to find a way out and get our stuff later.”
“Okay,” I say after a pause. I’m reluctant to leave my notebook behind, but at least this way, it won’t get wet.
Wendell holds out the flashlight with one hand and puts the other hand at the small of my back. I wrap my arm around his naked waist, and side by side, we wade through the steaming water. When my bare feet slip on the slick stone, he’s there to steady me. The water is waist high and hot but not uncomfortable. About the temperature of a hot tub. We take turns carrying the flashlight above our heads to keep it dry, aiming the beam ahead of us. There’s nothing but tunnel ahead, disappearing into twists and turns.
We wade against the current until I’m breathless. We’re at the point where we must have walked a kilometer, when I notice a light ahead.
Wendell does too. “See that, Z?”
“Yeah.”
This gives me another wave of strength, and I wade faster. At the patch of light reflecting off the water, we stop, craning our heads back to look for its source. We’re beneath a long tunnel stretching directly upward, with a circle of light far above us. It’s a dim light, but it’s there. And there’s a bright white light at its center. The moon! And a rope hanging down, and a bucket, glinting in the moonlight.
Wendell looks at me. “So this is what it feels like at the bottom of a well.”
“This what you saw?”
“Exactly.”
Something rises over the sound of the flowing water. Music, floating in from above, echoing lightly off the tunnel walls. “Hear that, Wendell?”
He nods. “It sounds like harps and flutes.”
“Salluvii’s music.” I strain to listen. There’s laughter, conversation. And voices, too. “Think it’s Sirona and her party?” I whisper.
Wendell turns to me, keeping his voice low. “I think we need to ask for their help.”
“They might be angry. Remember your vision? That bearded man? Danger?”
“Yeah, but—”
A face appears, blocking the moon. A woman’s face. She must have heard our voices or seen our flashlight.
Quickly, I turn off the light and grab Wendell’s hand.
“Hé!” the woman yells. Now other faces are surrounding hers. In the dim light, and at this distance, I can’t tell if they’re angry or just surprised.
Wendell and I look at each other.
“There might not be another way out,” he whispers.
Again the woman calls down. “Montez!” Get in! She’s lowering the bucket, which clinks against the stone wall on its way down.
The bucket is dented and ancient-looking, copper, with greenish spots. I slip my hand out of Wendell’s, grab the bucket, and inspect it with the flashlight. It looks solid enough, and the rope looks old but thick.
“I’ll go first,” I say.
“No, Z. It might not be safe. Let me—”
Before he can stop me, I climb into the bucket and grasp the rope. “Allez-y!” I call out.
Instantly, I’m heaved up, in jagged fits and starts, my shoulders banging against the slimy stones lining the well. I take a last look at Wendell’s face growing smaller and smaller; then I focus on the incredulous faces framed by moonlight, growing bigger and bigger.
It’s uncomfortable to be pulled up in a wet dress with an ancient copper bucket digging into the backs of your thighs. Not to mention terrifying. A fall from this height could kill me. I swing back and forth, clutching the rope, near panic.
And I’m up.
I’m up and entering a nighttime world lit by torches, a dreamlike world filled with tall bamboo stalks and tropical trees and exotic flowers. Not plants you’d expect to see in France. From somewhere behind the leaves drifts harp and flute music. Clusters of voices come from here and there. In the distance, through shadows of petals and branches, I can make out the ghostly forms of people moving and dancing and eating and drinking. Pools of torchlight swim over the grass. Stone pathways meander and disappear into the darkness. I glimpse a fountain beneath rising steam, and hear its faint gurgling and trickling. The scent of tropical night-blooming flowers saturates the air. Smoke and steam mingle together, and I can’t tell how far the trees and bamboo stretch. It can’t be too far, I realize, because the stone walls of houses rise on all sides. We must be in a large courtyard.
People stand around the well, quiet and cloaked in mist. They watch me, their faces bewildered, with traces of concern and curiosity. They all wear the raw cotton, hand-dyed tunics I’ve seen on the members of Salluvii. Bangles and bracelets snake up their arms, on both the men and women. Each person wears a triple-spiral symbol, either on a pendant, a ring, earrings, or a bracelet. Now that I’m looking closely, I notice that from the belts around their waists hang leather pouches containing large daggers and swords.
The silver-haired woman unfastens a thick brass pin from her red cloak, takes it off, and wraps it around me. The rough fabric scratches my damp skin, but I’m grateful for the gesture.
“Merci,” I say.
She nods, lowering the bucket again, her triple-spiral earrings dangling. She speaks in French. “Shall we pull up your friend?”
I peer into the well nervously. Here in the light, I can see that the rope is waterlogged and frayed and rotted in places. “Is it safe?”
“Yes,” she assures me.
I call down, “Ready, Wendell?”
“Go ahead!” he shouts back.
Two women and two men help pull him, turning the crank slowly. I hold my breath and chew on my lip until Wendell’s up.
He climbs out, looking around with a dazed expression. “Where are we, Z?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
Wendell squeezes out his long hair, then takes my hand. He doesn’t have a shirt on, I realize, and offer to share the cloak. Together, we huddle under the scratchy fabric.
Suddenly, through the small crowd, the bearded man appears. The burly one from the courtyard. From Wendell’s vision. I press myself to Wendell, keeping my arm tight around his waist. He returns the gesture, his hand firmly on my hip.
With a flash of recognition, the bearded man narrows his eyes. Firelight washes over his fleshy face, which is twisted into a scowl. “How did you two get here?”
“Through a tunnel,” I say, trying to steady my voice. “It led to this well.”
“Were you at the sacred pools?” he demands, his hand on his dagger.
I hesitate, then say, “Yes.”
“Which entrance?” He barks out his questions like an interrogator.
I glance at Wendell. I can’t outright lie. That might get us in more trouble. “The snake fountain in the courtyard on Rue Epinaux.”
He raises an eyebrow. “That’s what you were doing with that art project, wasn’t it? Trying to find a way into our courtyards.”
Wendell and I nod, g
iving each other rueful glances.
“How did you know about the pools?” the man growls.
“An old book I read,” I say. “And a map I found at the market.” I’m determined to keep Madame Chevalier and Vincent out of this.
The bearded man glares at me for a moment, then turns to confer with the others in Gaelic. Wendell and I stand together, waiting for our fates to be determined. The bearded man’s voice grows louder as his face reddens. Spittle flies from his mouth.
The silver-haired woman tries to calm him. I wonder if she’s one of those priestesses who cut the throats of their war captives. Finally, the woman turns to us and says solemnly, “You have trespassed in our sacred place. You have intruded where you were not invited.”
She unwinds a long scarf from her waist. Slowly, she removes the holster containing her dagger, and hands it to a man beside her. She gestures to another woman to do the same.
Wendell keeps his arm around my waist, drawing me closer. I’m grateful he’s here with me, but feel terrible that I’ve gotten him into this mess. Who knows what these people are capable of? There are many ways they could kill us. They could slice our throats and save our blood for prophecy, then dump our bodies into the well, never to be found.
I take a deep breath and scream. A split second into my scream, the bearded man’s hairy hand clamps over my mouth.
My scream must have attracted attention, because now people are streaming toward us from the shadows, men and women, the youngest around our age, the oldest white-haired, all dressed in long cotton tunics and cloaks.
Wendell and I are far outnumbered. Now I know how the guitar-playing troubadour felt. I wish I played guitar angelically so I could trick them into keeping us alive. Maybe I can try anyway.
I dive deep, through all the layers of myself, all the countries, to the source, the spring inside me that makes music, the one that sings the clear, flowing truth. And what it says is this. I love Wendell. I want to be with him. And we’ve barely had a chance to start. There’s so much I want to do with him, discover about him. A whole lifetime of things.
The man’s hand is still over my mouth, but not as tight now that I’ve stopped screaming.