Where She Fell

by Kaitlin Ward

  “Oh, and wash your hands in the river every few spiders,” Eleanor adds. “Their hair can be an irritant.”

  I stop patting the dead spider at once, and Eleanor laughs. “I did the same thing, first time.”

  Cutting around the mouthpart isn’t as easy as Eleanor made it look, but I am successful. After that, I set to work on the much simpler task of separating its legs and head from its body.

  “How did you feel,” I ask, “when you first came here? When you were first doing this?”

  Eleanor pauses in the middle of slicing open a spider’s underside. “I felt … Well, I wasn’t happy.” She presses her knife tip back against the spider’s abdomen. “I was never an outdoorsy girl. The only thing I liked about nature was running in it. And look where that got me.” She laughs, not unhappily. Eleanor, like me, fell victim to a sinkhole. Only she was on a running trail, not wandering around unstable swamplands. “I had a boyfriend back home. We met on the second day of freshman year. I cut him in the lunch line, and we argued. Every time I saw him for two months after that, we found something to argue about. And then, one day, right after I told him he had the stupidest face I’ve ever seen, he kissed me. We kissed as well as we argued, so we kept on doing it. We’d been together for over a year when I … disappeared.”

  I set aside the last of my spider’s dismembered legs. “Do you miss him?”

  “Sometimes, yeah. I try not to. I mean, he’s gotta be someone else’s boyfriend by now. He thinks I’m dead, and how long can he mourn me, you know?” She frowns, gripping the opening she sliced into her spider and prying it apart.

  “What if you made it home?” I ask, because I can’t help myself. “Do you think he would want to get back together?”

  “Eliza,” she says, exasperated. “There is no going home. I know it’s hard to swallow right now but you will grow to love it here. I would never have touched a spider when I lived topside. I cried the first time I had to here. And now look at me. Pulling out the digestive tract like a pro.”

  To illustrate her point, she slops her spider’s extracted digestive tract into a dented, ancient metal bucket at our feet. They found the bucket someplace, long ago. It’s probably been down here since before my birth.

  “I’m sorry.” I stare at my spider’s corpse, blinking back tears. I feel like I’m pushing her—everyone—away with my inability to stop asking What if? about going back to the surface. But even with the stray thoughts I have about staying, I don’t understand how anyone can ever stop thinking about leaving. “I’m not being very respectful of your feelings, am I?”

  “Oh please. Everyone who comes is like this at first. Grayson took nearly three weeks before he remotely settled in. He was like a bottle of pure fury. It’s a miracle he didn’t get kicked out, to be honest.” She pauses. “And no, I don’t think Clark and I could get back together in your hypothetical. Too much has changed. We wouldn’t … I don’t know. I’ve lived two years in a dark cavern, and he’s spent two years thinking that his first serious girlfriend is dead. We’ve both had our own trials and they’re such different trials, I don’t know that we’d be able to grow back together.”

  That makes me feel pretty sad. The way she described him, their getting together, it makes me yearn. I’ve never had someone feel passionate enough about me to argue or to start kissing and never stop. I’ve had boyfriends, but they were short-lived and awkward romances. I hate that Eleanor doesn’t think they would be able to have a happy ending. But I guess I understand it, too. I already feel so apart from my old life. I miss my parents and my sisters with the fiercest ache.

  I don’t miss Sherri and Meg at all. And I don’t think that’s a side effect of being in these caves.

  “Have you, um … Has there been anyone down here?”

  She laughs. “Well, since I’m straight, I’ve pretty much just got the one option who’s within, like, fifteen years of my age. And I like Grayson so, so much as a friend. But we would not be compatible romantically. At all.”

  “What about … So have Grayson and Alice both also been alone since they’ve been down here?” I hope it sounds casual, like I’m not asking with any ulterior motive besides curiosity.

  Eleanor eyes me suspiciously. “Alice isn’t interested in dating anyone.” She brushes off her hands and pulls over her third spider. I’m still in the early stages of my second. “And Grayson, well, now there’s you.”

  I blush fiercely. Thank God for the extremely dim lighting in this corner. “Yeah, but Grayson is so … and I’m so … I mean, we’re probably incompatible, too.”

  “Really? You look pretty compatible to me.”

  I’m now breaking out in a stress sweat. “I, um …” I don’t know how to finish that, so I just go back to my spider. I don’t know why this, of all things, is spiraling me so much. But the idea that I might like Grayson and that it might be obvious enough for Eleanor to tell, even though I asked her pointed questions that are probably what made it obvious, terrifies me. What if Grayson can tell? What if he thinks I’m weird and then I’m stuck down in this cave with him forever and what if it’s awkward for the rest of my entire life?

  “Eliza,” Eleanor says hesitantly.

  I will my heart to stop beating so fast. It ignores me. “Yeah?”

  “You have anxiety, don’t you?” She says it gently and nervously, like she’s not sure she should have brought it up.

  Claws rake at my gut. I don’t talk about this. “Yes,” I admit, with a fresh flurry of nerves.

  “Did you take medication for it, before you got here?”

  I shake my head and realize that, somehow, talking about this is calming me down. “I’ve been going to therapy once a month since … seventh grade, I think? When my mom suspected that there was more going on with me than just puberty. I’ve been able to manage things pretty okay ever since then, so we agreed to forgo medication for now. If that changes, it’ll be a conversation to revisit. Or … it would have been, I guess. Not so much now. And this is the most I’ve talked about this with anyone in a really long time.”

  I told Meg about therapy, right after I started going. But she had a lot of her own stuff to deal with. Sherri thinks anxiety is made up, so I never said anything about it to her, though Meg did once, when the three of us were fighting. We never discussed it again after that.

  “I didn’t mean to make you talk about it if you don’t want to,” Eleanor says. “I just … Please tell me if I do anything that makes it worse. I promise not to be mad if you do. I think sometimes my personality stresses out the socially anxious.”

  I laugh, even though I feel on the verge of tears. “No one’s ever said that to me. I … really appreciate it.” I swallow hard against the lump in my throat. “And I do not find your personality stressful, by the way.”

  And that’s the exact moment when a cluster of insect eggs is dangled in front of each of our faces.

  We both screech, involuntarily, and whip around to the laughing faces of Alice and Grayson.

  “Our mantises were female,” says Grayson, grinning broadly.

  “And we are getting really bored over there,” Alice adds.

  “Come work next to us!” says Eleanor.

  “We tried earlier,” says Alice. “But Glenn felt that the four of us together would be too distracting.”

  She rolls her eyes and air quotes those last two words. I glance across the room to where Glenn is also dismembering an insect. It must be exhausting to be so intense all the time.

  “So do it anyway,” I say, unsure where I have come up with this rebellious attitude.

  Grayson glances down at me, still with that broad grin. I can feel Eleanor watching us and I get very nervous. “Let’s do it,” he says, and flings the egg cluster at me before taking off back across the cavern.

  I pluck it off my arm and dump it unceremoniously into the bucket at our feet.

  “It’s like the colony version of receiving a bouquet of flowers, you know,” says Eleanor
, teasing.

  “You are full of nonsense.” I return to my spider. “And you’re making me nervous. Like, regular-person-who’s-trying-to-figure-out-if-they-have-a-crush-on-a-boy nervous. So I have to warn you, you may be in for a display of my truest social awkwardness pretty soon.”

  “Hmm, I might enjoy seeing that.” She smiles. “Just kidding, of course. But be soothed in the knowledge that I have absolutely no shame and can one hundred percent out-dork you if I have to.”

  We’re both giggling pretty hard when the others return, and neither of us can come up with a good explanation as to why.

  For me, the explanation is pretty simple, though, and probably not at all what Eleanor expects: It’s that, somehow, I’ve made a friend who wants nothing more than for me to be myself. And what a tremendous relief that is.

  Between the hunting trip and the fairly strenuous day of gutting insects (plus cleanup), I am paying dearly. I’ve definitely been pushing the limits on what my ribs are ready to handle. By dinner, I’m sore enough that I’m worried one of my ribs might be broken after all. I sit quietly, trying not to breathe too deep, while the others laugh and chat. When Eleanor asks if I’m okay, I tell her I just have a headache.

  She accepts this and goes back to the conversation. I wish she’d realize I lied and press harder. It’s a dilemma I find myself in constantly. I don’t want to talk about how I’m feeling, don’t want to let anyone know something’s wrong. But I want them to, somehow, fix it for me anyway.

  I want it to be effortless, like how Meg can use that soft, gravelly tone she gets when something’s wrong, and instantly she’s cocooned in sympathy. I don’t know how to get people to feel like that for me. Not without making a fuss, and I’m not a fuss-maker.

  After dinner, I’m on cleanup again. Amy, the woman who has a six-month-old strapped to her most of the time, is helping. I don’t like to judge, but the baby makes me uncomfortable. Knowing that girl was born here and may never see the world where she belongs … Maybe I haven’t earned an opinion on the subject, but it seems irresponsible.

  Lifting a stack of stone plates into the washbasin brings a stabbing pain to my side. I drop the plates and crouch to the floor, catching my breath with difficulty.

  “You all right?”

  I look up. It’s Glenn. Serious and joyless, as always.

  “I’m fine.” But the words crawl out from behind clenched teeth.

  “You ought to take it easy.” He folds his arms. “Those ribs are healing and you want to do it right.”

  “Yeah.” I rise slowly to my feet. “I know.”

  “It’d be no good if you reinjured them.” What a comforting man. So glad he’s here right now. “We need everyone here as healthy as possible.”

  “Yeah.” I edge away casually. “Maybe I’ll go see Colleen.”

  “Good idea,” he says.

  But something about the way he says it sends chills crawling up my spine as I walk away. I’ve let myself begin to feel pretty safe here, in the confines of the colony. This is an excellent reminder that Glenn—and the others—don’t need another burden. I’m sure he’d let me die just to use me for spare parts.

  Colleen insists that I keep to minimal activity again for at least a couple days.

  “Glenn’s not wrong about the importance of everyone staying healthy,” she says. “It’s dangerous here if we’re not at full strength. Better for you to rest and really heal up instead of half suffering and reinjuring yourself when you need the strength most.”

  “You mean like when we try to leave someday?”

  Colleen stills. Her eyes go all giant and dark. “Eliza, honey, that’s … not in the cards.”

  I twist my hands in my lap. “Why, though? All the ways people have gotten in, I—”

  “Those aren’t exits,” she says quickly. “There are no exits. There is no way out. This is our home and you’d do well to stop talking about anything else.”

  I think about how this advice contrasts with Mary’s. Did you reread your journal today? Do you still want to go home? Mary asks me those two questions every morning.

  And then an odd sensation of doubt burrows into my brain. Do I want to go home? Where my friends are unkind and my world is confusing?

  I shudder. Of course I do. Of course.

  “What if people have escaped before, though?” I ask. “My town has that urban legend about the swamp and it seems like … why would anyone come up with that unless something triggered it? Like a person returning after a presumed death and claiming to have gone to the center of the earth?” My fingers itch to type this into my phone, look up old news stories about recovered missing persons. If only I could.

  A shadow passes by the tent, man-shaped. Colleen’s eyes flick up, fearful, for a moment. “You will drive yourself crazy thinking about things like that. You need to let it go. The sooner you accept that this is your life now, the better off you’ll be.”

  “But—”

  “Just trust me.”

  I think of all the times I’ve mentioned leaving and how it’s been poorly received literally always. And it leads me to a terrible thought, something Mary keeps asking.

  Are we trapped here because we’re trapped here, or are we trapped here because this place has convinced us we don’t want to go?

  My achy ribs are not great for my ability to sleep deeply, and I wake in everyone’s sleeping hours with a soreness in my side and a full bladder. With a sigh, I edge out of my tent to make the journey to the outhouse. I miss real toilets.

  But I love the cavern at night. Without the bustle of activity from the colony’s residents, it almost feels the way a cave should. Quiet and dark and empty. The solitude is what I love about caves. The peacefulness. The raw beauty, unmarred by external forces. This cave is too lived in for all of that, but if I glance up at the stalactites on the ceiling, I can envision this place as it must have been before it was domesticated.

  There’s always someone on guard during the “night,” just in case. Not everyone does it. I haven’t been asked to, and maybe I should be insulted, but I am truly not guard material, so. I know who’s on guard duty tonight, and on my way back from the outhouse, I stop where he sits.

  Grayson jumps when I come up behind him and tap his shoulder. I laugh. “A little jittery for a person who’s supposed to be aware of their surroundings.”

  “The dangers aren’t supposed to come from the middle of the cavern, you know.”

  I glance up at the many tunnels dumping into this room from the ceiling.

  “I think I’d hear it if something fell from one of those,” he says. “What’re you doing, anyway?”

  “Bathroom.”

  “Ah. I—” He stops, glances at something behind me. I turn slowly and see Mary emerging from her tent. “Quick,” Grayson whispers.

  He grabs my hand and tugs me into the darkness of the nearest tunnel.

  “What—” He cuts off my question with a quick press of his finger to my lips. I couldn’t speak now if I tried. Or move. Or breathe.

  We both peer out of our shadowed hideout and watch Mary sneak down into the tunnel in the floor. The one that’s caved in. The one we’re not supposed to enter. She slides the hide back over it after she’s disappeared, and I turn to Grayson for an explanation.

  “I don’t know what she does down there,” Grayson says. “It really is caved in. I’ve seen it. But sometimes at night, she goes down anyway. I, um … She and I have a little agreement where I pretend not to see her.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” He leans against the wall. “It seemed really important to her.”

  “Hmm.” I glance over at the hole, drawn to it. If Mary can go down there …

  “You think I shouldn’t help her?”

  “No, of course you should. I’m …” I hesitate. I trust Grayson as much as I can trust anyone I’ve known for such a short time and met under such questionable circumstances, but there’s a sense of loyalty here that e
veryone seems to have caught except me and, by all appearances, Mary. And I don’t mean loyalty to one another, but to the cave itself. “I want to see what she’s doing.”

  Grayson raises an eyebrow. “You know that’s a terrible idea, right?”

  “I know. I want to anyway.”

  “I want to come, too.”

  “You … what?” I glance nervously around. “What if something comes in and we’re unguarded?”

  “One time in all the months I’ve lived here has something come during the night. Even this deep underground, creatures are wary of fire.”

  “Okay. Then … let’s go.”

  Together, we sneak over to the floor tunnel. I’m absolutely exhilarated. It’s the same feeling I get when I visit a new cave for the first time or when I see a really cool formation or I get a new type of rock. I’m about to explore.

  There are steps carved crudely into the rock; necessary, given that the tunnel is almost vertical. Grayson climbs down first, all casual and relaxed, which makes me feel inadequate because once I’ve replaced the hide and enveloped us in complete and total darkness, I’m clinging on to the ladder with both hands and curling my toes in my sneakers, terrified I’ll fall to my death.

  It’s not such a far descent, and at the bottom there’s space enough for both of us to stand, if very close together.

  “Hang on,” Grayson whispers. He fumbles with something, and then there’s a sharp click, and a tiny flame peeks out of the top of a lighter. “Do not tell anyone I have this. Glenn would take it away from me in a heartbeat. I don’t usually use it; I just like having it. But I thought this might go a little easier if we had at least a little light.”

  “You came down here with a lighter?” It’s not entirely uncommon for people to bring things like lighters into caves, just in case, but Grayson didn’t fall into this cave prepared; he already told me that.

  He grins sheepishly. “Have I mentioned that when I lived topside, a lot of the decisions I made were not great?”