Where She Fell

by Kaitlin Ward

  “I might’ve appreciated it,” I say. “My fashion sense as a small child was bad.”

  Alice laughs. “Mine, too. I had no room to be judging anyone.”

  I glance down at what I’m wearing now. Jeans and a T-shirt. Most of the people here are still wearing whatever clothes they arrived in. We have a stockpile of spares, from those who brought them, and things that have been found on scavenging trips. A few have taken to wearing furs. Alice’s jeans are pretty distressed at this point. They look good on her, but eventually they’re going to fall right apart.

  Alice could pull off furs if she had to, but I don’t think she’d like it.

  “How long did it take before you decided you would rather stay here than try to go home?” I ask.

  “I don’t think it was really a conscious decision,” says Alice. “After a couple weeks, I basically acclimated. There isn’t a way back, and sitting here thinking that there is leads only to misery. Besides, this is home. This is where I belong.”

  “What if there was a definite way out?” I ask. “Like, what if one day a scavenging group came across a big hole and you could see the surface and could just walk right out. Would you go?”

  Alice shrugs. “Sure, I guess.”

  “Probably,” says Eleanor.

  Neither one of them sounds at all convinced. And I know, deep in my heart, that I’m running out of time before the apathy takes me, too.

  I wake during our resting time, and something feels wrong. I can’t place what it is, and I wonder if it’s actually morning. But it’s too quiet for that. No voices, no laughter, no sound of breakfast cooking over the fire. I sit up, blinking in the steady, gentle light of the stones. Maybe that’s it; the stones’ light has been unsettling me since we placed them. I’m not used to the additional brightness, to feeling so spotlighted. Usually it’s only the flickering orange of the fire. Flickering orange … The only light shining through the flaps of my tent is green. My fingers clench around the fur blanket that covers me.

  I sit up. My cell phone’s still tucked under my cot; I’ve had it off since I arrived, so it should have some battery. It powers on, but it’s low. I get a weird feeling in my stomach about that. I knew eventually the battery would die, but seeing it in front of my face with the sad eleven percent remaining makes it more real. I flick on its flashlight and emerge cautiously from my tent.

  There, where the fire should be, is a smoldering pile of embers. A few adults have crowded around it, and they glance up at the light from my phone’s flashlight.

  “What’s going on?” I ask. My fingertips tingle like they do when I feel like I’m injecting myself where I don’t belong, but curiosity and fear defeat social anxiety at the moment. Mary’s not one of the adults crouched around this fire, but Colleen is. I step closer to her. “Does this happen sometimes?”

  Colleen’s brow furrows, the lines harsh under my phone’s light. “This has never happened.”

  I swallow. “Never?”

  She looks down at the coals, and I follow her gaze. This fire didn’t just burn low.

  It was put out.

  I glance around with frantic eyes. Who would do this? What purpose would it serve? My gaze rests on something in one of the side tunnels. I squint and lower my flashlight. Still there. A faint bluish glow.

  “What is that?” I point.

  Beside me, Colleen rises slowly to her feet. “Go back to your tent,” she says quietly. Ominously.

  Going back to my tent would be the smart thing to do. But my tent is a lonely triangle of gloom and I just—don’t want to go. I shake my head.

  “Eliza—”

  I ignore her and walk cautiously toward the blue glow. It’s almost neon. There’s a bioluminescent person hiding in that tunnel and I don’t care how dangerous they are; I have to see them. I have to know what they want, whether they came on their own or were brought here by Mary.

  Colleen catches up to me, Glenn right at her heels.

  “It’s one of those people,” Glenn says.

  “Yeah, I figured that out.” I keep walking. “But I want to see why they’re here.”

  “Eliza, you are too young and this is not safe,” Colleen says sharply.

  “You’re not my mom,” I snap. Quietly, because the blue glow is starting to tremble and I don’t want to scare them away. Yet. “We’re all living out the rest of our days down here; it’s not more dangerous for me than for any of the rest of you.”

  Glenn pulls out his sword—I don’t have to look behind me, I know it by sound. It’s made of stone, and he crafted it painstakingly himself; at least, that’s what Grayson told me. Every time Glenn returns from a hunting expedition, he sits down with the thing and cleans it lovingly, ridding it of insect guts and gore.

  I still can’t see the bioluminescent. But the way the glow is flickering, I can tell that they’re terrified.

  “Wait,” I say to Glenn and Colleen. “Please, just wait.”

  I don’t know if either listens, but I pick up my pace to leave them behind anyway. I reach the tunnel entrance, and I stop dead.

  This is my first time seeing a bioluminescent up close, and it shocks me. Humanlike is the only way to describe the person huddled before me. They have the general appearance of a person, the same overall body shape and facial structure. The eyes are quite large, the skin translucent. A full head of light-colored hair falls around the being’s face, and a shift in movement tells me I’m looking at a woman. Or a girl. It’s hard to tell age because the neon-blue glow of her skin haloes her and hides details. Well, hides details in one way, exposes them in another. Because I can see her innards like an X-ray.

  Her bulbous, unblinking eyes bore into me even as she quakes, hunched into herself. Her fingernails, I notice, are long and sharp. And suddenly I realize how foolish this was, to come into this tunnel knowing this other being was here and not knowing what she might do to me.

  She inhales noisily and reaches out a hand. I jump back.

  Mary’s voice shouts something; the commotion’s finally woken her. But she’s too late to fix this situation.

  Within moments, hands on my shoulders pull me out of the way as Glenn and his sword lunge forward.

  “Glenn, don’t!” I scream. His sword pushes up into the woman’s rib cage, through the crimson, beating heart. Blood bursts through the woman’s insides, spreading like an inkblot, spotlighted by the glow of her own body.

  “What’s she holding?” Colleen asks, peering over my shoulder.

  Glenn kneels beside the corpse, unwrapping her fingers from something. He holds it up.

  It’s a plant—glowing, just like the woman. A slightly more purple color, but basically the same. The realization hits me like a fist in the chest.

  She wasn’t going to hurt me at all.

  She was trying to give me the plant. To give me a light.

  And now she’s dead.

  Introvert time is hard to come by when you live in a cave. People are everywhere. Which isn’t so bad, now that I’m used to it. But every once in a while, I need to be alone. Especially with the ghost of the dead bioluminescent lurking over my shoulder.

  My alone spot is the far side of the river, in a corner where the firelight doesn’t reach so well. There’s a cluster of cave formations here. Mary refers to it as “the grove,” which is perfect. The little formations do look like plants. Blobby mushrooms, spiky grasses, bulbous tree stumps.

  It sounds dorky, but I like sitting here with my little miniature stone forest. It gives me peace. I had a spot at home, too. When my house got too loud from its family of five. Or my life got too loud from best friends who never thought I was enough.

  There was a small hill to the left of my house, and on the other side of the hill, what I called an “almost cave.” It really wasn’t a cave at all, but it was a spot where a few large boulders formed a shelter. When I was little, I used to build cities there, out of smaller stones and twigs. Not to brag, but they were pretty excellent. I go
t older and my interests changed, but I never stopped going to my quiet spot. With a book or my headphones or my journal.

  If this cave weren’t a tomb, I’d think this new spot was even better.

  Last night was beyond horrible. I’ve never seen anyone die, and I never wanted to. I don’t have the stomach for tragedy, and I don’t know how to be around anyone right now. Glenn didn’t have to do what he did, no matter how he justifies it. He came up to me afterward and told me he was sorry I had to see that but he was glad he was there to save me.

  I only nodded. I didn’t tell him it was the bioluminescent who needed someone to save her, not me.

  Mary wanted the plant. I know she thinks it was meant for her, and probably it was. But she couldn’t get into it with me in front of everyone without blowing her secret, and everyone who witnessed the incident told her to let me keep the plant. They all think I’m fragile now.

  At least I’ve won their sympathy back.

  I glance up at the sound of someone approaching. It’s Grayson, and I can’t decide whether or not I’m glad to see him.

  “Hey.” He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Mary asked me to have you meet her in the glowing cavern.”

  I sigh. “What does she want?”

  “She didn’t tell me, but I’m going to guess it has something to do with the bioluminescent and the plant she gave you.”

  He holds out a hand, which I take, even though I don’t want to see Mary right now.

  “You want to come with me?” I ask as we walk back toward the main cavern.

  “I wasn’t invited.”

  “So what? I’m inviting you.”

  We stop in front of the now-open tunnel in the floor, and he stares at me for a long moment. “You don’t want to be alone with her?”

  I shake my head. He can interpret that however he wants. That I don’t feel safe, that I’m mad at her, whatever. Anything he guesses is probably a little bit true.

  “Then okay.” He gestures to the rock ladder. “Ladies first.”

  As we travel down the tunnel, now lit with glowite, I swallow a lot of things I want to say. Finally settle on something that’s not too loaded: “Is it weird when a new person comes?”

  “Sometimes, I guess. You’re only the second person who’s come since I’ve been here, so I don’t have a lot of experience. But yeah, you have to adjust and make a place for them in the group. We’re such a small collection that every addition has a ripple effect, changes the entire dynamic.”

  I frown. “That sounds bad.”

  He laughs. “I guess, but it isn’t. We were all new once, you know. Even Colleen. Why are you asking?”

  “No reason.”

  We walk in silence nearly the rest of the way to the glowite cavern. Then Grayson’s hand lightly grips my arm. “Eliza.”

  I turn. He tilts his chin down so that his lovely green eyes meet mine.

  “I think your ripple effect has been an especially huge one. I’m sure not everyone’s pleased about that. But we have sat here in stasis for so long; we need someone like you to stir things up.”

  “How am I going to stir things up?” My voice comes out regular, which is a miracle considering my heart is clogging my throat. “I’ve never stirred up a thing in my life.”

  “I don’t know why you think you don’t matter.” He gestures to a glowite stone. “You literally brightened our existence.”

  My cheeks burn. “Okay, but that was really all Mary, you know. All I did was threaten her a little.”

  “Just take my cheesy compliment and let’s go.” He shifts his weight and I realize he’s blushing, too.

  “Okay. I accept your cheesy compliment.”

  “Thank you.” He spins me by my shoulders till I face the glowite cavern.

  I slip inside, where Mary waits, looking impatient, near the cleverly covered exit on the far wall.

  “Eliza, good. Come over here!”

  I reluctantly join her at the wall.

  “I’m really not at all enjoying this little teenage pout you’ve developed,” she says.

  “And I’m not enjoying the way you’re referring to my legitimate anger as a ‘teenage pout,’ ” I fire back.

  “That girl wasn’t supposed to come when she did,” Mary says. “That plant, it’s a peace offering. The bioluminescents exchange them when two villages negotiate peace. She should never have tried something like that without me. And now …” She shakes her head sadly. “Now it’s over.”

  “Her life is over,” I say. “And the rest of them must be so angry. Are we even safe anymore?”

  Mary opens her mouth but says nothing.

  “Yeah.” I squeeze my arms across my chest. “That’s what I thought.”

  “She brought the plant for me,” Mary says stubbornly.

  “And she gave the plant to me. Right before Glenn murdered her.”

  “This wasn’t my fault,” says Mary quietly.

  I’m all ready to lash out at her again, but then I notice the tears in her eyes and I soften. Mary befriended this community of bioluminescents and now they’ll hate her. Our community thinks she’s a complete oddball. I can relate to how alone she must feel sometimes.

  I want to blame her for ruining our safety here, but our safety isn’t what’s been ruined. It’s the illusion that’s shattered, the one I crafted so carefully to delude myself.

  “How sure are you about the way out?”

  “Well, I haven’t followed the trail myself, not the whole way. But I’m very confident.”

  I nod, shove my hands into my filthy pockets. I don’t look at Grayson, because I can’t. He’s my best hope at a traveling companion, but I told him everything Mary said and he still seemed … unenthusiastic. I don’t want to push too hard and make him dislike me altogether, but I can’t do this alone. I can’t.

  “How are we supposed to trust you?” Grayson says, so softly. “You’ve told so many lies.”

  “I have,” Mary says. “I’ve done a lot of things wrong. I want you to leave because it’s the right thing to want. It’s my role, the reason I’m here. But also …” She shrugs, meets my eye. “Sometimes, when you find people who just fit, it’s hard to let go. I’m not perfect. It’s been … It’s hard to let go.”

  I swallow a lump in my throat. “You know I have to, though. And I have to do it soon, or else …” I do brave a glance at Grayson then, my fingertips numb with anxiety. He still looks torn, but there’s something in the way he looks at me. Something … hopeful. “Or else I may never get the courage to go.”

  I think it’s the wrong thing to have said. The spark of something in Grayson’s expression flickers and dies, replaced with a slight frown.

  “I know you do,” says Mary, oblivious. “And in my heart, I hope you do. Both of you. And anyone else you can convince.” She’s silent for an uncomfortably long moment, then, “She was my friend, you know. The bioluminescent woman.”

  “I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. What happened was a needless tragedy born of Glenn’s inability to hold himself back. I think about him and that sword, the obsessive way he cares for it. The way he needs to participate in every hunt, every scavenging mission. Everything that involves leaving the colony.

  “Glenn would never hesitate, would he?” I ask. “If he thought there was a threat to the colony, from inside or out, he would take care of it and not ask questions.”

  It takes Mary a long time to answer.

  “I think you’ve seen,” she says, “exactly what Glenn is capable of.”

  Glenn catches Grayson and me as we’re emerging from the tunnel. He asks us to please see him in his tent, and he uses the same voice teachers use when they want to talk to you about a piece of homework you did terribly on but they don’t want to embarrass you in front of everyone.

  Grayson and I exchange a concerned glance, but we follow him.

  Glenn’s tent is a lot bigger than my tent—or anyone else’s—and made of nylon. It’s stocked wit
h things he’s confiscated “for the group” but appears to be keeping all to himself until completely necessary. My eyes are drawn immediately to my backpack, stacked in the corner with some others. And my headlamp and my flashlight are perched atop a pile of light sources.

  “So, given that she’s nowhere to be seen at the moment, I’m going to take a wild stab and assume that it was Mary the pair of you just met with down in the glowing cavern,” says Glenn, cutting right to the chase.

  “Yeah, she asked us to,” says Grayson.

  “I’ve noticed, the past couple days, that you seem to be spending less time working with Mary, Eliza.”

  I shrug. “There’s a lot to do. It doesn’t always make sense to spend my mornings on geology stuff, as interesting as it may be.” Then, even though my body thrums with anxiety, I have a bold moment. “And I know Mary and I may seem really similar, but there are aspects of our personalities that don’t always mesh. So sometimes … I don’t want to be around her.”

  “What aspects of your personalities, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “I kind of … do mind, sorry.” Who even am I? Glenn frowns at my answer, but I hold my silence, and his gaze. I cannot feel my hands.

  “That’s fair,” he says finally. “So about this morning’s meeting, though—”

  “It was about the plant,” Grayson bursts out. “She still thinks she deserves that plant because she’s our resident scientist. But the bioluminescent gave it to Eliza, who’s also a scientist.”

  Glenn sighs. “Mary can be a lot to take sometimes, as you now appear to be aware, Eliza.”

  I nod, though I don’t like that he’s talking about her this way to me.

  “She means well, but she’s very set in her ways, gets obsessed with things easily. You’ll learn, over time, when to decide whether it’s easier to just give in to her whims, or whether it’s something you should hold firm on. This one is your call. But I’m just letting you know, giving in may be easier.”