Shades of Red

by K. C. Dyer

  “Just a second, you guys,” said Darrell. “Paris, do you know how to open this door from the inside?”

  Paris stuck his head back out through the opening. “Uh — no. I only went in a short distance the last time because I didn’t have a flashlight.”

  Darrell stepped through the opening. “Then wait a minute. We don’t want this thing to swing closed on us,” she said and bent down to prop a hardcover book in the doorframe.

  Paris started down the stairs, but Brodie put a hand on Darrell’s arm. “Put your hand on my shoulder,” he whispered. “Since you don’t have a flashlight.”

  Darrell reached out her hand and followed Brodie into the passage. Within two or three feet a worn wooden stairway opened below them. Darrell and Brodie cautiously followed Paris’s bobbing flashlight down the steps. The thin glow of light from above disappeared as the stairs reached a landing and changed direction.

  Paris was waiting on the landing. “This is as far as I got before,” he said in a low voice. Below the landing the surface of the steps changed abruptly from wood to rock and began a tight spiral down into the darkness.

  “We must have worked our way under one of the stone towers,” whispered Brodie.

  Darrell felt a surge of excitement. “This passage might lead down to the cave, Brodie,” she hissed in his ear. “Do you think Delaney led Paris here?”

  “What was that?” asked Paris.

  “I was just saying that it seems crazy to go on without more light,” said Darrell loudly. “Why don’t we come back tomorrow and bring some brighter flashlights with us?”

  Paris bounded down the stairs. “Are you kidding?” he called back over his shoulder, voice echoing. “I want to see where this goes.”

  Brodie shrugged at Darrell. “Maybe you’re right,” he said in a low voice. “That dog is smarter than most humans I know. But we need to find out for sure. Besides,” he said, holding the flashlight so that Darrell could see her way, “as long as Kate has Delaney, we’ll be just fine.”

  Her excitement growing, Darrell followed Brodie down the tightly winding steps.

  The air was dank and smelled of mould and mildew. The stone walls grew damp under Darrell’s fingertips as they slowly worked their way downward. There was no handrail, so Darrell stepped carefully, all too aware of how quickly she would skid downward on the slippery stone steps if she lost her footing. For balance, she kept a hand on Brodie’s shoulder as he descended in front of her.

  “Thirty-nine,” counted Brodie as they reached the bottom. His voice no longer echoed but sounded flat in the dank air.

  As they shone their flashlights around at the bottom of the steps, several openings appeared before them in the wavering beams. To the right, rotten timber lay tumbled on the ground amid a pile of rocks. Only a small opening remained. To the left, timbers still shored up entrances to at least three other passages; Darrell knew more could easily lie outside the range of the flashlights.

  “This is amazing,” breathed Paris. “Why do you think all these tunnels are here?”

  “Probably smugglers,” said Brodie. “There was quite a bit of smuggling on this coast during Prohibition,” he added.

  “The building was originally a hunting lodge,” said Darrell. “Maybe the hunters were supplementing their income by selling alcohol.”

  Paris shrugged. “Who knows,” he began, when a long wail followed by a strange shuffling and bumping noise echoed down the stairwell behind them.

  As they instinctively turned toward the noise, the beams from Paris and Brodie’s flashlights converged on the bottom step.

  “What — ?” began Paris, when into the light bounded a lithe golden form.

  Kate followed, her face flushed. She stumbled down the last stair and tripped into Darrell’s arms. “Bad boy!” she said breathlessly to Delaney.

  The dog wagged his tail serenely, as if he had been out for a quiet stroll, and flopped down at Darrell’s feet.

  “What are you doing here?” said Brodie.

  “How did you find us?” asked Darrell at the same time.

  Kate shook her head in exasperation. “Your bad dog took off before I could get the leash on him,” she said, frowning at Delaney. “He scratched on the library door — left a big claw-mark —” she added pointedly, “and pushed his way right in. I had to chase him down through the open bookcase at the back.” She reached down and snapped his leash onto his collar. “Caught you, you criminal,” she whispered, giving his head a pat.

  She clutched the leash tightly and nodded at the pile of rubble and timber. “That looks like it leads to the cave in the rocks,” she said, an edge of fear in her voice. She glanced at Darrell. “I’m not ready to go back there,” she said. “And I don’t think you should, either.”

  “What cave?” Paris looked interested.

  Darrell reached out and took the leash from Kate’s hand. “Nobody is going anywhere,” she said. “We’ve seen everything we came down here to see.”

  “Not quite everything,” said Paris, his voice echoing as he stepped through the entrance to a passageway. “I just want a quick look at this weird symbol on the wall ...”

  Kate shook her head. “Another time, okay, Paris?”

  Delaney jumped up to follow Paris, and as he tugged Darrell forward she felt a familiar tingling in her fingertips. She whirled to see Brodie’s puzzled expression and a mounting look of horror on Kate’s face. Kate’s fingers dug into Darrell’s sleeve in a futile effort to pull her back out of the doorway. Darrell opened her mouth to yell, but her words of warning were ripped away by a massive surge of air that twisted and pulled her into oblivion.

  Seconds later, Paris scrabbled on the dirt floor, the rocks and pebbles digging through his jeans into his knees. “What was that?” he gasped, and immediately regretted it. His mouth filled with what seemed like a century’s worth of the dust that skittered and swirled through the old passages. His flashlight was gone, and darkness swallowed everything. His eyes felt glued shut with ancient grime.

  After a minute or two he found he could breathe more easily, so he scrubbed at his eyes with a sleeve and felt around for his flashlight. No luck.

  Now that the dust was settling, a strange silence seemed to descend along with it. Where was everybody?

  “Darrell?”

  No answer. He called the others, but even the dog wasn’t making a sound.

  “Brodie? Where are you guys? Kate! Delaney — here boy!”

  Nothing.

  Crawling along, he smashed his knee hard enough to make his eyes water and reached down in the dark to feel what he had hit. The familiar shape of the flashlight slipped into his hand, and he pushed the button hard. To his enormous relief, the light flicked on.

  After a moment or two, he was able to orient himself. The weird wind that had whipped through the tunnel like a hurricane hadn’t blown him as far as he’d thought — in fact, in front of him appeared the stone steps leading up to the school.

  He staggered over to the staircase, wiping his eyes again on the sleeve of his shirt. The grit was incredible — his eyes were still caked with it. He sat on the bottom step and trained the beam of the flashlight up the stairs. Each step showed a thin film where the wind had stirred up the dust from the floor of the passages that stretched out before him. He felt completely disoriented, but got to his feet.

  “I can’t believe this,” he muttered. “I’ve lost them somewhere, or that wind has sucked them down one of these hallways.” He shone his light down the nearest passage, and his eye was caught by the outline the symbol he had noticed earlier, burnt or carved into the wooden frame at the entrance. He walked over and reached a hand out to touch the mark. Now that the dust had settled, it seemed as though the symbol bore the faintest tinge of red, and under his fingers the wall seemed to hold a strange warmth that vanished almost as he touched it. Almost.

  His gut clenched and a strange nausea swept through him. Tiny beads of sweat sprang out along his hairline. “W
hat’s this all about?” he whispered. A glance behind him at the stairs showed no footprints. “They can’t have gone up there.”

  The wooden doorframe under his fingertips had resumed its former chill, and Paris lifted his light to look again at the shape there. It was hard to make out, a charred black form against the weathered wood.

  “Some kind of tree, maybe?” he muttered. He traced his fingers over the shape: eight straight branches emerging out of a single base. He shone his light at the wooden entrance to the passage on the left, the narrowest of the three. After a few moments of close examination he found a charred symbol there as well. “A lighthouse,” he breathed. He placed a hand on both sides of the passage and took a deep breath.

  “Brodie!” he bellowed. “Kate, Darrell, Brodie — where are you?”

  Nothing.

  He shone the light up the steps a final time and then turned and resolutely headed down the passage marked with the charred lighthouse. The echo of his footsteps faded quickly into the dark.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Something was wrong. Darrell could feel it in her gut and in her head. The trip had taken too long, for one thing. She tried to collect her whirling thoughts, but it was impossible to think when her head throbbed with every heartbeat. She reached a hand up to touch a spot behind her ear. Her hair felt matted and wet, and nausea coursed through her again. So it was worse than usual. This time she’d been hurt.

  She remembered Kate’s hand on her arm and the fleeting sight of Brodie grabbing Kate’s shoulder. The yank that had pulled her into the maelstrom was unforgettable; her bones still ached from it. And strange as they were, these memories allowed her the comfort of familiarity. But something was still different.

  She slipped a peppermint into her mouth and paused a moment as the hot sweetness curled around her tongue. First things first. Where was she now? Moving with care, she slowly sat up.

  It was half-dark, and the air smelled musty. Well, that wasn’t so bad. Her first journey had landed her in a cave that was blacker than pitch and she’d survived all right. Nothing could be worse than that first trip into darkness and fear.

  Could it?

  The velvet touch of dog fur was fresh on her fingers, but when she tentatively stretched out and felt around, Delaney wasn’t within reach.

  That was it. Delaney had been with her in the tunnel under the school — but now she was alone. Darrell stopped moving and listened carefully. No sound of the dog’s hearty, happy breathing. No sound at all. The air felt heavy and close, and ...

  What was that?

  Her heart settled back down in her chest. Only the sound of a drop of water, splashing.

  Splashing where? Into what?

  Darrell drew her legs into her chest. Her hand crept down to her right knee, and the unmistakeable feel of coarse cloth bound to heavy wood brought her whirling thoughts into focus; an unaccountable excitement fluttered in her stomach.

  It’s happened again ...

  The last thing she remembered was walking with her friends through the hidden passage leading out of the Eagle Glen library. But where on earth had she ended up? And when?

  She rubbed her eyes and tried to push the headache away through sheer force of will. As always, the peppermint helped a little with the nausea, but she knew nothing but time would quiet the pain. She gathered up a handful of sleeve and pressed it to the tender spot behind her ear. The pain was still intense, but the wound did not seem to be actively bleeding, and that had to be a good thing.

  Using her hands as support, she crab-walked sideways until she could feel a solid stone wall at her shoulder. Cold slipped through seams and folds of her clothing, and she hugged herself for warmth. The mint in her mouth melted away as she leaned against the wall with a sigh and tried to figure out how she had come to be here and what exactly was to be done next.

  She seemed to be in the middle of some kind of long passage or hall, but it was clearly not the dusty passage underneath the school. The air smelled different — of seaweed and fish underlined with a sweet, rotten stench she did not want to put a name to.

  Which way to turn? Darrell flipped a mental coin and looked to the right. “Seems as good a direction as any,” she muttered.

  Using the wall for balance, Darrell pulled herself upright. Her right leg was heavy, and the act of walking no longer came naturally. She slid one hand along the clammy surface of the rock and stepped cautiously down the passageway to the right. The air still felt dank, but the hint of an icy breeze stirred the damp hairs on her neck. Feeling more confident in her choice, she moved instinctively toward the breath of air. The footing was treacherous, and Darrell found herself wishing for the carved walking stick that had once been a gift from an old man in Florence. Limping, she felt the stone surface rough under her fingertips, and she followed the wall down the passage.

  Most worrisome was the absence of her friends and Delaney. She could still feel the way his fur had bunched under his collar like a ruff as she’d held him last. He had to be here somewhere — but she did not know enough about her surroundings to risk calling out to him. Not yet.

  And what about Brodie and Kate? They’d been in the passage with her ... She stopped suddenly. Brodie and Kate had been there — they’d all been there — because of Paris. Darrell quailed inwardly. What if she’d dragged Paris into this, too?

  A new sense of panic pushing her forward, Darrell followed the passage around a slight curve and noticed the dark had lifted a little, though no source of light could be seen. In the low, greenish glow she could see what she had only been able to feel before. Her twentyfirst-century outfit of jeans and a sweater was gone. She was now wearing a long, free-flowing skirt of heavy wool under a decorative overskirt with a pattern lost in the dim light. The package of mints in her pocket had disappeared, leaving a few loose candies. And all that remained of the art pencil she always carried in the back pocket of her jeans was a stick of charcoal with a jagged end.

  And most significant of all, of course, was her right foot. Darrell sighed and raised her leg awkwardly. No state-of-the-art prosthesis to be seen. In its place was a roughly foot-shaped contraption carved out of heavy reddish wood and hinged at the spot where her ankle would be — if she still had one.

  Darrell sighed and pressed onward. The new foot swung clumsily, but it allowed her to keep moving, and that was what she needed most right now.

  The rough wall that she had been relying upon for balance carried on a few feet more and then dipped sharply into a niche. Near the floor, emerging from the solid rock, was a tiny stone altar. Below it a small basin scooped into the cobbled floor.

  Darrell’s running shoe had become a soft leather slipper on her left foot. This allowed her to walk very quietly, but the rustle of her skirts and the clatter of her wooden foot was still noise enough to send a mouse scampering away from the face of the altar. She stopped for a moment to watch the creature skitter down the hall and melt into the darkness, then she dropped to kneel near the tiny structure. Perhaps it held a clue to her whereabouts.

  A trickle of water ran from a flower-shaped stone spigot partway up the wall and dripped lazily into a stone basin, green and white with lime deposits and age. So this was what had drawn the mouse.

  A small collection of objects rested on the stone shelf. A couple of leather-bound books, an assortment of three or four scrolls of heavy paper or parchment and —

  A menorah.

  Her fingers traced the Hebrew letters and symbols etched into the heavy brass base. She scraped her nail above one symbol and a fine layer of yellow wax curled and dropped into the shadows.

  “Deus Do Elogio! What are you doing here? This is no safe place for a young woman.”

  The voice was gentle, but Darrell was no less startled for it. Her hands flew away from the items on the stone altar as she scrambled to stand. The menorah teetered dangerously on the edge of the shelf, but before Darrell could move to save it she felt the brush of a warm hand and the menorah was
safely back in its place.

  “Is it time to celebrate Chanukah?” Darrell blurted.

  The man beside her was hooded and in the dim light she could not see his face. He folded his hands together inside the heavy sleeves of his robe. “This candlestick belonged once to a man I knew long ago. And yes, during the Festival of Lights it is sometimes used for its proper function, but these days it is mostly a provider of much-needed light for travellers such as yourself.” He paused. “You know of this festival,” he added quietly. “You are of the Sephardim?”

  Darrell shook her head, unsure how much to reveal. “No — no. At least I don’t think so. It’s just — well — I know a man who is Jewish. He has a menorah a bit like this one.”

  The hooded man shifted, and though she could make out no other detail, Darrell could see the gleam of his eyes as he scrutinized her face. “I was not told to expect a traveller,” he said, as though to himself. He walked over to the low stone altar and knelt for a moment.

  Darrell stood uneasily against one wall, not knowing whether to move on or stay. After a long moment, the man crossed himself and stood up. “I came here to take away these things,” he said. “This place is no longer safe. But instead of just collecting a few religious relics, I now find I have a young girl to spirit away as well.”

  He looked at her critically. “I see you walk with a limp,” he said, pointing to her foot. His eyes softened. “You have suffered much, and there will be more ahead, I fear.”

  “Please, sir,” Darrell’s desperation welled up inside her and right out of her mouth, “I have been travelling with some friends, and I’ve — I have somehow managed to lose them. Have you seen them anywhere? They should be nearby — two boys and a girl, about my height?”

  He picked up the menorah and slipped it into a cloth bag with the other items. “I think you had best follow me, Señhorita,” he said quietly. “Through chance or good fortune you have stumbled upon the one person in this place who will do you no harm. The days are no longer safe for open travel, but I can at least guarantee you sanctuary until I locate your friends and move you safely on your way.”