She descended into darkness and fixed her eyes on the faint glow about Alex above. Soon it was nothing more than her imagination as the dim candle flame was eaten by the hollow depths surrounding her.
Her feet touched ground. Heart rushing, she called, “I’m down.” The echoes surrounded her like a flood of voices, breathless and eerie. She trembled. What had she thought, returning here? She could be warm and safe at Èmie’s wedding feast. What would they all think when they noticed her gone?
Would Mae organize the cleanup? Would Lucia, Celia, and Elizabeth follow with only Mae’s direction? What had she been thinking to sneak off like this? What if something happened? Who would know to look for them here? Trembling, she waited for Alex to join her.
As soon as she heard him near, she struggled out of her harness and reached for the end of his rope. She steadied it as he descended, then stepped back for him to land. He handed her a candle and their fingers brushed. Warm, living flesh.
He lit both their candles. “I don’t suppose you came to watch me take rock samples and measurements.”
She shook her head, wondering if she dared make her way to the circular cave alone. Overhead the bats stirred. She shuddered.
“I’ll walk you through to the chamber, then return, if that’s all right?”
“Thank you.” She touched his arm, and he pressed her fingers. The contact was brief and inconsequential, but it emboldened her. Holding her candle aloft, she followed him once again toward the moaning sound that indicated the direction of the secondary chamber.
Alex stopped once to mark a channel leading off from the main chamber. He nailed the end of one ball of twine there. “I might see how far that one goes when I come back.”
Carina had no desire to see for herself how long the dark tunnel wove. She wondered again what she was even doing there in this dark, cavernous hole. But once she entered the painted chamber, she knew. She was honoring Wolf.
“Well, I guess I’ll go back?”
She smiled wanly. “I’ll be fine.”
Alex glanced once around the chamber. “Not exactly gentle viewing.”
“No.”
“Are you sure . . .”
She swallowed her uncertainty. “I want to know.”
Again he brushed her fingers where she clasped her arm with the opposite hand. His touch brought her strength and comfort.
She almost wished he wouldn’t leave, but she strengthened her smile. “I’ll be fine.”
“If you call and I don’t answer, stay where you are. Don’t try to find me. I might be down some side tunnel, and it’s terribly easy to become disoriented.”
“You might get lost?”
“I won’t get lost, but you might if you tried to find me.”
Carina wondered once again what she was doing beneath the earth and how it would be to stumble about in the dark, lost in an endless maze of tunnels. “I’ll stay here or in the main chamber.”
“Are you warm enough?”
She realized she was. The temperature in the cave was higher than the outside air. The ground must form a barrier to prevent extreme temperatures in either direction. Though cold, the air had none of the wind’s bite. Bundled in layers of warm miner’s attire, she should be comfortable enough. “Yes.”
“Then I’ll leave you.” He still looked uncertain, but he went.
Carina brought her gaze to the first mural, which she had identified as the scene of which Father Antoine had spoken. The massacre of Wolf’s parents, friends, and baby sister. The picture was brutal in its accuracy. Carina could look at it only a moment. Could Wolf have recalled it so vividly, or did he paint what he thought must have been?
No, she remembered Father Antoine saying the memory was vivid for the man, though he’d been only five years old at the time. His memory must be extraordinary, but then, to see your mother . . . She couldn’t look at it any longer.
The next picture showed a boy standing alone in a circle of cone-shaped tents. At each tent stood a man painted red with a feathered headband. At some stood a woman also, and at several, more than one woman. The boy was painted with the same ochre-colored paint as the first massacred victims. Beside him, the pale wolf.
She moved her eyes to the next scene. The boy was on his knees, and it seemed those around him beat him with sticks. The next showed him tied to a post by his wrists while boys on horseback whipped him with ropes. Over both of these, the wolf hovered, almost a cloud, though its shape was discernible.
The next showed the ochre figure as a man standing in the river with a spear. On the end of the spear was a great gray fish. The wolf pranced. The next was a scene of the hunt. A brown stag, bloodied but twice the size of a man, stood in a circle of warriors, and though the ochre man was among them, he carried no spear. Had he not been allowed the glory of the kill?
She looked but saw no wolf in that picture until, studying it closely, she noted the ochre man’s head was wolf shaped and pale. Somehow that image chilled her. Was he becoming the wolf they’d named him? The one who howled in tortured dismay when his son was born?
Carina felt a chill across the back of her neck and spun. Her candle sputtered and almost extinguished, but it revealed nothing at all behind her. Just a movement of air. Her throat tightened painfully. Her heart hammered her chest, but she was alone. There was nothing in the chamber.
Signore, give me strength. She turned back to the wall and saw Wolf astride a paint pony, his own head decked with a single feather. At his side, the wolf. They were on the edge of a cliff, and a great vista had been painted around them. The cactus all waved and pointed toward the sun, which was rising or setting on the horizon, and above the saffron sun, an eagle spread its wings. Its shadow reached Wolf on the cliff, the wingtips just touching his forehead.
Carina reached out with one finger and touched the spot where they met. The stone was smooth and dry, probably because of the air hole above. Had Wolf known his pictures would be preserved? But what was their significance? What was the eagle, and why did it touch Wolf now?
The next was a war scene, and the two beyond. In his ochre paint, Wolf did not participate in the bloody acts shown too clearly for Carina to bear. He and the wolf were shown apart, unarmed, heads hanging as though shamed or despairing. Did he choose not to make war, or was he forbidden it? She recalled Father Antoine’s words. “He was the most humane man I’ve ever met. It wasn’t in him to kill.”
Not to war for his people must have cost him greatly in respect and esteem. Or did they refuse him the honor, sensing what Father Antoine had said, a humane spirit that set him apart? She passed the battle scenes and saw now a painting of a maiden. She was naked and broad. Only the wolf stood beside her, no ochre-colored man. Had Wolf believed that only his Indian side could join with a woman of the people?
The next picture showed the maiden on a high platform in the trees. Other platforms were around hers, but each held a skeleton. She had died, then. The ochre man knelt below her platform. The wolf again hovered above like a cloud. If only Carina knew what it all meant.
Now there was a mountain, and on its side, the man and wolf together. The man had his arms upraised and she saw, very small above him, the eagle. One feather drifted down and she wondered if Wolf would catch it in his open hands.
The next scene showed Rose, and Carina’s heart leaped. She was painted nearly white, with dark hair and red skirts. The picture seemed more symbolic than real, the two of them standing beside a simple depiction of a cabin with a starlit sky above. The stars formed the shape of the wolf.
The last picture showed the ochre man raising a newborn child above his head . . . in exultation? Or offering? The wolf beside him had its head thrown back, mouth open to the sky.
Wind came through the opening above her, and Carina staggered back, her legs suddenly spongy. Her candle sputtered and went out. She cried out, then clamped a hand to her mouth. Something moved in the darkness. A bat, perhaps, startled by her cry. Its presence was not
a comfort.
With the dim filtered light from the opening above, the darkness was not complete, but close enough that even when straining she could not make out the walls of the chamber or even more than a few inches from her eyes. “Alex.” Her voice came as no more than a strangled whisper, and the sound of it scared her more than the silence.
Signore! “Signore!” She shouted it this time. “Gesù Cristo!” She fumbled in her pocket for the matches Alex had given her to carry. Her fingers shook as she struck, then struck once again before it caught. She held it unsteadily to the candlewick and breathed her relief when the light enlarged and once again warmed the chamber.
Her pants were soiled by the guano on the floor, but she sat a moment longer, letting the strength return to her legs. Why had she come? Why did she want to see once again these horrifying images? The wind moaned, and standing swiftly, she felt a wave of dizziness and panicked at the thought of fainting there.
She staggered to the entrance and looked swiftly back over her shoulder. The chamber was still. Candle held high, she made her way back into the main cave. Her candlelight shrank to a mere firefly glow in the immense opening.
Alex was not there. Now she understood his warning. Without it she would have gone in search of him. She might not have even considered the danger of wandering off, searching one tunnel after another. Neither did she want to stay alone in this echo chamber with the painted one at her back.
She found the side tunnel Alex had marked with the string earlier. With one hand she felt the string pulled tightly along the wall and entered. She held the candle in her left hand, and felt her way along the string with her right. She would not let go of the string for one minute. That way she couldn’t make a wrong turn.
It seemed that wouldn’t be a problem. After only ten paces the tunnel shrank down until she was stooping, then seemed to disappear altogether. The string, though, kept on, and she dropped to her knees before a small opening above the floor. Here the walls and floor were damp.
Surely Alex hadn’t crawled through there! But the string continued through the hole. He must have. Well, that didn’t mean she would. But what was the alternative? To turn back to the empty chamber? She shuddered, then looked at the hole again. If Alex Makepeace could fit through, she could.
But not with her candle lit. The very thought of extinguishing it made her tremble. What if she couldn’t get it lit again? She closed her eyes and stilled her breath. Maybe she should call to him. But then she remembered how disturbed the bats had been the last time something startled them. She didn’t want bats filling this small tunnel with no room even to cringe.
Resolved, she blew out the candle and crouched down to the small space. Flat on her stomach, she pulled herself inside. Immediately she felt trapped and terrified. How long would it last? It was hard to feel the twine and keep pulling herself, so she reached up after every pull to make sure it was there. As though it could go anywhere else.
Soon she was able to crawl on her knees, then once again to stoop. She stopped and relit her candle. In its light, she saw that the floor was rising. The whole tunnel climbed upward. “Alex?” It was a soft inquiry, not enough to disturb anything lurking there. Nor did it bring an answer.
Carina sighed, wondering whether to go on or turn back. But turning back meant crawling again, and she wasn’t ready to do that again so soon. She followed the string a few paces upward and came to a very steep rise. The surface was uneven, and she climbed like a goat, using any jut or indentation for a foothold, while clasping her candle and using her one free hand to pull herself up.
She reached, and something gripped her wrist. Screaming, she dropped her candle and nearly fell backward. A flood of bats washed over her, and she fended them off with one hand while the other was held fast by whatever had caught her. Again her heart rushed and beat wildly inside her.
The grip on her wrist tightened, and she realized it was Alex Makepeace who had a hold of her. With one jerk, he pulled her up and held her steady.
“You scared me to death!”
“I’m sorry, Carina.” He caught her shoulders.
She could see his face in the dim light of his candle, which he must have set on the floor to catch hold of her. If she hadn’t been so intent on the climb, she might have noticed the extra glow from above and his motion to reach for her. As it was, she was thankful not to have lost control of her bodily functions. “Don’t you know better than to grab someone in the dark!”
“I didn’t want to speak and disturb the bats. I guess it might have been better if I had.” He smiled sheepishly.
“Indeed.” Carina pressed a hand to her galloping heart.
“Did you think Tommy-knockers had your arm?”
“Tommy-knockers?”
“Ghosts of men buried alive in the mines.”
Carina shuddered. “Don’t tell me any more.”
He looked down the way she’d climbed. “How’d you get through that tunnel?”
“I’m smaller than you, Alex. And I didn’t want to be alone.”
Alex released her. “Those pictures would be enough to spook a body. I shouldn’t have left you. I hope you don’t intend to go in there again.”
She shook her head. “I’ve seen it all now. But what is this? What have you found?”
“A crystal cave.” Alex stooped and raised the candle. Its light danced all around them on the sharp-pointed facets of the small aperture. It was like being inside a geode. The rounded space glittered with soft hues on the circular ceiling scarcely a foot over their heads and eight feet around.
Carina stared at its beauty, awed. There was no sense of evil here, only wonder. She reached out and touched one crystal as long as her finger and twice as broad. Alex was silent as she walked slowly around the chamber.
“Is this the end of the tunnel?”
He shrugged. “I don’t see another way out. Be kind of hard to miss it.”
“It’s beautiful.”
He nodded. “A true wonder of nature.”
Carina returned to him. “I’m glad I followed you.”
“And I know better than to waste my breath next time.”
“I followed the string. I wasn’t wandering.”
He didn’t scold as Quillan might, just took his knife and cut the end of the twine, then nailed it into the wall with a thin spike and small-headed hammer. “There. Now we can find it again.”
“Alex . . .” She looked again around the sparkling chamber. “Do you think we should?”
“Should?”
“Find it again.”
He narrowed one eye. “Why not?”
“It seems . . . like a secret.”
Alex stroked the crystals over his head, then dropped his hand. “We’ll leave it for now. Come on.” Before starting for the opening, he reached down and picked up a thin rosy-hued crystal shaped like the spire on a church. “Here.” He gave it to her, and Carina tucked it into her pocket.
Alex helped her down the steep drop, where she retrieved her candle. The wax was broken, and he replaced it with a fresh one. “There.”
She took the holder. “I’m glad it was you holding my wrist and not some Tommy-knocker.”
He laughed. “You nearly split my ears with that scream in all that crystal.”
“You deserved it.”
“You’re a hard woman, Carina.”
Was she? Was that why Quillan didn’t come home? She didn’t speak while they climbed out, then wrapped her muffler about her mouth once outside. The cold seemed fiercer on the ride down, and by the time they reached Crystal at dusk, the snow was coming in earnest. Carina fended the flakes from her eyes as she dismounted outside her door.
Alex took the reins of both horses. “Good night, Carina.”
“Good night.” She watched him lead the animals into the storm. Then she went inside. Mae must have kept the fire stoked, for the room was warm and inviting. Carina lit the lamp and studied the crystal in its light. Had Wolf found the cr
ystal cave? Or had he only immersed himself in the teardrop chamber?
She closed her eyes and pictured his last painting. The pale wolf had been man-sized, howling its grief and fear to the world. Had the ochre man offered his child, whose cries he couldn’t bear, to the eagle whose shadow wingtips had brushed his forehead? And who was the eagle to Wolf?
SIXTEEN
So many questions. Will I ever know the answers?
—Carina
“WHO IS IT?” CARINA turned at the tap on her door.
“Mae.”
Carina hurried over and opened the door that connected her hall to Mae’s kitchen. She felt a twinge of guilt as Mae swept into the room, breath labored as always. “What is it, Mae? Are you all right?”
“Me? I’m all right. But I could ask you the same.”
Carina studied her face, searching out her intent. “I’m fine, Mae.”
“Do you mind telling me where you were all day and why you simply disappeared? Or do I have to look any farther than Alexander Makepeace?”
Carina was horrified. “What are you saying?”
Mae raised a plump hand. “I’m not saying I understand Quillan or condone his absence. But he’s your husband, Carina, and unless you want the tongues to wag, you’d better consider well before you sneak off with Mr. Makepeace again.”
“I didn’t sneak off with him.”
Mae made it sound dirty. What they had done was above reproach. Yes, they had been alone together, but in no way compromising or . . . But how could Mae know that? How had it looked?
“I know what it is to be lonely, Carina. Why do you think I fill my house up with people who need me, or at least my cooking and cleaning?”
“I’m not lonely. I have you and Èmie.” Though now that Èmie was married things would change.
Mae shook her head. “I’m not blind, Carina. And what I’ve seen, others have seen. Don’t you think Quillan’s had enough marks against him?”
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