From the Caves

by Thea Prieto

  Listen to me, shouts Teller with an arm crossed over his face.

  Mark and Tie watch the dark storm overhead.

  I believe Green’s stories are true, shouts Teller. Song told us the same stories, stories passed down to her by other Tellers. Green told us about when the first cave tunnels were built, so people could live underground during the summer. He knew when the boats stopped arriving at the beach and the insects disappeared—

  Another boom. Nail heads pop at Sky’s feet as tin sheets rip from frames and warped shingles fly over the cliff edge.

  Teller, let’s go, yells Mark into the wind.

  Teller continues louder.

  Green knew when the gardens began to fail and driftwood became scarce, but he said, through all those times, Abraham sacrificed firewood on the mountain. Green couldn’t have known—it happened long ago, before the Enemy Ocean rose and clawed into the cliffs—but he still believed. He kept the bonfire lit, so people might return from the desert, so Moth might find us. Green fell from these cliffs today while working for something he believed, and I believe he lived a life full of determination and hope.

  Tie makes a choking sound and tears roll down her chin. When Sky reaches over and takes her gritty hand, her fingers squeeze.

  There was much more we could have learned from Green, says Teller, but we can still learn from his stories. It’s because of his determination that we should maintain the bonfire and sacrifice part of our firewood—

  There isn’t enough, yells Mark. Do you have any idea—

  Must give meaning to our lives—

  —need the supplies—

  —no point in living if—

  You’re both acting awful, Tie shouts into the wind. Green didn’t even like stories with fighting unless the stories taught us how to avoid it.

  The windstorm blasts stronger, and Sky moves closer to Tie. Even behind her body’s slight windbreak his skin burns against the speeding dust, and Teller retreats back from the fire as a column of sparks swirls into the air. Ash lifts from Green’s flames, showing two blackened feet. The clouds above whirl close and dark.

  We need to leave now, shouts Mark with lines on his forehead. Not anger lines, thinks Sky, worry lines.

  Tie glances at the cliff edge, then at Green’s blazing fire, and nods her head. Her grip on Sky’s shoulder is hard as she leads him down the bluffs, Mark and Teller close behind them, and through a brief gap in the storm’s flying dust and the brown smoke from the bonfire, Sky glimpses the bay stretched below. The lower slopes of the dunes and the long, gray beach are divided by a crosshatch of sand-clogged streets, canyons of ruptured asphalt, the metal crusts of automobiles, and blankets of garbage arranged in a sprawling block pattern. Brick chimneys rise out of tangles of fallen rafters, the frames scorched black, hollowed by fire and wind, the structures long ago skinned of their lumber by human hands.

  And with the stench of Green’s fire and the waiting stillness of the landscape below, Sky cannot imagine the cool sea breezes and blue ocean from Teller’s story. As he climbs across the dunes and back into the quiet darkness of the caves, Sky wishes he could see the floating green and sparkling things Green liked to describe, wishes he could imagine people traveling by land and sea, but it’s easier to remember sadness, thirst, and hunger when the ocean is an endless expanse of brown waves, a wide desert of seawater broken only by the distant, half-submerged remains of Old City. Out to sea, the torn shell of a single skyscraper and a lone section of a bridge loom out of the white-capped breakers, and the empty windows facing the beach are only sightless squares to Sky. Even though low tide reveals the flat tops of road signs and the hollow heads of street lamps, without Green the only meaning Sky can summon from the past is remote, quiet, and small.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Wake up.

  Another nudge—Mark’s foot prodding his shoulder. Sky blinks but everything remains dark. It is early.

  Wake up, we’re going to the net, says Mark, and Sky slowly coils his legs underneath himself. His outstretched fingers recognize the cool, hand-chiseled walls of the cave, and his toes know their way from the grooves carved into greasy stone. He orients himself in the blackness, head ducking the low ceiling of rock, but his first steps bump him into Mark’s bare chest.

  Mark shoves him backwards.

  Get some plastic, what are you thinking, Mark hisses.

  In the dark, Sky strains his hearing past Teller’s snoring to Tie’s breathing, and although it’s been tens of days without him, Sky instinctively seeks Green’s sleeping breath. Only four of us now just four, Sky scolds himself, as he smothers the sharp memory of Green’s single open eye and reaches for the plastic cords Tie wove the day before. The buttons of his fingers feel past Tie’s flinching knees, accidentally brush against Teller’s injured foot. Teller yelps.

  Hurry, says Mark, the sound of his footsteps shrinking into the tunnel. Sky follows the soft beat out of the narrow sleeping chamber, into the main passageway where he can stand at full height and hear the shushing of ocean waves around the dim entrance of the cave tunnels.

  Outside, on the lower slopes of the bluffs, a fine sea mist collects on Sky’s skin. The air steams against his face and the thrill of it, the dream of moisture, a moment later raises the hairs on his neck. The marine layer is lifting, burning off—morning is only a red stripe behind the shadowed mountain ridge but the heat will wake fast and thirsty. Sky trips down the sand dunes, passing quiet houses with black doorways and dodging the rusted bumpers of tilted automobiles. When he arrives out of breath at the beach, Mark is already at the fog net, one hand pulling the torn edge of the fabric taut, his body crouched awkwardly over the bucket and water spigot.

  Fix the net, orders Mark, and Sky reconnects the ripped strands to the pipe base, redirecting the dripping fabric to the water trough and allowing Mark to focus on the thin dribble trickling out of the spigot. Once Sky attaches the last threads in place he runs down the beach, circling the entire length of net the way he has seen Mark circle it before. He slides his palms high and low along the netting as he goes, so the dew will accumulate faster and drip into the trough, and his eyes search every pipe connection for leaks. Since Mark is watching, Sky also quickly repairs minor tears in the net with Tie’s cords while ignoring the more time-consuming rips—the fog has all but evaporated from the brightening sky and the hot wind is increasing. When Sky returns to Mark’s side, the sun is already winking pink over the bluffs, slicing the top of his head with heat.

  They both look into the bucket at the shallow puddle of water.

  Tomorrow we’ll take the net down for the summer, says Mark and they fall quiet. Their dark reflections move across the surface of the murky fluid, two triangle faces on a glowing background, Mark’s shadow the larger of the two. As Sky watches the image ripple, the light glints to match Mark’s clouded pupils, the pale scar that runs the length of Mark’s peeling nose, and the frown he wears when he looks Sky’s direction, if he looks at him at all.

  But when Mark lowers the bucket, he is not frowning. The crease between Mark’s eyebrows is relaxed and his high-boned cheeks are soft because his hairless chin isn’t squashed sour. When Mark speaks, the round muscles of his arms are slack instead of standing and angry, and his voice is calm, not stinging, not hurtful at all. Every patient word from Mark pours glowing liquid into Sky’s chest, and when Mark looks half-blind into Sky’s face, he still believes Mark is watching him, really looking at him—he is actually seeing me at last.

  I want you to filter this water, says Mark, his foggy stare holding. Teller’s foot is getting worse and soon Tie will be too big to move around very much. I’m going to need your help.

  Sky nods eagerly and with their faces close he can tell how similar their features are—the shallow bridges of their noses, their heavy eyelids, like thumb-smears of clay. Although Mark’s eyes are gray and hazy, both of their right eyes have a matching droop and their wide-arced eyebrows hitch high. As they march up the sand
dunes together, their footsteps matching as well, the invitation to join, to be near and included, still floats quietly in the air, and Sky’s thudding heart makes his knees shake.

  The morning heat has already pounded the air to waving when Sky follows Mark into the dark mouth of the cave, keeping the pulse of Mark’s footsteps ahead of him and his fingertips outstretched to the uneven stone walls. Blackness soon presses up to his nose, a damp chill covers his sweaty skin, and after ten paces Sky feels a cold yawning pass him on his left—the entrance to the tunnel that leads to the deeper sleeping chambers. Another ten paces forward with the walls narrowing inward—a splinter of kindling from the firewood pile pokes his left foot—and then Sky turns right into the oldest, tallest tunnel that leads to the storeroom. Daylight flecks the ceiling and reveals the high cracks in the rock overhead, the fractures that jag up to the surface, and Sky’s eyes adjust to the dim pink beams that brighten swirls of dust. The air in the tunnel is warming with the heat of the day and Sky and Mark’s combined breath, but the floor’s mix of brick and scored stones still feels cool underfoot.

  Then the tunnel walls widen beyond Sky’s reach, he ducks again into complete darkness, and he knows he has reached the storeroom. He freezes in place with his arms still spread. No babies allowed, Mark always warned him, so Sky waits quietly on the brick step that has been permitted to him in the past, his senses perked to the upturned dirt nearby, the dense smell of water—the damp of growing things. He can also hear the padding of bare feet and fingernails scratching rock, Mark’s movements quick and sure even in blackness. He navigates the important room with such ease that Sky’s eagerness dips, and a moment later—a blink of light. A brick slides out of the far wall and into Mark’s orange-lit palm. The open rectangle of sunlight falls across the rows of large water drums, the chipped clay pots, and glints against the edges of glass jars stacked to catch evaporation. A peeling shard of mirror next to Sky helps jump the light across the room, and when he squints he can just see the small hand-drawn scratches in the clay of the opposite wall, the long and detailed counting marks.

  Don’t touch these, says Mark, gesturing to one row of drums with cracked plastic lids. This water’s already filtered and separated and it’s ready to be boiled. All the new water goes in this barrel and—don’t step there—

  Sky jumps back from his first step into the corner of the storeroom, and Mark drops to the ground, feeling the dirt where Sky’s foot landed. A long quiet while Mark examines the squashed soil, his thick shoulders bunching, and when he stands his hands are on his hips, his face glaring at Sky who stands nervously, disappointed—I’ve made a mistake already.

  Where you just stepped, yells Mark, is where all the summer roots are planted. See, that’s the barrel that leaks, it goes on top.

  It was Green’s idea, adds Mark, his voice quieter.

  Another moment without speaking except now the silence is heavy and leaking. Sky is almost grateful when Mark points out the scratches on the wall and begins explaining the different columns and tallies, when his voice has regained all of its familiar bitterness. Mark’s words clip off the stone ceiling, driven down into the top of Sky’s head, and he doesn’t interrupt Mark even though he already knows the symbols for counting days and seasons from the other tunnels. Sky doesn’t know, though, the system for tracking the tides, the firewood supply, the water per person, the shredded tarps they use for washing, or the digging schedule.

  As Mark speaks, Sky’s attention trails up the lighted wall, following a long line of square-shaped dots and fingernail-sized indents. Up close he can finally see the line of dots continues to the ceiling, filling the high walls and winding all the way around the storeroom—hundreds and hundreds of small arcs and loops. In the hardest, oldest clay, where the walls are propped by iron beams, the dots are not dots at all but tightly gathered and overlapping markings, an intricate pattern of grouped scratches. Each tiny figure is different than the one that follows, a string of shapes increasingly more complicated and interesting and exciting.

  What are those? interrupts Sky.

  Don’t you know what writing is, says Mark.

  Sky ducks his face.

  What’s it mean?

  Mark tilts his head to the side, itches his scalp.

  I know what these mean.

  Mark points him to the other side of the room, where the long pattern tapers sharply to just a few short strings of figures. There, above a heap of corroded metal coils, the square dots are not intricate at all, only plain, blunt punches in the clay.

  That means Tie’s name, says Mark, squinting and pointing at a single dot with eighteen indents next to it.

  And that’s Green’s name, says Mark picking out another dot. The twenty-five scratches next to his name means twenty-five years.

  Sky’s ribs clutch his jumping heart, and he suddenly wants to lean across the water drums to trace Green, his name, his age, although he’s sure Mark wouldn’t allow it. Instead, he shapes the word Green in his mouth while looking at the imprint, moves his teeth and tongue as though Green might spring from this small, hushed language.

  But only his own memories live in Sky’s garbled sadness, of Green spending time alone in the storeroom, Sky peeking unseen from the tunnel, cautious not to disturb him. Time to think, Green called it, his body half-hidden among the supplies, back shaking with prayers and sobs as his fingertips traced the walls. And this scratch, thinks Sky, his fingers raised toward the clay—this scratch is Green’s name, it belongs to him. Green’s voice, his determination and hope—they are supposed to be here, stamped in the storeroom, but the plain dot does not even hold the jagged and painful fact of Green’s death. It is only a spot, a depression. No detail, no voice, no memory at all.

  Mark points to another dot on the wall.

  And that’s Mother’s name, he says, and Sky shies from another dangerous past. He quickly notices, though, two other names in a line below hers, one name with sixteen indents next to it, the other with nine indents.

  So when names are close, does that mean family? says Sky, the words skipping unguarded from his lips.

  It doesn’t matter, frowns Mark, turning away. Stop asking so many questions.

  So that’s your name, says Sky, pointing. And that one’s mine.

  You know nothing about family, Mark snaps, flipping around so fast Sky stumbles backwards into the dark shapes of the room. One of his hands plunges through a cracked lid into a water drum, a loud splash, warm drips down his arm, against his chest, and Mark is screaming.

  Waste, he yells. You’ll kill us wasting water.

  Sky runs from the storeroom, his naked shoulders scraping the sides of the tunnel, loosening sand to the floor. In the main passageway, he trips over the firewood pile, retreats deeper into the cave’s narrowing void, between outcrops and overhangs of rock, but Mark’s words still echo.

  You killed Mother, you’ll kill us too.

  At the end of the passage, where the tunnel ends in fallen boulders, Sky grips the steel poles that support the remaining roof of the cave. His rashed shoulders burn inward as his face burns outward. There is water on his face and on his hands, his salty crying mixing with the water from the drum, ruining it, ruining everything—I don’t deserve to have anything or anyone, Please, only to please you, Mark, my brother, will I always be this way, a scratch, a dot?

  It is a long while before Sky’s breath slows and he realizes there are faint sounds at the other end of the main passageway—Tie and Teller’s voices. As Sky crawls closer to the orange entrance of the cave, he can see the shadowed outline of Teller sitting against the wall of the tunnel, his legs stretched out before him. Tie shakes her head while she untangles a large knot of wires in her lap, unknotting and straightening, handing the wires to Teller to braid into ropes, and Teller whispers something too quiet for Sky to hear.

  Don’t talk like that, says Tie to Teller. Not all fevers are bad.

  Teller tries to shift his weight, the unbraided wires
in his lap move as one, and he grits his teeth.

  It hurts more today, he says. What if it’s metal poison?

  What do you want me to say? snaps Tie. You’ll get better. You have to get better. You’re the only one who tells Green’s stories like he used to and I can’t lose those too, I can’t.

  Teller doesn’t move, wrapped in the fog of Tie’s angry sorrow, watching her hands jerk the wires straight. When he lowers his head, Tie’s face twitches toward the shadows.

  Sky, is that you?

  With her ear turned to listen, Sky edges from his hiding place, trying to keep his wet face and arms hidden. As he draws near, he can see the stiffness flexed through the coarse hair of Teller’s leg. The wound on the sole of his foot has shrunk to a red crater, but his toes clench and the muscles of his injured leg stand and churn. Today his eye cavities are tunnels in his sweaty face.

  Sneaking in the dark, says Teller, his voice friendly but hoarse. He smiles with a clamped jaw.

  Was that Mark shouting, asks Tie.

  Sky bows his head.

  What’s he angry about this time.

  I spilled water, Sky mumbles, and Tie drops her wires.

  Just a little, adds Sky quickly.

  We count every drop, says Teller. Every drop is vital, Sky.

  Vital, thinks Sky, like a beating heart—living patterns in clay.

  Are the dots in the storeroom vital, too? says Sky.

  You mean our names?

  Sky nods, and Teller’s eyes widen into pools of sparkling oil. When Teller nods, slowly, heavily, his voice is low and serious.

  The most vital, Sky, more vital than any number or year. Those marks symbolize your story and my story, all of our stories, and Green’s especially. Green always remembered and honored the memory of those who are—

  Stop, interrupts Tie, her fists hovering on either side of her pursed face. Don’t say another word about how he’s gone, I can’t bear it. Talk about something else, anything else.

  A still moment. Dangerous memories crowd underneath Sky’s prickled skin. The Dark Sickness opens its eyes.