From the Caves

by Thea Prieto

  I’m sorry, Tie, says Teller at last.

  The wires in Tie’s hands tremble before she looks away, toward the bright entrance of the cave. At the far end of the tunnel, the sunlight is a crooked triangle of waving heat, blurs of gray sand and orange light, and the rippling writes a brief and silent language in the air that does not comfort Sky.

  How about a story, then? says Teller gently, looking from one unhappy face to the other, his voice reaching through the darkness.

  No one moves for a long time. When Tie finally runs a thin wrist under her nose and sniffs wet, she holds out her arm to Sky—an invitation to come close. Next to the hard wall of her round stomach, her warm skin met first by his bare ribs and then his pressing ear, Sky curls up small enough to make her large belly his friend. With the warmth beaming off her skin, the fleshy smell and Baby sleeping inside, for a moment he forgets all of the ugly words Mark spoke, the hundreds of quiet dots in the storeroom and his hungry, crawling sadness. He wishes for writing with complex markings, words that are lovely and lasting.

  How about the firewood story? asks Teller.

  That’s my favorite, says Tie.

  Yes, I remember. Do you remember the firewood story, Sky?

  Sky grins at the easy memory. He heard Green tell it many times.

  Teller flattens his palms in his lap, the way he always does before a story. He sometimes nods at the ground with his eyes closed, the same way Green used to end his stories, but Teller always begins with his eyes open, his words directed into the toothed ceiling of the cave.

  Well, if you want to find the best firewood in the world, you have to know where to find the oldest, strongest tree. But to find the oldest, strongest tree, you have to first find the oldest, strongest man.

  What was he like when he was young? asks Tie. Sky smiles against the tight skin of her belly. She asks the same question every time, and he’s glad he’s not the only one asking questions.

  When the oldest man was young, says Teller, he was tall and strong just like the tree, and he had a black beard all the way down his chest.

  Tie quickly pinches the thin wisps of dark hair on Teller’s chin, and her stomach bounces under Sky’s ear as she laughs. Her high-crinkled laughter ends, though, with the sound of Mark’s echoed movements in the tunnels. Teller glances in the direction of the storeroom but continues his story, now looking at Sky with steady, teaching eyes.

  The oldest man was also very smart and brave. He had a scar on the side of his nose from one of his more dangerous adventures, and although he grew angry and said hurtful things sometimes, he had a good heart.

  Sky cocks his head. The oldest man never had a scar when the story was told before.

  Tie whispers as Mark’s footsteps approach, her words cupped near her palm.

  Teller, you forgot the part about his storytelling, she says. That’s the best part.

  Teller smiles warm and fills the cave ceiling with pulsing words, his voice low and measured like Green’s used to be. This, thinks Sky, this is a gift from Teller and Green.

  The oldest man also had a deep voice, says Teller, and it was sometimes strong but mostly gentle, like wind in the trees. When the world grew dark, the oldest man would sing stories to himself, and one day the Evening Goddess noticed and fell in love with him. From the Garden of the Gods, the Evening Goddess wished for the oldest man. She would listen to his stories and sigh.

  Tie sniffs wet again.

  Out of the cave’s darkness, bleeding into view as brown, orange, and then yellow, Mark stalks forward with a water jar in his hands. A good heart, Sky reminds himself, noting Mark’s scarred nose, but Sky still creeps into the covering shadows as Mark approaches and passes the jar into Tie’s open palms.

  He can’t have any, says Mark, jerking his head in Sky’s direction.

  Did he spill that much? says Tie.

  He shouldn’t have spilled any.

  It’s too hot today, says Teller. Sky won’t be able to help you if—

  I don’t need his help.

  You do, insists Teller. We all need to help each other.

  If I need help now, shouts Mark, it’s his fault, anyway. Mother knew how to do everything and he only makes my work harder—

  Don’t be stupid, says Tie. No one’s born knowing everything, not you, not Sky, not Mother.

  Tie’s hard eyes make Mark glance away. He picks at the ground as Tie stares down at her belly, frowns at it, and then examines the half-empty water jar.

  No water until tonight, she says finally, and Sky knows speaking will only lengthen the punishing talk. The moment she decides, though, Sky’s lips crack dry. His mouth feels coated with dust. As Tie tips the jar toward her peeling lips, grains of sand move in the charcoal-clouded fluid, and Sky can almost feel the quick liquid soaking his own tongue, rolling down his own throat. Teller is handed the jar next, and Sky imagines the word Water as a swirling bowled mark on the wall, simple and full, but with the others turned away from him the word also feels shallow, lonely.

  When Teller finishes the last dirty dregs of the water, he coughs his raw throat and directs his voice into the ceiling again. He continues the story with his eyes closed.

  The Evening Goddess, says Teller, fell in love with the oldest man. One night she appeared to him. She told him if he found the apple in the Garden of the Gods he could live forever and they could be together always. The apple was guarded by a snake that would kill anyone who came near, but the Evening Goddess promised to trick the snake—

  You’re telling the story wrong, says Mark. The goddess kills Snake, remember? She gets the apple and the oldest man gets to live forever and they are happy for many, many years.

  Mark smiles at Tie, and Sky feels sick from the word Forever. The word sounds like darkness stretching, tensing.

  Teller’s chin lowers level with the ground, and his sweaty face glints orange in the light of dawn. He continues the story with his eyes still closed, his voice loud and deep.

  However, the oldest man got to live forever but he didn’t get to be young forever. Years went by and the oldest man grew small and wrinkled and gray, until eventually he became so small and wrinkled and gray that he became a little jumping creature named Grasshopper.

  Abandoned by the Evening Goddess at a very old age and wanting to die, Grasshopper traveled to the Cave of the Dead, the place where the dead rest, but because Grasshopper had outsmarted death for so long he was taken to the Inferno. He was pulled down through many burning caves and tunnels, where the awful dead scream without sound, all the ghosts angry and sad and unable to confess.

  Confess, thinks Sky, as Teller’s words vibrate into the tunnels. Sky shapes his tongue around the word. It feels old and pretty—slippery. He imagines the word written long and looping in clay. Confess.

  Grasshopper went to the deep center of the Inferno, says Teller, and there, in a small scalding cave with nothing but darkness and boredom, woke Toad, the hungry God of the Dead.

  Grasshopper, said Toad, I will swallow you whole unless you tell me the beginning of the living world.

  So Grasshopper remembered his songs from when he was a man, and he began to sing his stories. He sang about Walking Stars crossing the night sky and the Garden of the Gods sinking under floodwaters. He sang about people who spoke words of many different meanings, and about the many dead people who were piled into a few deep holes after. He sang about empty hands of every size and color and the complicated power of words on paper.

  Toad frowned, disgusted by Grasshopper’s dreams of a world worse than his Inferno.

  Grasshopper, said Toad, I will cook you in oil unless you tell me the history of the living world.

  So Grasshopper remembered again his old stories and sang of times gone by. He sang about the ocean growing angry, the plants rolling up small and gray. He sang about powerful people who grew rich and quiet, and about poor people who grew hungry and angry and many. He sang about electric talk covering the world, the land growing old and
tired, and the Walking Stars stretching out of reach.

  Rich, thinks Sky with his eyes staring. The word feels like Plenty. It feels like More. The opposite of hunger—a popping fire Sky tries to draw in the dirt. Full, spiky writing. Rich.

  Toad forgot his hunger hearing Grasshopper’s songs, says Teller quietly. The living world seemed far more terrible than his Inferno.

  Grasshopper, said Toad, I will bury you in stone unless you tell me the future of the living world.

  So Grasshopper sang his last song, his voice growing as soft and as gentle as wind in the trees. He sang the story of Moon and Bear, which was the first time the story was ever told, and when Grasshopper’s voice grew loud and strong, Toad began to sing as well, though he did not know what the story meant. Darkness came when Toad sang stories he did not understand, when death jumped loud and excited and inspired.

  Inspired. Inspired. Sky repeats the strange, glowing word in his mind to remember for later. Inspired. Inspired.

  Because Toad was inspired, says Teller, he allowed Grasshopper to return to the living world, and when singing Grasshopper leapt by all the ghosts, they began to follow. Toad also allowed this, but he shouldn’t have. Stories are only meant for desperate living things, but more and more ghosts caught up to Grasshopper. They rose out of the Cave of the Dead and into the living world, a cloud of jumping creatures that turned the sky black. They became a locust plague as large as a storm, spreading across the world—

  What’s a locust plague? interrupts Sky.

  The others flinch.

  Quiet, says Mark. I’m tired of your stupid questions.

  Since the story is coming to an end, Teller’s eyes are lowered to the floor of the cave. Sky’s words are soft next to Teller’s deep voice and Mark’s bite, but the words grow large in Sky’s mind. They make his skin bumpy. His tongue burns. It itches with questions.

  Why can’t Sky ask? says Tie to Mark. A locust plague is a sickness that—

  But Tie stops short. She squints at Teller for the answer, and then starts straightening her wires quickly. Teller’s forehead wrinkles.

  That’s just how Green told the story, answers Teller. The story ends with the locust plague destroying the living world, then the Garden of the Gods, the apple, everything except the oldest, strongest tree. That’s why only Grasshopper, who’s still somewhere today, knows where it is.

  The stories—they usually bring blurred dreams of other worlds, colorful thoughts that ripple the painful ones, but this time Sky has ideas, questions, deep scratches of words. The others stare toward the mouth of the cave, at the moving yellow heat of late morning, and after a moment Mark waves his hand toward Sky like he’s pushing the questions away.

  But even Mark’s irritation does not stop Sky’s thoughts. The words are in Sky’s mouth. They are slippery. They are Rich, Inspired—Confess. More words spill forward. They come out asking.

  What do trees look like? asks Sky.

  Tie looks again at Teller’s face. Mark clears his throat while watching Tie, and then opens his fingers outward in front of himself, like he’s pulling images out of the air.

  Trees are tall, says Mark, and they’re made of firewood.

  They grow in gardens? tries Tie.

  Used to grow in gardens, says Mark.

  So there used to be gardens, Teller says. There used to be trees.

  The burning wind in the tunnel hums.

  Sky asks, what’s an apple?

  CHAPTER THREE

  In the dark throat of the tunnel, Tie’s blistered palms stick to Sky’s shoulders. He can tell by the way her fingers burrow into his bare skin, then relax, then burrow again, that Tie is lowering to a squat, wobbling back on her heels. His thin legs tremble to help balance her weight, her fingernails ordering him to keep steady as her large stomach presses against her knees. He finally hears water falling on stones, feels hot sprinkles on the tops of his feet. A sour smell.

  Thank you, says Tie when she finishes, though her words are sharp. He heaves backward to rock her body upright and says nothing that might click her impatience, grown barbed and sudden in the core days of summer. Her arm crawls his shoulders as they step wide, over their compost and bucketed waste, and slowly she leads Sky out of the low pit of the tunnel.

  As they climb over the rutted rock in the slim passageway, the light from Mark’s fire grows brighter ahead and the dark outline of Tie’s body takes shape—her enormous belly, her shoulders slumped into her deepened, stomach-propped breasts. Sky notices how her tangled hair has become darker as her stomach has grown larger, like it is drawing all of her golden parts into itself, but even her dry skin looks somehow cleaner to Sky, clearer. The creases lengthening around her widened hips are lined with dirt, but the skinny muscles in her limbs look plumper, and her lips, usually pulled tight across her brown teeth, have grown softer. He feels Tie’s frustration bristle when her weight restricts her movements, when the quiet in the cave swells, but Sky believes the word Beautiful must look like a circle when it is stamped in clay, a figure curved and round.

  When they reach the top of the tunnel, Tie leans her head into his to duck the low-hanging rock, and the walls expand into a shallow chamber with passageways threading off in two directions. The passage to the left is a stripe of solid black, a narrow crack that leads into the deepest, coolest cave—where Tie and Green used to sleep together but where they all sleep now. Straight ahead, chipped cement stairs rise upward to the main passageway lit purple with the coming nighttime, and the wind tunnel doubles as a draw for Mark’s small cooking fire. The chamber is still clouded with smoke and Sky hears words bouncing against the cracked ceiling of the cave before he sees the speakers.

  All you know are difficult stories anyway, says Mark.

  As Sky approaches the fire, he recognizes Mark’s hunched back and the pair of short metal pokers in his hands. The pokers drag a knot of roots away from the red coals, the twisted nubs roasted dark and sticky, and nearby Teller rests flat on the ground, cleaning his teeth idly with a fleck of wood. Although the wound on Teller’s foot has sucked into a lumped scar, his injured leg still twitches, his calf springing, thigh muscles flexed all the way to his groin. His toes curl and uncurl as his shoulders tighten against his neck, turning his face to the shadows.

  Teller drops his wood pick and whispers something that jolts into coughs, jerking his knees into the air, his throat muscles fighting to swallow.

  How can a story possibly save you now? says Mark, but when Tie stumbles her weight forward, Mark looks up from the smoking roots. He drops his tools quickly, reaching toward her.

  Sky knows how, snarls Tie. You don’t have to help me do everything.

  Be careful, Mark warns Sky.

  Careful. Sky mouths the words silently. Care. Full.

  With Tie’s fingers gripping his shoulders and both of his hands holding her elbows, Sky locks his knees and Tie lowers herself near the fire. Sky smiles at Mark when Tie safely meets the ground, and for a quick breath Sky thinks Mark’s clouded eyes are looking at him, his face easy and pleased, and Sky thinks this is brightness, happiness—I have been forgiven at last.

  But then Sky realizes Mark is really looking at Tie, his foggy pupils filled with a big, wanting look. With his face pointed slightly into the cave, Mark can watch her tuck her curved legs to one side without looking directly at her.

  I found a big root for you and Baby, Mark says to Tie.

  Tie doesn’t respond. Her cupped hand stretches out to Teller’s sweaty forehead, and though Teller’s whole body flinches under her touch, her face is soft and sad.

  Teller, she says.

  Only his name, the one word whispered, but it threads Sky’s heart. Teller’s name has become such a broken word, the opposite of whole and Rich.

  Tie presses her palm over Teller’s cheek, and then slips her fingers around his gripped fist.

  Mark glares at their hands.

  Stop it, says Mark.

  Tie frowns. She shifts aw
ay from the fire, her glowing belly shrinking into the dark, but she does not let go of Teller’s fingers.

  Stop touching him, says Mark. Don’t you understand? He can’t even eat anymore.

  Sky retreats into the blackness of the tunnels, but Mark’s words hunt him. They claw through his fingers clapped over his ears. They hang in the open, in plain sight of Teller.

  There will be more food and water when he’s gone, says Mark.

  The words rub and bite.

  You know all of Green’s stories anyway, says Mark.

  Shut your mouth, Tie hisses.

  I’m only saying what you already know.

  Be quiet, shouts Tie.

  A long silence. The burning firewood ticks into the nerve-tensed air of the cave. When Sky finally peeks toward the fire and crawls back to the others, he can see Teller’s eyes are open and rippling like water. In the low firelight, Teller’s flushed cheeks are moving squares of shadow, the hollows sharpening his long nose. With the corners of his mouth stretched into his cheeks, into a tight grimace, his face is light and shadow at the same time— no color, no words. Sky shivers. It is a relief when Teller speaks. His voice is still strong even through his tight teeth.

  Listen, says Teller.

  Teller examines his own fingers held up before his face, trembling sticks of flesh and bone, and then looks over at Tie’s stomach, at her flattened navel and her taut belly skin.

  Mark and Sky, says Teller, promise me you’ll help Tie. You have to remember everything when it’s time.

  Mark stabs at the wrinkled roots, piling their supplies.

  I’ll help Tie myself, says Mark. Sky kills mothers.

  What’s wrong with you? shouts Tie.

  Inferno. The awful word burns in Sky’s shivering mouth. Inferno and Waste.

  No, Sky, don’t cry, says Tie. It’s not Baby’s fault if I die.

  You’re not going to die, say Teller and Mark at once.

  Red cramps behind Sky’s eyes and his fingers smear wet around his face, trying to push the words Save Us out of his mind. The words are not big enough for the hurt and fear and worry. They are useless words, as empty as air.