"She moved away when I touched her. I thought she wanted to be left alone."
"Stupid. What she wanted was to know you didn't mean what you said." She shakes her head at me, and her black hair flicks left and right. Even in this strange, blue light, the depth of her dark eyes and the curves of her round cheeks mesmerize me. It's like I'm looking at her again in the twilight by the lake, for the first time. "She wants you to care."
"I do care," I reply, but I can tell Lupay sees through the hollow words. I want to care. I did care. I know I did, though Lupay's presence blurs all those memories, and all I can think of is carrying her from the ancient well, waking to see her leaning over me outside the house, watching helplessly from horseback while she staggered among Baddock's thugs on the road. Maybe I can care again later, when Lupay isn't so alive in front of me.
She cocks her head to one side, contemplates, then straightens. She's realized something, and I feel like I've been run through the heart by a giant icicle. She's figured out what I was thinking, I know it. She understands me better than Baddock, better than my father ever did.
"Dane." She stands up, and there's tenderness in her dark eyes, a gentle grin on her full lips. I glance to the curtain where the water is still running. Freda can stay locked up in there sobbing. She's being totally unfair, and I resent it. Two days ago she was just a tailor's daughter. Then I picked her as First Wife. And this is how she acts, forcing me to take sides and then getting all mad, just because I said I'd had a hard few days.
Lupay glides the few paces to me and stands right before me. I desperately want to put my arms around her and pull her to me, feel her body full against mine, feel the press of her lips.
When she's close enough for me to feel her breath, she raises her hands from her sides and I steady myself so my knees don't buckle in her embrace. Instead, with lightning speed she pokes me hard in the chest with all her fingers, knocking me back into the mural wall. She follows and is on me before I realize I've knocked my head on the stone.
She puts her mouth right up to my ear. "I should have let you die in that old house, you son of a bitch," she hisses. The words blend with the splashing water and the new buzzing in my head. I think blood is seeping from where my head hit the wall. "You're married to her. Doesn't that mean anything to you?" She pokes me hard again, bruising my ribs, then spins and goes back to her bunk. Throwing me one last poisonous glance, she snaps the curtain shut and I'm alone once more.
The water stops, and after a second the curtain opens. Freda steps out, looking at the floor. Her long hair is soaked and clings to her head like the fur of a wet cat. Her clothes are piled in one hand, and a large, thick towel is wrapped around her.
My head is still buzzing, but I manage to get the words out. "Freda, I'm sorry. I care. I really do."
She doesn't look up. "I know. But what is it you care about, Dane?"
The question hurts more than I want to admit, but that's because it's a fair question.
"You, Freda." The words hang in the air as if exposing their untruth. "But... also, Lupay. I don't know. I'm just... all... I don't know."
Freda looks up at me as I fumble through the words.
"You're so special, Freda. You're smarter than anyone I know. Smarter than my mother, even. You're beautiful. You're... I do care. About you. A lot."
This time I actually mean it. I hope she can tell.
"And... I'm your husband. I've made vows to you. And you can count on me."
She stands there still, her clothes in her hand, her hair sopping wet. But she doesn't look happy. At least she doesn't look angry or hurt. She just looks... wet. "OK," she says and disappears into the big bedroom. The curtain slides closed quietly, and again I'm alone in the blue light.
My head hurts from where Lupay knocked me into the wall, and I touch the place where I think the blood is matting my hair. My hair feels grimy with bits of sand and dried leaves.
"I'm going to wash up, too," I say loudly to both sets of closed curtains, then step into the water room alone. Sliding back the panel for the upper spout, I see another panel on the wall. I slip it open to discover three towels like the one Freda wore, and a large bowl of goopy, yellow stuff like thick pudding. It smells like dust, and when I rub a little between my fingers it bubbles into a foam. I run my fingers under the water, which is surprisingly warm, and the foam rinses away leaving my skin a dirt-free pink.
The soap tingles where I rub it, and the warmth of the water frees my mind. I stand naked under the warm stream and let it wash across my chest, over my back, down my legs. I watch rivulets of brown water flow down the drain-hole. It feels good to wash away the dirt, sweat, and grime from the last day.
For the first few minutes, my mind goes completely blank. But then images keep pushing their way in. First is my father, lying ashen and sad on the stage before the assembled people of Southshaw. Then, my father in the chapel, staring down with stern control over the congregation, a deep love wrinkling the corners of his eyes as he speaks about Truth. And a sunny summer day when, on horseback, he found me on the edge of the southern woods building and testing a small contraption for throwing pebbles across the little stream. The stern love in his eyes as he admonished me for inventing, always inventing.
A dark night, moonless and quiet, when I woke up frightened. I couldn't have been more than seven, and I went looking for him. I pushed through the door to his prayer room to find a dozen grim-faced men arguing in hushed voices and urgent words. Quickly he halted the talk, smiled broadly at me, and ushered me away. The other faces in the room were known to me only as other adults often with my father, including the tall man that I saw in the crowd at his funeral. Younger then, less gaunt and bent, but it was him. I remember him sitting closest to the fire, thinking that his face was the red-lit face of the devil I'd dreamed. My father's strong hand and reassuring smile were all I needed to get back to sleep.
Sometimes I'd hear them leaving the house well past midnight, and I'd pretend to be asleep when my mother peeked in after they went. Once, when I was ten, she stayed in the doorway for many minutes. I wish now I'd had the courage to turn and ask her who the men were and why they were there, but I did not want to get scolded for not sleeping.
The memories float on the warm water and run down the drain with the filth and grime and blood I've accumulated since my wedding to Freda. Dirt and grime from outside, from the horses that took us to the Gate, from where Freda and I lay under the stars, from the scuffle with Tom. Blood washes from my hair as if from a fresh wound, pinking the water that sucks my memories down the drain.
Outside, my mother sits as a prisoner in her own house. Freda's parents are in danger. And Lupay's friends are soon to be slaughtered by Darius and his fundamentalists. Lupay is right. If we need to fight our way out of here, we will fight. We might die trying, but to stay is to give up existing.
As I realize the water has been running clean for over a minute, the door in the apartment thumps against the wall. A voice, Tom's voice, says something like, "Budeezon, bakin two minutes," and the door whumps closed again. I shut the water panel and grab a towel just as my curtain rips back.
"Put these on," Freda says. "Now."
She tosses a bundle of black at me. I drop my towel and catch it, trying to hold it in front of my exposed parts. In the seconds it takes me to realize it's clothing, Freda has pulled off her own shirt, entirely unconcerned by her nakedness or mine. Lupay, I realize, is similarly occupied, stripping off her pants to reveal long undershorts that fit snug down to her knees and slipping easily into tight, black pants.
Freda stops only a moment to snap at me before swapping her own pants for the black ones brought in by—someone. Who?
"Dane! Now!" Again with the voice that sounds like my mother's. It has her desired effect, though, and unburdened by existing attire I slip quickly into the new outfit.
I'm dressed like one of the ghost men we met in the night forest. There are tall, soft, black boots that are to
o big for my feet, pants that are just long enough but too slim in the waist, and a soft but soot-black sweater. Freda tosses me more things: a pair of black knit gloves that constrict my fingers, and a black knit cap that covers nearly my entire head, neck, and face except eyes and mouth.
Freda's black outfit drapes on her slender figure like it's hanging on a line to dry. Lupay's looks uncomfortably tight, but I have a hard time pulling my gaze away from her smooth curves.
"What do you think," Lupay asks Freda.
"You saw how he looked whenever Fobrasse spoke. What do you think?"
"What?" I ask.
"I don't trust him," Lupay says. "I don't trust any of them. It feels like a trap."
"Why bother, though?" Freda and Lupay ignore my efforts to get another syllable between their whispers.
"I don't know. Maybe because all those families saw us in the cafeteria. Fobrasse can't get rid of us without a reason. Maybe he's creating a reason."
"Hmm," Freda grunts. "I guess so. I just don't believe it, though."
"Who?" I finally get my word in.
When they both look at me like I'm three years old, I blurt, "What? I was in there. What did I miss?"
Freda's about to speak when the door slaps open against the mural wall again. Instead of a brightly lit hall with a silhouetted figure in our doorway, we see a dark shadow against the deeper black of nothingness. The blue glow of the apartment's moss exposes two eyes floating in the black rectangle of the door. "Good. Come on, now."
It's Tom's voice.
Lupay lunges at the door, but Tom stretches out one large arm and pins her against the mossy wall, his eyes never leaving mine. Lupay struggles, but his black-clad arm barely quivers with the effort of holding her still. She kicks out, but he dances out of the way and holds her fast.
"Shhh. We only have a few minutes to get you to the surface." His voice holds urgency but no panic, and Lupay stops her struggles.
Freda steps up to her, and they share a look of some kind which escapes me. Tom releases Lupay and disappears a few feet into the blackness. A moment later he returns. "They're all at the assembly. Follow me." He hands a portion of black rope to Freda. "Hold this. I'll lead you to the top."
Freda holds tight to the rope, then passes the next section to Lupay, who hands the end to me. Tom gives us all one quick nod and then plunges again into the darkness.
We hurry, blind, through black caves. The rope pulls taut in my hand, and I allow myself to be led along, stumbling and bumping into the hard granite of the walls. We go for a full minute, turning left and right in the utter black. At pauses, I shorten the length of rope between Lupay and me. It forces me to react quicker, but it helps me avoid cracking my toes on steps or careening into the corner of a turnoff.
We seem to be sloping down more than up, but we're moving so fast I have no time to do anything but react to the rope. I don't dare let go, or I'll be lost in nothingness. I want to shout out to Tom to stop, or slow down, but my breath falters in the thick, warm, moist air. I can't tell anything about the passageways we traverse, but I don't have time to care.
Suddenly, the rope goes slack in my hand, and I don't react in time to avoid bumping hard into Lupay. Two grunts let me know that she had the same idea and had shortened the rope between her and Freda, similarly unable to stop in time to avoid a collision.
"Oh frick," whispers Tom from just a few feet ahead. "I'm sorry. We took too long. Come on."
A thick body presses me against the wall and pushes past, back the way we came. "No, wait," I say as I push back and pin him against the wall.
"No time," Tom whispers. "They're coming."
"We could move more quickly," Freda gasps, "if we had some light."
"Better in the darkness," Tom snaps.
Lupay hisses, "Can't the others see in the dark, like you?"
Tom does not answer right away. "No, not so well. But far better than you. You're right."
Relief floods me. Soon we'll have light. I can't explain to myself why it matters—able to see or not, I still am lost deep underground, trusting my life to this ghost-man whom I wanted to kill not so long ago. I feel I should thank him, but before I can, he moves away. The rope tugs hard once, twice. I grip harder so it doesn't slip from my hand on the final tug, and I'm off again, towed through the blackness.
Lupay's voice echoes off the walls amid our soft, dusty footfalls. "What about the light?"
"Soon enough," floats the answer from nowhere.
Again the rope slackens, but this time I skitter to a stop just behind the panting Lupay. Despite the cool thickness of the dead air, sweat gathers under my black mask and drips from my armpits down my sides. I've no idea how long we've been running. A few minutes at most, maybe five.
A gritty sound of rock sliding on rock grinds from in front. "Cover your eyes," Tom whispers.
I put my hands in front of my face, the rope dangling from my cramping fingers. Several small clicks echo down the halls, and my fingers glow red-orange before me. Slowly I move my fingers away, allowing my eyes to adjust to the brightness. Like the apartments where we started, this hall is lined with tiny lanterns along the ceiling. In their yellow glow, the four of us look like empty voids, shadow echoes of the blackness we had just run through.
"That will blind them a few seconds," Tom says in his regular voice. "But now they know exactly where we are."
He looks one way, then the other. To me, this looks just like the hall with our apartment. The only difference is that the doors are spaced farther apart. Tom seems to be confused, or conflicted.
Freda asks first. "Who, Tom?"
"Everyone." The simple word again holds an urgency but no panic as he grimaces, clenching his jaw, squinting. Not from the brightness but from concentration.
He looks at Freda, then each of us in turn. "Fobrasse. Right now he's sent a squad to capture us. But everyone else he's sent to seal the exits."
A cry from deep in the rock behind me sets my skin crawling and makes the hair on my arms stand straight up. It's a screech that sounds straight from Hell, high pitched and bloodthirsty. Tom's eyes go wide for a moment. When the screech is met by another from the opposite direction, his mouth falls open. "No. No, no, no," he whispers.
Lupay drops the rope and grabs Tom by his sweater. She shakes him and growls right into his face. "What? What is it?" When he does not respond immediately, she shakes him again. "Where do we go? Dammit! Where do we go!"
Tom seems to snap back. Another screech from behind, closer but still seeming far off.
"Watchdogs," he says. "Not good." Again he glances behind, then forward. "This way." He spins on his heel and sprints ahead, the way I think we were going before he turned the lights on. "Come on!" He yells without looking back, and I follow Freda and Lupay as they run after him.
Within seconds, I'm breathing hard, the heavy air filled with the taste of ancient stone and forgotten earth. My heart is thumping harder than it should for carrying no weight. The girls pant, similarly fatigued, and we're falling farther behind Tom. The corridor turns, then splits, and he beckons us along to the right. He stops and waits for us at a four-way junction. Even he seems breathless.
"Our best chance," he gasps, "is through ventilation and light."
"What?" Freda screws up her face with the pain of speaking, and she doubles over with her hand gripping her side.
"Ventilation and light," Tom says. "No time to explain." As if to reinforce his assessment, a screech and howl bound down the hall behind us, much closer now.
We follow Tom another several hundred yards, through two doors, up a short stair, around a few corners. As we go, a rumbling sound grows in the hall around us, until it sounds like the very mountain is trembling.
"Almost there!" He shouts, his voice barely registering above the steady rumbling.
The screeching howls from behind are plenty loud enough to be heard over the rumble. Tom yells something else, but I lose it in another long screech.
Freda and Lupay stumble ahead of me out of the hall into a chamber and turn out of sight. I put extra speed into my sprint to catch up.
Too fast. Before I stumble, I glimpse the chamber. It's huge, a hundred feet across and at least as high. Water pours from a hole in the ceiling, cascading over a series of huge wheels before splashing into a lake fifty feet below us. Freda and Lupay managed to stay on the narrow walkway rimming the room.
I stumble and slip, coming too fast to hold myself on the ledge. Lupay grabs at me, but her fingers slip off my sweater as I tumble. I'm falling in the air, toward the lake, rolling over. I hit the water hard, feet first. Instinct takes over as I ignore the iciness and kick my way to the surface. There's a strong downward current... no, a circular current that wants to drag me away and around.
I break the surface and sputter for air, look up to find my bearings. I've already drifted twenty feet away from the wall, but it looks like I might drift all the way around and back to the others, if I can stay on the surface. I kick hard against a downward pull, pushing with my hands and feet to stay on top of the water. It's like swimming in snow.
"Dane!" I hear Freda's scream above the rumble of the giant wheels. I look up long enough to find her on the ledge, see her kneeling and peering down at me. Tom and Lupay have their backs to me. What do they mean by that? Why aren't they helping me? They look at each other, say words to each other. Then Tom spins and sprints along the narrow ledge rimming the chamber.
My fingers have gone numb. I keep kicking hard, fighting against the cramps forming in my thighs and biceps. Freda yells my name again. As I drift around the far edge of the room, I try to focus on her.
A screech tears the rumbling that makes the surface of the water quiver. I fight the numb knots forming in my arms and legs, focus on staying afloat in the freezing water. I look up to see Freda running after Tom. Is she leaving me? Abandoning me to drown here in this frozen hell hole? Lupay stands in the doorway, her back to me. Will she not help me?
Lupay leaps to the side, and a huge figure hurtles from the corridor, too fast to stop, and tumbles through the air just like I did. It flails comically as it falls, but its screech chills my heart even more than the water. It's as big as a horse, with six powerful legs and jaws as wide and toothy as a crocodile's. C is for crocodile. E is for elephant. D is for dog. Watchdog. That's no dog. It's some creature straight from Hell.
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