Ember knew a debate was coming and sighed heavily. “No. I don’t trust the others.”
“Ember?! This isn’t a game! Someone died!”
“I know.”
“It’s not just about you, you know? We won’t be helping anyone if we wonder in the forest and get lost… or killed. Not you, not me, not this old man, and not the people for which he has traveled so far to help! No one Ember, it will help no one!”
“I hear what you’re saying and I respect your reasoning, but I think you have to think about it some more. We only have one chance to make this work.”
“You’re not thinking about this right, Ember! I know what you are going to say.”
“What am I going to say?”
“You are going to say that if we go back and wait until daybreak that the Council will hide everything and prevent us from finding out the truth. But Ember, think about it! First of all, we have no evidence that the Council is acting as a misleading force. Secondly, do you really think the Council can hide the truth from all of Erosa?! We have a body Ember. A body that no one else here has ever seen. It must have come from somewhere. We both heard what he had to say. People in Erosa will believe us even if the Council tells them not to. People trust me. I bet someone in Erosa might even know something about this… or at the very least, people can help us decipher his words or search for the path. It will be safer and more likely to succeed. Also, there are fewer predators in the daytime. It will be easier to see his path of blood then. It’s logical, Ember. You think about it!”
“Maggie…” Ember began in a defeated tone but with an indomitable spirit. “I hear you, but consider this: if it rains, as I expect it will, then the path will be lost forever. Even heavy morning dew can be enough to wipe clean marked paths. You know how the forest is. It’s living and breathing. We have all tried marking paths before: sticks, stones and trampled grass—none of it lasts for long. The sticks and stones are moved or lost and trampled grass rights itself in the matter of minutes. It’s not easy marking a path in the forest, even in blood.”
“But Ember!”
“Let me finish. You had your chance, now let me have mine,” he said with a patient close-of-his-eyes and stopping hand gesture. Maggie nodded. “You are right, I do not trust the Council, but you are wrong when you say that I have no reason to distrust them. Just because I have no strong evidence doesn’t mean I’m wrong. I have my intuition Maggie, isn’t that worth something?! You used to believe in me! What happened?” Ember was working himself up in righteous anger. “Why do you trust your heart and not mine?” He paused just long enough to pretend that the question wasn’t rhetorical, but not too long to invite a real response. “You heard what the man said. He said that ‘it wasn’t the first time the underground spat out one of its own.’ He said it was ‘important.’ Is it not conceivable that this type of thing has happened before? That the Council has been hiding things? We only have one chance to make this work. This may be our only chance!”
Maybe it was the bit about her not trusting his heart, or maybe it was the fact that it had started to drizzle, but Maggie’s resolve began to weaken. “I know Ember, we only have one chance… that’s why I want to go back and make sure we do it right. It’s less risky. We both agree that this is important, we just disagree with how we should handle it.”
“I feel, in my heart,” Ember brought his right fist to his heart for dramatic effect, “that this is right. That we have to do this now. Let’s just follow the trail for a little bit and see where it takes us. If it’s too far we’ll turn back and do it your way.”
“At the very least, can we go back now and tell someone where we are going, and then come right back out… just in case… It can be one of your friends. It can be Onyx even, I don’t care. Or just leave a note for him to read before we head out. That way someone will know where we are going, just in case something should happen to us.”
“We have nothing to write on or with. I’ll tell you what… I’ll arrange a few rocks like so…” Ember moved a series of gravelly pebbles in concentric circles, “and… I’ll concentrate a few rocks to one end to point in the direction where we are heading. Onyx will know what it means. We used to do it all the time, albeit back on Erosa and not the forest floor. So if something does happen to us today, people will know that it was because we went off exploring the woods… that we heard some information from this man and had enough time to make this pattern of rocks and think before we went off to search for something. They will know that it wasn’t some reckless, impromptu decision. They will know it was important and will come looking for us or whatever it is they think we were looking for.”
Maggie wasn’t sure whether or not she liked his reasoning or the design, which she regarded as inconspicuous enough to pass over, and unsubstantial enough to be moved by forest forces over night. Not believing that she was assenting to a logical plan, she wanted assurance that at least she was following an emotionally supported decision, “So you really believe, in your heart, that this is the right thing.”
“I do. Maggie, you always tell me that I look forlorn. I feel for the first time, in a long while, that I have a meaning—a purpose.”
“I thought you were supposed to protect me.” Ember’s heart skipped a beat. For the first time since the man’s death, he doubted his plan. But then, in her typical fashion, Maggie smiled, picked up the torch, which was still going strong despite the light rain, and began following the trail of blood. “If that’s so,” she said smiling, “then you will have to follow me.” Maggie Oaks, after all, wasn’t the type of person to do something reckless and not take credit for it. If she was going to do this, she would do it with a smile. Ember looked back momentarily at the corpse and then caught up to his sister.
Following the blood was no easy task, even though there was quite a bit of it. The moonlight and light from the torch’s fire was only barely enough to resolve the dark stains on the grass—which, in the nighttime appeared only as black discolorations on a sea of grayness.
“I assume,” Ember began suddenly, “that the path won’t be much longer. He would not have told us to follow it if it were too long and difficult. Plus, judging by the amount of blood, I don’t think he could have traveled very far from where he now lies.”
“What do you think did that to him?” she asked.
“How would I know? I didn’t have a chance to look at his cuts. Could have been a forest creature… or… well… I don’t know.”
“If he is right… and if you are right… and if there is a whole gathering of people not too far from Erosa… then… how incredible is that? This whole time and we never knew… and they were so close.” Maggie’s disjointed words were offered up to Ember as though there was a revelation to be found in them—a revelation of such magnitude that even the quick task of internally reflecting and carefully constructing sentences, would take too long. She wanted him to hear and conceive of the insight as it came to her—without filters and without careful constructions.
“You know how the forest is…” he said, not fully appreciating the epiphany, “A few miles from Erosa might as well be ten hundred. People don’t explore anymore. We’re incredibly and surprisingly isolated.”
“I know… but isn’t that… wouldn’t that be amazing?” she said again with a sense of wonderment and awe that finally broke through to Ember.
“Yes. It is amazing.” His heart beat once more with uncontainable anticipation.
After twenty minutes of walking, morale and inspirational insights began to die down. Twice Maggie had suggested going back and twice Ember told her that it would only be a little longer. Ember felt his chance slipping away from him and was growing increasingly defensive to Maggie’s increasing complaints. Presently Maggie had taken up a third and final attempt to return back.
“Ember, come on! This is crazy! We are in the middle of the forest in the middle of the night! It’s like you want to be eaten! You told me that we would only follow it for
a little bit and that if we didn’t find anything soon, that we would head back.”
“We’re almost there, I know it! Stop complaining!” he snapped, more mad at the situation than he was at her.
“No, you don’t know Ember, how could you? There’s no way of knowing how far this goes on for!”
“Look,” he said angrily, “as long as we can see the blood we should keep going.”
“But I can hardly see it anymore Ember! The rain has washed most of it away! And the fire is dying. We can’t… We can’t…” she shuddered to think of the thought, but found strength to voice it at once, “walk back in the forest without any light! We can barely walk back with it!”
The thought of walking back without a torch seemed to strike a similar fear in Ember. He knew her worries were warranted but nonetheless resolved to calm her and himself, “It’s not a problem. We’ll just turn around and walk straight back in that direction. We could bump right into it even if we were completely blind. And… when we get close enough, we’ll be able to see the other torches from Erosa.”
“It doesn’t work like that and you know it!” she protested. “If we’re off by a fraction of a degree we’ll miss it entirely. And if my torch is going out, don’t you think that the other torches back in town will be too! Ember,” she paused to focus on the gravity of the her ensuing words, “if we have to stay out in the forest for the rest of the night, we’ll die.” She said this in such a firm and slow fashion as to communicate a sense of severity that no amount of screaming could ever accomplish. She paused dead in her tracks.
Ember scrambled defensively to save his cause. “Look, if we are finding it hard to see the blood now, then what chance will we have tomorrow? Think about the area of land encompassed by the radius of our travel. It would take a concerted effort by everyone in Erosa to systematically cover this area and even then we may miss it. And how likely is that? I doubt there are more than twenty people in all of Erosa that have stepped onto the forest floor in the last week, and I doubt we could mobilize more than half of them for our cause. If we don’t find it now, we won’t ever find it. No one will.”
“If we stay in the forest over night, we will die,” she repeated, as if it were the only argument she needed.”
“We won’t necessarily die,” he opined sensibly.
“Okay, we’ll probably die. At what point is it worth risking it? Ninety percent chance? What about a fifty percent chance? Even if it is only a ten percent chance. You know, you’re not only gambling with your life!”
“One hundred percent,” he said solemnly and overdramatically.
“Huh?”
“One hundred percent. I would risk it even if it were one hundred percent. It is worth dying for. You can live your whole life and never again have this possibility. Plus, the calculation is more complicated than you make it out. First you have to multiple the probability that we will have to stay in the forest overnight by the probability of dying if we stay in the forest overnight, and then you have to consider whether or not the few additional steps will make a difference in the ultimate outcome. Perhaps, other people are closer to us than we are to Erosa.”
“Ember! We don’t have time for this! I don’t care about any stupid calculation now. And remember he said that his people need help. Did you ever think about what they need help from and if we would be able to provide it. No Ember, this is crazy. I’m going back.”
“Wait!” he said quickly, “you’re right. I know that your life is on the line too. I agree… we can go back… just… give me ten more steps… that’s all I’m asking.”
“Ten more steps? That’s it? You won’t ask for more?”
“No, that’s it. Promise.”
Ember lunged forward—each stride easily being the equivalent of two normal steps. By the sixth stride, the trail of blood stopped.
“There’s nothing here, let’s go back now.”
“Wait! Just wait a minute! He said that some of the ground we walk on is hollow, right? Or something like that.”
“Ember, let’s go back!”
“One moment.” He began stomping his feet, trying to listen for a mild reverberation. He brought his head to the ground and tapped the floor with his knuckles, as if knocking on a door.
“Ember, look at you. This is ridiculous. You’re not going to find anything.”
Embers eyes lit up suddenly. He began digging through the muddied ground and sure enough there was a small burrow. He looked back up at his sister, far too anxious to say “I told you so.”
“I’m going to check it out,” Ember said to Maggie, who was in too much shock to respond. Ember crawled into the burrow carefully and soon was completely underground. “The pass is fairly wide and sturdy, he called back up.”
Maggie stabbed the pointed end of the torch in the ground so it wouldn’t fall over and went in after him. “What do you see?” she asked, now as eager as he was.
“I can’t see anything… actually… there… there’s a small white light. Actually, I see a lot of lights. But they’re small and don’t flicker like a flame. They look almost like stars.” The only means to propel themselves was by grasping at the loose dirt with there hands, shoulders, knees and feet, and pushing off against it. They wiggled, almost naturally, as a result of these motions.
“Really?” she asked in amazement. “Is it pretty?”
“I don’t know,” he called back, “if I would describe it like that, but it is definitely interesting.”
“I want to see!” she lamented.
They continued for several minutes. The dirt corridor was moist and clumpy and was now getting increasingly narrow.
“Maggie?!” He said with a touch of alarm.
“Yes Ember?”
“I don’t want you to get scared. Promise me that you won’t be scared?”
“What is it Ember?!” she said, now considerably worried.
“I can’t move.”
“What?!”
“I said, I’m stuck.”
“No, I heard you.”
“Okay, here’s the plan: we move backwards and then we try to widen the path ahead with our hands.”
“How about we move backwards and leave altogether!”
“Uhh…” he said, now getting more and more panicked, “how about you just move back a little bit first.”
She gyrated her waist, and pushed off against the dirt corridor but was unable to get her hips just right. “Ember. I can’t! I can’t move backwards! We’re stuck.”
“Calm down! Calm down! It’s going to be okay…” he said with more than a slight sense of alarm. “We just need to think.”
Much to Maggie’s horror, a few clumps began falling from the top of the burrow before her. She frantically tried to pat the ceiling down. Her heart was on fire. She couldn’t think straight. “Ember! It’s falling!” A few clumps of dirt now fell before Ember. She could hear the burrow closing in behind her. “Ember! It’s collapsing behind me! I can’t breathe! We’re going to die!”
Ember too was now in complete panic. He surged forward convulsively but only managed to get himself more stuck—to the point where he could barely move his arms. “Maggie! Maggie! I can’t move!”
“I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! We’re going to die! We’re going to die!”
Despite his body’s inexplicable urge to panic and flail chaotically, Ember’s mind was able to seize some control and sensibility. He closed his eyes and tried hard to think clearly.
“Maggie! Maggie?!”
“I can’t breathe. We’re going to die! Help!”
“Maggie?! Maggie? I need you to listen to me. It’s going to be okay. You can breathe, it’s just your mind playing tricks on you. I need you to do something.”
“No, I can’t… I can’t breathe, Ember.”
“Yes you can. Big breaths. In and out. Can you do that for me?” Ember demonstrated, she repeated. “Now… You can still move forwards, right?”
“Yes, I think so.
”
“Okay, now this is what I need you to do. I need you to crawl towards me and use your hands to widen the passage around me so that I can move forward.” Ember flattened his back side to let her walk on top of it. She moved forward, moving cautiously on his back—her knees and elbows digging into him uncomfortably. “Now,” he said with some difficulty for his lungs were now under greater pressure, “remove the dirt from the top and push it behind me.”
She clawed at the dirt and carefully swept it away from him and towards her body. He wiggled spasmodically and struggled hard with his elbows against the dirt walls. Then, suddenly, the corridor collapsed… but not from the ceiling, from the ground. Neither Ember nor Maggie had the time or sense of rationality to ask why they were suddenly and inexplicably free falling.
As they descended, their pit of darkness became a strange and foreign world of yellowish artificial lighting. They landed decidedly in crinkly heterogeneous mixture of soft and hollow solids, and were promptly knocked unconscious.
Chapter 7: A Mysterious Encounter
The house was in total ruin: shattered windows, broken furniture and upside down chairs. Even the couch cushions were torn up—the stuffing clustered around the surrounding floor and dangling from a nearby broken lamp. Three large bookshelves, rested unnaturally on the floor. Shelves, formerly nailed into the wall, were now slanted or hanging by only one end—their previous content—mostly plants, pots, framed pictures, and botany books—were now in disordered heaps. The distance of each heap from each respective shelf seemed to carve out the paths through which the objects fell. A few books on DNA sequencing and comparative genomics were scattered across the room with random pages torn out. Myriads of scientific writings, engineering sketches and journal entries blanketed most of the dark, wooden floorboards. The front door hung uneasily on one hinge when a handsome man, in his mid-twenties barged in.
He moved slowly but purposefully—his worn brown boots stepping over the shattered shards of ceramic and glass. The man looked around, systematically studying the room for any forensic evidence. He picked up a piece of paper from a broken chair and casually glanced over the random scribbling before tossing it aside. If he was upset, he did not show it. He ran his fingers through his long dirty blonde hair.
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