by K. C. Dyer
Her chest rose and fell silently. She could feel her heart pounding in her ears. It sounded much louder to her than the waves lapping on the beach.
All her energy was poured into listening.
The engine noise died in the distance, so at first she wasn’t sure. The sound, a low crunch, sounded like a part of the background: the noise of the tide gliding in over the rocks, broken shells, and sand on the beach. She heard it again and knew it for what it was. A footstep. Darrell tightened her grip on the camera, drew her breath in through her teeth, and waited. Everything depended on her silence right now.
The voices grew louder, though whoever was out there was speaking in low tones and was still at some distance from Darrell’s hiding place in the cave. Delaney stirred, his ears forward and his eyes alert. Darrell gave him the hand signal for Stay, and he remained motionless in his spot on the sand. She slid silently closer to the cave entrance, her camera poised.
Darrell peeked with one eye around the edge of the rock that guarded the entrance to the cave. Lichen scraped her cheek, but she ignored it as she aimed her camera at the action unfolding nearby.
A small boat was pulled up past the water line on the beach inside the tiny cove formed by the sweep of boulders that marched from the cliffs to the shore. The spot was completely shielded from the view of the school by the giant rocks. Two figures were loading the white plastic boxes into the boat, and Darrell could see that one of them was Conrad, dressed from head to toe in black. He wore a black woollen hat on his head and had smudges of mud smeared on his face. She pulled her head back into the cave for a moment, stifling a smile. He was clearly taking this commando business seriously.
Checking her camera, Darrell could see she had several shots left. She took a step backwards to make sure that no one outside would hear the advancing of the film, and her foot jammed against something soft. Delaney gave a little squeak as Darrell tumbled to the sandy floor of the cave with a thud.
Darrell could hear a sudden silence as all activity outside came to an abrupt halt.
“Did you hear anything?” she heard Conrad hiss anxiously on the beach. She sat on the floor of the cave, frozen with fear, her leg wrapped around Delaney’s front paws, over which she had tripped. She didn’t dare to move for fear of further alerting Conrad, but she had fallen in a position where she could not see what was going on outside.
Another voice, low pitched and rough, spoke out.
“It may have just been the sound of the water in the rocks,” the voice began. “Or it could be a problem. Conrad! You told me there wouldn’t be any problems.”
Darrell could hear Conrad again. She hardly recognized his voice. She realized that he sounded scared. She had never heard him sound like that before!
“It’s okay, Dad. I’m sure it was just the tide. This place is just fine, believe me. I’ve been casing it out for months. This stretch of beach is deserted. None of the brainoid kids who go to that school ever come down here.” His voice gained more confidence. “No problem, Dad. This place is really safe.”
The low-pitched, rough voice came again. “I hope you’re right, kid. Because the risks are all yours. You’re the one with everything to lose.” Darrell could hear the gravel crunch. “We’re already more than an hour behind schedule because you couldn’t get out of bed this morning. So, get moving!” the voice barked, and the sounds of large objects being slid along the surface of the beach began again.
Darrell reached for her camera, and then closed her eyes in despair. The cave floor was completely dry, but her fall had sprung the back of the camera open. The film, exposed, lay curled inside the camera like a dead snake.
Anger flooded through Darrell, and her face grew red as she thought of the opportunity she had lost. She struggled to stand and pressed her face around the corner again. One glimpse had her quickly diving for cover. The men were less than ten metres from her hiding place in the cave. The pile of plastic containers had shrunk, with most of them stacked in the boat.
Darrell could feel her panic rising. If the smugglers searched the rocks for a spot to hide more containers, they would surely find her cave. It was difficult to find, but a thorough search would doubtless bring it to light as an ideal hiding place. Darrell picked up the camera and quietly whispered Come to Delaney. He got up, tail swaying gently, and padded over to her side. She grabbed the tree branch and hastily tried to obliterate as many footprints on the floor of the cave as she could see in the dim light.
Walking backwards, Darrell moved past the point at the back of the cave where the walls narrowed and the ceiling dropped down. She tried to stop and catch her breath, but sheer panic drove her further back and down as she sought out a place where Conrad and his father would not immediately find her. She patted the small flashlight in her pocket and then tucked her backpack behind a small rock on the sand.
Peering into the darkness, she turned around and tried to make out any detail of her surroundings. The cave was pitch black and smelled of salt and seaweed. In spite of her fear of something lurking in its musty recesses Darrell did not want to risk turning on the flashlight. She dropped the branch near the pack and, running her hands along the wall, continued to creep her way back into the cave.
The floor began to level out. Although she was moving slowly, after about five minutes, she began to feel safer. The men would want to leave quickly with their boat before anyone noticed them on the shore. Darrell stopped for a moment to reach down. Delaney was right at her side, his warm breath reassuring on her hand.
After a short rest, she continued to move deeper into the cave, using her hands to feel her way along the walls. “Another ten metres,” she whispered, “and we’ll turn the light on, okay Delaney?”
Her fingers felt raw from rubbing the uneven rock along the cave wall. Still, she hadn’t bumped her head or fallen over again, and that was something. She continued with her slow crab-walk, sideways and downward. Darrell had just decided to turn on her flashlight when Delaney began to whine.
She stopped, keeping one hand on the wall for balance, and put her other hand down onto his head, trying to reassure him with her touch. “Shhh, Delaney,” she whispered, “it’s okay ...” Suddenly, a searing pain shot through her hand and down her arm. It felt like she was receiving an electric shock from the cave wall, but she was unable to move her hand. She instinctively clutched Delaney’s collar, and the cave began to whirl about her, making her head spin.
The pain was sickening, and Darrell closed her eyes and moaned.
She found herself curled up in a ball on the sand and rolled on the ground, writhing with nausea. She felt like she had just been punched in the stomach, and she fought for breath. Moving made her feel worse so she lay very still, feeling the nausea ebb away like the pull of the tide. Her head ached, and it was several minutes before she felt able to sit up. She opened her eyes to a dull glow that illuminated the area around her. Looking up, she could see a symbol on the wall of the cave above where she lay curled on the sand. It appeared to be lit from within, and it cast a dim light on the walls of the deep inner cave.
Forgetting her headache, Darrell slowly stood up. She wanted to take a closer look. The symbol on the wall appeared to be illuminated through the rock. It took the shape of a deciduous tree and was about six inches high. As Darrell watched, the light gradually faded away, as if withdrawing back into the rock itself. In a matter of moments, Darrell once again found herself in total darkness.
The pain that had shot through her arm was gone, but her fingers felt numb and limp. She rubbed her hands together and sank back down to the ground.
“I must have cracked my elbow against the rock, eh Delaney?” Darrell began, and then realized that she could not hear Delaney panting, or feel him anywhere beside her. Panic slid back into her stomach, and she spent several frantic minutes feeling around in the sand of the cave floor, trying to find the dog.
After smacking her face twice into the rocks, the second time bashing her lo
wer lip into her teeth and cutting it, Darrell managed to get hold of herself. She sat back down on the sandy floor and took several deep breaths.
“Delaney,” she called softly, “Delaney, come.”
No answer.
Darrell called again several times, but she realized with despair that the dog was missing. With her thoughts still fuzzy and Delaney gone, it made it hard to decide what to do next.
“One thing is certain,” she whispered to herself. “If I don’t find Delaney before Conrad does, he’ll know I’m here. I’ve got to find that dog.” She licked the sore spot on her lip and got to her hands and knees.
Scared to touch the wall of the cave that had given her such a shock, she decided to crawl, using the sand and the rising level of the ground to help find her way out. It was slower than walking, but she made steady progress as the sandy surface slanted upwards. Her prosthetic leg felt heavy and she still felt quite tired and not herself. As she crawled, her nausea lessened and she found herself more able to think.
“It must have been some kind of electric shock,” she thought. “A charge or something that came through the rock. I don’t think the rock was wet ... if it was, it probably would have been much worse.” She paused, panting from the effort of dragging her leg up the sandy slope in the dark, and without thinking leaned back against the cave wall.
As she felt the rock at her back, Darrell started, but nothing happened. No shock, no flash of light, no glowing symbols ... just the solid rock of the cave wall. Darrell reached her hand up to touch the rock when she realized that she could see. Gradually, the level of light had been growing as she made her way closer to the mouth of the cave. In spite of her fear of running into Conrad, she almost laughed with relief.
Darrell decided that the light had increased enough to walk. It was still very dim in the cave, but she could see enough to make her way slowly upwards. As she reached the place where the ground began to flatten out, in the distance ahead she could just make out the entrance.
She paused to make sure that no one had entered since she had fled into the cave earlier. There were no footprints or signs of anything different, but she walked cautiously, no longer talking to herself but instead listening carefully for sounds of Conrad and his father. Creeping forward, she noticed a large brownish rock by the very entrance of the cave. Looking closely in the dim light, she realized that it wasn’t a rock.
“Delaney!” she cried aloud, caution forgotten. She ran over to the dog and dropped down on her knees beside him. For one quick moment her heart leapt into her throat, as he was curled up so peacefully she thought he must be dead. At her touch he raised his head and, sleepy-eyed, thumped his tail on the ground in greeting.
She plunged her face into the fur of his side, delighted and relieved to find him at last. After a quiet reunion, Darrell lifted her head to listen for any noise outside the cave, but could only hear the sound of the surf on the shore. She risked another whisper.
“Where’s your collar, boy?” Delaney just thumped his tail and rested his paw on Darrell’s leg. “I grabbed your collar just as the shock hit,” she said slowly, remembering. “You must have slipped out of it, and I guess I dropped it in the dark.” She looked at him sternly. “Why did you run away, Delaney? I need you to stay right beside me.” The dog thumped his tail again. Darrell stood and peeked out.
“Looks like the coast is clear. Come on, Delaney. Let’s see what Conrad has left for us to sniff out.”
CHAPTER SIX
Her aching arm and head and the resulting nausea in the cave were nothing compared to the series of shocks Darrell received as she stepped out into the open. Delaney led the way, bouncing out into the sunlight joyfully. Darrell took a step forward, and then stopped. Her leg felt heavy, and she knew something was wrong, but her eyes were drawn in amazement toward Delaney. The dog spun around, waiting for Darrell to follow, tail wagging. His energy and the light from his eyes were unmistakable.
“Your coat,” whispered Darrell, and she sank to the ground in surprise. “What’s happened to you, boy?” For something certainly had happened to Delaney since he had slipped into the cave with Darrell only a short while before. His coat had been golden, long and gorgeous. His gently waving tail had begun as deep gold and faded to white at the end of its long feathers. However, the dog in front of Darrell now bore no resemblance to the Delaney who had been with her moments before.
His coat was brown and curly. He was clipped unevenly and one side of his fur was singed back, almost to the skin. His ears slid forward in a most un-Delaney-like way. He was smaller and looked terribly thin. And yet Darrell knew, looking into his eyes, that this was Delaney. She swallowed.
“Delaney, sit!” she commanded, her voice hoarse with shock. The dog sat, tail wagging.
She swept her arm down in the special signal she had taught Delaney, indicating that he should lie down and stay. The dog dropped to the ground like a shot and looked up at her, raising alternating eyebrows.
“Good boy, Delaney,” Darrell whispered. He wagged his tail and wiggled nearer. Darrell closed her eyes and rubbed them with her fingers, and then looked at Delaney again. He looked back at her, eyes warm and brown. Darrell rolled on to one knee and prepared to stand up when she received her second jolt in under a minute. This one knocked her back down onto the ground, her heart pounding. She looked down and saw that she was no longer wearing jeans. Instead, she was wearing a long skirt of thick brown wool. At the hem of the skirt, her left foot protruded, encased in a worn brown leather boot, soled in wood and caked with a combination of mud and sand. Where her right foot should be was a splintered stub of wood, like the end of a crutch.
Darrell let out a choking sob. Her head began to swim. She put her face in her hands and closed her eyes tightly, then as quickly opened them again. Everything looked the same. She reached down and pulled the hem of the dress up slowly to see the stump of her right leg tightly bound to a wooden splint, ending in a peg leg like a pirate would wear. No plastic foot. No prosthesis at all, really. Just a wooden peg, bound tightly to the base of her leg.
Looking around, Darrell became aware that more than just she and Delaney had changed. As she lifted her head and gazed about for the first time, she realized that she was sitting on a beach against a rocky outcropping, looking up at the walls of what looked like a very dirty and ancient town. Along the shore the rotting hulls of many wooden boats lay like the corpses of sea creatures, thrusting their broken ribs toward the sky. She swallowed again and struggled to her feet.
Delaney barked and ran up the rocky beach, so unlike the one she had been standing on when she entered the cave. Unsure of what else to do and feeling dazed and sick, Darrell followed the dog who no longer looked like Delaney up some stone steps and in through the walls of the ancient town.
The sun was shining, but as Darrell crept in past the crumbling walls of the town, the small houses crowded into the shadowy lanes looked dark and grimy. She gazed around at the strange sights that met her eyes. From the boats on the beach, she determined that the main occupation of the village must be fishing.
Darrell was convinced she must be in the middle of some sort of dream or hallucination. She continued to follow the dog, who bounded along joyfully in front of her. She found balancing on the wooden peg very difficult and concentrated on making her way along the cobbled lane without falling. The ground was wet and slippery, as though from a recent rain, and yet the air was anything but fresh.
I can’t be dreaming, she thought, because dreams don’t smell this terrible. As she walked, she realized a deep gutter on one side of the lane was running with sewage. She quickly averted her eyes from the sight and held her hand up to her nose to try to block some of the smell.
“A charaid! Thalla, a chù!”
Darrell’s head snapped up at the sound of the voice. Delaney barked joyfully and pranced over to a boy who looked to be about Darrell’s own age. He had dropped to his knees to pat the dog and repeated his words. “G
ood dog! A good friend ye are.”
The boy gazed up at Darrell and then, glancing around furtively, gestured for her to come nearer. Not knowing what else to do, Darrell limped toward the boy. He stood at the entrance to a small house, little more than a hovel, and yet he swung open the door as gallantly if it were the door to a castle.
“Fàilt. Thallaibh stigh. Come in. Welcome.” He gestured to a chair inside, near a small fireplace. Darrell sat down gratefully.
“Welcome to where?” she said weakly. She had so many questions that her mind reeled. She finally settled on the most important, for the moment.
“How do you know my dog?”
The boy reached in front of Darrell and withdrew a metal ladle from the black kettle that hung from the hearth. He poured something from the ladle into a rough clay cup and pushed it into her hands.
“Ye must have many questions. Stop, and drink first.” Darrell looked doubtfully at the liquid in the cup. It steamed gently.
“Tea,” he said to her unasked question. “Drink it up.” She took a sip obediently. It didn’t have much flavour, but it was warm and gave her something to do with her hands.
Darrell was so stunned by the developments of the last fifteen minutes that she didn’t even know where to begin. She started to ask again about Delaney when she realized with a shock that she was speaking the same strange words that this stranger was using. She stopped abruptly in the middle of the sentence and raised her hand to her lips in surprise.
“What language are we speaking?” she asked in a whisper.
The boy smiled. “Gaidhlig,” he said, proudly. He swept his arm to take in the small, dark room, the floor covered in rushes. “Welcome to my home.”
Children are resilient. The whole time that Darrell had been in the hospital, fighting the infection that ultimately took her foot, she heard people reassuring her mother with that phrase. Children bounce back easily. They’re so adaptable. She’ll be fine, you’ll see. Darrell used to lie in the hospital bed and later in her bed at home and hear people repeating the same inane phrases. Lost her father? She’ll get over it. Lost her foot? She’ll bounce back. It filled her with anger, because she knew all she wanted in the world was to get her father back and to have two whole legs again.
