14
THE CAVE
Bradley left the cabin, leaving Beatrice and Jack alone. He was not sure of anything, not anymore. But he knew he did not want to finish his story line the way he’d begun it. People were watching. It changed everything. There was accountability in that. When he and his own mind, his own feelings, were all that existed in the world, were all that mattered, it made little difference to him how he spoke or how he treated others. But the watching changed him.
Walking through the blackness of Echo Island toward some inexorable destiny, he thought of the stormy night when he’d ventured out into the ocean in the kayak, looking for the mainland. He felt so alone and yet so sure of himself.
But no more. Someone was writing. More importantly, someone was watching. Bradley felt really seen. Not simply observed, not simply considered. Seen.
He didn’t have the intellectual capacity of Archer or the emotional reservoir of Jason, but he knew, if it were at all possible, he wanted to be different now.
This is why he was walking toward the house at Minuai Fields. The whole thing had probably burned to the ground by now, but intending again to face off with Tereus, he didn’t know where else to begin.
Bradley was cutting through the Royal Garden subdivision, walking quickly but cautiously down the sidewalks. There were no lights, no noise, not even a breeze in the trees.
As he emerged on the back side of the subdivision, Bradley backed against the long row of fencing that bordered an open field. Across the expanse sat a short row of four homes. He froze. A light illuminated an upstairs window, a pale glow flickering faintly against the interior walls. A lamp, obviously. It was Archer’s house.
Maybe there were more people out there. More characters. Maybe it was Tereus. Or maybe, hopefully, Archer was inside.
Bradley crossed the field and crept through the backyard. He stood directly beneath the window for a moment, considering his next move. There was likely no sneaking in.
He circled the house, peering into every window, trying to see over the stacks and stacks of books.
Checking the front door, he found it open and entered. He called out, not exactly yelling, “Archer.”
No answer.
He slowly climbed the stairs and rounded the landing at the top. He could see the lamp’s glow emanating from an open door to his left. Stepping through the frame, he discovered Archer there on the floor, cross-legged, the green notebook was open in his lap. Bradley let out a sigh of relief at the sight of his friend and smiled.
“It just keeps changing,” Archer said.
“What does?”
“The book. I thought he had to write it. But it just keeps changing. I lose sight of what came before, like it’s slipping out of my mind. I can read it one second and then, the next, I can’t. But the last few lines, I can always read those, and they just keep changing.”
“What do they say?” Bradley asked, taking a seat next to him.
“I’ve read about you walking across through Jason’s neighborhood. I read about you walking up the stairs. I am reading what I’m saying right now.”
“Pretty crazy.”
“Pretty crazy.”
“That’s what I said.”
“I know. I was just reading it.”
“Archer, you need to close that book, man. You’re going to drive yourself crazy if you keep staring at it.”
“I just keep thinking I might see something, you know? Slightly ahead. Like there might be a jump. There’s got to be stuff written after this. If we’re in a book, and somebody’s reading it, that means it’s finished. So there’s more written. I keep hoping I might get a glimpse of what comes next.”
“Jack said that couldn’t happen.”
“He also said he was the one writing this stuff down, but here I am, staring at this thing, and it’s changing without him. If he lied about that, maybe he’s lying about not seeing into the next page.”
“I don’t know about any of that. But while you’re nerding out on this stuff, we’ve got a killer out there. We could use your help.”
Archer looked up at him for the first time. He blinked rapidly, then squinted, adjusting to see Bradley clearly. “What exactly do you think I can do?”
“Like, use your brain and stuff, man. You haven’t seen this guy. He’s the size of a house. He already killed Tim, and he’s looking for us. And judging by how I left him, I’m guessing he’s pretty torqued.”
“I don’t know anything about fighting.”
“Dude, you can’t just sit here forever. At some point, you have to do something. Even if you don’t understand it all.”
“Maybe that’s good enough for you,” Archer said. “But it’s not for me.” Then he buried his pointed nose back in the notebook.
With a sigh, Bradley sat on the couch. He could wait a few more minutes. He did not want to face Tereus alone.
Jason was trekking east along the wooded coastline. He followed the narrow stretch of brushless cliffs, barely caring about the treacherous path. The way was stony, dark, and, in many places, a perilous height from the rocky shore below.
At last, Jason came to the trailhead of the path down to the shore. Before stepping down, he looked out at the sea, dark and infinite under the light of a splintered moon. The water looked calm, almost like glass. There was no wind. Everything was still.
Then he heard it. That low, moaning roar. It seemed to descend from all around him, from every direction. It lasted only a few seconds, but it was more unnerving than it had been previously. The darkness had something to do with that. His solitude didn’t help either.
No, no, he thought. No more mysteries. That’s not my problem anymore.
He stepped out and down onto the narrow ledge below the trailhead and began his descent down the face of the cliff.
Carefully he stepped lower and lower, sure of each purchase, his foot against a rock or root before bringing his next foot down. His caution struck him as strange. What could he control anyway, if someone else was completely in control of his destiny? What did it matter? What if he just . . . jumped?
But he didn’t. Lower and lower he climbed, keeping his balance, leaning back against the cliff, pressing his hand against the mossy ground at his back to keep himself upright until finally, he reached the bottom. Teetering across the large stones at the base of the cliff, he could see the water was lapping closer and closer. The cave was not far.
When he found it, he stared into the massive maw of darkness. Did it run all the way under the island like Beatrice had said? He could walk or crawl all the way in, deeper and deeper, until he reached the center of the known world. He could die there. It would be over.
He looked back over the ocean, the great expanse and murky depths stretching out from his feet into eternity. There was no mainland anymore. Was anything out there anymore?
He felt inconsolably small.
And then afraid. With the mouth of the cave at his back, its deep uncertainty open, like the mouth of a great beast swimming up to swallow him whole, he shuddered and turned back to face it.
Then, slowly, he walked into the gaping maw. But not too far. Just as far as he’d ever gone, just inside the dank and stony walls. He sat down on crossed legs with his back against the rock and closed his eyes.
He could accept his apathy. He could sit there forever. If he did nothing, said nothing, the apathy would ooze out of him and infect the whole frustrating world. He could put a wrench in the gears and end it all. Nobody would want to read a story where nothing happens.
“Jason and Archer just ran away.” Beatrice was sitting on the hearth, half facing the fire, half looking at Jack, who was comfortably puffing on his pipe. “It seems like they’re always running back and forth. They don’t stop to think.”
“It’s not thinking those boys lack,” Ja
ck said. “Not all of them, anyway.”
“What then?”
“They lack wonder, my dear. None of them truly wonder. Not like you.”
“Wonder about what?”
“Not about. At. They don’t wonder at anything. It comes, at least partly, from not reading books.”
“I think Archer reads books.”
“He doesn’t read them,” Jack said. “He uses them.”
“What’s the difference?”
“It’s the difference between always learning but never coming to the truth.”
Beatrice stretched her arms out, putting her palms to the warmth of the fire, and thought about that.
“You run too, you know,” Jack finally said. “But how is your running different from theirs?”
She really thought about that. Finally, she answered: “I was running to the adventure, not away from it. You know?”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Anyways, I’m not running now. I want to know more.”
“Then I am at your service.”
“I think I’m a pretty neat character,” she said.
“Is that so?”
“Yes. I’m the girl. In my favorite kind of stories, the girl is always important.”
“In the best stories, yes.”
“And I’m not running now. I think it matters to know,” she said, and she paused, folding her hands in the white pool of dress in her lap.
“To know what?”
“What kind of story we’re in.”
“Now you have turned a most consequential corner,” Jack said, and he was beaming.
“Have you read a story like this?”
“I have written stories like this. Visitations to other worlds. Even to the underworld. They were vehicles, really, supposals—ways of exploring the transcendence under the surface of the world of the reader or around the corner from him.”
“The real world.”
“The realer world,” he said.
“I’ve been thinking . . .”
“Wondering.”
“Yes, wondering. I’ve been wondering about—at, I mean—this place, Echo Island. The names, the places. Even the premise. If we have died, then this place is the underworld.”
“And what have you surmised?”
“It reminds me of The Green Notebook.”
“How so?”
“The story Hippodamia was telling Ilione about Meleager. It was basically a myth.”
“Gleams of celestial strength and beauty,” Jack said, “falling on a jungle of filth and imbecility.”2
“And I imagine,” Beatrice said, “that knowing what kind of story we’re in should help us know what to do.”
“Which is what?” Jack said.
“I don’t know, exactly. But I think mainly to trust the Author. And to follow his rules.”
“Ah, yes! There are rules to myth. Constraints. But, at the same time, liberties.”
Beatrice looked at him, eyes wide open as if she just realized something. “Is there a way out of the underworld?” she asked.
Jack replied, “Only one.”
“You’re just giving up, man. You’re giving up.” Bradley was now on the floor with Archer. “You can’t do that.”
“There’s nothing out there anymore,” Archer said. “You saw it yourself. I’ve been all over this island. I’ve done all the research I could. It’s beyond me.”
“Yeah. And?”
“If there’s an answer, it’s in here, in this notebook.”
“You’re just gonna sit there and keep hitting your head against a wall, man. If you want to find out what happens next, you have to get up and make it happen. Do something.”
“I can’t,” Archer said.
Bradley grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him and growled.
Archer jerked away, terrified. “Leave me alone, Bradley. Just leave me alone.”
“I’m trying to help you. You’ve got to get up.”
“Or what? You’re going to trash me? Like you’ve always wanted?”
Bradley did feel like hitting him. He always felt like hitting Archer. But for the first time ever, he felt bad about the feeling. “No,” he said. “I’m not gonna do that.”
Archer slumped over. He looked down at the notebook, which had skittered off his lap onto the floor.
“Look,” Bradley said. “The whole thing kind of freaks me out too. I don’t understand it all, but we can’t let that stop us from doing something. I mean, Tereus killed Tim. We can’t get him back. And Tereus will keep going until he’s through with all of us. And I don’t want to lose anyone else.”
Archer said nothing.
“I’m going to leave you here,” Bradley said. “And you just remember it was your choice.” He stood up, brushing his pants off. “And clean your house, man. It’s gross.”
He left then and continued his journey across the vacant lot toward the town center and, beyond it, Minuai Fields.
Passing the Bee Market, he thought of Tim, how he couldn’t protect him, how his record of simultaneously sticking up for him and ensuring the role of tormenting Tim was his alone, had been broken. He wondered what had happened to him, what happens after. They were dead. But they could die again. And then what?
Crossing the street by the newspaper machine he’d destroyed what seemed like ages ago, Bradley stopped to consider it. A sudden jolt of pleasure shot through his body as he recalled stomping the plexiglass cover open.
And then the darkness seemed to grow darker. He looked up.
“Where’s my daughter?”
Tereus was walking up the sidewalk toward him with purpose. His face was difficult to discern in the soft moonlight. But as he came closer, Bradley noticed that the skin on his face, arms, and hands was sloughed, peeling off, bubbled, and raw—no doubt from the fire.
Bradley backpedaled and tripped over the newspaper box. He’d barely regained his footing when Tereus was upon him.
How long had Jason been sitting in the cave? He didn’t know. It felt like hours. He thought at some point he would just disappear into nothingness, born back into the void of nonexistence, back to before the story began. But he still existed. And the rocky floor was killing his hindquarters.
He was startled by the whisper of wind on his face and opened his eyes. After days of stillness, the brush of a breeze against his cheeks felt strange, as if something was shifting. Now he could see the first rays of dawn streaming warmly into the mouth of the cave, and there in the entry, as if leading a procession of light, was Beatrice, the beatific dawn her crown. Her white dress danced in the breeze.
“Jason,” she said.
He said nothing.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He looked at her obliquely, words welling up but unspilled.
“Answer me.”
He opened his mouth as if to speak but still said nothing.
“I said,” she said, “what are you doing?”
He thought perhaps a final comment might be warranted. “Nothing,” he said. “That’s the point. If I sit here and do nothing, there can’t be a story.”
“You’re being foolish.”
“No. This whole thing is foolish. It’s not fair. But as long as I can choose, I choose for there not to be a story.”
“I don’t think you can choose that,” Beatrice said.
“Of course I can. Nothing happens next. Because I’ll just sit here. Nobody’s going to read a story about a guy who just sits in a cave.”
“If he was interesting enough, they might.”
Jason looked at her, hurt.
“You know,” she said, “trying to stop a whole story like this is kind of interesting.” She was smirking.
“This is serious,” he said.<
br />
“Of course it is. And you definitely shouldn’t do anything you don’t want to do. But you can choose to want to do great things. And sitting in a cave forever is kind of interesting. But it’s not great.”
She was smiling big at him now, and he was softening, despite himself.
“What if I can overpower the Author?” Jason said. “That would be something great, wouldn’t it? Anyone reading the story would want to know the answers. And if I just sit here and stop the whole thing, they won’t keep reading. That’s power.”
“But they would keep reading,” she said. “You couldn’t stop them.”
“Why?”
“Because they’d want to know what happened next! They wouldn’t know that nothing happened if they didn’t turn the page. They wouldn’t even be sure you would sit here forever if they didn’t keep reading.”
No, he thought. It’s too much. I refuse. He said, “I’m going to stop it.”
“You can’t. You can’t control it.”
“What I don’t get is why you aren’t angry. What’s wrong with you? What you’ve been through. The family you were given.”
“I can choose.”
“But you can’t. Can’t you see? If what Jack said is true, you can’t. I’m not even going to talk. If I do nothing, say nothing, it’s over.”
“Jason.”
He folded his arms.
“Jason,” she said again.
He looked down, ignored her, willed her to disappear, willed the whole world to disappear.
He eked out, “I could kill myself.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you want to see.”
She stood with her head cocked, hand on her hip, looking compassionately at him.
In a moment, it was no longer the world that was too much. The island, the vanishing of his family, the threat of a madman on the loose thirsty for blood—all began to fade from the force of her reprimand. Even the confounding, constraining weightiness of knowing his story was being written from the outside began to feel lighter compared to the glory of her slight presence, her wisp of an arm now outstretched from a rising sun.
Echo Island Page 16
