by Jake Halpern
CHAPTER 49
They were completely and utterly lost. Marin clasped Line’s good hand and led him forward through the trackless forest. The interlocking of their fingers was the only scrap of comfort left to them. It was impossible to measure time, but Marin figured they’d been walking at least an hour since fighting off the rat. They climbed, descended, followed animal trails that petered out, but they were always in the forest, always surrounded by trees. Every so often, Marin would stop and press her hand to Line’s burning forehead. The situation was bad—they both knew it—and it would only get worse.
Line, meanwhile, tried to ignore his fever and the raw throbbing in his hand. In fact, he tried to ignore everything and focus on Marin’s hand in his, and their breath turning into mist as they exhaled. He dreamed of blankets, hats, gloves, a fire, and—most of all—light. He remembered the way the sun felt on his skin and the way it made him squint his eyes. He wanted only to see daylight again. He wanted to feel the warmth of the sun as he and Francis ran bare-chested on the beach.
It was Line who first heard the sound of water flowing. Please, he thought. Please be the Coil. They grasped each other’s hand tighter and pushed toward the sound. Line became acutely aware of his loud, ragged breathing. Can the things hear me? Are they nearby? And what of Kana? For a moment, Line saw Kana’s pale face, lurking in the shadows. Then he shivered. What happened to Kana? And why isn’t it happening to me and Marin? One thing was clear: they had left Kana to die. Line could still recall the viselike grip of Kana’s hands on his throat. How could I not run? And yet hadn’t all this started because Kana had risked his own life for him, venturing back into the woods instead of boarding the boat? And now Line was running, abandoning him. What kind of friend am I?
Again, Line heard the sound of flowing water. It was growing louder. The Coil. Let it be the Coil.
The ground turned mushy and soft; trees gave way to bushes; and suddenly, open skies were above them. They had come upon a clearing filled with waist-high grass. A fast stream flowed through the middle of it, gleaming silver in the moonlight. Snow filled the air—softly but steadily, without remorse.
“The Coil,” Line whispered. His lips were cracked, his hair was matted wetly to his skull, and he trembled uncontrollably. He opened his mouth, tried to speak, but started coughing instead. Marin wrapped an arm around him, waiting for the spasms to stop. In the moment, she was also keenly aware of the cold. They couldn’t last much longer in these conditions. They had a few hours, at most, before hypothermia set in.
“You may be right,” replied Marin. She squinted into the darkness. The ground was now white with snow and reflecting the moonlight. Marin could see the flowing water, but for some reason, it didn’t give her confidence. “It looks awfully narrow to be the Coil.”
“I—I—I need water,” he said. “Just a few sips.”
He pushed forward, but Marin pulled him back.
“Stop. Something isn’t right.” She listened intently and realized that she heard water flowing in several places—by the stream, but also nearby, almost at her feet.
Marin knelt on the ground, groping with her hands until she found a hole that was roughly two feet in diameter. She thrust an arm inside and felt only cold air. She scooped up a handful of dirt and flung it into the hole. It vanished, as if swallowed. Several seconds later, she heard a faint thwack. The drop must have been at least fifty feet.
“Another stream is flowing underground,” she said, looking at Line. “If we had fallen into that hole . . .”
There’s no point in finishing that thought.
“Stay here,” said Marin. “I’ll come back with water.” Line collapsed into the snow-covered grass. Marin crawled toward the stream. Along the way, she had to maneuver around two more sinkholes. When she finally made it to the stream, she drank deeply, greedily. After she drank her fill, she looked around for something that would hold liquid.
Nearby, the trunk of a downed tree lay decomposing in the fast-flowing water. Marin grasped at it, and it came apart in her hands. She did, however, find a stub of a branch that was nearly intact. It wasn’t large, perhaps six inches in diameter and a foot long, but it was hollow and didn’t crumble to pieces. It would hold water as long as Marin plugged up the bottom end with her hand.
She filled it to the top and walked carefully around the sinkholes back to Line. He was still lying in the grass, and for a split second she was afraid he might have gone unconscious. But then she whispered his name, and a sound gurgled from his cracked lips. While holding the branch in one hand, Marin helped him sit upright. She carefully tipped the branch and dribbled water into his mouth.
After drinking, Line rested there, his eyes tightly closed. Marin sat by his side in silence.
Eventually, Line opened his eyes and peered at Marin.
“I’m not feeling very well,” he said. It was a simple statement, but the way he delivered it brought tears to Marin’s eyes. She looked away so he wouldn’t see.
She bent close to his face. “You’ll be fine,” she whispered. “I’ll get you more water.”
Before he could say anything else, Marin took the hollow branch and returned to the stream. As she went, she visualized Line’s pained face. It was coming soon—his arm and the knife. I can’t do it. She shuddered. Yes, I can. And I will. Unless she found lekar first.
Back at the stream, Marin paused to splash water on her face. It was so comforting that she had to tear herself away to focus on the task at hand.
The moon lit up a broad area and she spent several minutes looking for the tiny woodfern plant: a cluster of soft, round leaves surrounding three thumblike, red-brown stems. Lekar. That was what she needed right now.
Marin ranged up and down the stream, at least twenty paces in either direction. She didn’t find even a hint of woodfern. In the distance, she could hear Line coughing weakly and calling for her. Marin’s heart broke. What if he dies? As that thought surfaced, she returned to what Line had said—his terrifying suggestion—that they simply throw themselves off a cliff. End it all, quickly. Anything would be better than this: Kana gone, Line dying, me alone.
The simplicity of this thought shook loose another. What if she just ran? Get up, abandon Line, run toward the sinkhole. Leap. Headfirst. Fall. The End.
Once in her mind, it was hard to release the seductiveness of the idea. She stood still and felt her muscles tense for the final sprint. But then her mind fought back, and images of Kana as a child, and climbing with Line, formed a bulwark against any further thoughts of suicide. No. I will keep moving—always keep moving.
Marin turned back to the stream and knelt to fill the hollow branch again. She began walking back toward Line. She was so focused on not spilling the water that her foot came down too close to the edge of a hole, which crumbled under her weight. She fell, and grabbed at the grass, pulling herself onto more solid ground. Her pulse pounded in her ears. She choked back a sob. Her branch had fallen, and seconds later, she heard a distant plop far below.
Marin buried her head in the grass. Her arms and legs trembled. She rubbed her face into the icy ground so hard that it scraped her cheeks. But the pain helped bring her back. She peered down into the sinkhole. A shaft of moonlight partially illuminated the distant water rushing by, along with the hollowed-out earthen walls dotted with rocks, roots, and tiny plants. As her eyes adjusted to the murky light within the sinkhole, she saw a recognizable clump of round leaves surrounding small, red-brown stems.
Woodfern.
It was about twenty feet down, nestled around a series of embedded, fist-size rocks made slick with the constantly trickling water. She wanted to throw herself into the hole, grabbing at the woodfern as she fell—such was her eagerness. But she had to be careful. She had to think this through. Getting in was easy—getting out would be much tougher.
She extended her legs in both directions, burying the
m into the tall tangled grasses around her. This anchored her—a little. She then leaned her shoulders, head, and arms farther into the sinkhole.
At ground level, the hole was only two feet wide, but it steadily expanded as it went down, so that—at the level of the woodfern—the walls were about five feet apart. Marin reached in and tugged experimentally at a rock embedded in the wall of the sinkhole. As soon she touched it, the rock came loose and tumbled down. Marin scanned the walls of the sinkhole again, until her eyes fell upon a network of stringy roots that looked like a spiderweb. Marin stretched a bit farther, leaning deeper and more precariously into the hole, to get a better look. The roots appeared to continue all the way down to the water.
Suddenly, she realized she hadn’t heard Line in several minutes. She closed her eyes against the fear. It doesn’t matter now. I can’t help him without lekar.
Very carefully, Marin set her sack down on the ground beside her. She didn’t want it dropping down the hole. Then she prepared herself. She rolled away from the sinkhole and rotated her body so that her feet entered first. She grabbed handfuls of the tangled grasses with her arms, bunching together as many as she could to lessen the weight on any one strand of the thick growth. She descended slowly, bracing her legs against the walls. Just as she was about to fully enter the hole, the walls widened. Her feet lost contact and swung freely. I need to grab the roots. Now!
She let go of the grass with one hand and reached frantically for a root just as she heard and felt the clump of grass—which she was still clinging to with her other hand—begin to tear. Her free hand grazed a patch of roots and clamped down, followed by the other hand, which captured a nearby web. The roots were just strong enough to hold her weight for a few seconds before tearing. They formed a kind of rope ladder that disintegrated soon after it was used. As she climbed down, Marin became aware of her breathing—it was fast and shallow, and it was proving difficult to get enough oxygen into her lungs. Her hands became sweaty, and her grip on the web of roots began to waver.
CHAPTER 50
She struck furiously at the wall, trying to find something solid. Anything—a root, a rock, something that won’t fall away. With her left hand, she clung to a single clump of stringy roots, but she could feel them tearing. Marin reached out with her feet. Her left foot brushed something solid that felt like a large rock, maybe even a boulder. There was no time—she had to commit. With a deep breath, she shifted her weight to her left foot and stood on the rock. It held, and it was wide enough for her to stand on with both feet. In fact, she was soon able to crouch down and gingerly sit on the rock. The woodfern was just below, and she could almost touch it with her dangling feet.
Marin took off one of her sturdy leather boots, scooted to the edge of the rock, and extended down her bare foot as far as she could. She could feel her toes brushing the plants. Gently, she tore at them with her toes and, over the span of several minutes, methodically took as much as she could and crammed it into her pockets.
Marin laced up her boot and began to contemplate her exit strategy. As she looked up at the snowy moonlight, one thing became clear—she couldn’t return the same way she’d come. The stringy roots were all torn.
How do I get out? It’s only twenty feet, but if there’s nothing to hold me . . .
She sensed the fear coming back, worming its way into her limbs, into her brain. But she had lekar with her, and there was no way she would give in to that fear, not when she had the means to save Line’s life. She forced herself to examine the sinkhole walls as methodically as possible. Then something caught her eye. To the right of the rock, she saw the nub of a root protruding from the earthen wall. This root was different from the others. It looked much thicker and stronger. This root was her way out.
She reached into her pants pocket and took out the copper box that her mother had given her—the one containing the scalpels. Using the corner of the box, she began chipping away at the dirt surrounding the root. The dirt came away easily, in chunks, revealing that the root continued up toward the ground, just as Marin had hoped it would. The root was sturdy and knobby, with dozens of smaller roots radiating deeper into the ground.
Marin continued to dig, chipping away at the earthen wall, following the root upward. Because the soil was so crumbly, it was easy to expose the root and shimmy up. After about twenty minutes, she had made her way almost back to the surface. When she extended her arms, her hands were about two feet away from the mouth of the sinkhole. And then the root changed course, and dove back down. Two feet. Grass hung over the edge. Thick grass. Will it hold? There was only one thing to do. Marin gathered her breath and lunged for the top of the hole.
She grabbed handfuls of the grass and yanked herself up. Wriggling her way forward, she didn’t stop until her entire body was out of the sinkhole and resting on solid ground. She tried to control her frenetic breathing, but this was no time for rest. Line. She had to check on him.
Line was unconscious and wheezing faintly. Marin took a handful of the woodfern from her pockets. It was so caked with fungus that Marin could feel it coating her fingers. She crammed the whole handful into her mouth, chewing on the leaves and turning them into a soft, slimy poultice, which she then slathered onto Line’s arm. It seemed like the only way to make an ointment.
Marin’s hands were cold from the sinkhole, and she caressed his cheeks and forehead to wake him up. His eyelids moved but did not open. She took another handful of woodfern from her pocket and placed several of the leaves in Line’s mouth.
“Lekar,” she whispered. “Swallow it down. I’ll get you water.”
Line’s jaw began to clench as he started chewing. Marin rushed back to the stream and returned with more water, cupped in her hands. For the next fifteen minutes, she ferried water to Line, and he drank greedily. His eyes were still closed, but the way his chest rose and fell gave Marin hope. Lekar worked fast.
Marin still had a great deal of it—in all likelihood, more than he would need.
She settled next to Line and tried to catch her breath. What they both needed now was rest. They huddled against each other for warmth. An hour passed, and the gently falling snow reminded Marin that they couldn’t stay like this for long. They had to keep moving, as soon as Line could manage.
At some point, Marin decided to go to the stream for another drink, and when she returned, Line was sitting up. His eyes were open and it was clear that his fever had broken. He looked at her, shook his head, and chuckled softly to himself.
He reached out and squeezed her hand. “Thank you, Marin,” he whispered.
She brought his hand to her lips and kissed it.
“Line,” she said a few seconds later. “We need to get back to that meadow. He’ll be waiting for us—I know it.”
Line nodded, then pursed his lips, as if he wanted to speak but was holding back.
“What?”
“What do we do if he’s not there?”
“He’ll be there,” said Marin flatly.
Line was unconvinced. It wasn’t just a matter of whether Kana was there or not. The question was whether Kana would even want to go with them. The Kana they knew was gone, perhaps forever. It might be pointless, but Marin was right—they still had to try and find him.
Sometime later, Line felt strong enough to stagger forward. It was a good moment—he was feeling better, and the snow had stopped. They set off together at a slow pace, heading in a direction that he believed—and hoped—would lead back to the meadow where they had left Kana. Their path followed the stream, but it eventually disappeared underground. It was not the Coil. Marin and Line pressed on. The ground sloped upward and they began to climb. The trees grew taller and taller and soon they were back in the dark forest, making their way toward an unknown ridge.
When they reached it, the forest ended abruptly. They were on the cusp of a chasm and, far off in the distance, they could see a great
clearing. For a moment, their hopes soared, because it seemed they had found their way back to the meadow. But it wasn’t the case. Instead they saw moonlight reflecting off the surface of a pond.
Marin made the connection first. “This canyon . . . We’ve been here before.” She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, as if to block out what she was seeing. “On the other side of the canyon. Me and you—and Kana. It’s where we left the sunstone.”
Line cursed softly and covered his mouth with his hand.
Marin looked into the canyon. Although she couldn’t see the bottom, there were a series of perfectly rectangular openings along the walls. When they had been here last, the openings had been covered by stone slabs. Now those slabs had either fallen or somehow rolled away.
“You were right,” she whispered, almost inaudibly. “They opened. They all opened.”
It began to snow again and the canyon became a soft blur of white. Clouds gathered overhead while Marin and Line watched each other’s faces fade into black as the moon vanished. A frigid wind picked up.
“I don’t know what to do,” said Marin, more to herself than to Line.
“Let’s wait for the clouds to pass,” Line said, taking Marin’s hand in his. “It’s not safe for us to walk without some moonlight.”
Seconds later, they heard a loud crack—the sound of a branch being intentionally broken.
“Kana?!” Marin whispered.
Another loud crack, this time much closer. Marin flinched.
Line took the box of matches from the vegetable sack Marin was holding. He counted the matches—three left.
Grabbing one, he held it between his thumb and index finger and slid it sharply across the striking surface. It sputtered once, twice, and then died.
“Try another,” said Marin.
“We only have two.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Do it.”
Line grabbed a second match and struck it. This one flared and then caught. The flame lit up his face and hands. It lit up Marin’s face—she looked stricken with panic.
