Lifting the Sky

by Mackie d'Arge

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  I scrambled down off the boulder. I hadn’t gone far when the trickle seeped under a boulder as big as a truck and disappeared out of sight. Even climbing up on the highest rocks and looking around, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where the water came out.

  The creek bed twisted between steep canyon walls that jutted out and then drew back into deep shadows. I was directly across from the gray shale landslide. My eyes darted to every gash, scar, and dark shadow on both sides of the canyon walls. A feeling of hopelessness sank through me. There was no sign of a cave.

  And even worse, no sign of Shawn.

  It wasn’t until I looked up at the rim and saw black smoke boiling up that I realized I’d been praying. Please, I prayed, as if my very life depended on this one word. Please, please, please, I repeated over and over as flames leaped at the trees overlooking the canyon. “Please,” I said when a sound rose as if the trees were now moaning in pain. “Please,” I said as they exploded and came crashing down into the canyon.

  In spite of the heat I felt myself turn icy cold.

  “Please,” I whispered. “I’m here to find Shawn. Please.”

  As I said that last “please,” a quick, sudden knowing washed over me like a wave breaking over my head.

  I was in a place where I shouldn’t be, looking for a cave I was supposed to know nothing about. It was such an ancient, secret, forbidden cave—the entrance to the underworld—that the water ghosts and little people had made it invisible.

  And suddenly something, I don’t know what, but something felt different. All the panic I’d felt seemed to lift out of me, the way you might feel if you’d just aced the most challenging, most tricky test ever. Or maybe how you might feel if you’d gone through some kind of initiation. And it was right at that moment when I heard the loud gurgle.

  I looked down.

  A clog of twigs and leaves gushed out from beneath the boulder I stood on. The litter bunched up and then swirled and slowly started floating down through the alleyway of gray boulders. They snaked around a jagged outcrop and then disappeared out of sight. I was about to jump down and follow along when I spotted a pile of debris heaping up along the edge of the outcrop. It suddenly bulged up, and then with a gurgle it disappeared into a narrow slit at the foot of the cliff.

  The entrance to the cave was just a mere crack in the earth.

  “Hang on, Shawn,” I cried and I slid off the boulder and stumbled over the rocks toward the place where the pile of leaves and twigs had vanished. I’d been searching for an O-or a U-shaped mouth—no wonder I hadn’t seen it! Then, pushing my backpack ahead of me, I wriggled through the narrow opening.

  Talk about a mouth. The cave entrance was clammy and dark and it drooled and smelled like sour breath. I had a sense of teeth grazing my head, and the strange, eerie feeling that I could be swallowed whole in one gulp.

  A shaft of smoky light streamed through the crack and then evaporated into the total black night of the cave. In the dim light all I could see was the narrow, slimy ledge I’d wiggled onto and a few rocky stairlike shelves that dropped down from it and then dissolved into darkness. The trickle of water dribbled over the ledge and then vanished into the cracks between rocks.

  “Shawn?” I shouted into the blackness.

  In a clear crystalline voice the cave called out, “Shawn! Shawn! Shawn!”

  I held my breath. Silence.

  My shoulders slumped. I could feel all my hopes come crashing down, one on top of the other. It had been too much to expect. After everything that had gone as wrong as it possibly could, I’d hoped that something good would happen. Maybe even something miraculous. Like for Shawn actually to be there. In the cave. Safe. Alive. Of course he’d probably be injured. Something had for sure kept him from getting back to his grandma’s ranch—but he’d be waiting for me and totally thrilled out of his boots that I’d found him.

  But … maybe I was too late. What if he was …

  I couldn’t even think the word. I took a deep breath and shouldered back into my pack and slowly, carefully wormed my way off the slippery ledge.

  Blinking to get used to the dark, I inched down the steplike ledges. They seemed to go on forever. I was about to give up and just curl up where I was when my feet touched dirt and what had to be the bottom of the very deep hole.

  Total silence. Total darkness. Total stillness and nothing.

  Good thing I wasn’t afraid of the dark. Except maybe this dark …

  I got the heebie-jeebies staring into it. It was a black so black that I couldn’t even see my own lights. There was no up, no down, no left, no right. It was like the confusion I’d felt once when I’d gotten caught in a blinding blizzard, only this time it was a total blackout instead of a whiteout. Holding my arms out in front of me, I slid a foot forward on the dirt floor. My legs wobbled like a horse that’d been ridden too fast, too far.

  I was safe, but just try to tell that to my body.

  Inch by inch I felt my way forward, the jet-black darkness so thick it was as if I waded through ink. Twigs, leaves, hard stones, and soft things crunched under my boots—oh thank goodness, thank heaven that nothing squirmed or wiggled beneath them! I bent over and groped around on the ground for sticks, leaves, twigs, anything that I could use for a fire. Blindly, wildly, I pulled my stash to me and heaped it up into a pile. I felt in my pack for my matches. Stopped breathing. I’d lost them. No. There they were. My hands shook so badly that it took half my box of matches before I got one that sparked. I tucked it into my pile, hunched over it, and blew. As a blue flame blazed up and grew I put more twigs in it and then I squinted around at the darkness.

  I was definitely in a deep hole. Huge, by the little bit of it that I could see by the feeble light from my fire. For a quick second, as my fire flared up, I glimpsed dark red and ocher-colored slabs heaped along one side of the cave. Against the wall ahead of me was a jumble of sticks and brush that had probably been washed there by water. I shuddered as the thought hit me that if a sudden downpour flooded the cave, that’d be the way I’d end up, too. Smashed into the wall with a bunch of sticks.

  I dragged myself over to the jumble of sticks and hauled back an armful. I dropped them and made one more trip and then plunked myself down by my fire. I pulled my trail mix and bottle of water out of my pack.

  I drank all the water, but I couldn’t swallow one bit of the trail mix.

  This is what it must feel like to be at the bottom of a bottomless pit, I thought. Somehow it was easier to think about being deep underground in a black hole than it was to think about the fire raging outside. Or about how I’d come within a pinch of getting caught in it. Or about who might be caught in it now. Because one thing was for sure. Shawn wasn’t here in this cave.

  And of course it wasn’t Shawn’s fault that I’d risked my life to come find him. It wasn’t even his fault that I’d abandoned my poor sweet doggie when he’d needed me most. And then run out on my mom who, come to think of it, was probably crazy with fear because by now she’d surely spotted the fire. It wasn’t anyone’s fault that I’d run from my dad. Run from throwing all the horrible words I could’ve or should’ve hurled at him before I left.

  Or was it the other way around? Hadn’t he thrown out those horrible words—hadn’t my dad been the one who’d run out on me?

  I was so tired….

  I tossed the last of the sticks into the fire. Not bothering about the bumps and lumps in the dirt under me, I lay down, stuffed my pack under my head, and stared up into the darkness. The fire suddenly blazed up and I flinched.

  There were teeth over my head. No, not teeth—they were stars shining above me, a whole Milky Way of shimmering pale greenish crystals twinkling down from the roof of the cave. I seemed to be smack in the middle of a gigantic geode.

  Beside me, all around me, fallen stars lay scattered about in the dirt. I picked up one and wiped off the dirt. It looked like pale greenish light frozen in stone.
I held it to my cheek and it felt like tingling ice on a sore spot.

  I lay back with the fire flickering off the thousands of pale greenish crystals and called out Shawn’s name once again. “Shawn! Shawn! Shawn!” the crystals sang back.

  Chapter Thirty

  “Blue?”

  Is it morning already? No, it can’t be. It has to be the middle of night because it’s so dark, but didn’t I just hear my mom calling my name?

  “Coming,” I moaned. Then, “Lemme sleep,” I muttered, snuggling back into my pillow. Geez, but it’s lumpy. And this bed is so hard….

  My eyes popped wide open. It was pitch-black. Except for—except for the fire, which had burned low. My fire. I was on the cold, hard floor of the cave. I must have fallen asleep. My skin started crawling up inch by inch from my toes to my skull. I grew as still as a rock. Ages went by. I tried not to think of how my shoulders were cramping and my elbow was itching and how I really, really did have to sneeze.

  “Ahhhhchoo!” I muffled the sneeze with my hands.

  From far, far away, as if coming up out of a deep hole, I heard it again. “Blue?”

  I sucked in my breath. “Sha—Shawn?”

  “Friend?” The voice floated up from somewhere deep down under the ground.

  “Shawn, is that you?” My heart about leaped out of my chest. “You’re here in the cave! But where are you?”

  “I dreamed you. I’m a ghost. I’m dead,” rose a flat, deadly calm voice.

  Ohmygod! Did that mean I was dead too? Goose bumps rose on top of goose bumps as I clutched at my shirt—it seemed real enough—and then felt behind me for my pack. It felt solid…. And for sure the crystal I still gripped in one hand was rock hard and solid. I tucked it into my pocket.

  “Are you dead too?” rose the voice.

  “Shawn, you stop that right this minute,” I shrieked. “I mean it. You’re creeping me out!” I pinched the back of my hand. It hurt. There was no way I could be dead.

  “Is this a dream?” the voice floated up dreamily.

  “Wait a minute. Make a noise. Say something. I’m coming to find you,” I said, my voice calmer but still trembling.

  “What are you doing here?” the dazed-sounding voice wondered.

  “Looking for you, Shawn, that’s what I’m doing. Been all over the mountain, almost. It’s on fire, Shawn, you know that? No, of course you don’t. Keep talking. I’m trying to figure out where you are.” With the way those crystals seemed to pick up sounds and then fling them back, I couldn’t tell where the voice came from.

  “I’m down in the underworld,” growled the very low, grave, serious voice. “Don’t come near me.”

  “Okay, Shawn, I get that you’re in this direction,” I called back almost as gravely. I staggered dizzily to my feet. “Cripes, it’s pitch-black in here. Just a second while I get this fire going…. Keep talking.”

  I fumbled about for the sticks I’d gathered—when? I had no idea what time it was, or even what day it was or how long I’d slept. I couldn’t tell up from down or front from back. And I guessed it would stay that way because I’d already used up my stash of kindling. I blew on my almost-dead fire and stirred it with a stick, and then placed the stick on it. It flared up but didn’t make a dent in the enormous black night of the cave.

  “You sound awful real …,” rose the doubtful-sounding voice. “But watch out. Don’t come near me, you’ll fall.”

  “I’m coming, Shawn, like it or not,” I said, muffling a big ouch! as I tripped, stubbing my toe. Holding my hands out, I blindly shuffled along the rough floor toward the place where the voice seemed to be coming from.

  “Listen, I’ve got a flashlight.” The voice for the first time sounded hopeful. “It’s really weak, the batteries are almost out, but I’ll shine it up.”

  A pale shaft of yellow light glimmered up.

  “I see it. I see it,” I called back excitedly. I groped my way toward it, my eyes stretching for things beyond what they could see, and bumping smack into what felt like a big slab of rock. I walked my hands up the smooth vertical wall of the slab. Now, with my heart actually pumping again and my energy suddenly pepped up to the max, I could see the faint glow of my hands and the blue-white light streaming out of my fingers. “I’m alive,” I whispered, and for some strange reason I almost burst into tears.

  And then there it was right in front of me. The yellow light. It shone up from the depths of the earth.

  “Geez, Shawn,” I managed to say. “How’d you get down there?”

  “There’s a rope. It’s hanging down from the other side of this hole. At least I think it is. … I’m a bit … dizzy. …” The beam of light swayed back and forth as it searched across the walls for the rope and finally found it. The light suddenly went out. “Don’t try to come down here,” Shawn said. “Please.”

  “This may sound stupid, but if you got down the rope, why can’t you climb back up it?”

  “Right. I fell. I think I broke my arm. I can’t climb back out. I tried, but one-armed…” Even from high above I could hear him let out his breath. “It was real dumb to come to this cave and not tell anyone where I was going….”

  “You’re not kidding. Double dumb, because I just did the same thing.”

  The light flicked back on. “You’re kidding,” Shawn said.

  “I wish I were. But listen, Shawn. Don’t move. Just keep the light on while I go around to the side of the hole where the rope is. I’m coming down.” The light wavered, found me, and then slowly moved toward the rope. I followed, crawling carefully forward on hands and knees. I was on a shelf of sorts. A shelf that dropped down—I stared at the point of light—maybe twenty feet. I couldn’t see Shawn at all, just the bright spot of his flashlight.

  “I heard the spirits singing my name,” Shawn said, back in his dreamy voice. “I thought I’d gone to the spirit world.”

  “Always sneaking up when I don’t know you’re around, Shawn. Just like you,” I said as I reached the place where the rope was attached. “You climbed down that?” I said, then quickly, “Not that I can’t do it too….”

  It wasn’t a ladder, but just a rope with big knots tied into it for footholds. I knew I could do it. I mean, after all, hadn’t I just climbed down a cliff with a raging fire at my back? This would be a piece of cake. Nothing to it.

  “Don’t come down. If you fall, we’ll both be stuck in this hole….”

  He had a point. Who would come find us? Thanks to our combined brilliance, no one even knew where we were. But what choice did I have?

  “I can’t leave you, Shawn,” I called down. “It would take me forever to get back to the ranch and then back up here. And besides, I don’t know that I could even get there right now. There’s a huge wildfire burning outside. It’s maybe even worse now—the whole range is probably blazing.”

  I slid over the ledge. Clung for dear life to the rope …

  “I’ll sit here below you and try to soften your fall, if you do fall, that is. But try not to,” Shawn called up, and below me I could hear him moving around.

  At least he could move. And actually, with the big knots tied in the rope, it really was a piece of cake climbing down. “Oops,” I said. “Did I kick you?”

  “Ni hinch. My friend,” Shawn whispered. “It’s really you.”

  Now that my feet had touched bottom again (how many levels did the underworld have?), I felt like falling to pieces and crying my heart out and even telling him what a dumb klutz he was and that I was thrilled to the bones to have found him and that even if he didn’t like me, well, I loved him, I really did love him, so there. And I almost did that. But what I did instead was lean dizzily over him, feel down his arm, swallow, and say, “Wow, Shawn. You really got yourself into a pickle.”

  “Arm doesn’t hurt much anymore,” Shawn said, and he put his good hand on top of mine and held it against his hurt arm. “Did at first, and it felt a lot worse after I tried to climb back out. But I made this sling out o
f my T-shirt, and it’s much better now.”

  Which made me close my eyes and say a quick prayer for my hero dog Stew Pot.

  The light suddenly sputtered and dimmed.

  “Better turn off the flashlight,” I said, although really I just wanted to look him over real good and make sure there was nothing worse wrong with him.

  “Yeah, I’ve been trying to make it last,” Shawn said, switching it off. “I turned it on every once in a while just to see light. Just thinkin’ about how it would be when it went totally out … Oh man. Keep touching my hand,” he said, and his hand clamped down harder on mine. “I can’t tell up from down in this black hole.”

  “How long have you been down here? Have you had anything to eat? Drink? Geez, Shawn,” I sputtered, rearing my head back and studying his lights. I shuddered at the thought that he might’ve died in this hole if I hadn’t found him.

  “Came here two days after you told me about those lines. I told my grandma I was going to go help my uncle with the haying. It was a lie. I couldn’t tell her I was going to this cave—it’s not a place where she’d allow me to go. I thought if I was lucky I’d have myself a vision. But I should’ve done it the right way, with an elder to guide me.” Shawn stopped, out of breath.

  With my hand, the one that wasn’t still gripped tightly in his, I brushed back the hair on his forehead. Somehow I could tell that he smiled.

  “I wasn’t going to be gone long,” he continued. “Day or so, maybe. Now I’ve lost track of time. I had an apple and two baloney sandwiches in my pack. But there’s plenty of water. It trickles down over the wall and then disappears into a hole. Don’t go near it. It’s slippery over there….”

  “The entrance to the underworld,” I breathed.

  “Shhhh!” Shawn said, his hand suddenly holding mine like a fist. “It’s a spirit thing. Our lower world is a place of dreaming and visions. I can’t talk about this, Friend. You shouldn’t be here.” A long pause. “And neither should I.”

  “I understand, Shawn. Don’t worry, you don’t have to say any more. I’ve got some trail mix in my pack, but I left it up in the cave. Saved it for you, though. Just in case…”