I jerked my head back and forth in renewed panic, batting the mud out of my ear with psychotic fury. I succeeded only in spattering mud over the entirety my face. After breathing out a few jagged breaths of embarrassment, I dabbed at it with my shirt sleeve with slightly increased lucidity.
If I could not free myself, Simon would be here any moment to find me in this pitiable state, stuck like a pig and covered in mud. I pictured the aggravatingly smug look on his face after finding me in this muddy state.
Mud.
With the butt-end of the flashlight and my only free arm, I jabbed into the mud alongside my left shoulder. A small indentation was formed, possibly the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. After cursing my dullness of mind, I spent the next ten minutes digging my body out.
Squiggling my way free and crawling the length of the tunnel, I fell into a room 10 or 12 feet high with a waterfall streaming down near its center. Seeing this waterfall, which I had heard countless times as a kid but had never actually witnessed, took my breath away. I imagined myself being one of only a few—possibly the only—human being to ever be in this exact spot, take in this sight. I cursed the stupid tiny flashlight and all its failings. Had I brought a bigger one, I’d be in a better position to take in this splendor. I lingered for a few moments, trying to soak up glimmering water. As it was in the dim light, a sole explorer in an uncharted world, I somehow felt reborn.
I bathed in the falling water, its magic washing away the algae and grime. Sinking to my knees, I rooted around in the soft earth below. Miraculously, after only a few moments, I came across something unnaturally solid and rectangular. I shone the light as best I could and saw a dark shape in the mud.
Unearthing the chest, however, proved another matter. The mud and pressure had created a vacuum. I wasn’t strong enough to simply pull the chest up, so I had to dig. And dig. And dig. With my bare hands. Surprisingly, digging in the mud with my bare hands was not unpleasant. Squeezing the thick, oozing mud between my fingers was oddly soothing.
The problem was, digging underneath flowing water is not easily accomplished. As soon as you move some mud, more mud and water flow right back into the hole, filling it up again. I had to stop and think for a moment about how best to solve this problem. I searched the cave before finding a sizeable branch that I could use as leverage.
Only after I’d been working at dislodging the chest for some time did I realize something: I could not move my legs. My legs had sunk into the oozing mud, and seemed to even be sinking farther still. I knew better than to struggle at this point, but the impulse to do so was nearly overwhelming. Leaning over as far as my reach would go, I grasped at the vines surrounding the walls. After several unsuccessful attempts, I managed to get one in my grasp. I wrapped it around my forearm several times. With the vine securely wrapped around my arm, I dug down into the pit with all my strength. I gasped and sputtered as the water poured down over me, as I was unable to move away from it. Sinking further into the oozing mud, I wrapped the length of vine around the chest on all sides.
By the time this was finished, the mud was up to my waist.
Using the branch for leverage, I pushed underneath the chest to dislodge it. The chest moved only slightly, standing sort of diagonally, but I was sure this was the best I could do. I began to pull on the vine, with the hope of pulling myself and the chest safely out. The vine’s strength held, but a length of it pulled free from the earth, and I had to tie it in the middle to reduce the slack. The mud was now passing my chest. I fought off the panic rising in my throat. The chest seemed to sink farther the harder a pulled. No, I thought. I did not come this far to die like this.
I moved my body back and forth very slowly to loosen the mud, before pulling on the vine again. My arms strained and the veins in my neck felt as though they would burst. For what seemed an eternity, nothing happened. Then slowly, with water flowing over my chin, causing me to sputter out water I’d inhaled now and again, I could feel my body moving. As soon as my shoulders were free, the mud released the rest of my body more quickly. Pulling on the length of vine tied to the chest with all my might, I felt sure it would snap. But to my great surprise, the vine held, and the chest gradually bubbled up from the mud. With force, I freed up enough mud from around the chest to pry it loose, and as I pulled, it finally squelched free. There was no time to linger. Luckily, retreat was much quicker than exploration had been.
Simon was thigh deep on the outer bank, apparently on his way in to retrieve me, when I emerged from the cave. His shoulders slumped in apparent relief that he’d not be getting his white dress shirt dirty.
I swam back through the muck, one-armed, with difficulty, hugging the chest tightly to me. Simon reached down for me when I was near the bank and pulled me by the arm onto dry land. Using the momentum, I swung the chest from behind me, slinging it forward onto the ground. As I did, mud flung off the chest, spraying onto Simon’s face and ultra-white button down shirt, which he’d somehow managed to keep clean despite his dress pants and shoes being obviously ruined.
Simon examined the mud on his shirt with frozen eyes. I could practically see his blood pressure rising.
Things between us just seemed to keep deteriorating. “Sorry,” I whispered, cringing.
He just stared at me, devoid of emotion. A surge of anger pulse through me.
“Really, why did you wear a white dress shirt out here in the first place?” I lashed out unexpectedly.
Simon tried to wipe off the mud with his hands, but predictably, it smeared. Finally, he gave up, turning to me. “Well,” he fumed, “I was kind of on my way home from work when Gavin called me in a rage about this ridiculous adventure, so I didn’t actually have time to change. And, I never imagined it would entail tromping through a swamp in the middle of the night, or obviously, I would have stopped by one of the many spelunking outfitters in Jacksonville...”
“Cool. That’s what I thought.” Occasionally I do know when to admit defeat.
Once we were done fighting and cleaned off much as was possible, curiosity set in. Simon and Nicky were dying to know what was in the chest, and of course, so was I. It was locked, but the lock was so corroded, Simon stomped the lock into pieces with relative ease. We gathered around in anticipation, all three of us giddy to get the first glimpse of whatever treasures the box held. Simon opened the chest as the three of us held our breaths with anticipation, and as he opened it we saw.... nothing. I grabbed the box and turned it upside down, trying to shake whatever must be in there loose. Nothing shook out.
“You just risked your life for an empty friggin’ box. I really thought I was going to find you dead in that cave. What is wrong with you?” Simon fumed, “You’re going to get yourself killed. You know, I’m beginning to wonder if you don’t deserve whatever happens to you.”
The heat rose to my cheeks; my eyes flashed. We both knew exactly what he was talking about.
“Don’t,” I responded in a low voice. I knew from past experience my current expression was the most dangerous in my repertoire.
Simon shook his head in disgust and turned away.
“Sorry, Evangeline,” Nicky cringed, “I know you’re disappointed.... Did you at least get to see the waterfall?”
I tried to hide the anger and disappointment but know it showed on my face anyway. “Amazing. We should come back sometime, you know... during the day, with proper equipment.”
“That would be great. I really wished I could’ve seen it with you.”
“During the day...” Simon apparently couldn’t help but interject sarcastically.
I shoved the box under my arm, unwilling to admit I’d wasted all that time and effort.
We made our way back through the swamp to their cars in silence, just the way we’d come in. Simon and Nicky had parked farther away, as Nicky had not quite remembered how to get here.
I drove them to their cars in excruciating silence.
Though I examined every millimeter of that box,
nothing remarkable revealed itself. I even thought maybe there would be a secret panel in the bottom, underneath somewhere, but I didn’t find one. Three solid days and sleepless nights of torturous examination uncovered no secrets.
17.
On the fourth night after the adventure I fell into an uneasy sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Of course, another memory would just have to break free from the depths of my subconscious and float to the surface after the events in the swamp. I drifted closer to the last adventure Nicky and I had shared as kids, right before my father had spirited me away to New Mexico. Even as I drifted closer to that memory, I imagined myself shaking my head in my sleep, trying to stave it off.
In those days, it was my plan to find the magical place where my mother used to take me, the place where I knew otherworldliness had existed. I would find proof there, the proof to release my mother from her prison. According to the literature, finding that place was the only place to start. The three of us had concocted a story together, to search for that place. My descriptions and excitement over the enchanted place had enticed Nicky and Jonathan. She decided to lie to her parents, tell them she was spending the night at my house, and I had told my Dad I was spending the night at hers. This way, we could search for an entire day and night, instead of having to come after only a few hours. We carried a simple pack lunch and sleeping bags and set out on what would be the final adventure of our childhoods.
I forgot what Jonathan had planned to tell his parents because he chickened out at the last minute and didn’t come with us.
We didn’t have any maps back then, of course, but we knew those woods better than anyone. Every tree, every stream and meadow—we knew them all. So for this day, we had to set out to go farther, much farther, than we had ever ventured before. I figured my mother must’ve taken me far into the woods, to a place where my father had forbidden me to go. A barbed wire fence marked that boundary, a fence that separated a private hunting preserve from the unclaimed wild land where we so often played. I reasoned that must’ve been why he forbade me go there; because he knew it held my mother’s secrets and therefore must be dangerous. Childishly, it embarrassed me that he refused to talk about her. I felt that he was ashamed of her; I was not. So instead of communicating with me, or I with him, we continued to eye one another cautiously, suspiciously. To me it seemed as though he was waiting for something to happen. For me to turn out just like her. Of course, when I got older, I found out he had just been broken hearted, and would remain so for the rest of his life, and looking at me only served to remind him of her.
So our destination lay beyond that barbed wire fence. The beginning of our journey was fantastic. Enjoying our first taste of real freedom from our parents, we were giddy with delight at our newfound independence. Those well-worn places seemed different to us somehow, as though we were now viewing them through different, more grown-up eyes. We reached the underground waterfall after only two hours of traveling. We paused there briefly, stopping to marvel at the wondrous melody of that invisible waterfall. Trudging through those swamps, we laughed and joked our private little jokes and discussed our dreams for the future. I had wanted to be an archeologist in those days, a female Indiana Jones, though it was hard to imagine it was truly possible, as no such thing existed in either the worlds of books or movies back then. Pippi Longstocking was the closest female I’d ever seen—not exactly the same—but she was all I had.
Only when the sun began to get low in the sky did we begin to feel some hesitation. As determined as I had been, I came close to losing my nerve, and I know Nicky felt the same way, too. This meant crossing a line, formally declaring rebellion against parental control. Neither of us had ever done anything like that before. As much as I wanted answers or redemption, whichever, I didn’t want to hurt my father. I never meant to hurt him. Of course, coming from me, that phrase sort of lost its meaning a long time ago.
In my memory, that day was magical. Regardless of whether or not we found evidence of otherworldliness, that day has been stamped into my memory as the last great day of my childhood, of my entire life, really.
As dusk drew closer, it began to grow cold, naturally. Just as I began to wonder if I had just led us on a fruitless wild goose chase, I noticed the symmetrically spaced posts ahead of us and then the delicate wire stretched out between them. We had reached the fence. Nicky noticed it about the same time. She and I looked at each other, and then broke into a small dance of triumph. In celebration of our accomplishment, we decided to pull out our pack lunches and have dinner in the twilight.
Tiny insects floated through the last golden rays of light above us. Every so often, whippoorwills called to one another. It was nearly as magical as that last evening with my mother had been. Of course, instead of scones and cucumber sandwiches, we had peanut butter and jelly and chips, but still, it didn’t matter; the sandwiches tasted as good to us as any gourmet meal would have. Between hiking through the woods all day and the daylight slowly drawing to a close, I was more exhausted than I had ever been. I found myself wondering how the pioneers had managed their long journeys. It seemed impossible. Much more important than just being tired, though, we felt an enormous sense of accomplishment. We had managed to find this vague destination with relative ease, and we had done so without a map or any other form of adult help or supervision.
After finishing our meals, we climbed between the two strands of barbed wire and crossed the line into the unknown with no other fanfare. I felt a faint tugging of familiarity as soon as we’d crossed the line but not enough daylight remained to pause and ponder that. Nicky must’ve sensed something, too, because she seemed to be moving forward a little more cautiously. I slowly realized that, as we journeyed farther and farther into the forbidden wilds, we seemed to be moving farther and farther from the light. The trees had become taller, the forest more dense. I told myself that was the reason for the darkness to the west, but not the east, of us. Not even a complete moron would’ve been fooled by that weak explanation. It became increasingly clear that the entire wood was growing much more savage than it had been up to this point. Our well known forest had always felt safe; this was different. Though I had felt a strangely familiar feeling at first crossing over, nothing about this wood looked familiar. The forest seemed to be populated with strange trees and other wildlife. The bird calls we heard now were unfamiliar, I could not name them. In all the time that has passed since then, I have never heard such strange sounds. We passed a number of trees that grew horizontally rather than vertically. Not that I had never seen one growing near the ground in that manner before, but I had never seen that many in one location.
I just was toying with the idea of telling Nicky it was time to be heading back before it got any darker when I heard it: the low babble of a nearby stream. This had to be the place! We had to be nearing the place my mother had brought me, the magical glen by the brook. I picked up my step in excitement, not quite at a run but a very brisk walk.
“Evangeline!” Nicky suddenly called out behind me just as I was reaching top speed.
I was startled by the abruptly broken silence, and to be honest, slightly annoyed at having my pace and focus broken so close to the end, but of course I paused as she held up her hand, motioning for me to be quiet.
I heard nothing but the whispering of the stream at first, but, as my focus sharpened, the whispering of the stream seemed to grow closer, which was not possible, right? What had at first sounded like the murmur of a stream now seemed different, not like a stream at all, in fact, but what was it? Rustling leaves? Rain? The sound continued to grow louder. A freight train??
I turned back to Nicky to bounce these ideas off of her, but stopped when I saw that her eyes were bulging wide with horror. I spun around, looking into the direction that must’ve inspired this reaction, but... I saw nothing. The sun had nearly set, and the darkness was settling over us. I was still trying to find whatever had upset Nicky, when she screamed.
“Ru
n! Run, Evangeline!!” Nicky was already off and running before she finished saying my name.
I stumbled forward, confused and frightened, and now alone. As soon as I found my footing, I was off and trailing after her. By now it was nearly dark. I could hear footsteps, but I couldn’t see her. I was too afraid to call out, so I kept running blindly. For several terrifying moments I ran, as fast as I could, through those menacing woods in almost total darkness. Finally, I tripped over some brambles and landed on the ground. Fumbling around in the darkness, I felt it. The fence. I had made it back to the boundary line. Lucky for me I had fallen before running right into it. That would’ve been very bad, and the situation didn’t need to get any worse. I felt around and crawled under it.
I was more calm after crossing the line, more rational. So instead of running I listened for Nicky. I heard nothing. “Nicky?” I called uncertainly.
No reply.
“Nicky,” I continued to whisper.
Beloved Evangeline (A Dark Paranormal Urban Fantasy Trilogy for Grown-ups - Book 1) Page 16
