“All right, I’ll go,” I said, and I understood the broad, sweet smile of the wild wolf. It was clear that Darius was in a rush to get things moving along, for just as soon as I agreed to the meeting he was next to me, nudging me toward the door with his powerful head.
“Will I see you again?” I asked Yipes as we made our way out the door and off the porch. He was hanging a satchel packed with dried food around my neck.
“I think so,” he said, tears welling up again in his eyes. “Darius will take good care of you. You can trust him.” Then he turned away from me to tend to his hawk, embarrassed. I ran back and picked him up like a big stuffed doll and hugged him. Then I spun him in a circle and set him back down on his porch. Without another look back, I began walking with Darius, the sound of the stream farther and farther away until it was lost in the rustle of the trees overhead.
As we walked, I began to think, had Warvold really chosen me as Darius had said? Yes, he asked me to go on his last walk with him. But it wasn’t just that. He could have given me the key … but instead he gave me one last test. I had to find it. And when I did, I would make myself worthy of the choice.
CHAPTER 13
THE TERRIBLE SECRET
I had the distinct feeling we were going the wrong way. I knew the general location of the wall and the three gated roads, and I was sure we were heading toward the Lathbury road, which was opposite from where we should have been going. The road to Lathbury split the mountains from The Dark Hills, not Mount Norwood from Fenwick Forest.
“Darius?” I said.
“Yes, Alexa, what is it?”
“I haven’t as keen a sense of direction as you must have, but it seems to me we’re heading in the wrong direction.”
“Very good, Alexa. You are correct. We’re making a slight detour before the meeting. Something I need you to see that won’t take but a moment.”
Darius was friendly enough, but he had not mentioned this unscheduled diversion when we were with Yipes. It made me suspicious and edgy. Besides, he was a wolf, and I was as lost and helpless as a sheep. I would keep my guard up, and if things continued to feel wrong, I would cut off the trail and go back to find Yipes.
Darius was a big wolf, not at all like the small ones I’d seen in books. On all fours, he reached my shoulders, and his head was the size of the ripe watermelons in my mother’s garden. His thick salt-and-pepper coat looked soft and full, though I’d not had the occasion to touch it. Placed against my hand, his massive paws would surely run the full distance of my fingers and thumb. His powerful jaws looked as though they could cut through a wagon wheel.
“Here we are,” he said.
“Where is here?” I asked, apprehensive about what the answer would be. Then I looked past Darius and realized we were standing in a thicket, with only twenty yards between the Lathbury road and us.
“How far to the right is the Lathbury gate?” I questioned.
“Not far, about two hundred yards. But we’re safely tucked away where the guards cannot see us. And besides, we’ve got hawks doing double duty this morning. They will let us know if danger is anywhere nearby.”
“Why have you brought me here, Darius — to test me? To see if I’ll run for the tower and tell everyone the animals can talk and that this place really is haunted?”
“Goodness me, no! They would think you were crazy. Besides, they can’t understand us. Only you can,” he said.
Darius let that information sink in, then continued, “There was a tunnel carved a long while ago that goes under this wall. It’s small, almost too small for me to fit — and anyway, I can’t stand tunnels. I refuse to go in them, no matter the size.
“This tunnel is about a hundred yards long, and it goes gradually deeper into the ground. At the end is a row of wood planks, and on the other side of the wood planks is packed dirt, though I’m told there is a spot where you can see through if you look just right. Badgers built the tunnel, and Yipes constructed the planks and packed dirt at the end. He’s smaller than you and spent a lot of time down there working.
“You must crawl down to the end before I take you to Malcolm. It’s the one other thing you must do.”
Darius stepped aside, and indeed there was a small hole, about two feet around, staring up at me.
“I’m not sure I can fit in that hole,” I said, even though I was nearly positive I could.
Darius walked a few paces until he was standing in the shade at the base of a large tree. He lay down and closed his eyes, his large head resting on soft front paws. “You can help us because you are small, Alexa. I think you’ll fit.” Then he became quiet, breathing steadily, as though he had fallen asleep.
I peered down into the hole, and I was unhappy to find it going dark rather quickly. Was I expected to climb down into a dark hole and stumble into a den of badgers, thrashing and clawing until they tore me to shreds in a silent underground grave? Darius could be plotting to have me killed for any number of reasons. I barely knew him, and he was the only wolf I knew. Could I trust a wolf? I looked over at Darius, who appeared to be perfectly content to nap the morning away in the shade of the trees.
It was true I could run straight for the tower, screaming and yelling and throwing my arms around. Or I might be able to find my way back to the secret tunnel leading to the library. That was a bit more of a stretch, since I really had no idea where it was. With Darius sleeping, I could probably sneak away and get Yipes to help me. But then, how much did I really know about Yipes? Not much more than I knew about Darius.
I paced back and forth in front of the hole, unsure of what to do.
“You are right for other reasons as well.” It was Darius, his head up and alert now, and his piercing dark eyes staring at me. “We have been watching you with interest for quite some time. You plot and scheme in search of a way outside the wall. You have always known there was a higher purpose for your life, some mysterious duty, maybe even a mysterious past you can’t remember. Your searching has not been as aimless as you might think. It’s brought you this far, hasn’t it?” Darius rose and took four powerful strides toward me. I imagined he could stand his own against any man or beast I knew of.
“Do you know where the rock in the pool came from, and why it allows you to understand what I’m saying? Have you any idea what happened to Renny Warvold? Who Elyon is and where he can be found? I think the answers to these questions, and many more, would surprise you. But first things first — you won’t understand why you are here until you go down that dark hole and see for yourself.
“Your adventure begins or ends here, Alexa.”
I hesitated for a moment longer, taking in a big breath of the fresh mountain air and looking up into the light blue of the morning sky. Leaves danced in the wind; a hawk circled overhead. I wondered if Yipes had sent it to watch over me.
I got down on all fours and poked my head into the hole, knowing already that I would soon find myself deep under the earth. I was unable to resist the temptation of discovery that Darius had so aptly placed in front of me.
My hands were next. Touching the cool floor sent a rush of dirt rolling down into the shadows. Once my shoulders were in, I could not turn back to look behind me without knocking loose dirt off the walls. It was claustrophobic, much smaller than it had looked. My body blocked what little of the sun’s rays had been streaming into the hole, and only a few shards of light poorly illuminated the space in front of me. With my knees inside I encountered an additional discomfort. The hunch of my back bumped against the top of the tunnel as I waddled from side to side. I could get my front half down by bending my elbows, but my rear end was a protrusion that was hard to control in the tight underground space — keeping it down required me to bend back on my ankles and move forward in short, awkward shuffles. When I was all the way in and only a few feet down the hole, a cold, dry darkness surrounded me.
How far did Darius say it was? A hundred feet, a hundred yards? I could not remember, but whatever the distan
ce, I was sure it would seem like a hundred miles. The farther I shuffled in, the darker it became. After a while, I closed my eyes to keep the dirt from stinging them. Within twenty minutes, my back and knees began to ache, and a horrible fear gripped me. I opened my eyes and had the strange effect of a dream from which I could not wake; blackness turned to blackness as I opened and shut my eyes, and a dark terror welled up in my throat.
It occurred to me at that moment that I could not turn around. Would not, in fact, be able to turn around when it came time to retreat out of the tunnel. Shuffling forward was hard enough, but backward would be impossible. I would die underground, exhausted and bawling in the end, probably wedged sideways in an ill-fated attempt to turn around. I began to hyperventilate and see a rainbow of colored stars in the darkness. Another moment and I was sure I would pass out with my face in the dirt.
I leaned back on my ankles and tried to calm down. Twenty minutes in. Why hadn’t I counted each of my shuffles forward? If each of my advances was a foot in length, then I was moving at a rate of twenty feet per minute, which would put me four hundred feet into the tunnel. That would mean Darius was lying, since I had already gone at least a hundred yards. He had probably already covered the entryway with dirt and wandered off into the woods, looking for a hapless victim to devour for lunch. I lay down on my belly against the cold black dirt of my tomb, unsure of what to do next.
I knew I could not turn around or go backward all the way out. I reasoned that the only choices I had were to keep going forward or lie where I was and starve to death. Three shuffles into my decision to go on, my hand encountered air where it should have found floor.
I lowered onto my belly again and tried to reach down and feel the bottom with both arms dangling, but it was too far down to touch. The walls to the sides were also gone, and I perceived a faint light creeping into the space. I took a pebble and dropped it over the edge and heard it pop at the bottom a few feet below. I slithered down into the new open space like a dry snake, then stood.
Maybe Darius had only been bad with distance, not bad altogether.
I felt around for walls and found open air all around me for several paces. Then I reached a wall that was clearly made of wood planks, and I felt along its surface to the ceiling a foot above my head. The faint glow I had discerned earlier was not enough to illuminate the darkness, but the sliver of light it created was clear against the grain of the wood. A small opening, no more than an inch, allowed in a weak beam of dusty light.
I stood with my back against one of the walls and stared at the sliver of light. As I approached the wall and placed one eye over the small opening, I could not imagine what I might see on the other side.
It was a room. A lamp hung on the far wall, and another to my right, from which I could see only light glittering here and there. A table and two chairs, a map on the facing wall with locations I had never seen, winding in a yarn of twists and turns of brown and black. It was a dimly lit room with earth walls, and I could not see a door.
I heard voices, distant echoes at first, like sounds from the meeting room at Renny Lodge when I tried to listen from outside closed doors. I had that same heart-racing fear as the voices came closer. It was two men, arguing about something. As they approached, their words became clearer, in a muffled language I knew well.
“I don’t care about what he says; we’ve waited far too long already,” said the first man impatiently.
“I know you want to go — a lot of us do. What do you want me to do about it? He’ll go when he’s good and ready to go,” said the other man. They were in the room now, to my left. Out of my direct sight, but close.
“Why can’t we tell him we need to get on with it?” the first man angrily replied. “Our time has come. The men are waiting.”
They passed in front of me, and I jerked away from the hole with a yelp, falling back with a dull, earthy thud. I was afraid they might have heard me, and I cringed at the thought of seeing another eye staring back at me through the hole, the boards flying in great splinters as these men broke through and discovered my hiding place.
Soft light was still finding its way through the tiny opening, and the voices moved a little farther away. When I was sure they hadn’t heard me, I silently positioned my eye to the hole, and saw that they had settled at the desk to continue their discussion as they reviewed the map hanging above them on the wall. Their tone was quieter, and with the added distance I was allowed only a word here or a fragment there. “Too long.” “I understand.” An emphatic “No!”
Most of what I heard was a garble of useless words I could not tie together into any meaning. But from the way they spoke and the way they conspired, I could tell that something sinister was going on.
One of the men rose from the desk and began walking toward me, apparently to retrieve something from my side of the room. He was a big man, and as he approached I could see his hair was unkempt and his beard overgrown. I held my breath as he came closer still, almost right in front of me. He struck a matchstick and lit another lamp that hung just to the right of the opening I was looking through. As the light flickered to life, I saw without a doubt what Darius had sent me to see.
This ragged-looking man had a C branded squarely on his forehead.
A convict!
CHAPTER 14
THE FOREST COUNCIL
It took me half as long to get out of the tunnel as it had taken me to crawl all the way in. The trip out was much harder on my body as I bumped my elbows, knees, and back in a race for the exit. When I emerged from the hole, the light and heat hit me full force, and it took me several seconds to see anything but sheets of flaming white and yellow. I was exhausted and lay on my back, hands over my eyes, listening to the wind rushing through the leaves on the trees.
“You must be hungry. How about we open up that bag of yours and have something to eat?” It was Darius. He stood a few feet away. I rolled over on my side and looked at him through narrowed eyes.
“What are those men doing down there?” I asked. “I saw one of them up close; he had a C branded on his forehead. I thought all the convicts who built the walls were gone. How can they still be here?” I said.
“Oh, I know what they’re doing down there, and so will you shortly. But first some lunch, shall we?”
I tried to question him further, but he wouldn’t budge. Finally I gave him some dried meat, which he ate in a flash of teeth and slaver. I chomped indifferently on bread as we walked, slowly making our way back in the direction of the Turlock wall that divided the mountains from the forest. I kept asking Darius about the men I had seen, but he seemed content to continue on quietly, winding his way through thick underbrush and around the occasional fallen tree. Finally, in frustration, I yelled at him, “Can’t you just stop for a minute and tell me something?”
Darius did stop, turning back at me. “I am responsible for two things today: getting you down that hole and having you in Malcolm’s capable hands by midday. So far I’ve accomplished only one of those tasks. All of your questions will be answered before the sun sets tonight, but for now I can’t tell you anything more.” He turned and started walking again, and though I felt completely exasperated I followed, trailing a few feet behind him down the path.
It was a long, hot journey, but at midday we were standing in a grove of cottonwood trees fifty yards from the Turlock wall. The gate to Bridewell was now safely in the distance, and looking overhead, I could see that several hawks were patrolling the area from above, dodging a storm of white floating fluff from the trees. As I stood catching my breath with Darius, I saw rustling under the brush in the distance, a zing of gray, then more rustling.
“Ah, here he comes. Not much good for sleuthing, but a nice fellow still the same,” said Darius. We watched as the formless gray ball of fur continued to weave in and out of view. After a while it became clear that it was a rabbit darting toward us between hiding places in the un-dergrowth. It was taking quite a long time for him to find h
is way to us.
“Will you please stop the secret spy routine and get over here!” Darius cried. “You’ll make us all late.” For a moment there was no movement at all.
“Is that you, Darius?” came a tiny, uncertain voice from somewhere in the thicket.
“Yes, it’s me, the big wolf come to eat the helpless bunny. The longer you take getting over here, the hungrier I get,” said Darius.
A gray head topped with floppy ears popped up about twenty yards away. “Coming!” said the rabbit with great exuberance, and he was standing at my feet a few seconds later.
“No need to get hostile,” chided the rabbit, who I took to be Malcolm. “Ah, but I see you’ve got the girl, and on time. Nicely done.”
“All in a day’s work for someone on his own,” said Darius. He became quiet and looked at Malcolm with a terrible sadness. “Have you any word from Odessa and Sherwin?”
“Stop your pouting — it’s pathetic for a creature of your size. This will all be over before you know it, Darius. Trust me,” said Malcolm. “Now, how about a proper introduction?”
Darius growled and then introduced me. Malcolm held out his foot in an effort to shake my hand. He said it was human custom to shake, and he wanted to make me feel at home. I bent down, took his furry gray foot between my thumb and forefinger, and awkwardly bobbed it up and down a few times. Malcolm chuckled nervously and we both looked at Darius, who rolled his eyes. I laughed, and for the first time I felt a little less like a guest outside the wall, and a little more like these might actually be my friends.
Darius and Malcolm huddled together and talked while I relieved myself behind a tree. This produced a whole new conversation about when to go to the bathroom, where to go to the bathroom, and whether or not one should cover up when finished.
After several minutes of arguing, Darius said, “I suggest we continue this conversation when we have more time. Though I will concede Malcolm’s views on marking trees over rocks make a compelling argument.”
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