by Melissa Frey
Kayla took over. “We haven’t been able to figure out what it stands for, not yet, but it means that we’re on the right track. We must be close to something.” She still hadn’t told them about the necklace, and, because it still felt like a warning somehow, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. No need to concern them unnecessarily. Although that man Na-um and his band of mercenaries just might force her hand sometime soon. She hoped not.
That’s when she heard the crash.
Mandy shrieked, her heart pounding. “You could’ve warned me!”
Kayla was glaring at Justin. “What do you think you’re doing?” She shouted.
He all but ignored her question. “Look, here . . . see?” He pointed near where he’d hit the wall just a few seconds ago. “This part of the wall is different than the others. There aren’t any lightning symbols here. And the stone is a slightly different color! Plus,” he grunted, smashing the butt of his light into the wall again, “this tunnel has to go somewhere. It seemed to me that this was the most likely spot. Considering . . .” Another hit, and a small piece of the wall went tumbling and crumbled to the ground. “There. Look.”
Justin turned his light around, shining it on the wall where he’d just removed a piece of rock. Mandy didn’t get it. “What? It’s just more dirt.”
Grady stepped closer, smiling slightly. “Yes, but it’s not the same. It’s finer, not as tightly packed.” He reached in for a handful. The dirt wall gave way easily. Grady held up his hand, letting the dirt run through his fingers. “See?”
Mandy felt her jaw drop slightly as she looked closer. She could see the difference now in the color and texture of the dirt. “So now what?”
Grady flung his backpack off his shoulder, setting it on the ground and digging around for something. A few seconds later, he pulled out a small shovel, grinning. “We dig.”
CHAPTER 12
Elements
In no time at all, the four of them had dug out a hole in the wall large enough to step through. Mandy bounced impatiently as she waited for the others to move out of the way; she needed to get inside. Something a little stronger than simple curiosity was building up inside her, something she couldn’t explain. She had to find out what it was. And this room behind layers of centuries-old dirt held the key—she could feel it.
She stumbled through the opening and found herself at the top of what could only be described as an ancient staircase with long, wide, well-worn stairs descending into a darkened room below. Mandy hurried down them without a second thought. After only about six large stone steps, her feet landed on the sandy floor of what appeared to be a large room that stretched beyond the reach of her flashlight. Mandy was grateful for her five-foot-three-inch frame as her head barely cleared the smooth rock ceiling; she cringed as she noticed the others hunching over as they reached the bottom of the steps.
Before she could even figure out what to do next, Mandy heard Kayla and Grady beside her breaking several light sticks and placing them strategically around the room; the sticks glowed dimly in the expansive room, but illuminated it enough to explore. Mandy found herself grateful for their foresight; she’d have never thought of that.
Through the dusty green light, Mandy spotted a hole at the base of the rock wall to her left, and headed toward it with a wide smile on her face. She had to bend over to duck through the hole, but her smile grew even wider when she saw what was on the other side. “Hey, y'all, this looks like another room!” Mandy was unable to keep her excitement—or her Southern drawl—in check.
“Yeah, looks like I have one over here, too,” Grady called back from across the room, out of sight.
Justin spoke up. “I found another one over here, too. I count three openings off this main room.”
Mandy nodded to no one in particular. “Everyone please be careful—we don’t know what we’re walking into.”
“Of course,” came from Kayla, her voice muted, presumably by the thick stone walls surrounding them.
The room Mandy found herself in was small, nothing more than an innocuous cave. The ceiling was so high over her head that her light didn’t reach it; the walls seemed to stretch higher and higher, never visibly reaching that extraordinarily high ceiling. The floor was the same sand of the connecting room, though the surface was not entirely uninterrupted. Mandy walked over to the far corner, kneeling down beside a pile of what appeared to be dark, old wood. She carefully picked up a long, narrow piece, turning it over in one hand while shining her light on it with the other. She reached for another piece, then another, discarding each one in turn. Could this pile of wood at one time have served a purpose? The wheels in her head started spinning, and she noted a twinge in her thoughts, like she was trying to remember something but it wasn’t quite there . . .
Justin was suddenly at the entrance of her tiny room. “Find anything?”
His voice made her jump, the piece of wood in her hand clattering to the pile beneath it.
“Sorry.” Justin shrugged as he entered, quickly crowding the space. Mandy stood to her feet, dusting her knees off before answering.
“Just this pile of wood here. And over there . . .” Mandy used her flashlight to point to a small pile of off-white scraps a few feet away. “That could have been some books or papers.” She walked over for a closer look. “Yeah, that’s got to be what that was.” She leaned down, grabbing a handful of shredded cloth and lifting it closer. She frowned. “Doesn’t look like there’s any ink left on these scraps, if there was even any on here to begin with.” She opened her fingers, letting the scrap cloth sift through her fingers like confetti. She wiped her hand on her leg. “Come on; let’s go see what Kayla and Grady found.”
Mandy didn’t make it to the other side of the room. About halfway across the sandy floor, she froze. She couldn’t explain it, but something was happening. Pieces were falling into place in her mind; everything was starting to make sense. The thing she was trying to remember before—but how could she be remembering when there was no way she could’ve known in the first place?—finally broke through the surface.
“Mandy, baby?” Justin’s voice shook her out of her trance. She blinked a few times, coming back to the present, and stared at Justin’s sheet-white face. For what may have been the first time in their relationship, she finally understood how much she meant to him, even if he never seemed willing to admit it aloud.
Mandy raised her hand, placing it briefly on his cheek, and smiled at him. “I was just thinking . . . this looks exactly like a crude home. That room there . . .” she pointed to the one Grady and Kayla had just exited at the sound of Justin’s voice, “. . . could have been a bedroom or something, and the other one I found could have been a sort of library.” She paused, realizing that her conclusions must sound crazy, but, oddly enough, she had never been more certain of anything in her life. “Someone used to live here.”
For an excruciatingly long minute, everyone just stared at her, unmoving. Mandy doubted they were even breathing. And now everyone thinks I’m crazy. Wonderful. But regardless of the looks she was getting from everyone, she knew she was right.
Finally, mercifully, Justin spoke up. “Yeah, that makes sense.” He smiled, draping a long arm around her shoulders. Kayla and Grady nodded in unison. Mandy was grateful that they weren’t all mad at her—or convinced that she was insane. Mandy let out the breath she didn’t realize she was holding and smiled.
“But we still have one unanswered question,” Justin continued. “Where does that lead?”
The other three followed his pointed finger to the farthest wall. Mandy heard Kayla gasp just before she got close enough to recognize it. And her heart stopped.
Right in front of her, embedded in the rock so thoroughly it appeared as though it belonged there, was an enormous wooden door. She had missed it before in the dim light. They had all missed it.
Mandy hurried closer, stopping a few feet short of touching it, her neck craning to see the top. The monstrosity had to have
been at least three stories tall; the ceiling curved up abruptly to accommodate it. The door stretched the length of the room, easily twenty feet across. Mandy searched her mind for a rational explanation as to how this door could’ve gotten here, how it was even possible that such a large piece of wood was in such a small cave, but came up blank. She stepped closer to the enormous door and began examining it in earnest.
The door was covered with strange markings ornately carved into the dark brown wood. Near each of the corners, four symbols stood out with stark clarity. Mandy stared at them blankly. She didn’t really know much Mayan—or K’iche, as Kayla would say. She could almost hear her correcting her.
But the voice that reached her ears was Grady’s. “What does it say?” Mandy glanced over at him to see him staring intently at Kayla. Made sense; Mandy didn’t have a clue what the symbols on the door meant.
“These are ancient Mayan symbols, of the same era as the ones in the cave.” Mandy didn’t have to ask her which cave she was talking about. No one else seemed to have to, either.
But something was bothering Mandy. Kayla’s voice sounded so odd, so foreign, that she wouldn’t have even thought it was Kayla’s had she not been looking right at her as she spoke. With everything going on around them tonight, not to mention all the events of the past week or so, the strangeness of Kayla’s voice seemed particularly eerie. She just couldn’t figure out why.
Justin didn’t seem to notice. “So what do they mean?”
Kayla didn’t answer right away, and Mandy was left contemplating what they could mean. Why were there four prominent symbols on this mysterious door—were they somehow significant in some way? She thought she kind of recognized the one on the top left . . . she strained to remember from class. Was that the symbol for . . . what was it . . . wind? No, that’s not right . . .
Kayla interrupted her thoughts. “Air, fire, water, earth.”
“What?” Grady’s voice was a little louder than normal.
“The four elements of nature: air, fire, water, earth.” Kayla reiterated, pointing at each symbol as she translated.
Mandy exulted. Of course! Air! That was the one she’d been trying to figure out.
Justin jumped in with characteristically excessive enthusiasm. “What does it mean, these four symbols together? What do the four elements of nature have to do with anything?”
Mandy wanted to roll her eyes.
Kayla answered him with what Mandy thought was the patience of a saint. “The four elements have to do with everything—especially to the Mayan people, I’d imagine, who by all accounts worshipped the earth. Everything in nature is comprised of some combination of the four elements. The significance of the four symbols together is remarkable. I haven’t seen this combination together before in any of my Mayan research, but given the new information we found at Lamanai . . .” her voice trailed off.
Mandy’s head was spinning.
Air, fire, water, earth.
The four elements.
What did it all mean? She peered at the symbol above her, the one she now knew stood for air. She stared at it for so long she could feel herself memorizing it.
Then, for no real reason that she could figure out, she took a few steps back, the low ceiling blocking her view of the symbol. The others were still close to the door and didn’t seem to notice her.
But she was looking for something. And she knew the instant she saw it.
CHAPTER 13
Door
It wasn’t readily obvious, wasn’t really obvious at all. Actually, it was just about invisible. In the dim light in here, her eyes couldn’t decipher the difference between it and the wall around it. She couldn’t explain how she’d found it, but she knew it was what she had been looking for.
“Um, y'all might wanna see this . . .” Mandy drawled. Though her voice had been barely a whisper, her words carried in the silent, echoing room.
She felt more than saw the other three come up beside her. As they approached, Mandy lifted her hand to a particular spot on the rock wall to the left of the door. She gently pressed her fingers to the rock, certain of what would happen next, nearly certain of how the others would react. But she didn’t care; she knew she was right, though she had no idea how.
She took a deep breath then pressed a little harder, and the rock wall started to give way. A second later, the wall was crumbling beneath her hand. Tiny bits of stone broke off, tumbling through the wall and disappearing into a hidden cavity. After a few seconds, a hole the size of her fist had opened up. She stared through it, trying to see to the other side. For an instant, she thought she saw something—a symbol, maybe? But before she could comprehend what she was seeing, she saw a bright flash, then heard a small click.
Dirt and debris began raining down on their heads. Mandy and the others scrambled away from the door to avoid the rubble that now poured from the top and sides of the wooden door. They stared wide-eyed as the door impossibly dislodged itself from its stony confines where it had been imprisoned for what was likely centuries.
Gradually, the dirt waterfall cut off. Then, just as the last pebble fell to the ground, the door began to quiver, as if shaking loose from the wall. Mandy held her breath.
Suddenly, with a loud clap of finality, the door abruptly froze in place. For a long second, the silence rang in Mandy’s ears. She stood in place, eerily still, eyeing the unmoving door. She didn’t dare take her eyes off its surface.
Then, with a stunningly strong gust of warm air that threatened to knock her over, the door flew open, slamming against the wall behind it. Mandy lifted her arm to shield her eyes from the swirling sand.
When she lowered her arm, the door lay open with no indication of the chaos that had just transpired, save the scattered piles of dirt that had rained down on them moments before. Mandy stared into the room that lay behind the door and froze.
What she saw was inexplicable, terrifying. The room beyond the door was lit from an invisible source—shadows flickered, light dancing on the curved walls of what appeared to be a completely circular room, a dome of sorts where the walls stretched to meet the high, curved ceiling. Mandy couldn’t believe what she was seeing, couldn’t let herself believe. Clearly this room had been closed off for a very long time; how could a fire burn down here, beneath layers of dirt and stone? And wouldn’t the wind from the opening door have blown out such a fire anyway?
With a deep breath that shook more than she would’ve liked, Mandy ventured into the curious room. As soon as she crossed the threshold, she felt that same twinge deep inside her—it was small but very distinct, and her breath caught. What was that?
She took another step, and she felt another . . . something—she could only describe it like a sharp prick inside her chest, though she felt no pain. What on earth was going on? Another step, and the feeling grew stronger. Another step, stronger still. She didn’t understand it, but she had to find out more.
Mandy abruptly straightened and strode boldly into the room. She felt Justin reach out to stop her, but he was too far behind her. She was glad. She couldn’t let him get in her way. She walked confidently to the exact center of the small room and stood with her back to the group. And something started happening.
Once Kayla saw that Mandy was unharmed, she cautiously entered the inexplicably fire-lit room, followed closely by Grady and Justin. Justin hesitantly crossed the threshold, but once he was through he ran to Mandy’s side. “Mandy, baby, what are you doing?”
Mandy’s back was to them, her face aimed toward the ceiling, eyes closed. Her arms were raised slightly, extended out on either side of her waist, palms up. She almost looked as if she were in a trance.
As she started across the room toward Mandy, Kayla noticed Justin had begun shaking. It was almost imperceptible, but Kayla immediately understood what was going through his head—she could sense how he was feeling. She was scared, too.
Kayla had reached Mandy and now moved in front of her friend, next to Justin.
Then she froze. Kayla knew that expression—though she’d never actually seen it herself, she recognized it. Mandy’s face epitomized what Kayla imagined her own face looked like during her visions. Kayla knew—though she didn’t understand how it was possible—that Mandy was having one, too. She was sure of it.
She had hoped she’d be the only one in the group to go insane.
Grady was the last one to join the group in the middle of the room. He was scrutinizing the walls, the floor, the ceiling, looking for any clue as to why this room was here, why they could see it clearly by the light of a fire that shouldn’t be there. After a quick, uninformative inspection of the room, he gave up, turning his attention to Mandy, who was just now slowly opening her eyes.
The sight sent chills down his spine. She looked exactly like Kayla did just after one of her visions. Had Mandy seen something, too? That seemed the only logical explanation. But how?
Justin’s voice reached her ears. “Mandy, baby? Are you okay?”
Mandy blinked and lowered her chin to meet Justin’s eyes. She saw him shudder.
She cocked her head a little to the side and furrowed her brow. Why would Justin be scared? She was feeling so many things: contentment, fulfillment, happiness—but definitely not fear. Not in the least. She opened her mouth to ask him, but he cut her off.
“Mandy, what’s wrong with you?”
Mandy took a step back. “Nothing’s wrong with me!” She couldn’t help but snap at him. He had no right to berate her.
“That’s not what I meant.” Justin drew in a deep breath. “What happened?”
Mandy was pleased that his voice came out much quieter this time. She blinked, accepting his sort-of apology for now. “I saw something.”
Kayla jumped in. “What did you see?” In those four simple words, Mandy knew that Kayla completely understood what had just happened to her. And for that, she was grateful.
