I usher everyone back from the ledge, hoping we haven’t been spotted yet.
“Why are they here?” Lees asks, her hand rising to her mouth. The look of fear on her face tells me she already knows.
“We need to stay ahead of them.” I don’t offer any more of an answer, and Lees doesn’t ask. “Where’s the cave you’re so excited about?”
Standing here on this shelf of rock—a flat plateau that stretches only twenty paces before a higher cliff springs up behind it—I see no openings in the walls. Rivulets of water crisscross the stone—offshoots of the stream that feeds the falls—but these all meander through grooves they’ve dug in the rock, dropping over the edge or snaking into crags. But nowhere do I see an opening we could walk through.
Then Lees sits down on the stone we all stand on, and slides her feet into what I thought was a depression in the rock.
And disappears.
Running to the place she just stood, I see what I couldn’t see before. What I’d thought was a depression is actually the entrance to an underground cavern. Looking through the opening, I can see Lees standing on the floor of the cave below.
“How big is it in there?” I ask. “Will we all fit?”
“Twice as many would fit,” Lees calls back. She climbs halfway out again, clinging to a few protruding nobs of stone that serve as toeholds, lifting her head and shoulders out of the hole. Her smile beams.
“Good work,” I say. “We’re coming down.”
The opening is narrow, requiring some twisting and turning, but Seeri and Noni get through with little trouble. Morsk and Pek still stand over Kol, who is stretched out on the stone in the exact place Morsk set him down. I squat beside him. His eyes are closed as if he’s sleeping. He doesn’t stir. My heart sinks in my chest.
“What if I lifted his feet and Morsk lifted his shoulders?” I say. “Pek, you could go down first. Maybe you and Seeri could help take his weight from us—together we should be able to set him on the floor of the cave without letting him fall.”
Pek’s eyes scan Morsk’s face. Distrust hardens his mouth and jaw, but he nods. “Be careful with him, Mya,” he says. At first I think he means Kol—be careful lifting him—but then I realize he means Morsk. As he drops down into the hole in the rock, he throws one more watchful glance back at him.
“Don’t worry,” Morsk says, “I won’t let him fall.”
Kol never opens his eyes as we transfer him through the opening into the cave. I’m the last to go through after Morsk, climbing down out of a windy world bright with sun, into a still, dim space.
I don’t know what I had imagined, but I never imagined this. I stand in a small room with curved walls of rounded rock, as if it had been carved to serve as a drinking cup for the Divine. The ceiling is high enough that we can all stand at our full heights—even Morsk. The floor is pitted and pocked, carved by water that runs down the walls and trickles into several small waterways that flow farther underground, disappearing into the dark. It’s cold down here. On the surface, I’d thought my clothes were nearly dry. The hides had shed most of the water, and they’d warmed so much in the sun. But here, in this damp, dark place, my clothes feel chilled and wet against my skin.
“Well, we’re hidden. That’s certain,” I say. My voice, not even a whisper, but a breath of a whisper, fills the room and reverberates around me. I take a tentative step downhill, following the flow of water deeper into the ground. “How far have you followed it?” I ask Noni and Lees. “Do you know where it goes?”
“Not to the end. It narrows into a passageway you have to crawl through. Lees and I went all the way down to a tight corner, and even followed it around the turn. It leads to another space a lot like this one—one lit by a sinkhole that opens to the surface. As you crawl along you can hear water, like the creek might be running right overhead,” Noni says.
I take this in. I remember hearing the creek right before I first saw the bear this morning. I wasn’t far in from the cliffs that overlook the sea. If we could crawl that far through the dark—all the way back to the cliffs above the sea—we might be able to get back to the beach and to the boats without being seen by Dora and Anki, or Thern and Pada, or whoever else might be out there stalking us.
But before we try crawling that far, we have other things to worry about. I crouch beside Kol where Pek and Seeri placed him on the floor of the cave, and his eyes flip open.
“That was a terrifying trip to the top.” A twitch flickers across his lips—an attempt at a smile? If it is, the attempt fails, as his lips twist into a grimace.
“You were awake?” I glance up at Morsk, who looks away. “I thought you were out. I thought maybe—”
“No, I was all too aware,” he says. “I’m still alert. Just terrible at walking. Even worse at climbing.”
He laughs a bit at his own words, but no one else makes a sound. Noni drops down beside him across from me. “If you could let me go outside, there’s feverweed near the lake. I saw a whole patch of it. If he chewed it—”
“No,” I say. Kol’s eyelids, which had already dropped shut, flip open again. I touch his hand. It’s scalding and dry. His eyes are clouded with fever. “Not yet,” I say, squeezing Kol’s hand. “Once we know we’re safe—that they didn’t follow—then I’ll let you go.”
But even as I say these words, I don’t know that I could really ever take that chance. Could I risk the welfare of the whole group to get a plant I hope will help Kol? Maybe if they all pressed on, if they all got through to the beach, maybe I could get to the lake and gather some feverweed myself? “Noni, is there feverweed near the beach?”
“On the cliffs there’s lots of it . . . more than here.”
“And can we all get through the opening—the space we need to crawl through?” I stare into the dark, imagining the trickle of water I hear running into another tall, well-lit room. Still, I hear nothing but the echo of close rock and I see nothing but blackness.
“It’s tight, but I don’t think it’s any tighter than the hole we just came through.”
I lean close to Kol. A salty scent rises from his skin. I run my fingertips across his brow, and I notice his temples are damp. Could his fever be breaking?
“We’re going to have to try to crawl through these caves to the beach,” I whisper to him, though I know all the others can hear. Every small noise reverberates. But I don’t care. Let them listen. They all know how I feel about Kol. I suppose this isn’t the best time to concern myself with our privacy. “Do you think you can do it? Can you crawl?”
I think of his leg—his left knee that he’s favored all day.
“Whatever we have to do, I’ll do it. Roon will never forgive me if it’s my fault Lees doesn’t get back to him soon.” From behind me, I hear Lees suck in a quick breath at the mention of Roon’s name. Kol smirks just a bit. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be right behind you,” he says.
And I hear it in his voice—the resignation. I can hear him letting go of hope to stay with me. But I won’t have that.
“No. No, you’re going ahead of me. You’re staying where I can see you.” I want to take a few more minutes to let him rest. I want to push up his pant leg and look at his leg to see how bad it really is—but I don’t dare. We need to go. And there’s nothing I can do to help him here, anyway. “Noni, you lead the way. Then Morsk, Lees, Pek, and Seeri. Seeri, I’ll send Kol in behind you, and I’ll come in last. If you get too far ahead of us, call to me. We need to stay together.”
The only answer is the singing of the water as it drips and pools. I watch Noni, so young but so strong, glance one last time at the circle of sunlight above our heads. Maybe she is soaking up the light before she plunges into darkness. Maybe she is wishing she could just make a run for it and leave the rest of us behind. Whatever she thinks, it’s brief, and she turns back toward the black shadows where the rock underfoot drops down.
“You can stand for only about five paces,” she says. “Then you need to duck. In another five paces, you need to crawl.” I watch the back of her head—her black hair damp and matted—as she disappears into the dark. The sound of her sealskin pants dragging across the stone, the splash of running water as she crosses through the stream—these are the only signs that she is on her way through the passageway.
Just as I asked, Morsk goes next. He doesn’t offer an opinion or even a glance back. Now it’s Lees’s turn.
“I’m scared,” she says. She crouches down beside me, and I see Kol open his eyes to look at her. She turns to Kol instead of me. He has the answers she wants. “What did Roon say? When you said you were coming for me?”
“He doesn’t know yet,” Kol says. I know he’s whispering intentionally, but his voice is a croak. “I left him in our camp when I came here. Someone needed to stay with our mother. But I never said where I was going, so he’ll be really surprised when you get back to him.”
“And why didn’t Chev come?”
And there it is—the question that I don’t want to answer. Right before I have to send her into the dark. Right before I have to send her into a place she’s afraid to go.
I look over her shoulder at Seeri. It’s nearly impossible to see her face in the gray light that fills this room, but I can see her mouth. It is a hard, flat line. I wonder if she is thinking of Chev, and the fact she will never see him again.
Is she bracing herself for Lees’s reaction to my answer? Is she hoping I will lie?
I wish I could lie—I wish I could pretend that a lie is justified here, but I can’t. “Chev did come,” I say. My throat is thick. My words break apart like sobs. “But he died. Dora and Anki killed him.”
Lees’s eyes grow wide, their dark centers melting as her eyes fill with tears. “They did?”
“Yes.”
“Then they will kill us. They’ll kill us too—”
“No, they won’t. We’re going to get back home to our camp. And if they make it back to our camp, they’ll have to face the council of elders. The Bosha are rejoining the Olen. They won’t get away with this—”
“But what if they never come back to our camp? What if they run away?”
Of course, I’ve already thought of this. I’ve asked myself this same question. Could I leave this island without doling out the punishment I know Dora and Anki deserve? Could I take the chance that they might abandon clan life and never return to face the elders?
Would they dare to come back to the clan, expecting to find support for what they’ve done? And can I be sure they will find none?
“We need to get out of here first. Then we can worry about that,” I say, and this time my voice is strong. “That’s what Chev wanted. He wanted you and me to come home. On our own terms. Because he loved us.”
Lees’s eyes touch mine. There is a hint of skepticism there. I can see she wonders if Chev used the word love or if that’s my interpretation, but she decides not to ask. “All right,” she says. “And you’ll be the High Elder now?”
“Yes.”
I see her eyes drift back toward the place Kol lies on the ground beside me. There’s a question in her eyes. What about your betrothal? But she knows not to ask about that now.
She turns and slides around Seeri. I can hear her boots splashing in the trickling stream under her feet, her hands scratching on the rock. “Hello?” she breathes into the dark.
“Right here.” It’s Morsk’s voice, coming from farther down the passageway. “Right in front of you.”
“And I’m right behind you,” Pek calls. There’s something protective in his voice. I appreciate it—of course I do—but it also makes it plain to me that he wants to keep an eye on Morsk. Even crawling through the rock in the dark, he doesn’t trust him getting too close to Lees.
Seeri turns to me. “I’m next,” she says. She steps into the shadow, then turns and comes back quickly into the light. She draws in a deep breath. “You’re doing well,” she says. “You’re a good leader. Chev would be proud of you. So would Father.”
Before I can answer, she slides back into the dark and out of my view.
I turn back to Kol. “Ready?” I ask. I try to smile—try to push some hint of light into my eyes—but it extinguishes when he shakes his head in reply. “Kol. Stop. You’re next.”
“No,” he says. “I don’t think I am.” He presses his eyes closed, and when he opens them again, they sharpen so much, they pierce me. “I’m not going with you.”