The morning sun poured into the window. She had watched her shadow move across the floor before her as she sat perched on the bed, waiting for sense to strike her. There was a huge risk in doing what she was about to do.

It wasn’t smart. She had always done the logical thing.

She clenched the paper in her hand, a pencil rub of the map, then stood. She possessed a ticket to a ship that would set sail in an hour. Yet, Vera undressed, rummaging through her bag for the oversized shirt and trousers.

She refused to turn her back on her brother, not when he fought for her to have the freedom to go to college. He deserved to rest in peace, and she knew the story of his death was just that—a story. It was time to find the truth and see that justice was done. Even if it meant she must go the rest of the way by herself, without the help of Owen.

There was no hint of what lay at the center of Tom’s map, but she knew it would be a trek. It wasn’t a journey she could take a ship to. She hadn’t any connections in Stanley Falls to help her secure a guide at all, so she would have trek alone, and try to follow any path Owen might have left behind.

Difficult though it may be, there was seldom anything impossible worth fighting for in life.

Somewhere in the depths of the Congo, there was a steamer ship with one less female passenger. Two days into her trek, Vera regretted nothing. Nothing that is until the ground caved beneath her and swallowed her up.

Down she fell, down into the darkness, down into a stone pit. Down until bone hit stone and her body finally stopped.

She winced as she tried to stand, her hands clawing at the stone walls. Stagnant water pooled around her feet, fetid.

“Damn it,” she muttered, glancing up what must have been a well long ago. Filtered daylight reached her through the thick jungle canopy above. Besides the caw of birds and the call of monkeys, there was only a suffocating emptiness that filled the air.

“Damn, damn, double damn,” she cursed, trying to stand on both feet. She couldn’t support any weight on her left ankle. It throbbed with blinding pain. She winced as she forced herself to balance on both feet as she attempted to scale the wall.

Her fingers slipped first, unable to get grip on the stones. Then she slid down the wall in an awkward heap of womanhood and disaster. To think she had started this year with such high hopes for herself. Now she was quite literally down the river and buried in a well in Africa of all places, desperate for some closure for Tom.

Tom. Her heart ebbed around his name. She had been too busy to appreciate their short visit earlier that winter, too absorbed with classes and submitting papers. Too busy sulking in being denied and then being too headstrong to admit defeat. And now she was here, without a brother and way of escaping.

Her mouth fumbled and searched for a word, then settled on a favorite of Owen’s—“Fuck.”

She spun in a slow circle, her eyes surveying the walls around her, searching out some ledge, a foothold, anything to help get her closer to the sky. But there was nothing. The stone was rough, but not rough enough to provide her with any support to scale the wall. She had no rope, no pistol. Even her water reserves were small.

“This is what you get, Vera Ruth Attwater, for deciding against the ship,” she scolded herself.

And worst of all, he had been right. The man she would rather not name because when she thought of him and that blasted name of his, his likeness appeared in her memory and her heart gave a funny squeeze. It was damned inconvenient to be in love.

If this is what it was like, she had had her fill. She could carry on with her life, once she got out of this godforsaken well, and have a life full of books and cats and words. She could carry on with her work for the women’s movement and see real change come to England. And she would be just fine if love had no other role in her life.

She bumped her forehead against the wall, drawing in a deep breath. The water was beginning to seep into her boots, the smell of it turning her stomach. She just had to think, just had to solve her way out of this challenge. But what could she do?

Vera looked up, cupped her hands around her mouth, and yelled.

Panic had a nasty way of eroding seconds into hours with a quicksilver efficiency. And when one was lost to the darkness to a well in the jungle, time transformed into an infinite hell. Of that, Vera was sure.

“Help!” She screamed again, her voice rough from yelling for some time. “J’ai besoin d’aide.” Her words trailed off, the back of her throat burning. She had finished the last of her water, there was nothing left to drink. She doubted the water she stood in was safe to consume.

She turned and smacked her hand against the stone walls, striking it again until new pain coursed through her body and her palm became numb. “I hate you Owen MacKenna,” she said, leaning back against the wall. “Oh how I hate you.” She closed her eyes to the memory of his body moving against hers, that mouth of his trailing its way across her shoulder blade, the feel of his fingers cupping her cheek. “I hate you.” Tears welled up in her eyes.

A bird flew overhead, loudly shrieking as it propelled forward in the darkening sky. And then there was something else, something moving through the brush.

“Help,” she forced out of her throat. “Please, I’m down here.”

Voices grew louder, muddled, but they neared.

“Vous pouvez m’aider?”

Vera held her breath, listening carefully as footfalls neared. “Help. Please help!”

A shadow towered over the well. She fell back against the wall, grateful. “Oh, thank goodness. Please, please help me. I can’t—”

“Imagine my luck.” With a quick strike, a bright burst of light blinded her before the familiar face came into focus.

“Oh, Mr. Amesbury! You can’t imagine how happy I am to see you.”

“Or you I, Miss Attwater. You’ve helped tidy up a messy situation. I thought I would have to track you down in England.”

Confused, she drew back, shielding her eyes from the brightness of the flare. “Whatever for?”

“Come now, you’re a bluestocking. Can’t you figure it out?”

She waited a beat, puzzling together why he hadn’t let down a rope to help her out of the well.

“No? Let me answer for you. You have something I want. Or did. Seems MacKenna possesses it now. And with you out of the way...”

“But I’m not—whatever you want—that is, I can help. If you want the map, I can help you. Please, help me out of here.”

“No, no I don’t think I will, Miss Attwater. The first man who tried killing you was apprehended by the police at Girton. Bad luck, that. The second man barely escaped before you began sorting through your brother’s cottage. The explosion on the steamer originated in your room, but you just had to be on the deck taking in the morning air.” He pointed down at her, anger filling his voice. “I’ve tried killing you but you’re much too stubborn, unlike your brother.”

She stood fully, not caring as her left ankle buckled in pain. “You bastard. You killed Tom?”

“That’s the danger spies like him face.”

Spy? She reached out toward the wall, bracing herself. Tom wasn’t a spy, he was a cartographer. She’d visited his office once in London. That wasn’t right at all.

“I have a diamond to get now. And you’ve run out of luck.” He tossed the flare. It spiraled down into the dark and splashed at her feet. “Goodbye, Miss Attwater.”

She clawed at the wall, desperate to get up and hit the man. Raw hatred pulsed through her, propelling her to scale the wall a few feet before her grip on the wall slipped. She fell, striking her head against the opposite side of the wall as the well around her went dark.

“Help me,” she screamed. But the voices were gone now.