21. Kit
Kit
It only took them two days to reopen the tunnel. But two evenings after that, we finally had everything in place to proceed with Phillipa’s plan to hopefully disrupt the completion of the Vessel.
In the dead of night, Penny and I slipped out of the house into the muggy heat.
Sweat immediately dampened the back of my shirt, and more beaded on my forehead the farther we walked.
We skirted the edge of town on our way to the designated meeting point.
The nearly-full moon, riding the edge of the mountains to the east, lit our path and made the shadows beneath Penny’s eyes look as dark as bruises.
He hid a yawn behind his arm, and I couldn’t stifle my own in response.
We were both exhausted after three nights spent building ladders in the shadows of the cliff walls, and I for one was looking forward to falling into bed in a few hours.
There wouldn’t be enough time for a good night’s sleep, but I’d take what I could get.
And I would sleep much better if this worked.
“I’m not made for lumbering all day and quarrying all night,” Penny said through another jaw-creaking yawn.
I chuckled and pinched his upper arm lightly. “I don’t know, I think maybe you’re building a bit more bulk on top of your farming muscles.”
He straightened at that, and a self-satisfied smile curled his lips. “Really?”
“Keep it up”—I leaned in to speak close to his ear—“and you’ll be strong enough to carry me to bed in no time.”
His swallow was audible, and his hand tightened around mine. Before he could respond, Philippa peeled out of the shadows beneath a rock outcropping a few feet ahead of us and waved.
“Glad to see you made it,” she said when we stopped in front of her.
“No trouble on our walk,” I said. “You?”
She shook her head. “Didn’t see a soul.”
“Good. Now we wait.”
We tucked ourselves into the darkness with her and leaned against the stone wall to monitor all possible approaches. I was wary of our intentions having been discovered, so I was relieved when those who filtered in over the next few minutes were all familiar faces.
Rosie and Isla arrived next, followed by Thoma, Hugo, and Liam. The last four trickled in one by one. Once we were all assembled, we retrieved our ladders from beneath the leaf-litter tarps we’d made to hide them, and set to work.
The first ladder got us to the top of the outcropping. There, we had just enough space to stage the second ladder to reach the narrower ledge farther up. There wasn’t room for a ladder there, so the rest of the way was a ten-foot climb to the top of the cliffs.
I ascended first, followed by Hugo. We were the tallest of the lot, so we could best help the others through the final climb. My arms and fingers ached by the time I reached the top and turned to sprawl out on my belly so I could reach down for Penny while Hugo boosted him from below.
With everyone nervous of the altitude, the climb went more slowly than we’d hoped.
Handholds weren’t hard to find in the cliff face, but not everyone had the upper body strength necessary to pull themselves up the sheer rock without significant assistance from Hugo and me.
By the time we’d gotten everyone else up and it was his turn, I needed Penny and Thoma to help me haul Hugo up the last few feet and to safety.
The four of us lay there on the narrow clifftop, sweating and panting for as long as we dared, before we got to our feet and followed Philippa around the rim of the corrie that contained all of Ashpoint.
With more sheer rock to our right and only a few feet of mostly level ground curving along the wall, it was an arduous trek to the steep banks of the mountain stream we intended to reroute.
We heard it before we saw it. It rushed down the side of the mountain, nestled into a depression in the rock worn away after years of constant flow.
It was swollen from snowmelt and was only a few inches below the top of its stone banks.
Were it not for a wall of rock that jutted several feet straight up near the edge of the cliffs, it would have poured down on the outskirts of Ashpoint and created a lake in the recess where the cavern openings were.
The hole in the roof of the chamber where the Vessel was stored lay a few feet farther down the mountain from the edge of the stream. A narrow channel between the banks and the opening diverted a small amount of water into the cavern below.
“We’ll need to build some walls to direct the water into the cave,” Philippa said when everyone gathered around, “to keep it from running off the edge and into the little courtyard they have down there.”
“Flooding that wouldn’t be a terrible idea, either,” I said.
She shook her head. “No, but not as effective at causing damage to the Vessel. Inundating specifically this cavern is our best bet to cause structural damage. With any luck, it will also flood the other chambers and spill out into the courtyard.” Her grin flashed white in the moonlight.
“But the Vessel is our priority. It’s too close to completion.
If we can’t damage it beyond repair, we’re almost out of time to do anything else.
And we’ll need time to root out every last one of Merrick’s cronies if we want to take them all out for good. ”
“Then let’s get started,” Isla said.
While everyone got to work gathering stones to funnel the water into the cave, Hugo and I used the largest rocks we could lift to bash away at the opening in the ceiling to make it large enough to admit as much water as possible.
It was as tedious as hammering away at the ceiling of the tunnel less than a week before, and by the time we broke away the last of the jagged edges of the hole, my muscles were screaming.
Penny paused in shifting rock to offer me a hand up. I took it gratefully.
“You look like you could sleep for a week,” he remarked once I’d found my footing.
“You don’t look much better.”
He chuckled, and blush stained his cheeks when I leaned in to press a soft kiss to his lips.
When I pulled back, I spotted Philippa over his shoulder. She caught sight of us and was beaming like a proud mother hen. I returned her smile, which made Penny glance back and blush even darker when he realized we had an audience.
Once we built the walls of the channel high enough, we shifted our focus to damming the stream to force it up over its banks and turn it on the Vessel in the cave below.
Wading into the freezing water left us soaked to the skin, and the current whipped around us as we pressed rocks into the jagged channels of the stream bed, creating the tightest fit possible.
The line of people passing rocks and stones from hand to hand reminded me of the workers Merrick had clearing the tunnel, and the thought made me grin. He’d have to do the same here, but hopefully irreversible damage would already have been done by the time he discovered the cause of the flood.
The moon tracked farther west above us, marking two hours passed by the time we’d fully diverted the stream and reinforced the channel walls.
For several minutes, we stood together around the opening to the cave below and admired the gush of water spilling into the darkness.
Then, Philippa led us back the way we came, and we began our descent.
Though sore and exhausted, the way down felt far easier than the way up had been.
Back at the base of the cliff, we broke down the ladders. Everyone took a few pieces to burn in their fireplaces to destroy the evidence of what we’d done. Then, one by one, they drifted off into the night to their respective homes.
Penny and I stayed with Philippa until everyone else was gone. When it was just the three of us, I tucked our portion of the broken ladders under one arm, and slung the other around Penny’s shoulders as I turned us to face her.
“Thank you for this,” I said. “For the idea, and for helping with the execution. I spent too long sure that there was nothing lasting I could do, and then there you were with a solution I never would have come up with on my own.”
She took my free hand along with Penny’s and pressed them together between hers.
“It means so much to me that you trusted me with this,” she said. “I’m glad to finally be able to do something to help. And if this doesn’t work, we’ll find another way.” She leaned in closer, and her smile turned devious. “I’m sure we can come up with other ideas together.”
Penny yawned, and Philippa and I chuckled.
“But that’s for another day,” she said. “You get this poor man home and into bed before he drops.”
She gave our hands one last squeeze, then let them go.
“Goodnight, Philippa,” I said as I turned Penny and I back toward the house. “Get home safely.”
“You as well,” she called after us.
Penny was nearly asleep on his feet by the time we made it home. I dropped the broken bits of ladder by the couch and got him changed and into bed with the promise that I’d join him soon.
Back in the living room, I stacked the evidence of our crime in the fireplace and tucked some tinder in the cracks.
It went up quickly with a couple of matches.
I stayed there, knelt before the hearth with Ember rubbing against my back and demanding chin scratches, until it was all but burnt out and my eyelids refused to stay open any longer.
I scooped the cat up and trudged down the hall to the bedroom. I deposited Ember at the foot of the bed, where she draped herself over Nutmeg who was already settled there, and then dragged off my dirty clothes, barely awake.
I didn’t even remember getting into bed or falling asleep.