19. A Pair to Yours
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A PAIR TO YOURS
At last, Blight moves for the door and opens it. Beyond is a tunnel much like one I woke up in when meeting Skelt in the rift, dark and seemingly endless. In the space nearest to me where some light penetrates the tunnel, there are more men. Some lean against the earth and peer at me with grim curiosity, others wander or pace wearing blank expressions. A few speak to one another in hushed tones, their faces pressed close together. None are like the shades of the tortured women of The Thicket, but that they have suffered a different kind of torment is clear. Some have handled it better than others.
“Who are they? Not diggers, surely?”
“The task set before Fallow isn’t an easy one. It’s the only way out.”
“And you stay here? In The Beneath?”
He doesn’t answer, proving that all diggers are about as forthcoming as Fallow, and every other creature I’ve met here, has been. When I step toward the door, the diggers in the hall begin to vanish one by one, like they cannot bear to witness my approach. Some slink into the earth itself and others flash out of existence like they never took up space at all. A handful remain, but only those who stare off at nothing. One such digger stares through me, his eyes gone white with cataracts. From how he leans to one side, slack jawed, I imagine his blindness comes from years of gawking, unblinking. If mothers fuel The Thicket with their souls full of sacrifice, I wonder what the diggers fuel it with. Perhaps it is more of the same, just a different flavor.
When I first entered The Thicket, the sight of them, lost and gaunt, would’ve been enough to give me nightmares for the rest of time. Now, these creatures feel mundane. I wonder if, like the mothers, they will escape this place if I somehow manage to thwart The Keeper’s plans for me.
I hope so.
Blight doesn’t bother lighting a lamp, if there is even one nearby, and the moment he steps beyond the threshold, the crystals in the ceiling that had lit this space vanish, plunging me into sudden darkness. I find myself too frightened to even cry out. With the loss of the light, I lose my breath and cannot find it. I have never been fearful of the dark, but in this room, terror creeps into my blood and infects every piece of me. If I ever get out of here, it is safe to assume that I will bring a new and justified fear of the dark with me.
Before I can lose track of my bearings again, I run full tilt toward the opening and charge into what must be Blight’s broad back. I hope it is his because I would rather crash into a devil I know than one of the many in this tunnel I don’t.
He groans and I drop to the earth after flying back, landing on my bottom after an embarrassing tumble. Never before have I been glad for such darkness as this. At least it hides how stupid I probably look.
“Damn it all to Hell!” Blight curses and his voice breaks the spell of fear like he has blown smoke away from my face so I can breathe again.
Blight’s curse makes me flinch, but only for the harsh language. It is a relief to be in the presence of someone who speaks of something I know. Hell and damnation are not comforting thoughts, but he uses them like he is from my world. It is familiar.
His hand grips me in the dark and I’m lifted back to my feet. He doesn’t release me again, leading me like a jailer would lead a prisoner straight ahead. Either he can see where I cannot or he has traveled this way so many times as to have it memorized.
To distract myself from the pervasive dark, I ask, “What manner of creature is Skelt?”
“That’s complicated. The short version is that Skelt is a river.”
I do not bother asking the half dozen or so stupid questions that probably would not be answered in any way I understand. If Skelt is a river, then I must cross it. If the river is also a creature, I should cross it with caution. The same would be true if it were a wolf, an elf, or a god.
“You must cross the river to enter The Beneath from The Thicket.”
This piece of information explains why my clothes were sopping wet upon waking. “Why do I not remember crossing it?”
“Crossing might be the wrong word. You have been brought across through magical means by the witch.” He growls the word witch like he has a personal distaste for Roil. “This time, you must cross it on your own. Fallow will be waiting on the other side, though, so there is nothing to worry about.”
That last bit sounds like a lie one tells children to make them keep their peace when they are worried over something trivial. I don’t know why he would lie to me, but it is a safe assumption that he would. I hope he is honest, though. It would be nice if one thing would go to plan.
After a time, sunlight pierces through the darkness at the end of the tunnel. The earthen walls around me grow brighter. The air, which had been warm when we began, has grown frigid as we near the end of this place. It is made colder by the damp state of my clothing. Above and ahead, it is deep autumn, nearing winter, and I have never been so glad to be chilled.
I wish to run ahead, eager to leave this darkness and be reunited with Fallow, but Blight holds my hand firm in his and his pace remains the same.
My hopes are dashed by the peculiar sight. It is sunlight but filtered through water. The river above flows over our heads like a ceiling. Fish swim, unaware of us below. The sunlight reflects on the walls surrounding us, which are bare earth on one side and white limestone on the other.
The halls ahead appear welcoming enough, especially compared to the cramped darkness we have traveled through, and yet I find myself stepping back toward the tunnel. I am only kept from returning down the tunnel by Blight’s hand still holding mine. “This is the river Skelt.”
For reasons I cannot pin down in the moment, when I turn to the river again, I lose my nerve. The water runs peacefully overhead but feels dangerous. Something is not quite right. Skelt is a river, and not. The same trepidation that flooded through me the day I saw the lights bobbing in the forest with Anne rises to my surface. Memories of motherhood and all the instincts that come with it return and urge me to flee from this place.
Blight levels his dangerous, strange eyes at me and I go still. Through his teeth he reminds me, “You will have a better chance if you cross on your own, Odell.”
“If there was a way out of The Thicket, a god looking for a champion or a tunnel to crawl through, if there was some secret to leaving this place back for my home that wasn’t Skelt, would you tell me?”
Because this river… I know now that it isn’t the right path. I’ve chosen wrong and placed my trust in poor hands. It is just as Roil said. I will either be saved or drowned and drowning seems far more likely than the other.
Blight gazes into my eyes. His pupils appear totally human in this moment. “If I knew a way out of The Thicket, I would not be here to answer your questions. I would be home.”
His certainty leaves me with little room to question my next move. Grief paints every one of his words. Those strange eyes brim with tears and he once again stares at the floor. I know in my heart that, like me, Blight still holds some memories he wishes to return to. There is a terrible tragedy in that. It is almost worse than knowing nothing.
“I do not want to cross.” Even though it is the road I have chosen, even with the promise of Fallow on the other side, I do not want to. Every fiber of my body urges me to flee.
He does not answer and, like I so often keep my questions behind my teeth because they would be a waste of time to ask, I believe he remains silent on purpose. What I want to do, what my nerves and guts and instincts tell me to do, doesn’t matter. This is the path I’ve chosen. “Will this be as frightening as I fear it will be? Do I stand any chance?”
Dropping all his airs, Blight shrugs. “If anyone were to ever manage to escape The Thicket, I think it would be one with a mother’s soul.”
“I don’t have a choice, do I? There is no staying here, no turning back?”
He shakes his head, pitying gaze still in place. “You are very brave for one with so much memory left in her. You still remember to fear, but you are doing a fine job of getting on with it.”
Blight means it as a compliment. “I have much I need to do.”
Though I am struggling to remember it.
“If you don’t save them, you’ll forget.” Just as he meant to compliment me, I think he means to comfort me. I do not even know who they are.
Swallowing fear that might hold me back, I march on. Though the water of the river overhead appears to roar as it rushes ahead, tumbling over boulders that create rapids and whirlpools, it is silent to my ears. Just before my foot crosses the threshold between The Beneath and the river that impossibly flows overhead, Blight calls, “Odell?” I turn. “In case it comes up again, be careful trusting any digger, but especially yours. We get paid by the grave.”
His warning is nothing I have not been told time and again, but it rings with far greater danger now as I stand before a path Fallow brought me to, trusting goodness I could only guess was somewhere within him. As I step beneath the casted light of Skelt, I turn over my shoulder in search of Blight, but the world has closed behind me just as it did when I entered The Thicket the first time. There is only ever one way forward. Only ever the illusion of choice. I feel Blight’s relief to have me gone, though, like he is just beyond my sight. In the same place I usually feel Fallow’s presence in my mind, I feel Blight’s and it is flooded with sadness and maybe regret radiating from him.
Then Blight is gone and I feel Fallow.
“Fallow?” Though my throat, mouth, and tongue perform all the motions of saying his name aloud, no sound escapes me. With another hesitant step, I move closer to the opposite bank of the river. Ahead, another tunnel climbs at a steep angle, I assume back into the woods of The Thicket. Close to the earth, dust is being pulled up to form the shape of Fallow’s booted feet.
Trustworthy or not, he has saved me a few times now. Relief floods into my body as fast as the water flows overhead at the sight of him. I pick up my pace and, a few feet from the opposite bank, Fallow holds out his arms like he is as excited to see me as I am to see him. The part of him that remains on the bank is dusty air, his hands, though, now under the water like me, are of flesh.
He steps free of the tunnel and stands beneath the river. The sunlight dancing on the swiftly flowing surface that hangs above us through strange magic lights his face.
Henry.
My husband is wearing the same clothing he wore the day he vanished. His boots are still stained and tracking the red clay that circles our property. The only thing missing is his handkerchief, which typically sits tucked in his shirt pocket, but now rests with me.
There is no grand recognition in his eyes to match my own. He studies his left hand where a ring sits. I know that ring. Its twin rests on my finger right where someone left it. It is made from the bronze that circled the wagon wheels when we came to Tennessee. Henry took the entire wheel to a smith to have them made. He was sentimental.
He is sentimental.
His brows pull together in confusion as he stares at the bronze. “It is just like… It is a pair to yours.”
Henry’s voice sounds all around me and fills the cracks in my breaking heart. He is not dead after all. He has been lost. Has become Fallow. Now he speaks, not with the voice of a skink or a snake, he is not wind being manipulated through a flue or leaves crushing and rustling in a mimicry. He is Henry, whether he knows it or not, and his voice clears away the cobwebs and nightmares from my mind. Just standing in front of him makes what I wish to do feel more possible.
“Henry.” The name whispers past my lips like the many fruitless prayers I made that he be returned to me. To us. Me and Anne.
Looking up from the ring, he stares at me just as a drop of water from above drips onto my face and slides down my cheek like a tear. Henry’s eyes are filled with horror. “My family. I thought… I’m so sorry.”
Henry is the man who taught me how to swim, but a lifetime of lessons would do me no good when the water flowing uninterrupted overhead loses its ability to hang suspended.
In a horrifying torrent I am washed away by Skelt. Mouth full of water, I cannot even shriek his name.