Chapter 15 Entanglement #13
But Eli is gone. Jupiter flies nearer, faster, huger. She scrambles back and screams as it collides.
III.
She comes to on her hands and knees. There is an acrid, metallic scent, and something hisses softly.
Laurel stands, gasping, and whirls. She is alone.
Behind her, the woods are undisturbed. A vast crater lies ahead, though it looks more like a sinkhole: funnel-shaped and narrow at one end.
Where is Eli? Laurel walks back to the road, but she doesn’t see his car. Even the Center is gone. The stars hang haphazardly: some in the wrong place, others too close together. Orion has lost his belt. The Big Dipper’s ladle dangles, broken in half.
Laurel tries to predict where Eli might have gone. Surely he would have been curious. He might have walked to the crater, assuming that she would follow.
Moonlight illuminates the sides of the bowl, but the bottom is shadowed. The wall curves precipitously, so Laurel takes careful steps, sometimes turning sideways. In some places, the ground is ragged; in others, it is smooth as an eye socket.
Laurel stops on a ledge to rest. She still can’t see the base. In her jeans, she feels hot, and her hands are caked with dust. Maybe she should wait here until the mushrooms wear off. Eventually, though, she becomes anxious: if Eli came this way, she shouldn’t lag too far behind.
The next pitch is steep, so she scoots instead of walks. Her throat is dry. She wishes for a water bottle, though she does find a glass of apple cider. Laurel drinks while watching the moon, which lifts in fits and starts. When it aligns over the crater, she can finally see the bottom.
Instead of a base, there is a hole.
Water sloshes inside. As she watches, it begins to rise. Soon, half of the crater is submerged, and a vortex spins below her feet.
I’m hallucinating, Laurel thinks, but her body doesn’t believe it.
She looks back the way she came. It wouldn’t be easy to scale the crater, but she could try.
Laurel turns to the whirlpool. She might as well jump.
IV.
She flies out of the hole as if on a water slide, wearing a dry suit and face mask. A gush of water follows, but she skids to a stop on solid ground.
Laurel removes the mask. Her hair is perfectly dry. She finds a box of Cheez-Its on her lap and eats while she orients herself.
She seems to have landed in a sewer system. Droplets plink, a tinny sound; narrow tunnels, lined with pipes, branch to either side. She picks one and walks the length of it, sloshing through standing water. At the end of the passage is a manhole.
Laurel knows what to do. After all, she used to play Myst. She squats to pry the grate upward. Inside is a ladder, enameled with lichen.
V.
The ladder leads to a subway station. The platform is made of stone, and the tunnel has been carved out of dirt. White threads of mycelium hang from the ceiling.
Two items wait on a wooden bench: a flannel shirt and Tess’s Carhartt pants.
Laurel changes out of her dive suit. A train arrives before long.
The only other passenger is an Ashmead’s Kernel apple at least three feet tall.
It sits at the end of the compartment, too large for a chair.
As the train comes to a stop, the apple rocks from side to side.
Laurel hears a juicy scratching. The apple shudders. From a small but widening hole, a giant worm emerges. Its mouth, or what Laurel takes to be a mouth, is shaped like a star. The body, an iridescent white, throbs with effort. There are no eyes that she can see.
Please, she says, can you help me—?
When the sliding doors open, the worm glides outside. The star mouth remains impassive, but the tail swivels as if to ask whether she’s coming.
VI.
Laurel stands with the worm before a solid wall of dirt. She wears knee and elbow pads, as well as her father’s backpack sprayer.
Her companion runs its mouth over the soil. It seems to be scanning for something. When its desire has been located, the head bores into the wall.
It burrows with intention, trailing lilac slime. Laurel follows, much less deftly, on her knees and forearms. The worm stretches like a Slinky. Every so often, it pauses to make a choice about direction.
After some time, the tail glistens with perspiration. The worm turns in circles to create a larger cavern. It spins two hammocks with silk secreted from the star. Laurel offers water from her backpack sprayer. The worm drinks thirstily, and they climb inside the hanging beds to rest.
—
After convalescing, the worm works quickly.
Laurel shuffles through the tunnel with renewed energy, too.
She senses that open air is near: the soil is less dense, and the pressure in her ears releases.
Finally, there is a great eruption. The worm slithers onto the surface. Sunlight pours into the hole.
Laurel clambers onto grass and rubs the dirt out of her eyes. She stands in an endless meadow. In the center is a tree with leaves of all colors and species: spade-shaped poplar, purple ash, flaming maple. The upper reaches rise into the sky, obscured by clouds.
Thank you, Laurel says, and the worm dives back underground.
VII.
Olga’s fur hat waits on a rock. Laurel puts it on.
Some distance ahead is a man: tall, with golden hair.
He walks toward the tree, and Laurel trails behind him.
He radiates ease and vitality. There is perhaps a city block of length between them—too far for Laurel to shout or close the distance.
Still, she maintains their connection. When he gathers momentum, so does she, and when he stops to notice something, she mirrors him.
Laurel’s heart swells in her chest. She cannot help it: she begins to run, seized by anticipation. At the tree, the man turns. His face is beatific, and he still has Eli’s curls.
It is Silas, grown. He looks at Laurel with all the mercy in the world.
Mom, he says. Come here.
Laurel flies across the meadow. By the time she reaches him, she has become an old woman.
At his feet, her legs almost give way. Silas lifts her tenderly: one arm around her back, the second under her knees.
She drinks in his height, his strength, his scent.
It is bliss, amniotic and fetal. She’s waited all her life for this moment.
He carries her up, into the tree’s lower branches.
Where are we going? she asks.
I think you know, he says.
So high…
He smiles. You’ve already made it this far.
Will you stay with me? she asks.
All the way up.
And then?
And then, he says, teasing her, fond. She could die in total happiness.
I don’t want to say goodbye, now that I’ve found you.
Hush, Silas says. This is the good part.
—
On a crooked middle branch, they sit. Silas produces sandwiches from a blue-and-yellow backpack. Laurel gains enough energy to climb on her own, though he watches her carefully, never losing sight.
She says, I don’t know how you’ve forgiven me.
I never blamed you to begin with.
I didn’t mean for it to happen. I would have traded my life if I could.
Again the gentle smile, the teasing tone. Is that what you think I want to talk about?
Euphoria flows through her very cells. His kindness is as free as the sun. She cannot stand it, this abundance, being loved by him so much.
VIII.
He carries her through velvet clouds. The tree and the meadow grow smaller below. They emerge in outer space: the universe’s biggest ocean.
There are no stars—only the Arc, which shifts from pink to blue-green as they watch. It speaks to Laurel with a scent.
Where is a wave?
Never in one place, she says.
A basin forms beneath the dome, to let her in. Silas guides her forward.
Please, says Laurel.
Her voice is pitiful. She clasps Silas’s hands.
It’s okay, he says. Don’t you see? Now you know where I am.