We stood back as Collette stepped into the pond. Slowly, her form began to sink beneath the surface of the calm waters as snakes of mist circled around her—claiming her. When the water was at her waist she stopped and raised her hands a few inches off the surface. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but a cold wind was starting to blow in from behind us.
At least, that’s what it felt like for a second.
A second later, it seemed as though all of the ambient heat from around us was being sucked towards her. It wasn’t the wind that was moving; it was the warmth, the life. And with each passing second I felt my breath being sucked right from out of my lungs. Frank and Damien were also having trouble breathing, and we looked at each other with alarm, wondering when it would end.
Only that it didn’t.
The suction continued, and as I watched the thin layer of mist above the lake I saw it too get sucked into the calm waters of the murky lake. The surface was shaking now, tiny ripples forming directly beneath Collette’s palms and extending toward the shore. And as the ripples touched dry land, I noted that the water was blacker than even the night. No stars were reflecting upon its surface. No faces. No ambient light could pierce the dark.
Then Collette plunged her palms into the water and the suction stopped. The lake fell still again. Stiller, even, than before. And colder, too. I just knew it would be cold. This would go down in the history books as the coldest lake I had ever stepped into. And when Collette glanced over her shoulder and nodded for us to approach my inner—warmer—self screamed in protest.
But I advanced, fearless, into the lake and Frank and Damien followed.
Together we stood, waist deep in black water, the warmth in our bodies slowly draining away, drip by drip, stolen by the necromantic aura that the lake itself was giving off. Even Damien’s magick wasn’t strong enough to keep the cold at bay. Not so long as we were standing in the water.
“And n-now?” I asked.
“Now,” said Collette, who was looking altogether healthier already, “We dive.”
And she dove.
The water didn’t move. Collette disappeared beneath its surface, but the water remained entirely still. Damien immediately dove in after her, and I followed. The water was dark and impossible to see through. Black as night. Blacker still! But it was water, and moving through it wasn’t difficult. Only, I had no idea where I was going or for how long I needed to go!
I brushed up against someone—Damien, maybe—and searched for his fingers to wrap them around mine. He pulled, and I followed. But then someone tugged on my leg and released me a moment later. I thought it was Frank, but I couldn’t see anything! My heart was pounding, now, hammering against my head so hard that not even the muffled underwater sounds were audible. But at least Damien had me and I was following him deeper into the black.
I felt something with my free hand. A torso, I thought. Or a backpack. The person squirmed around and grabbed me by the arm and pulled, but I was already being pulled in the other direction. Suddenly, something didn’t feel right. The hand I had been holding until now clamped tighter against my wrist.
Then there was a flash of light, bright enough to pierce the dark, and I saw Damien on one side of me, and something else on the other. Something old and bony and altogether not right grinned at me from a lipless mouth filled with cracked yellow teeth. I screamed, and bubbles flew from out of my mouth.
Damien pulled with one hand and pushed his light into the corpse’s face. The creature let go and receded into the dark, but I was already choking. Damien swam as hard as he could, guided by the light emanating from his right hand, but all around us things were trying to grab hold of whatever they could.
They tugged on my jacket, my backpack, and my feet. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold on. My heart, still pounding against my temples, was growing weaker and I saw Damien’s light began to dim, and dim, and dim. I was going to die. We weren’t five minutes in to the Underworld and I was going to drown!
But I couldn’t drown. Not here and not now. I had to fight!
I tugged on Damien’s arm and he pulled me up, the two of us beating and kicking with our legs and free hands until we broke through the surface! I choked in a breath of stale air and coughed out the black liquid that had been pooling inside my mouth and lungs, coughing and gagging and hacking, but I was alive and for the most part safe.
“Frank!” I said, and my voice echoed back to me. Were we in a cave?
“Here,” said Frank. He wasn’t far. In fact, he was climbing ashore.
“Are you okay?” Damien asked.
“I’m fine,” I said, but my heart hadn’t calmed down. “Thank you.”
Damien helped me toward the shore, which wasn’t made of sand but, rather, rock, and I climbed out of the black pool which was now behind me. I took the backpack off and dropped onto a flat rock, breathing through the shock of what had just happened.
“Is everyone okay?” Collette asked.
“Yeah. Fuck. What was all that?” I asked.
Collette stood. Her body was surrounded in a halo of steam, rising from every inch of her body. And despite the darkness I was distinctly aware that her posture seemed firmer, taller, and stronger. I couldn’t see her face clearly, but I was sure that the bags under her eyes were gone and that her skin had returned to its natural, beautiful shape.
She had said that the Underworld would replenish her strength and I knew, now, that she had meant what she said.
“Ze Underworld has its guardians,” Collette said. “Shades who cannot find rest, who submit their will to the power of ze Underworld in exchange for immortality.”
“Immortality?” Frank asked. “They’re already dead.”
“Yes, but death is only a new beginning.”
Damien stood upright and scanned the cavern. None of us could see the ceiling, but we were sure we were underground someplace. I stared at Damien from my rock and wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t gotten to me in time. I tried to block the image of the person—thing—that had grabbed me, but I couldn’t shut it out. I guess, really, I didn’t want to. This was the Underworld, and things were undoubtedly about to get a whole lot stranger than that. But, at least, we had made it through the gate.
And there I thought this would be the easy part.
“It’s a cave,” Damien said, “How did we get into a cave?”
“Ze Underworld is cavernous. Zat is why it iz called ze Underworld.”
“Makes a change from everything being so figurative,” Frank said.
I reached inside my backpack which, thanks to it being waterproof, had succeeded in keeping the majority of its contents dry, and fished out a number of candles. I handed one to Collette, to Damien, and to Frank. Then, with mine held in my own hands, I whispered the word fire, and a lick of flame grew from the wick of each candle. The light barely caressed the cavernous, but we could at least see each other in the flickering glow.
That’s when I noticed the only opening leading out of this particular cavern. It was a dark tunnel devoid of features and wind, and beyond it I thought I heard someone moan. Or maybe not. It could have just as easily been a trick of the imagination, or it could be that a phantom wind actually was flowing somewhere nearby, whispering through the cracks in the rock.
“That’s where we have to go?” I asked.
Collette nodded.
“Do we have any way of tracking this shadow of yours?” Damien asked.
“We don’t, but I suspect the locals can help us.”
I was almost afraid to venture into the conversation, but I had to. “What locals?” I asked.
“Ze ghosts zat call zis place home.”
CHAPTER 14
To say that the Underworld was a dark and gloomy place would be like calling the sun dim. I led the group through the dark aided by the light from my candle, but even I couldn’t see more than my hand in front of my face. The total blackness around me swallowed everything; light, s
ound, heat. It was like a hungry animal, eating itself for lack of having anything else. Although it did have something else, now.
It had us.
And with every step I took—squeezing through narrow, rocky passages where the edges jutted out to clip the skin—it was as if I could feel the animal nibbling away at my extremities. Fingers. Toes. All numb. Collette wasn’t kidding about us only having twelve hours down here. The Underworld was completely inhospitable to the living. But I didn’t think we would even last that long by the rate at which I was starting to shake.
“Damien,” I said, “Any chance you could hit us with that warm magick again?”
“I’m trying,” he said, “But using magick in here is tricky. I can’t feel Helios down here.”
“And you will not,” Collette said. “As I said, ze Underworld takes. It will take your magick, your heat, and zen your life.”
“I bet you’re the kind of kid who didn’t pay attention in class,” Frank said to Damien. He was shaking his head in disapproval; not that I could see him all that well.
“I paid attention plenty.”
“Then why didn’t you pay attention to our French teacher when she warned you about the perils of the Underworld?”
“It isn’t that I wasn’t paying attention, I just thought I’d try anyway. See for myself.”
“Zere is nothing wrong with zat,” Collette said, “You may never set foot in ze Underworld again. I suggest you learn as much as you can before we have to leave again.”
“Guys,” I said, interrupting the conversation with a hushing sound.
In the dark ahead of us, something was stirring. I thought I could hear a bag being dragged across the floor, or maybe it was a thermal vent blowing out warm steam. Heat! But after what Collette just said, it probably wasn’t something nice.
“What is it?” Collette asked. She had come up beside me. The tunnel was wide enough for us to walk in twos, now.
“I heard something,” I said.
“You will hear many things in here,” she said. She took a few steps in front of me and turned. In the pale glow of the candle she seemed almost ghostlike—ashen grey and sunken—but her posture was strong and she didn’t seem weak. “You cannot always trust your senses.”
“So, what can I trust?”
“Instinct.”
Collette turned and walked in the direction of the sound. I followed, mouth dry with anticipation, but the natural tunnel went on and on and on, and we encountered no one along the way. No openings where someone could have hidden, no pitfalls, no cliffs, and no steam vents either. I couldn’t understand any of it.
When the Greeks talked about the Underworld they never made it sound so labyrinthine. I guess I kinda pictured tall torches blazing with grey fire and shadowy figures who we could ask questions of in exchange for trinkets from the outside world. But the Underworld was nothing like I had imagined it, and somehow every bit as much as I thought it would be.
If that made any sense.
But as we dove deeper into the Underworld, I started to notice things that did make sense. Somehow, the jagged tunnel we had been walking through had transformed into a kind of mine shaft without our noticing.
Wooden support beams, crooked and bent at right angles, were propped up against the walls and ceiling. I ran my hand along one piece of wood. It was cold to the touch but smooth and unbroken. I realized then that the rough angles were so by design and not as a result of decay over time. Who put them here? Did they happen on their own? And why did the Underworld need support beams?
“Look at this,” Frank said.
“Frank, I don’t think this is the time to stop and check out the sights,” I said.
“Are you fucking kidding me? Look at where we are, Amber. Take it in for a moment—we probably won’t come here ever again.”
I guessed he had a point, so I approached. There, etched into the wooden support, were the numbers 1776 and the letters D. Randscom.
“D. Randscom,” I said, “Seventeen, seventy six. Date of construction, maybe?”
“Maybe,” Frank said, “But a date of death is more likely.”
“Does the name sound familiar to anyone? The D. could stand for David or Devon.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Damien said, but as we moved along the tunnel paying close attention to the wood on the walls and ceilings we started to notice more names.
Each name had a first initial and a family name to it, as well as a date. They were roughly written, too, as if someone had carved them in with a Stanley knife. We went with the assumption that the numbers carved into the wood were dates, and with that in mind 1776 was the oldest date we came across. Many years showed up more than once, but there weren’t enough names and dates to imply that every person who had died in the Raven’s Glen area had an entry written into the wood.
It seemed more likely that these were people who ended up in the Underworld, somehow. Though the reason why a soul may end up in such a dark, dank place still escaped me. Were these souls with unfinished business? Were they the victims of sudden deaths, or violent ones? Suicides? Murders? Accidents? Why did some spirits get caught in the gravity of the Underworld while others soared above it?
The questions were relentless. I could sense the conveyer belt starting up again. Any moment now, a torrent of question bags would come flowing at me and I would struggle to find the one I could answer in the moment. The others would drift and return, waiting to be picked up.
At least, in the excitement, I wasn’t so much bothered by the cold anymore.
“Over here,” Collette said. She was ahead of us, now; only a faint glow in the sea of black. “We have arrived.”
I approached Collette and made the turn she was standing by without hesitation, but I wasn’t ready for what I saw beyond it.
The tunnel opened up into a great cavern which wasn’t pitch black and soundless. Here, I could hear voices and sounds. Music? I could see lights, too. Pale gaslights hanging on poles along what I could only describe as a street. On either side of it, buildings stood. Buildings. There I was, marveling at the mineshaft I had just come from, when only yards away an opening to a brand new world stood waiting.
I stepped into the street followed by Damien, Frank and Collette. Ahead of me I could see people moving around, Crossing from one side of the street to the other. They looked busy, too. Some were shoving crates around, others were just idling. One man stood with his back to a building, flipping a coin with one hand and checking a pocket watch chained to his waistcoat with the other. He glanced toward me as I walked past, but then he looked away.
The buildings around us had all seen better days, but they were intact and standing. I thought we had crossed into a western movie, and by the crooked brown and beige buildings surrounding us we would have been excused for believing such. But the inhabitants here seemed to come from all walks of life; and boy if there was life down here.
There were people living in the Underworld.
“Frank?” I asked, “Did you read about anything like this in that book you had?”
“Witch, don’t you think I would be a little more talkative if I had?”
“Missington,” Damien said.
I turned to him. He was reading a plaque stuck to the side of a building. “What’s that?” I asked.
“The name of the town. Missington, population seventy seven.”
“What of it?” said the guy with the pocket watch.
“Nothing,” Damien said.
“New here?”
“Sorta.”
“You look fresh.” The man pushed himself from off the wall and stepped across the wooden porch, boots thumping on the ground as he came. He sniffed the air. “Smell fresh too. Won’t last long in here.”
“We aren’t looking to stay.”
“Jus’ passin’ through?” His voice was hoarse and forced, and he had a scar down his left cheek.
“Yes,” I said, “Actually, maybe you could help. I’m lo
oking for someone.”
“Everyone’s looking for someone down here,” said the man.
“I’m looking for someone who doesn’t belong here.”
The man cocked an eyebrow. “You sure as hell don’t look like you belong here, red.”
The muscles in my throat tensed up. “Is there a sheriff around here, or someone who might know who comes in and out of town?”
The man shook his head. “Last sheriff we saw come through here didn’t last long.” He made a cutthroat gesture with his thumb against his neck. “If you get my meaning. Your best bet is to try the Saloon. Barman is the only one around here who keeps his eyes and ears peeled. Rest of us jus’ mind our own business.”
“Right, well, thank you.”
The man in the waistcoat took a few steps back, rested against the wall, and checked his pocket watch again. He never said another word.
Damien joined us in the middle of the stony street and as the strange world moved around us—watching us with suspicious eyes—we thought, considered, and decided.
“I’m going to the Saloon,” I said, “And I want to go in alone.”
“Alone?” Frank said, “Why in the world would you want to do that?”
“Because we’re attracting attention as a group. We need to split up and spread out.”
“Amber is right,” Collette said, “Ze dead are slow to notice things and react, but they will react eventually. We must be gone before then.”
“Alright,” Frank said, “So we split up. We’ll ask around out here, but when you’re done in there you come right out.”
I nodded. “I will.”
Collette took my hand and said, “Be careful in there, Amber. I sense intelligence in zat Saloon. Zey will know you are living.”
I glanced at the building on the corner of the street. Light was spilling out onto the street from inside and a soft piano tone was playing.
“I can handle it,” I lied.
I didn’t know how hard of a time I would have at using my magick if I got into trouble, but I hadn’t come this far into a dead world to play it safe and I didn’t want to spend one second longer than I had to in it.