Looking down at the table to hide his smile, Mark replied, "Aaron can be very... animated, as my mother used to call him. He'd kill me if he heard me say it, but he's actually a softie. We've been friends since third grade."
"Ah." Tatiana gazed off in silence at a pigeon strolling by. Conversation was obviously not one of her strengths. This only endeared her more to Mark, who was often the quiet one among his friends.
"So, I want to hear more about these crocodile legends. Is that what you were reading earlier?"
"Yeah. And about fossils. That 'lizard' you saw was actually a drawing of an extinct ancient crocodile. There are a bunch of stories about crocodiles living in the sewers here, even some really old stories from when the city was built, and a lot of the stories sound like they're describing this one type of crocodile, but it was supposed to have gone extinct thousands of years ago..." Tatiana trailed off, realizing she had started waving her hands in distraction, and sat back in her chair. "Anyway, you're probably not interested in anything like that."
As she had been speaking, her already bright face had flushed with an intensity he couldn't remember seeing in anyone before. That she had stopped so suddenly almost made him physically ache. "No, keep going. Like I said, I'm kind of a nerd for history and legends. What do the stories say?"
"Well, I was just reading this one today from way back when Archopolis was just a little village in the woods. Like, when the Spanish were just settling this area. This lady said she went to the spring where they got their water, and got bitten by a baby crocodile when she was filling her jar. Except this wasn't like the normal crocodiles around here-she swore it had no color, clear almost, and it had little hands that it used to grab onto her fingers. There are a lot of stories kind of like that, too. Crocs with no color, walking up on their legs like dogs, using their hands, weird stuff like that."
"Huh. So, you think these stories might be real? That they were talking about some kind of ancient crocodile that was supposed to be extinct?"
Tatiana turned her face down, embarrassed again. "You just think it's stupid. Everyone does."
"No!" Mark instinctively reached out to touch her knee, then immediately pulled his hand back. "I don't think it's stupid. I mean, I don't know. I've just started reading some of Archopolis' history myself. I didn't know they had built the whole city on top of where the old city flooded. Some of the accounts I've been reading mentioned myths about crocodiles or lizards or whatever, but I figured they were just superstitions, like pet alligators getting flushed down people's toilets and living in the sewers."
Tatiana tapped her finger on the table and pulled her lips tight in thought. Tentatively, she asked, "Did you know you can still go down in some parts of the old city?"
Mark sat up straighter. "Really? I thought it was all blocked off."
"Well, not if you know the way in. Would...would you like to go?"
"Yeah, of course! But how do you know the way?"
She shrugged. "I don't remember. I've been exploring the underground since I was a kid. It's kind of my hobby. Hey, what's your number?"
Caught off guard, Mark recited his number without question while Tatiana typed on her phone. A second later, his phone buzzed.
"There," she said. "Meet me at that address after the offices close. I usually wait 'til at least seven. Bring a flashlight and boots."
Before he could even open the message, Tatiana had already swung on her backpack as if it were light as a shirt, and walked away.
Suddenly, Mark thought of his brother, sitting in the house all day, and the perpetual stalemate of his parents' separation; the contrast of seeing someone so decisive excited him as much as watching her small figure slip through the crowds like a sharp-winged swift.
Chapter Three
AS MARK STEPPED OFF the bus, the city's mossy greens were already deepening to indigo shadows. Following his phone's directions, he looked for some landmark in the buildings, but these were mainly old stone offices freckled occasionally by a forgotten light. Paper blankets were tented over sleeping bodies curled in doorways; these nearly-dead forms and Mark were the only ones on the streets. The directions ended at one of the indistinguishable buildings near a subway entrance. The time was 7:30, and he was alone.
Afraid that worrying about being stood up would start to develop into a pattern, Mark started worrying anyway. Maybe she had been here at 7:00, seen that he hadn't shown up, and gone off without him? His hands started shaking at the image of her furious face. True to the developing pattern, Tatiana emerged from the subway stairs just before his anxiety reached a panic.
"Oh, there you are," she said, waving him forward. "Come on, I've been waiting for you down here." He didn't dare bring up her poor directions.
Through the bleach and urine-tinged subway stairwells she led him, veering off past the ticket machines and pay phones, down a long hallway with Private Entry and Employees Only on every door. Though they had seen no one else, Mark kept glancing around with uncertain guilt. He felt vaguely invasive, like they were sneaking up the driveway to a stranger's house. Tatiana, changed back to her grungy clothes and a smaller backpack, walked with the confidence of someone absolute in her belief that she belonged. She stopped at an unmarked brown door near the end of the hall, glanced back to make sure no one had seen them, and pushed the door open for Mark. Instinctively, he hesitated.
"Come on!" Tatiana flicked her hand towards the doorway. "It's ok; I go down here all the time. There are no cameras in the employees' section, if that's what you're worried about."
Embracing her spirit of decisiveness, Mark slipped through the door, and not just because disappointing this girl would be as frightening as disappointing a bobcat. A thrill was starting to clench his stomach-a much more exhilarating tightness than his usual responsibilities.
"How did you find out about this way?" he whispered as he passed through. The door opened into a very narrow passage, faintly lit by widely-spaced, caged bulbs.
"When I was little, my dad took me on a trip exploring the city. He taught me how most people won't even try to open doors without permission." She clicked the door shut behind them. "So, a lot of access tunnels, like this one, aren't even locked. That's the one thing I learned from him. I just open every door I can until I find one that takes me where I want to go."
Mark followed her down the tunnel, which was only wide enough for one person. "And where do you want to go?" he asked.
"Someplace no one else knows about. Yet."
They hurried through the access tunnel, turning down forks in the path, surrounded by the echoed rain of their footsteps. Another confusing thrill pinched Mark's stomach at the thought that he would be completely lost without Tatiana's mental map-a trust that was entirely his to give.
Finally, Tatiana stopped at a barely noticeable inset where a wooden door was set back in the wall, so old with rot it was black. The stone doorframe contrasted with the concrete tunnel walls, as if it were cut and pasted from an entirely different era. A train rushed by on their other side, and the tunnel lights dimmed in unison. Tatiana's grin as she turned to Mark was its own glow.
"Ready to see old Archopolis?"
Still trying to catch his breath, Mark nodded. Tatiana pulled two LED head lamps from her pack and handed one to him. "Got your flashlight?" she asked. Mark pulled his clunky dollar-store model from his pocket. With a raised eyebrow, Tatiana resumed, "I guess it'll work in an emergency. Good thing I brought you an extra head lamp. Now stand back."
Tatiana slipped on a pair of work gloves, grabbed the decrepit door's edge, and threw all her weight back. Though it appeared to be boarded shut, the door shuddered against its frame and groaned open. Solid blackness spilled over from the other side. Clicking on their head lamps, the two sliced thinly through the darkness like tiny jellyfish in a deep ocean.
Chapter Four
IF MARK WAS expecting some ornate extravagance, he would have been disappointed. After walking for several minutes, t
hey had encountered mostly walls of dirt, broken ceiling beams, and random junk metal. Luckily, his vague imaginings of a preserved, antique city did not distract from the real, physical elation of walking in a place that had not been touched, smelled, or remembered by anyone still living. Anyone except Tatiana, of course-and the excitement of being so close that the clove freshness of her hair overwhelmed the dead dustiness was, in itself, more than he could have imagined wanting yesterday.
They walked through several small passageways before the space opened into a cavern large enough that their lights could not reach the opposite side. Patches of marble showed through the mostly dirt floor. Glancing up, Mark's lamp glimmered on violet glass panels in the stone ceiling. Here, Tatiana pulled out the small notebook Mark had seen her use the day before. She showed him a page with an elegantly sketched map, annotated with tiny street names and scattered question marks.
"It took me years to figure out where all these places are on the old city maps. Most of it's just filled in with dirt." She tapped an open spot in the middle of the page. "I'm pretty sure this is the courtyard in front of the old bank. You see the marble in the floor, and over there..." swinging her lamp to the right, "there's still one of those gaudy Greek columns everyone likes to put on rich buildings."
Sure enough, Mark could see the worn but still flowery grooves of a column embedded in the dirt wall. He carefully flipped through a few more pages in her notebook, also filled with careful maps. "Wow. You've put a lot of work into this. Is that what you were doing yesterday, too?"
"It's what I do every day. Well, every day my mom isn't making me do something 'normal,' anyway."
"So, your mom doesn't approve of you being down here?" Mark immediately wanted to bite his cheek for sounding so juvenile. Tatiana just snorted a short laugh.
"She has no idea I go down here. She thinks I'm always at the library studying, or looking up records at city hall. Which I am, sometimes. Her problem is that I study too much, and she wants me to use my time for useful things like straightening my hair and painting hearts on my fingernails or some crap." Her short tirade fizzled away as she noticed Mark's silence. "Um, you didn't tell your mom where you were going, did you?"
Failing to suppress a sigh, Mark answered, "I don't tell her anything, and she wouldn't notice if I was gone anyway." For the moment, Mark was thankful that they could not see each other's faces.
"Oh. I... I'm sorry." Gingerly, Tatiana lifted her book from Mark's hands and flipped through it. Somehow, her vulnerable break in her armor of confidence was more comforting to him than anything she could have said.
Gesturing with the beam of her head lamp, she said, "Um, I want to show you something. This way."
In silence they continued down passages, through the glittered bursts of dust in their lights, broken brick shards rattling away from their feet. Sometimes, they passed a splintered door or window frame; once, a giant store sign with only the letters S and R still brilliantly white against the rust. After many minutes, they reached another cavernous space, even larger than the bank courtyard.
In the center, a cluster of pale stones formed a distinct circle, and large sections of cobblestone still paved most of the ground.
"This is the underground spring. Look." Tatiana leaned her head over the circular stone wall and shone her light into a still pool of water. Edges of the old well flashed with vivid swaths of red and golden algae, her light painting with each movement; but the center of the water drained all light down into a blackness totally unlike the darkness of the old streets. Mark almost felt physically drawn forward, as if the depths were a black hole trying to pull all life and warmth into an unknown existence.
"Is this where the lady was bit by a baby crocodile?" he whispered.
Gold, red, and black flickered in the light as Tatiana nodded. "Yes, this is the spring that was here when they first built the village, and then it became the center of the city." She also whispered. "I've been hoping to see a crocodile here for years."
Cautiously, Mark leaned forward more and tried to see any glimmer of rock or life in the water. The black just continued limitlessly. "How deep does this go?"
"Nobody knows. I found some records of surveyors trying to find a way to the underground source, but this is the only access point they could find. It goes deeper than any of their divers could reach." Tatiana looked up into Mark's face, momentarily forgetting herself and blinding him. "There could be anything living down there, living down there for thousands of years, and no one would know!"
Her eyes, so close, caught every particle of light and amplified it, revealing tiny specks of sapphire, emerald, topaz-the exact opposite of the water's darkness. Their radiance absorbed him so much that he did not at first notice the change in silence. After a few moments, a sustained tone that started as subtly as a ringing in their ears grew louder, until the entire cavern was filled with a solid note. A perfect bell could not have sounded clearer. The two stared at each other, barely breathing; Mark did not even notice when Tatiana grabbed his hand until the cold from her fingers seeped into his palm.
Smoothly, the note changed, rising up by a perfect third. Then more quickly, it slid down half an octave. Varied tones held long, snipped short, moved up and down like chimes, and continuously grew louder. At the same moment, Tatiana and Mark realized together that they were listening to a song. Invisible, something close was singing.
Suddenly, the singing stopped, and in the vacuum left by its absence, they heard a soft breath exhale. Terrified and astounded, Mark and Tatiana turned their heads towards the spring. As one, their lights captured a pair of eyes so intensely white they were pink, floating on the surface of the water. Nearly an arm's length away from the eyes, a pair of nostrils quivered in the air, inhaling. Through the water, they could see a pale shimmer, the skin so clear it was almost invisible. A pink glow of a pulsing heart; thin limbs treading slowly; and a long, long tail curling like a comet into the dark. For a moment, all three were suspended in a shining gaze. Then, with only the smallest ripple, the creature dove back down the spring and was gone.
Chapter Five
COLD LIGHT from the TV spilled over Aaron's and Mark's outstretched legs. The tired springs of Mark's couch permanently sagged under the olive velour. Mark watched the sickly violet and cyan light flicker across Aaron's shoelaces while his mind drifted far from the show.
"Hey," Aaron snapped Mark to attention, "why're you staring at my shoes?"
Shaking his head, Mark apologized, "Sorry, I guess I just wasn't paying attention."
"You've been really weird lately." Mark only pulled his mouth into a thin line and turned his head away. Aaron continued, "Did something happen with you and that lizard girl?"
Jerking his head back around, Mark shouted, "For the last time, her name is Tatiana!"
With both hands raised in surrender, Aaron quickly cut in, "All right, all right, I'm sorry! Jeez. You know I didn't mean anything by it." He watched closely as Mark slumped down in grudging acceptance and turned back to the TV screen. The car insurance commercial, which they had already seen five times that hour, was suddenly very interesting. "Seriously, though, is there something going on with you two? I've barely seen you this week, and you've been spending a lot of time with the-with Tatiana lately."
"I've just been busy working a lot. You know, someone's gotta push that 'Cook Fries' button."
Ignoring Mark's pitiful attempt to distract him with a joke, Aaron pressed on. "Yeah, right. I saw you with her in the library twice this week. Yesterday, you guys were holding hands under the table!"
"What?" Mark's eyes widened. "I don't...when do you even go to the library?"
"See! I was using the computer right behind you and you didn't even see me! You were too busy staring at each other and whispering. I thought the librarian was going to come over and ask you to move apart."
"So we're friends, ok?" Mark was trying to control his voice, but each sentence was getting louder and higher. "
What's wrong with wanting to spend time with a girl, even if you think she's weird?"
"Whoa, slow down, that's not what I'm saying. I don't care if you've got a crush or 'friendship' or whatever." Aaron leaned forward and draped his arms over his knees. "Look, you know I like to give you shit about everything, but I'm being serious here. I'm worried about you. It's just...you have been acting weird lately, and not the happy-fluffy weird of a guy who's getting laid."
The TV droned through the gap in words more awkwardly than any silence. With the slightest shake of his head, Mark just stared at the screen. His mouth twisted around the beginnings of words, but he stopped himself before uttering anything. After several minutes, Aaron flopped back into a slouch and folded his arms. Another full minute passed before Mark spoke, so quietly that his voice was barely audible over the TV.
"Aaron, what-what would you do if something really weird happened to you that you knew no one would believe? That they would think you're crazy?"
"What are you talking about? What kind of weird thing? Something bad?"
"I don't know." Mark paused, recalling the pure echo of the song against stone. "No. Something good. But maybe something bad would happen if you told anyone?"
Aaron threw his head back against the couch, his eyes stretched huge. "Dude, you're confusing me! What do you mean something weird, something good, maybe something bad? Are you-ah!" Grabbing Mark's elbow, he leaned in with a ferocious gaze. Though short and thin, Aaron could project fearsome electricity when he wanted. "Did something happen like with your brother? Did you knock up that Tatiana girl?"
"What? No!" Jostling his arm free of Aaron's grasp, Mark stood up. "As long as you've known me, do you think I'd be that stupid?" Immediately, his throat tightened at the fear of Jacob hearing him, and he dropped his voice. "It's nothing like that."
"Ok, ok, just had to check. Sit down; you're making me nervous now." As Mark slowly sat on the edge of the couch, Aaron continued, "Well, what kind of 'thing' is it like?"
"Never mind. I can't-I promised not to tell. Just don't worry about me. I'm ok, really."
Aaron's brow lowered so far it shadowed his eyes, and his chin quivered almost imperceptibly. "Fine. We've been friends since we were eight, and I've told you every secret I've ever had. Even that thing in the woods. But if you don't want to tell me, then don't. Share it with your new girlfriend instead. You've known her, what, two full weeks now?" Launching himself off the couch, Aaron stomped to the front door and wrenched it open.