CW: cave exploration
Chapter 11: Spirit and Soul
Black Sparrow told Sadie Crane a story once. About this real old festival. Kinda like Samhain? But you gotta think back, before the festivals had names. Back when this whole damn ark was more ritual than dream. The Arcadians called it Samhain cuz that was one of their gods. Oldest god they knew. Leastways that was how Black Sparrow told it.
Samhain was a special time of year. Nobody knew why. Something 'bout the soil and cold. Pushing ghosts up and outta the soil. You could feel 'em in your bones late night. Could feel 'em in your dreams. But only that time of year.
But the king died and it got weird. Didn't need Samhain for seeing spirits. Didn't need Samhain for knowing what was out there. Reckon there was more stuff out there too. Like somebody left the spout running. Like somebody forgot to shut the door after coming in.
Sadie Crane told that story in their head. Helped them keep sane.
Thought: You always wanted to go somewhere you could learn to eat the world.
The coal-dark smeared Sadie Crane's peripheral. Their peepers caught more just outta sightline, flits backways and forthways between the naked trees. Like something out there playing Hide and Go Seek. Maybe tag. Either way, they didn't wanna stop and find out.
Thought: WAIT.
They shut down real fast in that goddamned dark. Wanting to move. Wanting to fling ahead shouting. Spirits twitching the curtain between life and life all over again. Years of thinking and they only now hit the surface. Been having it since they were a kid. Glassy creeps up and down their spine stone dead of night. Hairs on the back of their neck coming up like stick grass. Feeling of being looked at. They should have listened to Black Sparrow. White Doe was this rationalist, believed real heavy in the Old Gods. Black Sparrow was some kinda hardcore storyteller, believed what the Elders said about Life After Life and how the trees were alive.
The Thing with Antlers peered at them from behind a late year pine tree, fingers curled around the base. Did It have a name? Sadie Crane was sure It did--everything had a name out in those woods. Names are power in Arcadia. If you know Its name, you know how to make It bleed.
But right now they were cooked. Absolutely cooked, sideways up and down three ways till Sunday cooked. Steamed in a pot with a side of root vegetables.
"You're not real," the anarchist snarled. "Nothing real about you."
Thought: I AM.
They jerked their head around and belled a quick sundering scream. This had to be their tomb, just had to be. Sybil's revenge from beyond the grave.
They turned and saw the Thing with Antlers had gone Its way, perhaps to be spooky behind a tree somewhere else. Outta sight outta mind. It would be back anyhow. Once cursed always cursed Sadie Crane.
Thought: Cripes. Sugar on pie.
Didn't Sybil get to talking about caves last time? About how there were a bunch of them and they went so far you'd never touch the end? Maybe he was in there. Maybe he wasn't. Worth a shot anyhow.
The entrance to the caves was blocked. Not like that was gonna stop them.
Thought: You've been here. Everyone has. In their dreams. The entrance to Damnation. Where All Creation starts.
Sadie Crane shoved the flat of their boot against the topmost board, dug their fingers in real tight and wrenched both arms back with a flex of muscles. Getting places they shouldn't was their specialty. If Punk was nothing else, it was disruptive. Gonna disrupt the living hell out of those caves.
Thought: It also lands you in hot water with the faci. More often than not.
The anarchist laughed hoarsely and propped their boot into another board. Tested it out, pressed their whole weight forward on that one leg. Felt the give, realized extra force wasn't gonna be necessary. This baby was already about to crack.
Thought: This is a tomb. You're breaking into a tomb.
The second board came away with a thunderous clatter. Staying put and waiting it out for daybreak was the smart decision. Sadie Crane was not smart.
Viola braced her palms into the tunnel's throat. De'afi made slow, clutching Viola's cloak for safety. She bore them down the pinched midsection into a wider embrace.
"There's not, like--poisonous gas in here, right?" the aviator worried.
Viola stopped as if trying to remember. That didn't bode well.
"No," Viola shrugged. "There shouldn't be. Nah, there won't be."
She slowed but did not stop, couldn't stop. In the woods that late night, she forgot all about mundane dangers. She didn't know these caves. No map or nothing. Could be all kinds of bad down there. If the air was gonna take them out, so be it.
"Where we going?" ze queried.
"No damn clue," Viola said back. "Not like we got a lead. Guess we gotta just walk? Walk 'till something happens?"
"Cool, love walking," the aviator replied scornfully.
Ze didn't have the hunting bow on hir, the arrows neither. It got started too fast. They were in deep, back where the crows don't sing. Death in this place sounded awful lonely. Kind where your body never gets found, where you never get mourned over and burned like the gods intended. Not that ze believed in gods other than hir own, mind.
"Sybil tell you that--that story?" said the aviator. "About the thing in the caves? The lake down here, real deep? You think that's real?"
That legend was older than ze'd been alive. Sybil told hir one stormy night down by the tracks. He told hir lots of stories that night and many more after.
Viola went quiet for a spell. The way ahead broke in half, forking two narrow mouths of tunnel.
"That's fiction, De," she said.
De'afi jutted hir lantern at the left tunnel.
"There," the aviator said.
Viola squinted eyes almost shut at the tunnel, bobbed her lantern by way of asking what?
"In the story, he goes left from a place sorta like here," the aviator explained.
Viola pushed a sigh from her lips.
"That's just a story," she reminded.
But that wasn't gonna work. You think ze hasn't heard that one before? From Sybil, from Abakris, from hir own family even? That's just a story. Well so what? Stories had morals, didn't they?
"You got a better one?" the aviator demanded. "You got a better one? Let's hear it."
The journalist scrunched her lips shut. She did not, actually, have a better one. She came in there because she had to, not because she had some kinda plan. She knew this was goddamn foolhardy.
"Thought so," the aviator replied smugly. "Come on, Vi."
The two made for the left tunnel.
"You know the tunnels down way of Suzette?" the journalist said. "They ain't like this--natural and all. No one knows where they come from. They say it's moving down there, lotta new ways to go. You gotta have maps. Still might get dead."
"Spooky," said De'afi. "Anyone you know ever--ever die down there?"
"Nope," said the journalist. "Maybe. Not that I know of."
Ze looked at her full in the face, really truly looked at her. Her big hazel browns. Heart-shaped lips. Her skin speckled with marks where she'd picked at it or scraped or got bug bites. Her pudgy flat nose. Ze'd never noticed how beautiful she was before, never noticed she was so tiny.
"You're some kinda song, you know that?" De'afi said. "Like, you're some kinda melody."
"Thanks," the journalist said back gratefully.
De'afi sang low and deep in hir native Sannese, some kinda old song about diving and falling in love.
The slow walking made Viola's teeth itch. What were they doing so far inside the mountain, world above and below?
They reached another tunnel with a low ceiling. The aviator ducked hir head, frustration snapped taut in hir throat and ze came out with it.
"They better be down here," ze said. "Else we're fuck outta luck."
Ze held hir palm up to lay flat over the low ceiling.
"Fuck outta luck," the journalist agreed.
They tried to keep their pace even, tried not to rush. Viola's gut screamed to run run run you have to run, but she pushed it back down her throat and kept walking. They were halfway to salvation. Sunk cost.
They came to a second split in the tunnel.
Viola inspected the walls with a frown, her anxiety spiking something fierce. Why did they even come in here? To die? To find a friend who didn't want to be found and was likely gone already?
"What's something you always wanted to do?" the aviator queried.
The journalist sniffed. She could kinda smell water down, somewhere way deep down the left tunnel. Perhaps Sybil was right about the lake. It wouldn't be the first time.
"Music," Viola said back. "Always wanted to do music again."
"Like old times?" the aviator pressed.
"Kinda like that, kinda not," the journalist squared. "It all gotta be the same all directions?"
"Hope not," De'afi laughed.
That dark smudge of doubt in her chest grew larger. She loved caves, but this one didn't feel right.
The tunnel thinned out and they emerged into a chamber of colossal size. Larger than anywhere they'd been so far.
End of Chapter 11
Diving isn't just a pastime here. It's how we live. How we eat and trade. Further out you go, the more you find shipwrecks. Pirates, merchant ships, lots from way back when. We don't go too far, mind. Most of us anyhow. There are some younger kids, thrill-seekers. They go out in the evenings to see and hunt the leviathans. Well, "hunt". Don't reckon anyone's ever killed a leviathan. Dunno why you'd try. They're peaceful beasts, don't harm anyone. They got territory, see. You stay away, you're fine.
--Excerpt from "Sannite Personals (translated)" by Fe'fa of The Mother's Land