Descent Part Five

Always just ahead of me, always just passing around another bend in the tunnel, I could see a red Saint Martha’s blazer. Even though I urged Mary to hurry, which seemed to amuse her, we never caught up with the flash of red just ahead of us.

I thought it might be Ester, trying to out pace us for some reason. I’d never really spoken to her much, we weren’t in any of the same classes, but I doubted that just knocking her off balance would be enough to make her hate me. No one was that petty in real life, it was something out of a bad teen comedy from the 2000’s. Girl knocks into girl and makes an enemy for life.

There was something in that, a train of thought my spiraling mind could hitch itself to as Mary and I hurried to catch up with the rest of our class. Something in her reaction to me, in what I had said, in the fact that Mary was still ‘supporting’ me with one arm and that I was now…

My mind went blank. Her blazer was warm around my shoulders, her own heat still radiating from it and pushing deep into my bones. There was a smell too, a gentle scent. It bored into my mind, filling it with images and questions I had never considered before. Making me wonder if maybe that was what Ester was – I sped up again, making Mary squawk in surprise.

If that was the issue, then I had to clear things up right away. I wasn’t sure about my own lack of interest, but if there was something already going on between the two of them, then I had to explain –

“Steady on, Amy,” said Mary, her strong athlete’s fingers closing around my wrist and holding me back. “You okay? Don’t just take off like that.”

“What?” I spun on her, looking into her tilted dark eyes. They were beautiful, reflecting the tunnel light, like deep pools I could lose myself in. Jesus… I guess there was no denying what I wanted, weird that it took an embarrassing fainting spell to tell me something that should have been obvious. But there was something else, an uncertainty I hadn’t seen before.

It was almost like she was… worried? How strange. What did a girl like her have to be worried about? It’s not as though I had done anything – except I had done. Hadn’t I? She didn’t know what I had thought was happening when the lights went out. She only knew where my hand had ended up, then she started to flirt and now it would seem as though I was running away, wouldn’t it?

That would wound anyone, especially someone with interests like hers. Interests like ours, I guess I should say. Can’t be easy going to an all girls school and being, well, perfectly okay with that.

“Sorry,” I said, lamely. Then, because it felt like the right thing to do, I put my free hand over hers. “I just don’t want to get left behind is all. This place is – I guess I just don’t like being under ground.”

She looked down at our hands, then turned her head away. I was mesmerized by the curve of her neck, how could someone so strong be simultaneously so graceful? A sudden urge to reach out and run my finger down it nearly consumed my mind. But cooler heads prevailed as Mary said, “yeah I get that. Creepy shit’s been happening, eh? Like what was up with those lights?”

“Did you notice that the door we came out of wasn’t there when the lights came back on?”

“What?”

“Yeah. The stairs, you remember the stairs? Contained stairs, with walls and such?”

“Mhmm.”

“Well, we had to get out of that staircase, right?”

“Suppose.”

“And there was only that massive stone pillar, the one I, uh, accidentally knocked Ester against. Right?”

“Yeah, I remember that, alright,” Mary’s cocky half-smile returned, making her eyes sparkle again.

“Mary. That pillar was the stairs. We came out of it, but after the lights came back on, there was no door. There were lamps in brackets, you remember the lamps? What were they flanking?”

“They were… huh… I hadn’t thought about that. Weird. You certain,” a note of concern entered her voice, and her eyes grew suddenly wary, “you’re not… uh… messing with me, right?”

I guess it only made sense. If this was the way she swung, especially given the whole girls’ school deal, then she probably had some history with people figuring it out. And considering my accidental ‘contact’ with her earlier, maybe she was starting to see some red flags. I did not want that.

Acting on sudden impulse, I pressed close to her, wrapping my arms around her waist and leaning my head against her chest. Originally, I had planned on this just being a distraction, trying to show my developing interest while drawing her attention to what we were discussing, not any fears she might have. But then her arms closed around me, holding me tight the way my older brother did sometimes when I was stressed – only better.

With my fingers clutching the material of her shirt between her shoulder blades, I could feel the toned muscles underneath. Not to mention a certain band and clasp that made me catch my breath. Then there was her arms around me, forcing any thoughts or worries about the whole weird situation we were in out of my mind.

One hand slowly travelled up my back, its progress marked by a gentle pressure that I made me shudder as it traced my spine before the fingers carefully pushed into my hair and held my head in place. The previous summer, I had experimented a little with a childhood friend, and though it had been more than fun, he and I decided not to continue. This was something else entirely.

Feeling the rise and fall of her chest against my head, hearing the beating of her heart if I turned my head just so, the sensation of her arms around me, all of it conspired to make me forget where I was. The tunnel, the stairs, Sasha, Esther, Mr. Sage, everything was forced aside by something deeper, something primal.

Mary leaned back slightly, looking down at me with eyes that were deep, dark, warm. I tilted my head back, remembering how it had worked with Chris before, and Mary leaned down slightly but stopped just shy, eyes suddenly intent. “Did you hear that?”

Just about the only thing I could hear was my own thundering heartbeat, but I tried. Strained my ears, hoping that I wouldn’t hear the sounds of footsteps coming from behind us. Not that I was ashamed, or anything, but you try to not panic when you’re about to be caught red handed doing something you’re pretty sure isn’t allowed in museums. Or according to school rules. Really, who came up with that idea? No romance at a school? Insanity.

Nothing jumped out at me, and I was about to try the old tip toe trick that Chris had thought was so cute, when Mary said, “there! It sounds like… dripping? Do you hear it?”

I almost laughed, convinced it was a joke. Dripping? Like what happens when something above the ground got wet? Hilarious. I smiled, but Mary wasn’t looking down at me anymore. Instead, she had turned to look back the way we had come, back where Mr. Sage was. I could actually feel her tension through her shirt, the stiff, almost vibrating energy of her body, ready to bolt, or fight, or get confused halfway and stay stock still.

Panic. Or the razor’s edge of it, at least.

Again I strained my ears, pulling away from her just slightly to try and clear the distraction of her heartbeat and breath from my mind. Still, I heard nothing, but Mary released me and took a few careful steps back the way we had come. Her back was straight, shoulders back and head high, it looked like she was squaring up for a fight. But I couldn’t hear anything.

“It came from this way,” she said, then louder, “Mr. Sage? Is that you?” But nothing responded.

“Mary,” I said, trying to push down my anxiety. “Maybe we should just go? I think the others are going to start wondering where we went.”

She took another step back down the tunnel, reaching a bend in the path that I hadn’t noticed before, and leaned around the corner to peer into the darkness. My heart leapt into my mouth, pulling me forward like a horse’s bridle; despite what people kept telling me, I knew deep down that Sasha had been with us from the start and now she was gone. There HAD been more students with us when we first came down the stairs. And I was NOT about to loose Mary.

Arm outstretched, I surged forward and grabbed her shoulder. “Come on,” I said, the words coming out as a whisper. “We should catch up with everyone else. I… I don’t like it back there.”

The words were raw, almost choked out as the weight of soil and stone overhead pressed down on me. I think Mary could hear the desperation in my voice, the brittle, fragile quality that stunned my own ears even as I spoke. She turned back and smiled at me, it was a gentle, reassuring smile that made me feel just a little better, even if I could see through to the building fear beneath the surface.

Walking back towards me, she looped her arm around my shoulders again and we set off down the tunnel. Without saying anything, we simply followed the path ahead of us, enjoying the solitude as long as it lasted - until my foot caught something in the barely lit darkness and I stumbled.

“Jeez,” said Mary, catching me awkwardly. “What was that?”

Feeling along the ground, I came up with a battered wooden cane that looked strangely familiar. It had a silvery beagle’s head for a topper, worn smooth by years of continuous use, but still clearly a dog. For some reason that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, this cane seemed familiar. Though Mary didn’t know what I was talking about, so I let the matter drop.

What with everything else going on, I didn’t think it was important and kept the walking stick with us as we set off again. If nothing else, I wanted to make sure that no one else tripped over the hazard when going through the darkness. Though I did wonder how it came to be there – the path was remarkably clean, our footsteps not even crunching against the sand or dirt that I would expect in such a seemingly neglected place.

“Hope this altar is really worth seeing,” muttered Mary as we rounded another bend and saw a literal light at the end of the tunnel. “But,” here she gave my shoulders a little squeeze that sent a mini-shock through my whole body, “I don’t actually mind all that much.”

At the end of the tunnel, our classmates were waiting for us, Mr. Sage looking mildly concerned as he added us to his ongoing headcount. I didn’t hear the number he came to, far more interested in trying to pick out what exactly was different about him. For some reason, I stared at his face, knowing that something was off, or missing, or just… just wrong.

He placed a finger between his eyes, almost like he was trying to push something up the bridge of his nose. The movement looked habitual, like he had done it a million times before. Gazing at Mary and I, he called the class to follow him and turned smartly on his heel, marching across the brightly lit room. For the first time, I noticed the light.

Back in the tunnel, I only knew that the light ahead of me was real, signalling the end of what had been an emotionally turbulent trek for me. But now that I paid closer attention, I noticed the fires. All around the edges of the room, spread roughly equidistant from each other, bonfires blazed in enormous stone basins that looked a little like gigantic wine goblets from a renaissance fair.

Mary grabbed my arm, eyes locked on Mr. Sage’s back as he marched away from us, and whispered, “did you see him pass us?”

“What?”

“He was behind us when we went into the tunnel right? How did he get here first?”

-0-

"A Community Story [Challenge]" By Donna Fox (you can thank her for this existing at all)

"Descent: A Community Story Challenge" by Yours Truly

"Descent (Part Two)" by Mackenzie Davis (Mackenzie is one of the best people ever! Read her everything)

"Descent (Part Three)" by me

"Descent (Part Four)" by this guy right here.

"Descent (Part Six)" coming soon...