Page 31

“Where?” asked Georgie, standing beside Elf on the ferny riverbank.

Viewed from this angle, the bluff daunted, with its stark face of exposed rock ledges and clinging shrubs, its high crest of trees black against the sky.

At its base, a few light-starved saplings clustered amid clumps of moss, more ferns, some white flowers on long stalks, nodding.

Georgie rummaged in the undergrowth. “Where’s the cave?” Elf didn’t answer. They looked up. “Where are you going?”

They ran after her.

She was going up to the top of the bluff, which required circling around to a path that ascended a gentler slope.

“I left a shovel under a beech tree,” she told them.

“We need a shovel why?” They yanked their skirts from a thorn bush, cursing under their breath.

“To dig.”

“That bit I inferred.”

Her face was flushed. She’d left her straw hat in the boat, and her hair was loose, flying in the sudden wind.

“Do you remember that spring the river flooded? It ran over the lane. It made lakes in the park. Imagine how many times it must have flooded over the past thousand years.” She stopped and turned to them, eyes radiant. “If there’s a cave, the river buried it in settlings, mud and sand.”

“ If. ” Georgie’s fatigue hit them all at once. They couldn’t prevent a doubtful sigh.

Elf’s gaze darkened. She hurried again uphill.

They called after her. “So, the plan is to dig through a thousand years of mud and sand?” They rubbed their forehead with the heel of their hand.

Of course. Of course that was the plan.

They enlisted their longer legs to catch up.

“It makes sense that the nuns would have hidden the gold as quickly as possible, which means near to where they found it. But a cave open to the river, right where the Northmen would have landed those dragon boats…” They shook their head. “That makes less sense.”

She gave an impatient shrug. “They would have disguised the entrance. With large rocks, perhaps.”

“The plan is to dig through a thousand years of mud and sand, and also large rocks?”

Of course. Of course it was.

An eternity later, Georgie was collapsed on the cool ground, wheezing next to a modestly sized pit.

“I’ll continue,” they promised. “As soon as I reattach my arms.”

They listened for a time to Elf digging, the rhythmic thunk of the shovel, the thud of the displaced earth. Clouds had stacked in the sky.

The next thunk thinned into a raspy screech. Metal on rock.

They sat up.

Elf scraped sideways with the shovel, clearing dirt from a perpendicular surface.

“Limestone.” She pushed back her hair with a trembling hand and left a muddy streak above her brow. “It’s all limestone, a wall of it.”

She scraped, and dug, and scraped, and dug, and scraped.

“I hear that with my molars,” remarked Georgie, through gritted teeth.

She didn’t seem to hear anything, not the horrible scraping noise, not their voice. Her concentration was absolute. Admirable. A bit frightening.

She’d dig to the center of the Earth.

“My turn,” they said when her arms began to wobble with each upward swing.

They pulled the shovel from her hands and took her place in the pit.

They dug, and then she dug again, and then they dug.

The shovel’s blade skittered off something unyielding, reverberations traveling up to their elbow.

It wasn’t a protuberance of the limestone wall itself, but a separate rock.

They worked at it with the shovel until they could wiggle it like a loose tooth.

Slowly, they pried the rock free, tipped it toward them, slid it out of the way.

Behind the rock—nothing.

A black gap.

They extended their hand, felt the cold air rush over them, and yanked their hand back, whooping. Elf tumbled into the pit, bumping them, hugging them, and she was laughing, and so were they, hilarious with exhaustion.

“Is anything in there?” they asked, breathless. “Watch out for bats, and badgers.” They giggled. “And bandits.”

Her elbow connected with their ribs. “Get the lantern.”

They scrambled from the pit, staggered through the ferns to the boat. Leaves whipped past. Wind was bending the trees. A raindrop splashed the corner of their mouth. They had to hunch with the tinderbox to light the candle.

When they passed it down to Elf, she looked at them, and it seemed candles were lit, too, behind the dark panes of her eyes.

She swung back to the fissure, holding out the lantern. “It keeps going.” She sounded muted. She was sending her voice down the tunnel, sending it after the lantern’s wan rays.

“Tomorrow,” they said. “Tomorrow we’ll…”

They were addressing her skirts, the soles of her shoes.

Their heart stopped. Time stopped.

But of course. Of course.

She vanished into the mountainside.

“Elf!” Their shout was drowned by a crash of thunder. They felt another raindrop, and another, and tilted up their face. The sky was livid.

“Blast,” they muttered. “Blast, blast, blast.”

They dropped into the pit, stuck their head gingerly through the jagged crack. The blackness within dizzied them. Their palms were sweating as they inched forward.

“Elf, it’s raining. It’s dark. Come out.

” The back of their skull grazed stone. They had to lower onto their belly, slither like a snake.

The stone hemmed them in on every side. It didn’t matter anymore if their eyes were open or closed.

Irregularities in the floor, the ceiling, the walls, jabbed them in tender places, grated on their bones.

Their breath sawed in their ears. One moment, they felt certain they’d be crushed, pressed flat by the weight of the bluff itself.

The next, they felt certain they’d plummet, that they were sliding to the edge of an abyss.

They stopped moving, every muscle cramped with horror.

This was the third possibility. They’d remain trapped, just so, immobile, unable to force their body forward or back.

Something tiny and frantic inside them began to run in wild circles.

They couldn’t breathe. They couldn’t breathe.

Something tiny and frantic inside them was screaming, and there was no way to cut off that scream, no way to inhale.

“Georgie?”

“Elf?” They gave a convulsive gasp, sucked in a clammy mouthful of air.

“Georgie?”

They squirmed, dragging themselves onward with their elbows.

“It ends here.” Elf’s voice was muffled but normal, a lifeline. “You can almost stand. It’s a chamber, a small one though. Not quite two arm spans across. I couldn’t keep the lantern upright, so the candle went out. Do you have the tinderbox?”

“No,” they grunted. The walls had pulled away. The ceiling had lifted. They were breathing more easily, but chills rippled their flesh. “Wouldn’t fire eat up the air? Is there any air in here? God, it’s stagnant.” Their chest bucked. “Let’s leave. This isn’t the place.”

“I suppose not.” Elf was notably reluctant.

They’d already rotated, crawling, then again slithering, for the opening. They needed to stretch out, to feel the wind moving over their skin.

They strained to see, eyes wide open, eager for the first glimpse of faded daylight.

There it was. A gray glimmer.

And then a wave of black came down.

And there was none.

—

Elfreda’s forehead struck a shoe. Georgie was blocking the tunnel.

“You’re standing on my face.” She wiggled backward. “Well, you’re not standing , but…Go on. Why have you stopped?”

Georgie uttered a string of profanities.

“What is it?” She shoved their foot. “I’m in the narrowest part. Please, go.”

“I’m trying.”

“Trying?”

Georgie kicked.

She wiggled back farther. “What are you doing?”

The oppressive little cranny filled with a scuffling sound, punctuated by kicks and grunts. Foreboding sent her stomach rising toward her throat. She rested the point of her chin on the chill stone, an attempt to ease the painful crick in her neck.

“Hurry,” she urged.

“I can’t.” Their voice was tight. “There’s mud, where outside should be.

I saw it. It just slid off the mountain.

Because of the shoveling, or the rain—I don’t know.

I’m trying to dig through it. But I can’t do anything more than scratch with my fingers.

” They were kicking, she realized, in time with the scratching.

“It’s so bloody dense. And there’s so much of it.

I can’t get into a decent position to—gah! ”

There was a sickeningly sharp rap, like an iron knocker against a door, and then silence.

She lifted up, the one possible inch. “Was that your head?”

A groan was the response.

“Are you all right?”

Another groan.

They’d only just recovered from the curricle crash. Their skull might not have healed. What if they’d cracked it open? What if they lost consciousness?

Fear crooked a finger around her windpipe.

She reached out blindly and grasped their ankle. “We should get you sitting up.” She towed them, reversing slowly, using her elbows, and her hips, the brass lantern rasping and shrieking on the stone, as though in pain.

After the first tugs, Georgie groaned louder and began to move under their own power.

Once she’d backed into the chamber, she cast aside the useless lantern and knelt.

Moments later, she was struck by Georgie’s feet, and then she was tangled with them, each arranging their limbs with difficulty, given the confines of the space.

When it seemed she was facing them, she groped for their head.

“Hold still.” She slid her fingers into their slippery hair. Their indrawn hiss coincided with her discovery of a nasty lump. She skimmed over it and continued probing their skull. “Everything is intact at least. How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve been buried alive, with a migraine.” They sounded sardonic. It was oddly reassuring.

Her fingers were still stroking through their hair.

“I’ll dig us out.” She withdrew. Her heartbeat felt jerky. “Stupid,” she whispered, and sat, shuffling backward until her spine hit the wall. “Stupid. This was so stupid of me.”