Beautiful Darkness

Down Below

Nobody said a word as we walked along the edge of the road toward the park and the Savannah Doorwell. We decided not to risk going back to Aunt Caroline's, since Aunt Del would be there and wasn't likely to let us keep going without her. Beyond that, there didn't seem to be anything worth saying. Link tried to get his hair to stick up without the aid of industrial strength hair gel, and Liv checked her selenometer and scribbled in her tiny red notebook once or twice.

The same old things.

Only the same old things weren't the same this morning, in the gloomy darkness before dawn. My mind was reeling, and I stumbled more than a few times. This night was worse than a nightmare. I couldn't wake up. I didn't even have to shut my eyes to see the dream, Sarafine and the knife -- Lena crying out for me.

I had died.

I was dead, for who knows how long.

Minutes?

Hours?

If it wasn't for Lena, I would be lying in the dirt in His Garden of Perpetual Peace right now. The second sealed cedar box in our family plot.

Had I felt things? Seen things? Had it changed me? I touched the hard line of the scar beneath my shirt. Was it really my scar? Or was it the memory of something that happened to the other Ethan Wate, the one who didn't come back?

It was all a confusing blur, like the dreams Lena and I shared, or the difference between the two skies Liv had shown me, the night the Southern Star disappeared. Which part was real? Had I unconsciously known what Lena had done? Had I sensed it somewhere below everything else that had happened between us?

If she had known what she was choosing, would she have chosen differently?

I owed my life to her, but I didn't feel happy. All I felt was brokenness. The fear of dirt and nothingness and being alone. The loss of my mom and Macon and, in a way, Lena. And something else.

The crippling sadness and the incredible guilt of being the one who lived.

Forsyth Park was eerie at dawn. I had never seen it when it wasn't teeming with people. Without them, I almost didn't recognize the door to the Tunnels. No trolley bells, no sightseers. No miniature dogs or gardeners trimming azaleas. I thought of all the living, breathing people who would wander through the park today.

"You didn't see it." Liv pulled on my arm.

"What?"

"The door. You walked right by it."

She was right. We had walked past the archway before I recognized it. I almost forgot how subtly the Caster world worked, always hidden in plain sight. You couldn't have seen the Outer Door in the park unless you were looking for it, and the archway kept it in perpetual shadow, probably a Cast of its own. Link went to work, ratcheting his shears into the crack between the door and the frame as quickly as possible, prying it open with a groan. The dim recesses of the tunnel were even darker than the summer dawn.

"I can't believe that works." I shook my head.

"I've been thinking about it since we left Gatlin," Liv said. "I think it makes loads of sense."

"It makes sense that a crappy pair of garden shears can open a Caster door?"

"That's the beauty of the Order of Things. I told you, there's the magical universe and the material universe." Liv stared up at the sky.

My eyes followed hers. "Like the two skies."

"Exactly. One isn't any more real than the other. They coexist."

"So rusty metal scissors can take on a magic portal?" I don't know why I was surprised.

"Not always. But where the two universes meet, there will always be some sort of seam. Right?" It made perfect sense to Liv.

I nodded.

"I wonder if a strength in one universe corresponds to a weakness in the other." She was talking to herself as much as to me.

"You mean, the door is easy for Link to open because it's impossible for a Caster?" Link had been having a suspiciously easy time with the Doorwells. On the other hand, Liv didn't know Link had been picking locks since his mom gave him his first curfew, in about sixth grade.

"Possibly. It might account for what's happening with the Arclight."

"Or what about this? The Caster doors keep on openin' because I'm a ragin' stud." Link flexed.

"Or the Casters who built these Tunnels hundreds of years ago weren't thinking about garden shears," I said.

"Because they were thinkin' about my extreme studliness, in both universes." He stuck the shears back in his belt. "Ladies first."

Liv climbed down into the tunnel. "As if I should be surprised."

We followed the stairs back down into the still air of the tunnel. It was completely quiet, without even an echo from our footsteps. The silence settled over us, thick and heavy. The air beneath the Mortal world had none of the weightlessness of the air above.

At the bottom of the Doorwell, we found ourselves facing the same dark road that had led us to Savannah. The one that had split into two directions: the forbidding, shadowy street we were on, and the meadow path suffused with light. Directly in front of us, the old neon motel sign was flickering on and off now, but that was the only difference.

That, and Lucille lying rolled up beneath it, the light hitting her fur as it blinked. She yawned to see us, slowly pulling herself up one paw at a time.

"You're gettin' to be a tease, Lucille." Link squatted on his heels to scratch her ears. Lucille meowed, or growled, depending on how you looked at it. "Aw, I forgive you." Everything was a compliment to Link.

"What now?" I faced the crossroads.

"Stairway to hell, or the Yellow Brick Road? Why don't you give your 8 Ball a shake and see if it's ready to play again." Link stood up.

I took the Arclight out of my pocket. It was still glowing, flashing on and off, but the emerald color that led us to Savannah was gone. Now it had turned a deep blue, like one of those satellite photos of the Earth.

Liv touched the sphere, the color deepening under her fingertip. "The blue is so much more intense than the green. I think it's getting stronger."

"Or your superpowers are getting stronger." Link gave me a shove, and I almost dropped the Arclight.

"And you wonder why this thing stopped working?" I pulled it away from him, annoyed.

Link checked me with his shoulder. "Try to read my mind. Wait, no. Try to fly."

"Stop messing around," Liv snapped. "You heard Ethan's mom. We don't have much time. The Arclight will work or it won't. Either way, we need an answer."

Link straightened up. The weight of what we had seen at the graveyard was on all our shoulders now. The strain was beginning to show.

"Shh. Listen --" I took a few steps forward, in the direction of the tunnel carpeted in tall grass. You could actually hear the birds chirping now.

I raised the Arclight and held my breath. I wouldn't have minded if it went black and sent us down the other path, the one with the shadows, the rusty fire escapes crawling down the sides of dark buildings, the unmarked doors. As long as it gave us an answer.

Not this time.

"Try the other way," Liv said, never taking her eyes off the light. I retraced my steps.

No change.

No Arclight, and no Wayward. Because deep down I knew that without the Arclight, I wouldn't have been able to find my way out of a paper bag, especially not in the Tunnels.

"I guess that's the answer. We're screwed." I pocketed the ball.

"Great." Link started down the sunlit path without another thought.

"Where are you going?"

"No offense, but unless you have some kinda secret Wayward clue about where to go, I'm not goin' down there." He looked back at the darker path. "The way I see it, we're lost no matter what, right?"

"Pretty much."

"Or if you look at it the other way, we've got a fifty-fifty chance of gettin' things right half the time." I didn't try to correct his math. "So I figure we take our chances on Oz and tell ourselves things are finally lookin' up. 'Cause what do we have to lose?" It was hard to argue with Link's twisted logic when he tried to be logical.

"Got a better idea?"

Liv shook her head. "Shockingly, no."

We headed for Oz.

The tunnel really was right out of a page of one of my mom's tattered old L. Frank Baum books. Willows stretched over the dusty path, and the underground sky was open and endless and blue.

The scene was calm, which had the opposite effect on me. I was used to the shadows. This path seemed too idyllic. I expected a Vex to fly down over the hills in the distance any second.

Or a house to drop on my head when I least expected it.

My life had taken a stranger turn than I could've ever imagined. What was I doing on this path? Where was I headed really? Who was I to take on a battle between powers I didn't understand -- armed with a runaway cat, a uniquely bad drummer, a pair of garden shears, and an Ovaltine-drinking teen Galileo?

To save a girl who didn't want to be saved?

"Wait up, you stupid cat!" Link scrambled after Lucille, who had become the leader, zigzagging her way in front of us as if she knew exactly where we were going. It was ironic, because I didn't have a clue.

Two hours later, the sun was still shining, and my uneasy feelings were growing. Liv and Link were walking ahead of me, which was Liv's way of avoiding me, or at least the situation. I couldn't blame her. She'd seen my mother and heard everything Amma said. She knew what Lena had done for me, how it explained her Dark and erratic behavior. Nothing had changed, but the reasons for everything had. For the second time this summer, a girl I cared about -- who cared about me -- couldn't bear to look me in the eye.

Instead, she was passing the time walking up the path with Link, teaching him British insults and pretending to laugh at his jokes.

"Your room is grotty. Your car is skanky, maybe manky," Liv teased, but her heart wasn't in it.

"How do you know?"

"From looking at you." Liv sounded distant. Teasing Link didn't seem to be enough of a distraction.

"What about me?" Link ran his hand over his spiky hair, to make sure it was sticking up just right.

"Let's see. You, you're a git, a prat." Liv tried to force a smile.

"That's all good, right?"

"Of course. The best."

Good old Link. His trademark charmless charm could salvage almost any desperate social situation.

"Do you hear that?" Liv stopped walking. Usually when I heard singing, I was the only one, and it was Lena's song. This time, everyone heard it, and the song was a far cry from the hypnotic voice of Seventeen Moons. This was bad singing, dying animal bad. Lucille meowed, her hair standing on end.

Link looked around. "What is that?"

"I don't know. It sounds almost like ..." I stopped.

"Someone in trouble?" Liv held her hand near her ear.

"I was going to say 'Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.' " It was an old hymn they sang at the Sisters' church. I was half right.

When we rounded the corner, Aunt Prue was walking toward us holding on to Thelma's arm, singing as if it was Sunday at church. She was wearing her white flowered dress and matching white gloves, shuffling along in her beige orthopedic shoes. Harlon James was scampering along behind them, nearly as large as Aunt Prue's patent-leather handbag. It looked like the three of them were out for a stroll on a sunny afternoon.

Lucille meowed and sat down on the path in front of us.

Link scratched his head behind her. "Dude, am I seein' things? 'Cause that looks a lot like your crazy aunt and that fleabag dog a hers." At first, I didn't answer him. I was too busy figuring the odds of this being some kind of Caster mind trick. We'd get close enough, then Sarafine would step right out of my aunt's skin and kill all three of us.

"Maybe it's Sarafine." I was thinking out loud, trying to find the logic in something completely illogical.

Liv shook her head. "I don't think so. Cataclysts can project themselves into the bodies of others, but they can't inhabit two people at once. Three, if you count the dog."

"Who would count that dog?" Link made a face.

Part of me, the biggest part of me, wanted to take off and figure it out later. But they saw us. Aunt Prue, or the creature impersonating Aunt Prue, waved her hankie in the air. "Ethan!"

Link looked back at me. "Should we make a run for it?"

"Findin' you was harder than herdin' cats!" Aunt Prue called, shuffling across the grass as fast as she could. Lucille meowed, tossing her head. "Now, Thelma, keep up." Even at a distance, it was impossible to mistake the off-kilter walk and the bossy tone.

"No, that's her." Too late to run.

"How did they get down here?" Link was as stumped as I was. It was one thing to find out Carlton Eaton delivered the mail to the Lunae Libri, but seeing my hundred-year-old great-aunt wandering around in the Tunnels in her church dress was something else.

Aunt Prue dug her cane into the grass, working her way up the path. "Wesley Lincoln! Are you gonna stand there and watch an old woman work herself inta a state, or are you gonna get on over here and help me up this hill?"

"Yes, ma'am. I mean, no, ma'am." Link almost tripped as he ran to hook his arm through hers. I caught the other.

The shock of seeing her was starting to wear off a little. "Aunt Prue, how did you get down here?"

"Same way as you, I expect. Came down through one a them doors. There's one right behind Missionary Baptist. I used it ta sneak outta Bible school when I was younger than you."

"But how did you know about the Tunnels?" I couldn't figure it. Had she followed us?

"I've been down in these Tunnels more times than a sinner's swore offa the bottle. You think you're the only one who knows 'bout what goes on in this town?" She knew. She was one of them, like my mom and Marian and Carlton Eaton -- Mortals who had somehow become part of the Caster world.

"Do Aunt Grace and Aunt Mercy know?"

" 'Course not. Those two can't keep a secret ta save their lives. That's why my daddy only told me. And I never told a soul, 'cept Thelma."

Thelma squeezed Aunt Prue's arm affectionately. "She only told me because she couldn't climb down the stairs on her own anymore."

Aunt Prue swatted at Thelma with her handkerchief. "Now, Thelma, you know that's not true. Don't tell stories."

"Did Professor Ashcroft send you after us?" Liv looked up nervously from her notebook.

Aunt Prue sniffed. "No one sends me anywhere, not hardly. I'm too old ta be sent. Came on my own." She pointed at me. "But you best hope Amma isn't down here lookin' for you. She's been boilin' bones since you left."

If she only knew.

"Then what are you doing down here, Aunt Prue?" Even if she was in the know, the Tunnels didn't seem like the safest place for an old lady.

"Came ta bring you these." Aunt Prue opened her pocketbook and held it out so we could see inside. Under the sewing scissors and coupons and King James pocket Bible was a thick stack of yellowed papers, folded neatly into a bundle. "Go on, now. Take 'em." She might as well have told me to stab myself with the sewing scissors. There was no way I was going to reach into my aunt's purse. It was the ultimate violation of Southern etiquette.

Liv seemed to understand the problem. "May I?" Maybe British men didn't go through women's purses either.

"That's what I brought 'em for."

Liv lifted the papers gently out of Aunt Prue's purse. "These are really old." She opened them carefully on the soft grass. "They can't be what I think they are."

I bent down and studied them. The papers looked like schematics or architectural plans. They were marked in all different colors and written by many different hands. They were painstakingly drawn across a grid, each line perfectly measured and straight. Liv smoothed the paper flat, and I could see the long rows of lines intersecting one another.

"Depends on what ya think they are, I reckon."

Liv's hands were shaking. "They're maps of the Tunnels." She looked up at Aunt Prue. "Do you mind if I ask where you got these, ma'am? I've never seen anything like them, not even in the Lunae Libri."

Aunt Prue unwrapped a red and white striped peppermint from her purse. "My daddy gave 'em ta me, like my granddaddy gave 'em ta him. They're older than dirt."

I was speechless. No matter how normal Lena thought my life would be without her, she was wrong. Curse or no curse, my family tree was all tangled up with Casters.

And their maps, fortunately for us.

"They're not close ta done. I was a real draftswoman in my day, but my bursitis got the best a me."

"I tried to help, but I don't have the knack for it, like your aunt." Thelma looked apologetic. Aunt Prue waved her handkerchief.

"You drew these?"

"I drew my share." She pushed on her cane, straightening with pride.

Liv stared at the maps in awe. "How? The Tunnels are absolutely endless."

"An itty bit at a time. Those maps don't show all a the Tunnels. The Carolinas mostly, and some a Georgia. That's 'bout as far as we got." It was unbelievable. How could my scattered aunt have drafted maps of the Caster Tunnels?

"How did you do this without Aunt Grace and Aunt Mercy finding out?" I couldn't remember a time when the three of them weren't so close, they were bumping into each other.

"We didn't always live together, Ethan." She lowered her voice, as if Aunt Mercy and Aunt Grace might be listening. "And I don't really play bridge on Thursdays." I tried to imagine Aunt Prue charting the Caster Tunnels while the other elderly members of the DAR played cards at the church social hall.

"Take 'em. I reckon you'll need 'em if you're fixin' ta stay down here. Gets real confusin' after a while. Some days I'd get myself so turned around, I could barely get myself back ta South Carolina."

"Thanks, Aunt Prue. But --" I stopped. I didn't know how to explain it all -- the Arclight and the visions, Lena and John Breed and the Great Barrier, the moon out of time and the missing star, not to mention the crazy dials spinning on Liv's wrist. Least of all, Sarafine and Abraham. It wasn't a story for one of the oldest citizens in Gatlin.

Aunt Prue cut me off with a wave of her handkerchief in my face. "Y'all are as lost as a hog at a pig pick. Unless you wanna be slapped on a bun with Carolina Gold, you best pay attention."

"Yes, ma'am." I thought I knew right where this particular lecture was headed. But I was as wrong as Savannah Snow wearing a sleeveless dress and chewing gum at youth choir.

"Now you listen up, ya hear?" She pointed her bony finger at me. "Carlton came sniffin' around ta see what I knew 'bout someone breakin' inta the Caster door at the fairgrounds. Next thing I hear, that Duchannes girl is missin', you and Wesley have run off, and that girl stayin' with Marian -- you know, the one who puts milk in her tea -- is nowhere ta be seen. Seems ta me that's one too many coincidences, even for Gatlin."

Big surprise there. Carlton spreading the news.

"Whatever it is, you need these, and I want you ta take 'em. I don't have time for all this nonsense." I guessed right. She knew what we were doing, whether she let on or not.

"I sure appreciate your concern, Aunt Prue."

"I ain't concerned. Not so long as you take the maps." She patted my hand. "Ya'll are gonna find that gold-eyed Lena Du-channes. Even a blind squirrel sometimes finds himself a nut."

"I hope so, ma'am."

Aunt Prue patted my hand and took hold of her cane. "Then you better stop talkin' ta old ladies and meet that trouble halfway, so there'll only be half as much. Good Lord willin' and the creek don't rise." She steered Thelma away from us.

Lucille ran along behind them for a minute, the bell on her collar jingling. Aunt Prue stopped and smiled. "See you still got that cat. I was waitin' for the right time ta let her offa that clothesline. She knows a trick or two. You'll see. You still got her tag, don't ya?"

"Yes, ma'am. It's in my pocket."

"Needs one a those rings to fix it on her collar. But you hold on ta it, and I'll get ya one." Aunt Prue unwrapped another peppermint and dropped it on the ground for Lucille. "I'm real sorry I called you a deserter, ole girl, but you know Mercy'd never have let me give you up otherwise."

Lucille sniffed the peppermint.

Thelma waved and smiled her big Dolly Parton smile. "Good luck, Sweet Meat."

I watched them walk down the hill behind us, wondering what else I didn't know about the people in my family. Who else seemed senile and clueless, but was actually watching my every move? Who else was protecting Caster Scrolls and secrets in their spare time or mapping a world most of Gatlin didn't know existed?

Lucille licked the peppermint. If she knew, she wasn't talking.

"Okay, so we've got a map. That's gotta be something, right, MJ?" Link's mood improved after Aunt Prue and Thelma disappeared down the path.

"Liv?" She didn't hear me. She was flipping pages in her notebook with one hand and tracing a pathway across the map with the other.

"Here's Charleston, and this must be Savannah. So if you assume the Arclight has been helping us find the southern pathway, toward the coast ..."

"Why the coast?" I interrupted.

"Due south. As if we were following the Southern Star, remember?" Liv sat back, frustrated. "There are so many branching pathways. We're only a few hours from the Savannah Doorwell, but that could mean anything down here." She was right. If time and physics didn't directly correspond above and below the ground, who was to say we weren't in China by now?

"Even if we knew where we were, it could take days to find it on this map. We don't have time."

"Well, we'd better get started. It's all we've got."

But it was something -- something that made it feel like we might actually be able to find Lena. I wasn't sure whether it was because I believed the maps could get us there or because I thought I could.

It didn't matter, as long as I found Lena in time.

Good Lord willin' and the creek don't rise.