And who knew how long it might be before they located him? The thought of spending another twelve hours or more here, motionless, unable to see or hear, or touch anything save the ground beneath his feet, filled Jeffrey with such overwhelming horror that he felt dizzy.
And that was worst of alclass="underline" if he fell, would he even touch the ground? He crouched, felt an absurd wash of relief as he pressed his palms against the floor. He straightened, took another deep breath and began to walk.
He tried counting his steps, as a means to keep track of time, but before long a preternatural stillness came over him, a sense that he was no longer awake but dreaming. He pinched the back of his hand, hard enough that he gasped. Yet still the feeling remained, that he’d somehow fallen into a recurring dream, the horror deadened somewhat by a strange familiarity. As though he’d stepped into an icy pool, he stopped, shivering, and realised the source of his apprehension.
It had been in the last chapter of Robert Bennington’s book, Still the Seasons; the chapter that he’d never been able to recall clearly. Even now it was like remembering something that had happened to him, not something he’d read: the last of the novel’s four children passing through a portal between one world and another, surrounded by utter darkness and the growing realisation that with each step the world around her was disintegrating and that she herself was disintegrating as well, until the book ended with her isolated consciousness fragmented into incalculable motes within an endless, starless void.
The terror of that memory jarred him. He jammed his hands into his pockets and felt his cell phone and the map, his car keys, some change. He walked more quickly, gazing straight ahead, focused on finding the spark within the passage that would resolve into the entrance.
After some time his heart jumped—it was there, so small he might have imagined it, a wink of light faint as a clouded star.
But when he ran a few paces he realised it was his mind playing tricks on him. A phantom light floated in the air, like the luminous blobs behind one’s knuckled eyelids. He blinked and rubbed his eyes: the light remained.
“Hello?” he called, hesitating. There was no reply.
He started to walk, but slowly, calling out several times into the silence. The light gradually grew brighter. A few more minutes and a second light appeared, and then a third. They cast no glow upon the tunnel, nor shadows: he could see neither walls nor ceiling, nor any sign of those who carried the lights. All three seemed suspended in the air, perhaps ten feet above the floor, and all bobbed slowly up and down, as though each was borne upon a pole.
Jeffrey froze. The lights were closer now, perhaps thirty feet from where he stood.
“Who is it?” he whispered.
He heard the slightest of sounds, a susurrus as of escaping air. With a cry he turned and fled, his footsteps echoing through the passage. He heard no sounds of pursuit, but when he looked back, the lights were still there, moving slowly toward him. With a gasp he ran harder, his chest aching, until one foot skidded on something and he fell. As he scrambled back up, his hand touched a flat smooth object; he grabbed it and without thinking jammed it into his pocket, and raced on down the tunnel.
And now, impossibly, in the vast darkness before him he saw a jot of light that might have been reflected from a spider’s eye. He kept going. Whenever he glanced back, he saw the trio of lights behind him.
They seemed to be more distant now. And there was no doubt that the light in front of him spilled from the fogou’s entrance—he could see the outlines of the doorway, and the dim glister of quartz and mica in the walls to either side. With a gasp he reached the steps, stumbled up them and back out into the blinding light of afternoon. He stopped, coughing and covering his eyes until he could see, then staggered back across first one field and then the next, hoisting himself over rocks heedless of blackthorns tearing his palms and clothing, until at last he reached the final overgrown tract of heather and bracken, and saw the white roof of his rental car shining in the sun.
He ran up to it, jammed the key into the lock and with a gasp fell into the driver’s seat. He locked the doors, flinching as another car drove past, and finally looked out the window.
To one side was the gate he’d scaled, with field after field beyond; to the other side the silhouettes of Gurnard’s Head and its sister promontory. Beyond the fields, the sun hung well above the lowering mass of Zennor Hill. The car’s clock read 15:23.
He shook his head in disbelief: it was impossible he’d been gone for scarcely an hour. He reached for his cell phone and felt something in the pocket beside it—the object he’d skidded on inside the fogou.
He pulled it out. A blue metal disc, slightly flattened where he’d stepped on it, with gold-stamped words above a beacon.
ST. AUSTELL SWEETS: FUDGE FROM REAL CORNISH CREAM
He turned it over in his hands and ran a finger across the raised lettering.
Becca gave one to each of us the day we arrived. The fudge was supposed to last the entire two weeks, and I think we ate it all that first night.
The same kind of candy tin where Evelyn had kept her comb and Anthea her locket and chain. He stared at it, the tin bright and enamel glossy-blue as though it had been painted yesterday. Anyone could have a candy tin, especially one from a local company that catered to tourists.
After a minute he set it down, took out his wallet and removed the photo Evelyn had given him: Evelyn and Moira doubled-up with laughter as Anthea stared at them, slightly puzzled, a half-smile on her face as though trying to determine if they were laughing at her.
He gazed at the photo for a long time, returned it to his wallet, then slid the candy lid back into his pocket. He still had no service on his phone.
He drove very slowly back to Cardu, nauseated from sunstroke and his terror at being underground. He knew he’d never been seriously lost—a backwards glance as he fled the mound reassured him that it hadn’t been large enough for that.
Yet he was profoundly unnerved by his reaction to the darkness, the way his sight had betrayed him and his imagination reflexively dredged up the images from Evelyn’s story. He was purged of any desire to remain another night at the cottage, or even in England, and considered checking to see if there was an evening train back to London.
But by the time he edged the car down the long drive to the cottage, his disquiet had ebbed somewhat. Thomsa and Harry’s car was gone. A stretch of wall had been newly repaired, and many more daffodils and narcissus had opened, their sweet fragrance following him as he trudged to the front door.
Inside he found a plate with a loaf of freshly baked bread and some local blue cheese, beside it several pamphlets with a yellow Sticky note.
Jeffrey—
Gone to see a play in Penzance. Please turn off lights downstairs. I found these books today and thought you might be interested in them.
He glanced at the pamphlets—another map, a flyer about a music night at the pub in Zennor, a small paperback with a green cover—crossed to the refrigerator and foraged until he found two bottles of ale. Probably not proper B&B etiquette, but he’d apologise in the morning.