“Leave her,” he said.
I turned to look at him. I wasn’t a violent person. I believed that words were better for solving problems that fists, but in that moment if John Keller hadn’t had a gun I would have taken a swing at him and not lost a moment’s sleep.
He was using one foot to scrape wet leaves off of something on the forest floor. It was some kind of plank square: the cover to the well, I was guessing, based on the weathering of the wood.
An iron ring was bolted to the middle of the wooden cover. Eyes and gun on Hope and me, John bent down and pulled the cover up. I smelled dampness and dirt and must.
Panic rolled over me like a wave. I squeezed my hands into tight fists. Roma will come home, I told myself. She’ll find the car and Hercules. Someone will find us.
I made myself look at John and fought to keep the panic from carrying me away. We were going to get out of this.
He laughed. The ugly sound wrapped around the trees.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“Your stupid Pollyanna optimism,” he said. “You still think you’re going to get out of this.”
I bent down and helped Hope to her feet again. Her skin was even grayer, if that was possible.
“I know where the two of you parked,” John said. “The lake is very deep, you know.”
I bit down on my lip so hard I drew blood. Hercules could get out of Hope’s car. He didn’t like the rain but he knew the property. He’ll be safe, I said silently. And we will get out of here.
John grabbed Hope’s arm, pulling her away from me. She staggered and he took advantage of her momentum, pushing her down into the open hole. On instinct she grabbed at the ground, her hands clawing the mud, looking for something to hold on to. All she got were handfuls of wet leaves and pine needles. She fell back into the darkness.
“Now you,” John said, pointing the gun at me. I had a fleeting thought that being shot would be better than climbing down into that dark, tight hole. But Hope was already down there and I couldn’t leave her there alone.
I walked to the edge and sat down, dangling my legs in the hole. I couldn’t see Hope and I had no idea how far she had fallen, how far I would fall. Was she already dead? Had the fall broken her neck? Would the same happen to me? I flashed to my father as Henry the Fifth in Shakespeare’s play of the same name as Henry spoke to his army. I could hear my father’s voice in my head and I whispered the words along with it: “Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage.” And then I jumped.
16
I landed on some kind of wooden platform twelve, maybe fifteen, feet down. The fall knocked the wind out of me and I lay there, trying to get my breath. Above us John pulled the wooden cover over the hole. I stifled a scream. It came out like a whimper.
I’d never been in a place so dark. I put a hand out and felt packed earth. It felt as though the ground itself was pushing back. Tears rolled down my face—or maybe it was rain dripping from my hair. I felt around slowly, carefully, for Hope, Please don’t let her be dead running on repeat in my head. My hand touched something that felt like fur. I yanked it back and did let out a small scream. I heard a moan behind me. “Hope?” I said stretching out my trembling arm.
My hand connected with her shoulder. “Kathleen?” she managed to gasp out.
“Yes,” I said. I found her other shoulder and helped pull her into a sitting position. She leaned against me. “We’re going to get out of here,” I said. “I just need a minute to think.”
I looked up over my head. The air was stale but there were small spaces between the planks that made up the well cover. We were getting some air. We could breathe as long as the smell from whatever was decomposing down here didn’t overcome us.
“How far down?” Hope asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Fifteen feet, maybe less. This isn’t a well. It’s a spring or something. I’m guessing it’s been partly filled with gravel. We can get out. It’s not that deep.”
She didn’t answer me. I shook her gently. She groaned.
What had I learned about head injuries in first aid? “You have to stay awake,” I said, giving her shoulders a squeeze. “I’m going to get us out of here but your job is to stay awake.”
“Okay,” she said after a moment. Her voice was weak but she was with me for now.
I touched the wall of the well. Please God, let it be dirt and not brick, I thought.
Dirt.
Yes.
The dirt was packed hard and dense with twisted tree roots, but maybe, just maybe I could scrape out enough of a handhold to make it to the top. I felt for a spot about waist-height and tried to make a hole using just my hands. The earth felt like a mix of rocks and clay compacted together, with the tree roots surrounding it all like a net or a web.
“We’re trapped,” Hope whispered.
I choked off a sob and dropped back down beside her. I swiped away the tears that were running down my face with one dirty hand. “No!” I said. “We are not dying down here. We’re getting out and getting Hercules and I’m going to punch John Keller right in the nose and I’m going to like it. And then I’m going to have a bath and a whole pan of brownies.”
Hope made a strangled sound and for a moment I thought she was choking. Then I realized she was laughing. “You are . . . Pollyanna,” she said.
I sniffed and swiped at my eyes again. “Pippi Longstocking,” I said. “That’s who I wanted to be when I was a kid.”
“Who . . .” Hope’s voice trailed off.
“She’s the main character in a series of children’s books. You’ll like them. When we get out of here I’ll check them all out for you.”
She didn’t answer. I nudged her shoulder again. “You have to stay awake, Hope,” I said.
“I am,” she whispered after a moment.
“I need something to dig with.” I felt around the wooden platform, trying to stay away from the spot where I’d touched whatever was rotting down here.
There was water underneath us. Just as air was getting down to us through the spaces in the boards above us that water would come up through the spaces in the dirt and gravel below us. I had to get us out now. I had to find something to dig with. It occurred to me that if I took my sneaker off could I use the sole as a shovel. I wasn’t sure it would work.
I untied my shoe and pulled it off. It was so wet a small stream of water poured out. “Okay, cross your fingers,” I said to Hope. I pressed the sneaker’s upper against the sole and dug at the well wall with it. The wet shoe slipped out of my hand and fell onto the wooden platform. I swore and bent down to retrieve it.
“You said a bad word,” Hope rasped.
“I’m sorry,” I said. My fingers brushed the dead whatever it was. I recoiled, felt around a little more and caught the end of a shoelace.
Hope laughed, the same half-strangled sound as before. “You’re so . . . nice. Not like me.”
I turned the shoe around and attacked the wall with the heel end. “You’re a nice person,” I said.
“No,” she mumbled.
The heel of the shoe didn’t work any better than the toe had. I beat on the wall in frustration. I was standing in water now, I realized. It was rising rapidly.
“What’s wrong?” Hope asked, struggling to get to her feet. Her ankle wouldn’t hold her and she collapsed onto the ground with a groan.
I made a grunt of frustration. “I was trying to use my shoe to dig with but it won’t work. The sole is too rubbery.”
“You need . . . insoles,” she said.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you wearing yours?”
“Yes.” Her voice got a little stronger. “Yes.”