The Candle Crown, Chapter Two

“It’s dark,” Mary said, “I don’t know if heading down there is a good idea.”

            “Scared of hobos?” Dani asked, “Monsters or something? What are the chances there’ll be any monsters down there? What are the chances that monsters exist? I mean really.”

            “I was more afraid of the hobos,” Mary said, “But that hypothetical string of questions you just threw at me has me wondering about monsters now.”

            “Come on,” Dani said.

            Though their flashlights cut through the dark of the night, it was still dark and it was still night. They were off in the woods on the west end of Falling Rocks, a mile or two away from Mary’s home, and a quite a few miles further away from Dani’s home.

            “I’m kind of good at fighting anyway,” Dani said, “Or did you forget?”

            “Do you actually have your knife with you though?” Mary asked.

            “Maybe,” Dani said, “Anyways, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to kill any hobos. I can just give them a bloody nose or something when they get frisky.”

            “Poor choice of words there,” Mary said, “But lead the way. If you see any frisky hobos let me know so I can make a run for it.”

            “Yeah, hobos will run slow, that’s definitely something you can count on,” Dani said, stepping over the bricks that had once stood as a wall for a home. A home that had been inhabited by a family of five. Tragically, a fire had begun in their cellar, a fire which had spread and killed all five of the family members. It was a week before anyone investigated the smoke. This all happened before the American Civil War. Quite a time ago.

            Back then, there hadn’t been a stairway leading down into the ground. Mary was almost sure her dad would have told her about a stairway, if he had been so interested in telling her about the deaths of five people.

            Dani reached the bottom of the stairs first, and stood, staring into the inky dark below. “It’s weird,” Dani said, looking up towards the beam of Mary’s flashlight, “But I don’t see any footprints or rags or anything down here. In fact, it’s a tunnel. And it keeps going.”

            “A tunnel?”

            “A tunnel.”

            “Ok,” Mary said, “Thought you said funnel for some reason.”

            “Would that be better?” Dani asked.

            “No,” Mary said.

            Mary saw what Dani had meant by weird; the walls and floor and ceiling were all slick and black. Mary touched the wall with her hand, expecting it to be dripping or wet, but instead it was just cold and smooth.

            “What is it?” Mary asked.

            “I would say obsidian,” Dani said, “But I don’t think it is very likely we’d find any of that here. I don’t recall the last time a volcano erupted on the eastern seaboard.”

            “Could be something dormant,” Mary said.

            “A volcano would be warm at least,” Dani said.

            Mary nodded, zipped up her jacket, and waited for Dani to continue.

            Dani looked back into the tunnel, took a single step, and stopped. “Thanks for doing this.”

            “Not a problem,” Mary said, “I hate hearing about how your parents treat you like some secondhand kid all the time.”

            “They’re not my parents, and I am a secondhand kid, but thanks,” Dani said. She kept walking forward.

            “No,” Mary said, “You’re not a second hand kid. Sorry that you feel that way, but it’s highly irresponsible of you to think wrong thoughts and I won’t have it.”

            Dani chuckled, and it echoed ahead of them. She kept walking. It was practically a stroll. Mary had to pick up her own pace to continue. “You don’t know,” Dani said, “But I appreciate the sympathy.”

            “At least you appreciate something,” Mary said, paused, and added “That came out wrong.”

            “Your dad is so laid back about everything,” Dani said, “Does he even care we’re out here? Shouldn’t he be worried about you getting abducted by the enemies of the Freemasons or whatever?”

            “My dad’s not a Freemason. He’s a Strifepalm. And anyway, you’re not supposed to know that, so shush. But he doesn’t care. He knows I’m already a worrywart.”

            “Worrywart,” Dani said.

            “Yeah, that’s a word, if you typed it into a computer, it wouldn’t put a red squiggly line under it or anything,” Mary said.

            “Ok,” Dani said, “I wasn’t debating whether or not it is actually a word, just FYI or whatever.”

            “And plus, you may not have noticed while we were there, but he’s at a meeting,” Mary said, “And, also, should we think of turning around? We’re pretty far into this tunnel?”

            “It’s a long fucking tunnel,” Dani said, “So long, you’d think that most girls don’t really go walking inside for a long time. They probably turn back early. Because... of monsters or something.”

            “You’re making a really good argument for turning around there,” Mary said.

            “It’s an awful argument and you know it. Anyway, that was my point. The only argument for turning around is waaah waaah I’m afraid of things that aren’t real, or do you not see what I’m saying?”

            “But I am afraid of things that aren’t real. I mean, just because something isn’t real doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be afraid of it.”

            “I don’t follow,” Dani said.

            “Look, just, look at these walls. They’re mostly spotless. Completely smooth, mostly. But have you been noticing what I’ve been noticing?” Mary stopped and pointed her flashlight at an abrasion on the surface of the wall.

            “Yeah, someone’s keyed up the place, so what?” Dani said, “I keyed up some guy’s car once. He was double-parked. What a bastard.”

            “Uh, I didn’t know that, but whatever,” Mary said, “These don’t really look like marks made by keys to me. They look more like… claw marks.”

            Dani chuckled again, “Next, we’re going to hear a roaring noise, and something coming down the hall towards us. Seriously, what is it that makes you so goddamn afraid of everything?”

            “Well,” Mary said, intending to describe what makes her so goddamn afraid of everything.

            “You didn’t want to go over to David’s that one night, even when he said he’d keep it sober. You didn’t want to go to the library on my birthday, and then you didn’t want to go to the bookstore, and while admittedly they’re both in sketchy parts of town and it was night, that doesn’t mean we’re going to run into hooligans at places occupied primarily by books.”

            “Hey there could be bibliophilic scoundrels around; you don’t know for sure that there aren’t.”

            “Yeah?”

            “Yeah, and whatever, let’s keep going,” Mary said. She paused to look back at the obsidian-ness, wanting to notice a change in her environment, but detected nothing. Everything was as it had been before, except Mary felt a pain in her chest that she felt every time Dani acted contentious for the sake of acting contentious.

            “Sorry,” Dani said. She turned around and Mary caught a flash of genuine guilt on Dani’s face for a moment before Dani turned back to look ahead.

            “It’s fine,” Mary said, “I do get afraid easily I guess.”

            “Especially by snakes,” Dani said, “I’ve never understood that.”

            “My dad told me when I was really young that I should stay away from things with fangs,” Mary said. She wasn’t sure why snakes were the only thing that bothered her.

            Dani shrugged and resumed her walk down the tunnel.

            “Yeah whatever,” Mary said, “What was it your parents yelled at you about that made you want to hang out?”

            “They didn’t really yell at me,” Dani said, “They said they were disappointed in Will, and I told them that I wasn’t trying to impress them or anything. I said I’m just good at school and I don’t know why.”

            “Uh?”

            “I hate it when… look, when I do something wrong, they let me know. But when I do something right, all they do is yell at Will for not doing better than me.”

            “Hmm,” Mary said, intending to sound interested, which was her current state of mind.

            “It’s like, I get a ridiculously high score on the Standards, and I don’t get recognized for it, and now I’m mad about being adopted by parents who don’t understand how to be parents. It’s like they’re trying to make me feel bad for Will,” Dani said, “You know?”

            “Maybe,” Mary said, “Like they’re trying to get you to help him so that he can do better?”

            “There’s an easier way of getting me to help him,” Dani said, “It’s called; get him to quit being such a douche.”

            “Is he though?”

            “You don’t know him as well as I do,” Dani said, “He spends so much of his time moping around about how hard he has it, with the challenges he’s been given by his parents. We used to talk about it a lot, but eventually I got sick of hearing about how much they expected of him, because they hardly expected anything of me. And now that they expect something of me, he doesn’t listen to anything I have to say. Because they yell at him constantly and I guess he doesn’t see why I can complain about anything.”

            “Yikes,” Mary said, “What is this about challenges?”

            “I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but since you’ve let slip so many times about your dad’s weird cult, I guess I can tell you.”           

            “It’s not a cult,” Mary said, “But please, enlighten me.”

            “I don’t know Mary, if it’s not a cult I’m not sure I can do much enlightening,” Dani said.

            “That sass is off the walls,” Mary said, “You better get a purse to put all that snark in so you can use it later. Snark is supposed to be recycled.”

            “My purse is stuffed so full of sass that it can’t hold any more,” Dani said, “I’d ask to borrow yours but it’s already full of laaaaame.”

            “Ha, oh, burn, or whatever,” Mary said, “So what were the challenges?”

            “Oh, right,” Dani said, “They want him to be the… How do I put this? The hero?”

            “Hero?” Mary asked.

            “Yeah, by now you probably think I’m fucking with you but that’s sort of the easiest way of describing it. They’re convinced that something is going to happen and that someone will need to step up to bat and knock a great big moment of salvation out of the park.”

            “That’s weird,” Mary said, “What do they… expect?”

            “You mean, what is it they think is going to happen?” Dani stopped.

            “…yeah?”

            “Shh,” Dani said, “Shh shh shhhhhhh.”

            Mary stayed silent.

            “Do you hear that?” Dani asked.

            Mary strained to hear. Above the sounds of their walking she’d been conscious of a soft noise that she was convinced was just the passage of wind through the tunnel. It’d sounded like someone breathing in. Mary held her breath and could still hear it. But then, there was a shift. It was suddenly like someone was breathing out. And then in. “Yeah,” Mary said.

            “Some great big thing must be moving somewhere, either ahead or behind us. Maybe it’s messing with the air pressure,” Dani said. A knife appeared in her hand.

            “I’m going to vote we turn around,” Mary said, “Not to be some afraidy kind of person. But as soon as we started discussing the possibility of some kind of awful calamity striking us, it seems like something down here took notice.”

            “No, turning around doesn’t sound afraidy at all,” Dani said, “In fact… I think we should turn around too.”

            “Awesome,” Mary said. She turned. There was a tapping noise from where they’d come from. Like bored nails tapping against the side of a desk in class, just waiting for school to be over. “You heard that too, I’m hoping. Or maybe, not hoping.”

            “Let’s just keep going forward. Maybe it’s safer away from the clicking noise.”

            “But where will we end up?” Mary asked.

            “We’ve only been walking for, like, thirty minutes,” Dani said, “We shouldn’t be too far out of town. I’ll pull up my GPS as we leave and get a good idea for where we’re headed.”

            “You carry a GPS with you everywhere?” The clicking noise refused to change in frequency, but it did grow louder. Maybe even closer, if ears are to be completely trusted.

            “It’s my phone, the GPS is my phone,” Dani said, “Should I say duh or can we just start running.”

            Mary ran past Dani, who turned and ran with her. Mary wasn’t sure if Dani was as afraid as she was, but Dani never overtook her so at least Dani was only a little bit less afraid than Mary was. Over the sound of their sneakers slapping against the black floor, neither could hear whether or not the clicking noise had decided to follow them. Mary imagined that it was right behind them though; something like a spider. She imagined each click was one tap of its legs, each of which ended with a dagger or spearlike object.

            This was all in Mary’s head of course. The clicking was being made by a walking cane, the kind used by the blind.

            Dani didn’t really imagine what it was that was chasing them, but she was pretty sure it was chasing them. This assumption was just as false as Mary’s had been. But who is to blame Dani for thinking that something they’d encountered in the middle of a dark tunnel was going to be a deadly foe? Dark tunnels are usually the home to vile creatures of varying and vicious size. At least, they usually are in books and movies and things.

            Perhaps Dani realized that there was no longer any sort of sound behind them, or perhaps she simply tired of running, but eventually she stopped. And when she stopped, Mary did too, nearly falling over to halt her momentum. When she turned, she brought her flashlight to bear and nearly blinded Dani. Dani held up the hand that held her phone and said, “Ye-ouch. How’s about dropping that laser there?”

            “Sorry,” Mary said, pointing it at the ground. Neither of them spoke for about four and a half seconds, “So I guess it isn’t following us. I don’t hear it.”

            “I don’t hear it either,” Dani said.

            “You seeing where we are?”

            “Yeah, but I can’t get a signal here,” Dani turned and looked back into the dark whence they came, and then looked back at Mary, “Let’s keep going forward until I catch a signal.”

            “Ok,” Mary said, gesturing ahead with her flashlight, “Could you, uh.”

            “Take the lead?” Dani asked, “Yeah, that wouldn’t be too difficult, I guess.”

            “Thanks,” Mary said.

            “So,” Dani said, walking past Mary, “How about that David fellow?”

            “What about him?” Mary asked.

            “You think it’s true what Neil said?”

            “About Dave not really trying anymore?” Mary asked.

            “Yeah,” Dani said.

            “Why?”

            For a while it was back to how it’d been for most of their adventure. Just the sound of their shoes against the mysterious substance they traversed, with the steady current of tunnel breath rushing past them at a pace so slow it could hardly be called rushing.

            “I don’t think Dave ever really tried,” Mary said, “I think that he’s just getting busy with everything else he wants to do.” 

            “Yeah?” Dani asked, “He seems like the kind of guy to just… give up, or… not care.”

            “Maybe not caring is a more accurate statement,” Mary said, “But I don’t really know. I only hear about him through Neil. And I think Neil is trying too hard to be a supportive friend.”

            “Ha,” Dani said, “Trying too hard?”

            “Yeah, that sounded funny,” Mary said, “He’s being nosy. Getting in Dave’s business.”

            “Does Neil realize that?”

            “I think Neil does realize that on some… level…” Mary said, “If levels are areas you can realize things in; Neil’s at one of those levels.”

            “Hmm,” Dani said.

            “Yeah it’s a pretty awful metaphor,” Mary said.

            “I mean, hmm, look ahead.”

            Mary did. There was a light ahead of them. It was pale and blue and to Mary’s eye it looked like moonlight.

            “Think we’re nearing the end of this tunnel?” Dani asked.

            “How should I know?”

            “It looks a bit like moonlight,” Dani said, “Was just trying to see if you thought the same.”

            “Yeah,” Mary said, “I do.”

            They saw the stairs after another thirty seconds, and then climbed them in the next twenty seconds. It had been starlight they’d seen after all. They emerged into a forest full of trees that’d been full of leaves until fall. But now their refuse littered the ground, clearing the way for Mary and Dani to feel the crispness that late fall and winter can provide. The stars were even brighter than they’d been when they’d left.

            “We’re still in the forest,” Dani said, “Maybe we haven’t traveled too far.”

            “You gonna check your global positioning satellite app on your phone there?”

            “Yeah,” Dani said, “I’m going to check it.”

            Mary stifled a nervous laugh that echoed in the forest. Behind her the entrance to the tunnel seemed shrouded by the bricks and stone that surrounded it. This tunnel had been connected to some home, too, it seemed. Mary was pretty sure it wasn’t the same one. She didn’t know how they could have gotten lost in a one way tunnel.

            When she looked up at the stars she wished she had studied them more, to know if they were as different as they seemed.

            “This was cool,” Mary said, “This trip.”

            “Neat,” Dani said, “The app is loading so we’ll know pretty soon that we are… in… Urualton?”

            “Wait, really?” Mary turned and leaned over to look at the GPS. Dani tilted it over so that she could see it better. “We didn’t walk that long, did we?”

            “My phone said it was eight thirty six when we entered... It’s nine twenty now. So, in short, no, we didn’t walk for that much longer than forty minutes, not enough time to cover twenty miles.”

            “We did run for a little while,” Mary said.

            “Ha, yeah, we ran for maybe three minutes tops. But we didn’t run that fast,” Dani said. “Damn,” she walked over to a tree and leaned against it, “What just happened?”

            Mary pulled out her phone and looked at it for a second. She didn’t have any texts though. She’d really wanted to do something other than think about the tunnel’s curious spatial disparities with the outside world.

            “What just happened?” Dani repeated.

            “We should get back,” Mary said, “Are we near a road?”

            “Uh,” Dani said. She looked down at her phone and replied without looking up, “Yeah.”

            “How far?”

            “Just a mile west of here. A little less.”

            “I’ll text Neil and tell him where we are,” Mary said, “Maybe he can swing by in his car and pick us up.”

            “He has a car?”

            “His dad’s car or whatever,” Mary said.

            “You sure he isn’t busy tonight? I could call my parents.”

            “How do you think they’d react to you saying you ended up twenty miles away from my house after a walk in the woods?”

            “They’d probably ask me to do it again so they could replicate such a fine experiment,” Dani said. She cracked a smile, “Or they’d just be really confused. More confused than we are.”

            “I’m sure Neil will be confused too,” Mary said, “but I’m sure he won’t ask as many questions.”

            “Neil it is, then,” Dani said, “Worst comes to worst, I can text Elys. Maybe she’s back from the movie already.”

            “Well, that would be the worst,” Mary said, “I hate dealing with her sometimes.”

            “She’s ok if you give her a chance.”

            “Said the Honors student of the Honors student.”

            “That was an awful joke,” Dani said, “But, OK, I see your point. And hey, you’re technically an Honors student too so shut ‘yer trap.”

            “Only technically,” Mary said, “I wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out with you guys.”

            “Except you are hanging out with one,” Dani said, “Right now.”

            “Hah.”

            “So are you going to text Neil or what?”

            “I was getting to that,” Mary said. She flipped the phone over in her hand and typed up the text as quickly as she could; Could you get me and Dani from Urualton? We’re on the side of Minute Rd.

            “Ok,” Mary said, “I’ve sent it.”

            “Is our chariot en route?” Dani asked.

            “Yeah, that’s a way you could say that.”

            After about five minutes of trekking through dead leaves, dirt, and dry brush, they reached the road. Mary hadn’t heard back from Neil, which is why she sent the second text, the one you already know about. It was just Neil’s name followed by three question marks. It looked a little like this: Neil???

      And Mary didn’t have to wait very long for Neil to send her another text: Yeah, but it’ll be awhile. Is there anyone closer?

      Mary sent one back with such alacrity that Neil was startled by it, How soon is awhile?

      Neil: 5 mins before I can get my dad’s truck, and then 15 before I can get there

      That works.

      “He’s coming,” Mary said, “He’ll be about twenty minutes.”

            “Twenty minutes?” Dani said. “Is he dropping everything and coming right away? You got this kid waiting on you or something?”

            “He kind of likes me,” Mary said, “I’m trying to figure out why.”

            “Likes you, like, wants to take you out to a movie sometime and awkwardly try to smooch you during an expositional scene that tells you the reason the plot twist actually sort of made sense? That kind of like you?”

            “Yep.”

            “I did not see that,” Dani said, “I always thought he was just sort of like a little brother to you.”

            “That’s pretty accurate too,” Mary said, “But he doesn’t see me as a big sister.”

            “That’s pretty awkward,” Dani said, “Maybe you shouldn’t be texting him and asking him to give you rides and things. Maybe he’s getting all excited about this?”

            “He’s mature,” Mary said, “And plus this is probably the only time I’ve ever asked him for a ride. Usually I can just ride with you.”

            “I see?”

            “Yeah, be that way,” Mary said, “Anyway, I’m just working up a way to say, hey, ‘I know you like me but could we maybe not turn this friendship awkward?’ Once I say that, the awkwardness will be gone.”

            “For you, probably,” Dani said, “But for him? I mean. Have you seen Romeo and Juliet? He’s going to be looking up into your window at night. You’ll hear softly spoken verse.”

            “Yeah?”

            “I’m saying that he’s going to be stalking you.”

            “Ha ha,” Mary said, “That’s really funny. But I know Neil well enough to know he’ll back off once I break the news. Like I said, he’s mature. Smart. Whatever.”

            “Smart and whatever are, like, not the same word,” Dani said.

            “I don’t bug you about your relationships,” Mary said, “Could we stop talking about mine?”

            “But you never talk about your relationships,” Dani said, “This is practically the first conversation that involved you and potential romance since you first laid eyes on that one guy at the convention.”

            “What convention?” Mary asked, “Wait, don’t answer that.”

            Dani grinned facetiously, which is to say, inappropriately. Mary just saw it as an awkwardly timed grin, which, in the starlight, was somehow creepy.

            “Stawp it,” Mary said, “Seriously that grin is a monster from a half remembered horror novel.”

            “Ok,” Dani said, “But only until tomorrow. I don’t want you to be prepared for this awkward car ride with your admirer.”

            “You can have shotgun,” Mary said.

            “Nope,” Dani said, “That’d be awkward for me. I hardly know Neil. Me in the front seat would be like you and Kyle Avem on a moonlight boat ride on the Mississippi.”

            “That’s really specific.”

            “Yeah, that was really specific, maybe it’s meant to be.”

            “I don’t even know him though.”

            “That was the joke, Mary,” Dani said.

            “Yeah.”

            “Ok, ‘yeah’, I’ll shut up now, just for you,” Dani said.

            Time passed. They walked along the road back towards Falling Rocks. A few times cars passed them but none slowed down except for one driven by an old man driving in the direction of Urualton.

            “You ladies need a ride someplace?”

            He had the face of an earnest man, but Dani shook her head before Mary could reply.

            “He was a creep,” Mary said finally, even though she hadn’t clearly seen his face and had only heard his voice, “Who picks up hitchhikers anymore?”

            “We weren’t even hitchhiking,” Dani said, “If Neil wasn’t on his way right now maybe I’d have said yes.”           

            “Really?”

            “Yeah, maybe,” Dani said, “He looked pretty feeble.”

            “What if he had a gun?”

            “He probably would have pointed it at one of us when he rolled down the window,” Dani said. She shrugged, “Whatever.”

            “I mean obviously that was the right choice,” Mary said, “I’m just saying I’m surprised you would have.”

            “Have what?”

            “Have oh look Neil’s dad’s truck.”

            It was soaring around the corner, to slow pretty immediately afterwards as soon as it caught Dani and Mary in the headlights. The highbeams flashed off, and the engine slowed, the chassis rumbling slower and slower until it halted. The driver’s side window rolled down and the outline of Neil’s face could be seen in the dark. For all the drama the image contained, at least by Mary and Dani’s eyes, all Neil said was, “Hey.” It was spoken in a flat tone, a combination of apathy and tiredness.

            It was not a tone that Mary was used to hearing from him. “Hey,” she said back, in such a manner that one might have placed a question mark if writing it down.

            “Sorry I took longer than I said I would,” Neil said, “My dad wasn’t home so I had to go rooting around in his room for the keys.”

            “Is he going to be mad?” Mary asked.

            “No,” Neil said. They stared at each other from across the road. Dani grew uncomfortable but resisted the urge to shout anything. The first word that had come to her head was periphery for some reason. She wasn’t sure why it’d come to mind. “So you guys getting in or what?” Neil asked.

            “Right,” Mary said.

            When they climbed in and the passenger side door opened, the cabin lights flashed on and Mary saw first the ruined extent of the right side of Neil’s face. A red bruise, his left eyebrow split, and blood running down from his hairline. His arm was scraped and bloodied as well.

            “Holy shit,” was what Dani said when she saw it. Which was right after Mary did.

            “Yeah,” Neil said. He stared ahead.

            Mary climbed into the back before Dani could object, and so Dani crawled into the front seat. “What happened?” Dani asked.

            “Some guy,” Neil said, “He wanted money and I tried to fight back.”

            “Neil,” Mary said.

            “Good for you,” Dani said, “But you should probably go to a hospital. Like. Right now. Do you have a headache or anything?”

            “Nah,” Neil said, although he said it indifferently.

            “Are you seeing straight?” Dani asked.

            “Yeah,” Neil said, with the same casual tone.

            “Obviously the answer to both of those questions should be reversed,” Dani said, “I’ll drive.”

            “I’m good though,” Neil said, “I can take you guys back.”

            “No,” Mary said, “You look like you need to visit the ER.”

            “Fine,” Neil said, “I won’t argue.”

            “You already did,” Dani said. She got out of the passenger side door and walked around.

            It wasn’t until she opened it that Neil stepped out and walked around to the passenger side door, going around the back of the truck, walking slow, his face pointed down at the ground.

            When he got back in, Mary put a hand on his shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it?”

            “I’m ok,” Neil said, “I mean, mentally. Like. I feel fine mentally.”

            Dani started the engine, turned the truck around on the narrow road with small back and forth movements. A car rushing past nearly hit them but put on the breaks and laid on the horn. Dani waved and then continued turning the truck around. “Did you get a good look at his face?” Dani asked, as she accelerated up towards the speed limit.

            “What?” Neil asked, “So you can track him down and hurt him back or something?”

            “Yeah actually,” Dani said, “I like excuses to go hurt people I guess.”

            “I think Dani means to put in a call with the police,” Mary said.

            “That too,” Dani said, “Although I’d prefer to go looking tonight before calling the cops.”

            “Something else scared him away,” Neil said, “I think he’s probably hiding now.”

            “Something scared him away?” Dani asked.

            “Someone,” Neil said, “I guess. I didn’t see what it was. Just heard some leaves crackling, looked up, and the guy was running. I mean, he was supposed to be running I think. Wait. That doesn’t make any sense.”

            “You mean he got away,” Dani said.

            “Yeah, so quickly I hardly saw it happen. Just, he looked up to where the leaves had moved, and then I caught a glimpse of him slipping behind a tree.”

            “Were you in the forest?” Mary asked, “What were you doing in the forest?”

            “What were you doing in the forest?” Neil asked, “All the way out here?”

            “I thought you’d never ask,” Dani said. She paused, “It was aliens. That is probably a more reasonable explanation than the one we think happened.”

            “What do you think happened?” Neil asked, “Or, you know what, nevermind.”

            “We were just walking around,” Mary said, “We lost track of where we were and kept going.”

            “Lost track, but you knew exactly where I could pick you up,” Neil said, “It’s fine. Just don’t drill me on how I got out into the woods.”

            “Did he… do anything to you?” Mary asked. There was an implication there that she felt uncomfortable making clear, but she hoped Neil could answer without similar discomfort.

            “Neil doesn’t have to tell us anything else,” Dani said, “He can save it for the police I guess.”

            “Thanks,” Neil said, “But he didn’t even try to mug me. David and I overheard him and another guy talking and why am I telling you this?”

            “Uh,” Mary muttered, “No pressure, but, what did you overhear?”

            “Well, the guy wanted to kill me about it, so maybe I shouldn’t go around telling people. He thought I was a spy or something.”

            “A spy?” Dani asked. Dani had previously been paying the least amount of attention possible to their conversation. But at the mention of espionage she paid much less attention to the road than before.

            “Yeah, or like someone hired me to listen in on their conversation,” Neil said, “It sounds stupid. I thought he was kidding at first. But he kept threatening to kill me, and then he said he was going to do it. And that’s when he ran off. Cause he saw something.”

            “It was probably Batman,” Dani said, “Definitely. Batman just saved your life, Neil.”

            “Thanks Batman,” Neil said.

            “Come on,” Mary said, to no one in particular, “He was probably afraid someone was going to report him for beating up a kid.”

            “He didn’t beat me up,” Neil said.

            “It looks like he did,” Mary said, “Sorry. At least he didn’t take any money.”

            “You said it was you and David? Where’s David?”

            “The other guy chased him I think,” Neil said.

            The truck was silent until they reached the hospital.

            “We’re here,” Dani said, although it was obvious to everyone where they were.

            Dani and Mary helped Neil out of the truck, although his legs were fine and he didn’t limp. They insisted on trying to carry him until he shrugged them off and walked on his own. They continued to flank him as they came to the double doors at the front of the Emergency Room check in area. They opened the doors for him, which elicited a scoff from him. Dani thought that was funny and laughed, and then Neil did too, and Mary failed to hold back a smile as they entered.

            After a doctor confirmed that nothing serious was happening, they sat Neil down to wait for an x-ray of his face. Neil said it didn’t hurt that bad, but the doctor said that there was once a man who’d had a steel rod flung through his skull, and hadn’t complained of much pain afterwards. Mary said Phineas Gage with a quick precision, and the doctor said that Phineas Gage was someone else that had happened to.

            While they awaited the x-ray, Dani insisted on staying. “I don’t really want to head home yet.”

            It was already past ten and Dani knew her parents might still be up, waiting for her to get home.

            “They’ll give up around twelve and just give me a stern talkin’ to in the morning,” Dani said.

            “I’ll stay too,” Mary said.

            “Thanks,” Neil said, and then his phone chimed the arrival of a text message.

            Neil pulled it out, looked down, and said, “It’s David. He’s wondering where I am.” He immediately typed a reply.

            “You tell him where you are?” Mary asked.

            “Yeah,” Neil said.

            “Good,” Mary said.

            “Good?” Neil asked.

            “Yeah,” she said.

            “Cool.”

            Dani stood up and walked down the hall towards the vending machine. She purchased a bottle of soda and walked back. Mary and Neil were quiet again. “So,” Dani said, “Did Dave say where he is? Or where he went when the other guy chased him?”

            “Not really,” Neil said, “Dave said he was looking for me. He had his phone on silent so he didn’t get any of the messages I’d sent him. He said he was worried it’d go off the way mine did.”

            “Wait,” Mary said.

            “Yeah, don’t worry about it. I should have had it on silent,” Neil said.

            Mary thought a lot of things that weren’t very conductive to not having guilt. She made the connection that it’d been her text message that must have given Neil away.

            “Seriously,” Neil said, seeing her thoughts sculpted on her face via affect in real time, “Don’t worry about it. It’s my fault for hanging out with David anymore. Shit, that sounded really bad. That’s not what I meant.”

            Dani and Mary were silent.

            “It’s just that he’s been trying to do more and more dangerous stuff lately,” Neil said, “And I feel like at this point it’s some kind of a test for him. Like. He just keeps going faster and faster and I can’t keep up any more. He’s changing too much for me.”

            “Awe,” Dani said, “Don’t think like that. I’m sure there’s something going on that we don’t know about.”

            “What? What is going on? He tells me everything that goes on at his house, and I’ve been over there enough that I’d be able to tell if he was lying. His parents love him and he keeps testing them. He keeps testing me too. He keeps threatening to…”

            Dani raised an eyebrow.

            “And it’s like… I kind of… Hey, can we not talk about this?”

            “Yeah sure,” Mary said.

            When Neil left for the x-ray, Mary turned to Dani, “This really isn’t like him. I think he’s more freaked out about being attacked than he’s letting on.”

            “Of course he is,” Dani said, “What’s interesting is I can’t tell if he’s not letting on because he doesn’t know, he’s trying to be tough, or if he doesn’t want you to worry.”

            “You really think he might be trying to keep me from worrying?”

            “Yeah. He’s pulling the old ‘nice guy’ on you. Watch out though. He’s going to be throwing around the term friend zone a looooot if you turn him down.”

            “Come on, he’s not like that. He’s mature.”

            “I feel like you keep saying that,” Dani said, “And you don’t quite know what it means.”

            “Ok, fine, whatever,” Mary said, “I hope he doesn’t have a concussion and we can all go home. Maybe Neil has a point about… How you seem to always try to…”

            “Go on,” Dani said.

            In some situations, people know exactly what the other is thinking, or at least they know it enough that they could paraphrase it to other people. Mary was comparing Dani to David in such a manner that Dani might find unfavorable. In a manner related to going faster and faster, testing the boundaries of what’s acceptable and not acceptable.

            People living fast and loose on the bounds of space and time.

            “Maybe we can do something like go to a movie the next time you’re feeling awful,” Mary said, “Instead of going into dark eldritch tunnels hidden underneath the ruins of burnt cabins.”

            “Hey that’s pretty fair,” Dani said, “Elys might want to do that sort of thing anyway. She can be my tunnelbuddy.”

            “I guess what you do with Elys is up to you and Elys. I don’t want to try to get between you and her,” Mary said, “And hey, I don’t know, maybe I kind of liked going down into that tunnel and getting chased. I might be saying that just because I didn’t die and we never got attacked, but the adrenaline was nice.”

            “Nicer than reading a book and staying in on a Friday night?”

            “Fuck you, there’s nothing wrong with that,” Mary said with more venom than she’d intended, “You should try it sometime.”

            “Yeah, OKAY,” Dani said, “I’ll just pick up a copy of Moby Dick and get real nice and comfortable with Captain Nemo.”

            “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you read something you didn’t have to read for a class,” Mary said.

            “I read sometimes,” Dani said, “But only practical stuff. Stuff about science. Or self-defense.”

            “You don’t have any idea how lame that sounded,” Mary said, “Besides, do you even understand half the stuff about science that you read? Like do astrophysics really just provide easy reading for you?”

            “Yeah, maybe,” Dani said, “Did you ever think that maybe I understand everything about the astros and the physics?”

            “The way you said that, it makes me think that you don’t know what either of those words mean.”

            “Better check your sass supply because I think it’s out of control,” Dani said.

            “You’re sort of deflecting the question.”

            “You’re sort of… Nuh.”

            “Nuh?”

            “Yeah totally.” Dani sat back.

            When Neil got back, Mary was looking at her phone and Dani was recounting everything she remembered from the last physics article she’d read and was trying to think of how she’d explain all of it to someone who hadn’t read the vast breadth of science texts that she had. She was failing miserably in proving to herself that she understood physics as well as she thought she did. What Mary did not know was that Dani had already begun to doubt some things since seeing her GPS after leaving the tunnel. Science seemed to not contain a rational explanation for how they’d traveled such a distance in such a short amount of time.

            Dani wondered if she understood science incorrectly, or if science understood the mysteries of the world incorrectly. She began to wonder if she understood the mysteries of the world incorrectly.

            Mary had always taken the world in stride; she did not know how black holes functioned in the grand scheme of things. She knew that they were greedy things, eating everything they came across, light included. She knew that they floated in space like celestial krakens, threatening to destroy anything that crossed their path. But she did not know why they were as they were, and she did not overthink that fact.

            Dani would never be content to simply know. She had to understand. She required her seventh grade teacher to explain why no one had ever gotten to the end of Pi, and was then unsatisfied with her teacher’s answer. She asked her father, an unlearned factory worker, who then told her not to wonder about such things. And because of this, Dani did wonder about such things. She became more and more curious of the things around her because she wanted ever so desperately to spite her father. To shove his ignorance in his face some day. Even though Dani knew such a chance could never occur now, she still held onto that dream.

            She’d placed it onto her adoptive parents now, the Prestiges, and it turned from a task within reach to a task whose goal seemed as infinite as the horizon.

            When Neil told them that his x-ray scan had revealed nothing, they piled back into his car, and he drove Mary home first, her home being further away, and then drove Dani back to her home in silence.

            When Mary unlocked the front door of her house, the lights were out. Her father’s car was still gone, as it usually was on weekends. She turned on the living room light long enough to stand in the brightness for a moment, and shut it off, walking upstairs with her phone as a flashlight to show her the way. She changed into a pair of pajamas and fell asleep after thirty minutes of pondering on the mysteries of the tunnel she’d been inside. She dreamed of a number of horrible things, clicking through her nightmares like fingernails on the insides of coffins, waiting for the day they may return to the surface.

            When Dani returned home, her adoptive mother told her to explain why Dani was coming home at one in the morning. When Dani told her about the tunnel underground, her mother immediately asked her where it had been. She grabbed her laptop and recorded Dani’s testimony with the laptop’s microphone. By three in the morning Dani had sufficiently met Mrs. Prestige’s expectations, and allowed Dani to brush and shower and to climb into bed. Dani remained awake until the sun rose, trying to explain to herself how space and time might fold like two points on skin pinched together. She tried to remember what wormholes were, and where the evidence for them was.

            But she was tired, and her tired mind did not think as quickly as she desired.

            Neil made it to the couch in his living room before collapsing. He did not think. He did not dream. But he awoke in a cold sweat, shaking, his heart pounding, looking around.

He was sure he’d heard something. His face was throbbing still. The sound of his heartbeat echoed in his ears.