I stared at the girl called Sari. In the dim light, her skin glowed. She was cleaner that I’d ever be. She looked so special that I knew Big Mother had sent her. She didn’t even look like the same kind of creature as us Unders.
I raised my nose to get a sniff. She didn’t smell like anything I knew. The damp of the cave hadn’t sunk into her. She was crisp smelling; that was the best way to describe how her scent sat sharp in my nose. I moved closer without even knowing I was doing it. Romi tugged at my tunic, trying to hold me back.
When the wavy reflection shot out of her finger, we all gasped. She called it an image. She was capturing us even as we stood in front of her. I touched my arms and my face to make sure it wasn’t a trick; that I hadn’t been sucked into that picture. “It saves what we see,” Sari said. “And I can share it with the other City people.”
“Bring her into the pit, Ama,” Lila said, stepping up. “We can show her how it is down here.”
Noah didn’t move or speak. He stood still as a rock, but I saw the grumbling on his face. He didn’t like having this City person here. She came offering help, we couldn’t say we didn’t need it. Just look at us! ‘Course we did!
Lila brought Sari further into the pit and lifted her arms like it was something to see. “This here is where we all live.”
“All together?” Sari asked.
“’Cept for the younguns who stay in the nest.”
“And the Mothers,” I said. “They got their own place, a room to themselves.”
“Mothers,” Sari murmured to herself. “And the males?”
“They go to Old Father,” Kibo said, his voice big and proud. I gritted my teeth and gave him a sharp look.
“But we don’t know where that is,” I fired back. “Krux takes them and we never see them again.”
“Because they’re with Old Father,” Kibo insisted. Now wasn’t the time to be arguing, so I let it go. I’d told Kibo what I’d learned from the mothers. If he’d been there with me, maybe he’d think differently.
Sari’s face changed when she looked around, like she had a question she wasn’t sure she should ask. “Where do you cook? And eat?”
“All right here,” Lila said. Seemed kind of obvious to me.
“And sleep too,” Sari guessed looking at the sleeping mats. That’s when she turned around and really looked at all of us. I wished I knew what was going on in her head.
“What’s it like up where you live?” I asked. I was the only one brave enough to ask about the City. The rest of them just looked like their mouths were filled with rock dust.
Sari didn’t get a chance to answer because the sudden rumble under our feet made everyone hush. It wasn’t like we weren’t used to it, but every time the quaking started, we didn’t know how long it was gonna last. The younguns held onto each other or rushed to Lila. Deep down in the tunnels, there was a crack. It was just instinct that made me turn and look for Romi. There she was with a crowd of younguns, Luken included, clinging to her.
When the shaking stopped, all us Unders looked around relieved. It wasn’t much of anything to us, but Sari stood trembling. “Is that what they’re all like?” she asked.
“Worse if you’re in a tunnel,” Kibo said. “Old Father likes reminding us he’s in charge.”
She looked up at the ceiling like it might come crashing down on her. “You can’t stay here,” she said.
I glanced at Sari. She wasn’t here to hurt us; I was sure of it. What would she say when she found out we’d been working on a plan to leave the Underland all this time?
I caught Noah’s eye. A secret question passed from me to him. Should we tell her about the escape tunnel? He shook his head with a fierce look warning me to keep my mouth shut. He was never going to trust a City person.