CHAPTER 23

 

THE MORNING PASSES much like yesterday—a difficult, boring hike through a series of dim, narrow pathways littered with loose stones which must be stepped on or over very carefully. I keep reminding myself that boring beats most of the alternatives in a place like this, and I make sure to enjoy and appreciate the brief chances I get to walk beside Kai when a crevice widens enough to permit it.

As before, determining the passage of time is difficult during our almost subterranean journey, but the muscles in my thighs are telling me we’ve walked for several hours so far without a break. That’s okay, though, because every step is bringing us closer to our goal, which Kai has promised we’ll reach sometime later today—barring any delay.

When Kai stops short just a few moments later, I silently curse myself for thinking about delays. Looking over his shoulder, I see the reason he’s halted.

The rift we’ve been following for the last half hour is at least twenty feet deep here, and a section of the wall has collapsed, filling the passage almost to the top with an enormous pile of loose rock. The jumbled mass of stone looks much too unstable to try to climb over, and it’s far too large to dig our way past.

I glance quickly to my right and to my left. The walls of the crevice appear too steep to climb. Our only choice seems to be to turn around and retrace our steps until we find a new passage or a way up and out of this one. I know I didn’t cause this delay by merely thinking about it, but that’s how it feels.

Dad squeezes past me so he can talk to Kai. My friends have all pushed closer, wanting to see why stopped.

“It doesn’t look like we can get past that,” Dad says. “Do we need to turn around?”

Kai is studying the wall of the rift. “Not yet,” he says. “Does one of you still have that rope?”

Dad nods. “Yeah. Jordy’s got it in his pack.” He follows Kai’s gaze up the rocky wall. “I don’t see anything to hook it onto, though.”

Kai grins. “Neither do I.”

He bends his legs and leaps upward. His powerful jump carries him nearly to the top of the wall, and he scrabbles up the remaining few feet so quickly he looks like a squirrel running up the trunk of a tree. He hooks his arms over the top, hanging there still mostly out of sight while he surveys the landscape up above.

“All clear,” he calls down to us before easily hoisting himself up onto his feet. “Toss me the rope.”

Jordy reaches into his pack and takes out the blue nylon rope the Marines and my friends used to cross the broken bridge where Kai had saved me from the two-headed cyclops. The rope is coiled, so he holds onto the loose end and tosses the rest up to Kai, who catches it with one hand. Kai keeps enough length to maintain a good grip on and lets the rest fall back down.

“Up you go, Jordy,” Dad orders. “Watch Kai’s back for him.”

“Yes, sir,” Jordy replies.

He slings his rifle over his shoulder and quickly hauls himself up the rope. Kai has nothing to brace himself against, but with his immense strength, he doesn’t need to. He handles Jordy’s weight with no apparent stress.

“Leah’s next,” Dad says, “then Radar and then I’ll go. The rest of you Miracles follow. Sergeant Moss and Raj will be last. Move quickly, people. We don’t want to be exposed topside any longer than need be.”

I begin climbing the rope hand over hand, but Kai has other ideas, pulling up the rope and me with it. I reach the top in no time at all. Kai grabs my wrist and hauls me up over the edge, depositing me gently on my feet a step away from the edge. He turns immediately back to the narrow cleft and repeats the process with Radar.

Now that I’m standing in the middle of it, the landscape seems even more rough and jumbled than it looked from the edge of the woods. I can’t see more than a couple of hundred feet in any direction before my view is blocked by a giant boulder or upturned section of ground. The wisdom of traveling in the rifts is doubly apparent now. Not only do they provide us with good cover, but trying to cross this terrain in anything even resembling a straight line would be impossible. The countless obstacles provide good hiding places for predators, too. I join Jordy in keeping a close eye behind Kai as the rest of my companions take their turns getting hauled out of the fissure.

In just a few minutes, we’re all gathered on top. Kai coils the rope and loops it over his shoulder.

He wastes no time leading us along the edge of the rift, glancing down repeatedly to see when we might have cleared the landslide that forced us out into the open. We follow in pairs, with my dad and I right behind Kai. Piles of rock sometimes force us away from the crevice, but we always return to it as soon as possible.

Finally, Kai stops. I move up beside him and look down. The rift is clear for traveling again.

Kai looks at his brother and nods. Raj immediately jumps down into the dimness.

“All clear,” he calls up after a moment from out of the shadows.

Kai drops the end of the rope down over the edge. He lowers us into the dimness one by one, in pretty much the reverse order of the way we climbed up. When we’re all at the bottom he leaps down, landing beside me with scarcely a thud. He hands the rope to Jordy, who quickly coils it up and stuffs it back into his pack.

I’m very happy to be back down here hidden in the shadows—I felt much more exposed and vulnerable up on top. Even so, I still hope we leave this land of gashes and upheavals sooner rather than later.

I get my wish much sooner than I expected. Less than half an hour after we roped back down into the depths of the rift, the rocky floor begins rising steeply upward, carrying us back up to the surface.

The view that meets our eyes as we emerge from the crevice is totally unexpected. Just a few yards in front of us stands the edge of lush green forest, stretching away in both directions as far as we can see.

Unconsciously, I rub my eyes in disbelief. Though the trees are not all that tall, the thickness of their foliage and the denseness of the undergrowth rival any of the great rainforests and jungles on earth. To find such a forest here on this barren world is almost inconceivable.

“The place we seek lies on the other side of this wood,” Kai tells us. “Fortunately, it’s not all that wide.”

My dad steps forward, up to the very edge of the forest. He looks like he wants to touch some of the tangled brush, but he knows better than to do so without an okay from Kai or Raj.

“It may not be all that wide,” he says, “but how are we supposed to get through it? It looks pretty much impassible.”

Dad is right. Even with machetes and swords, I don’t think we could cut our way through any faster than a few yards an hour. Maybe I could burn a path through, but doing so seems almost sacrilegious. I doubt that’s what Kai has in mind.

“It is impassible,” Kai says. “At least, it is without help.”

I look around. I don’t see any help.

A loud rustling arises from the underbrush. I can’t believe anything could be bulling its way through that tangled mass of limbs and leaves, but that’s what it sounds like. Whatever it is, it must be gigantic.

I glance at Kai. He doesn’t seem concerned, so I hold my ground.

Slowly, the branches and leaves directly in front of us begin to bend to either side, creating a path into the forest. There’s no sign of anyone or anything who might have opened the pathway, so that leaves only one explanation I can think of—magic.

“Looks like that help you mentioned is here, Kai,” Radar says, staring down the empty path.

“You won’t see anything,” Kai tells her. “But you’re right—this is for us.”

“Is it safe?” Plush asks.

Kai smiles. “Safer than any other place in my world,” he replies. “You can all relax a bit. Nothing will threaten us in there.” He steps into the passageway, then looks back over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

We follow him into the forest. It’s pretty dim under the thick canopy of leaves, but compared to the deep shadows at the bottom of the crevices, it’s almost like broad daylight. The branches above us seem to have bent aside slightly, allowing some daylight to filter down to us.

It’s an eerie feeling walking along this narrow path, bordered as it is by impenetrable undergrowth on both sides. The plants all seem identical, so there’s no real sense of progress because the view to either side never changes. The hard ground beneath our feet is equally unmarked.

All of this messes with my sense of time. Whether we’ve been walking through these woods for thirty minutes or two hours, I can’t tell. It’s really pretty disorienting.

I keep thinking I see tiny flashes of red light out of the corners of my eyes, but whenever I turn, there’s nothing there. I consider asking if anyone else has seen them, but I decide against it. Kai said we’d be safe in here, so if the lights are indeed there, I doubt they’re anything dangerous.

Finally, I see open space in front of Kai.

“We’re here,” he announces.

As we emerge from the magical forest, I almost can’t believe the sight that meets my eyes. Standing close by the edge of the trees and seemingly waiting for us is a beautiful white centaur. That the centaur is a woman is not what surprises me, nor am I overly startled by the dozens of tiny faeries hovering in the air nearby, their auras glowing in various shades of red that explain the red lights I’ve been seeing. I’ve grown used to all kinds of magical beings from this world, from mermaids to gorgons to two-headed cyclops to fire-breathing lava dragons. No, what really has my eyes wide with surprise is the very attractive but otherwise ordinary looking young couple standing beside the centaur—a couple who look as if they just stepped out of OUR world!