Chapter Fourteen

I went back into the cave and looked around, trying to see exactly what my situation was. There was nothing I could use, but I discovered that people had been in the cave. I found a torch that was long ago blackened by fire and I saw bullet casings littered here and there along the floor. I bent down to look at the spent bullets, trying to determine if perhaps there was a year or some other identifier etched upon them. It was right then, as I was reaching down, that I heard cries. They were coming from somewhere inside the cave, and they were high-pitched pleading noises that came one on top of another.

I moved toward the sound, trying to locate it. Perhaps it was a trick of the ear, maybe of the wind angling just right into the cave. But the longer I listened the more certain I became. I walked to the back wall, which seemed sheer to the ceiling, and waited. When cries came again, I hurried to the spot they originated from and could just barely make out another opening. What a strange cave this was.

It was not hard to climb; there were large flakes and bumps on the wall that I put my hands and feet on. I climbed to the top and then I learned how deep the cave really was. The opening was another cave, of sorts, and on my hands and knees I was able to traverse across it. I could still hear the sounds—birds, or small animals perhaps. When the floor began to slope downward and the sunlight from the mouth of the cave disappeared, I grew a bit scared and used small, shuffling steps to move ahead. The cries had stopped, and there were only the sounds of my movement echoing out into the darkness.

I moved still upward, and then the darkness morphed into a dull shade of gray and I knew for certain that there was another way out. Eventually I could see a faint yellow column of light and I made my way toward it. The space opened up to a cavern, completely covered with only one small hole in the roof, all the way at the edge of the cavern, and I could see blue sky above.

I shrieked with joy and ran toward it. The wall was very steep, and unlike before, where I could use the face of the rock to climb, here the face was smooth as glass. A small squeak sounded out, and I looked at the base of the wall to see at the base of it a litter of silver-gray puppies.

There were four of them. Three were silver and one was the color of coffee with cream. They heard my movements and turned toward me, their eyes shut and mouths open, so trusting and expectant. I picked up the cream one. It was a girl and her belly was round and fat, her fur sleek and soft as butter.

She mewled and squirmed, making jerky movements, and I hugged her. She was a ball of warmth on my skin. I gave her a kiss on the head and tucked her in with her mates.

Then I turned to the wall and tried to climb. I tried until my fingers bled, until my legs shook with the effort of trying to shimmy up the corners. Then, I began to yell, to scream at the top of my lungs, but then stopped when my throat began to hurt and I realized that I had no water.

It was useless. I slid to the ground and took a spot beside the puppies and watched the small hole in the rock above me, as the clouds raced by. I picked up the cream puppy again, and nestled her next to me, and waited for Maxie to return to her pups.

Soon enough, I slept again, and was surprised to be woken by Maxie licking my face and thumping me with her tail. “Maxie!” I cried, and threw my arms around her. She jumped all over me, wiggling and squirming and licking my hands, and then she walked over to her pups and turned back to me, and I thought I detected a touch of motherly pride in her actions.

“They’re beautiful Maxie,” I told her. “You did a great job. You really did.”

To see Maxie, full of life and happiness, licking her puppies and nursing them—it opened up a hole in my heart that was agony. For the first time I broke down and sobbed. They were wracking, heaving sobs and when I was finally reduced to hiccups, my eyes were dry. My thoughts were dark, and I wondered again if I should have stepped off the cliff. But no, then Lucas would have the familiar pain of a loved one lost forever, never counted among the living or the dead. Just lost, and I couldn’t do that to him. I had to try to get out. I sat sniffling in my own misery, when in the far, shadowed corner of the cavern, something white caught my eye. I stood and went to it.

They were bones. Human bones. Covered in the tatters of what had once been a red dress. A ruby necklace stretched around the skeleton’s neck. Jewels lay scattered around her.

I stood for a long moment, before I knelt down and touched my finger lightly, respectfully to the finger of the skeleton. “I have found you, Celeste.” Then, all of a sudden, tears rolled down my face again and I began to talk to her. “I’m so sorry,” I told her. “I wanted so badly to be like you. Lucas loved you so much. But the house of glass got ahold of you, didn’t it? It got in the way.” I hung my head and couldn’t look at her, as the shame of my actions settled in. “For me, too.

“Lucas looked for you every night. For years and years he looked for you, and he heard you, didn’t he? That’s why he was so haunted by you—he knew you were out there, crying out for help. His worst fear was that you suffered.” I looked at her, at the position of her body, curled up in a ball. “I see you did suffer, and I’m so sorry for it.” My throat grew tight and it was hard to talk. “I hope that you found some peace at the end, and now—” I took a deep shuddering breath realizing a certain truth “—I will join you…”

I didn’t mean to sound angry, but I could hear the sharpness of my voice echo in the cave. How strange it was that Celeste wanted riches and jewels, and I wanted Lucas, but both of us wanted the house. And now we would die in the same hollow cave. “I’m the one who will suffer now,” I said. “But, I deserve it, don’t I? Becoming so obsessed? I was so afraid and I wanted him to love me and the one time I felt sure of myself was in the house. The only thing I wanted more than his love was to be in that house, where nothing mattered but him. I’m so sorry, Celeste. I hope you can forgive me.”

The cave was quiet when I left Celeste alone in the shadows. I made a promise to myself, that if I wasn’t found, I would not call out to Lucas. I didn’t want him to suffer the same tragedy yet again.

I sat down again, and I was strangely comforted to know that Celeste was there, that perhaps she watched over me. All the crying had dried out my throat. I was so thirsty; the skin on my lips had already begun to crack.

Maxie walked toward me, and it reminded me of the time that Lucas had asked me to marry him, when the leather strap dangled from her neck, strung with a yellow diamond.

The necklace.

Maxie.

I could put the necklace around her neck, stringing my diamond ring next to the shell. Maybe, just maybe, if Maxie went to the house and begged for food, someone would notice and with a little luck, be clever and follow her back here.

“Maxie, come here,” I was so excited that I could barely speak. It took my scraped and injured fingers several tries before I undid the knot. I wound the strap around her neck and then pulled my ring from my finger and threaded the strand through it and when I knotted the necklace together a new, small hope was born inside me.

It wasn’t until late that I saw Maxie leave the cave. By the light of the moon I saw how she did it, jumping onto the tiniest ridge, all the way on the opposing wall, and then halfway again she landed on another flake, and then like magic, she jumped out of the hole.

I woke later with Maxie licking my face. When I opened my eyes, I saw a beam of light sweeping the cavern from the hole above. A man’s voice called down.

“Reyna? Are you in here?” It was Lucas.

“Lucas.” I whispered. “I’m here!” I yelled, my voice sounded strange and high-pitched, panicked.

I heard a commotion above, a lot of yelling and short bursts of noise. A rope was lowered and right before it hit the ground I ran to it and was hugging Lucas before he could even stand up. He dropped to the ground and hugged me, and I clamped myself to him, sobbing into his chest, until I could barely even breathe.

He lifted my hand and held it tight. There was something between our palms, and I knew exactly what it was. I sobbed anew, and he let me, but not before he whispered into my ear the words that I will cherish forever.

“I remember,” he said.

Eventually, I quieted, and Lucas tied the necklace around my neck.

He covered me in his jacket, and lifted me into his arms, and just like when I first met him, he carried me up and away from danger.