Secrets in the Dark (32 page)

He threw the end of the
rope down. It looked like a snake slithering down the side of the
rock until it coiled up loosely on the floor. “Kat, why don’t you
tie your backpack and mine on the end of the rope. I’ll pull them
up. That’ll make it easier for you.”

“
Fine,” I told him, then
stopped. My stomach started to churn. “Wait! How are we going to
get all of our familiars up there? Only two of them can
fly.”

“
Oh no!” Faith bit her lip
and looked around for Foxy. When I saw the puzzled look on her
face, I looked around too. My gasp had all of them looking. There
was no sign of Shadow, Rusty or Foxy.

“
I guess that means
they’ll take care of themselves,” Faith said, and gave a shaky
laugh.

Brady made short work of
pulling the backpacks up, and then threw the rope back down. Doug
climbed the rope quickly. He made it look so easy.

Then it was my turn. My
muscles felt tight and my pulse was pounding in my ears. I wasn’t
sure if that was from the exertion of hauling myself up that rope,
or irritation. I had no idea climbing a rope could be so
hard.

I made the mistake of
looking down when I neared the top. It looked a
lot
further down from up here. I
suddenly had a terrifying picture in my head of slipping and
smashing onto the cave floor.

It felt so good to pull
myself into the small opening at the top. I threw myself flat on
the ground, feeling a warm sense of relief radiating into my
fingers and toes. “I’m not so sure I like rock climbing,” I
muttered. Brady only laughed.

Rock climbing
nerd!

One at a time, the others
grabbed the rope and hoisted themselves up the twenty-five feet to
the top of the cave. They squeezed past Brady, working their way
further into the narrow passage.

Brady and I were the only
ones watching when Olivia, ignoring the rope the rest had used,
chose to try her luck climbing up the rock like Brady. When she got
to the top, she pulled herself in, saying, “That was so
cool!”

Brady looked at her and
grinned, “Right? There’s a rock-climbing wall at my dad’s gym. I’m
going to start using it.”

They were both so
enthusiastic over the climb, they’d forgotten what we were doing
here. I cleared my throat, noisily. They both acted startled, then
out of habit, Brady checked the map. He froze. “They’re coming
back!”

Doug hissed, “Don’t forget
to pull up the rope. We don’t want Rejects climbing up after
us.”

“
Heck no,” Olivia blurted,
loudly, then slapped her hands over her mouth in dismay.

Chapter 34

Where in the…

“
Quiet,” Brady hissed. I
realized he’d been checking the map. “They’re right outside. We
need to cover up our light.”

“
Oh, please don’t,” Faith
begged in a strained whisper. “It’ll be completely black in
here.”

Brady’s whisper was so
quiet I could hardly hear it. “You better get real comfortable real
quick, ‘cause the light’s out in five, four, three, two,
one.”

Over sounds of rustling
and whispered complaints, the strange neon glow from the berries
was hidden from view. Faith had been right. It was
completely
black up
here.

I moved my hand until my
palm was
touching the end of my nose and
wiggled my fingers. I couldn’t see a hint of it.

At least we’re safe from
the Rejects up here.

Then Polly’s voice grew
closer. “I saw a flash of light over there.” She sounded very short
of breath.

Ray said impatiently, “I
didn’t see any light. And we already checked that place. There’s
nothing there.”

A pale flickering glow
spread below us. It looked as though one of them had raised a light
above their head and was turning it this way and that. I hoped it
wouldn’t show our hiding space. I didn’t
even
want to think about the Rejects
climbing into this place after us.

Ray bit off each word,
impatiently. “See, there’s nothing there.”

I clapped my hand to my
mouth to stifle a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, that relief
was
short-lived.

“
Wait,” Andrew said.
“There’s a backpack on the floor.”

I felt Olivia jerk against
me, and realized she hadn’t been wearing it when she climbed the
cave wall.

“
Well, well,” said Ray.
“Look what we have here. A red sweater…”

“
Ooh,” interrupted Polly,
sounding excited and malicious. “
Someone’s
gonna get really
cold.”

Ray spoke loudly over
anything else she might have said, “…and there’s a
sandwich…”

“
She’s gonna get
really
hungry,” Polly
sounded gleeful.

Ray’s voice was loud. I
couldn’t hear Polly as he spoke over her. “There’s a bottle of
water and a lighter. See Polly, you couldn’t have seen a light in
here. They don’t have their lighter.” I heard him shake the
backpack violently, then drop it to the cave floor. “That’s it.
It’s all junk. So where
are
they?”

Andrew said, “They must’ve
gone in another part of the cave and left the pack here. We came
back really fast, Ray. Polly’s not the only one who saw a light in
here. And if they’re here we’ve got them trapped.”

“
If they’re here, they’re
gonna give us some answers! Come on, let’s find them.”

Ray led the others away,
snarling that they’d better not be wasting his time.

Doug whispered, “We should
crawl further down the tunnel.”

Crawling was
right.

The tunnel was
low and narrow, and it wasn’t easy moving through
that small space without any light. It would have been easier if it
went straight ahead, but it curved around every which way, and made
me nervous. What if the tunnel split and we missed an important
turn? It was so dark, we’d never know. I finally relaxed when I
realized the tunnel didn’t seem to have side passages.

I’d been afraid we’d have
to crawl over rocks, but there was a thick layer of dirt on the
tunnel floor. I suppose it wasn’t quite as hard as rock would be.
At least there didn’t seem to be any pebbles — that would be bad!
Once I got over worrying about side tunnels, I could move pretty
fast as long as I stayed on my hands and knees.

At one point, Brady quietly
asked for the bag of berries. He blocked most of the light with his
fingers, shining a thin greenish beam on the map. “They’re checking
tunnel two.”

“
Okay, let’s move,” Doug
said.

We crawled quite a way then
the pressure in my ears changed. I cautiously reached out my hand,
and couldn’t feel the side of the tunnel — it had opened up around
us.

Doug whispered to hold the
foot of the person in front so we didn’t get lost. It was harder to
crawl that way, but I liked knowing where the others were. I felt
totally disoriented.

Were we even going in a
straight line?

There was no way to see
what happened in the darkness, but Doug suddenly let out a thin
cry. There was a sound of something sliding. I could hear his arms
scrabbling over the floor for a moment, and then he stopped
sliding.

Doug’s whisper sounded
strained. “Thanks for not letting go, Faith. Pass the
light-berries. I have to see how far down the next part goes.”
Slowly, hand to hand we passed the baggie, trying to keep the light
hidden. Doug held it cupped tightly in his fingers so only a little
light could escape.

He heaved a sigh of relief.
“It’s only a three foot drop. There’s another cave down there. Just
put your arms in front of you and slide down.”

One at a time, we slid down
to the floor of the next cave.

“
We can’t explore this
cave with them out there,” I whispered in disappointment. “They
might see the light and come after us. We’ll have to wait until we
know they’re gone.”

“
I’m not staying here
until they decide to go.” Faith hissed in protest.

Olivia said, “We need to
find the other way out. I can’t be late tonight. Mom threatened to
ground me for a month if I’m late anymore.”

“
Pass me back the bag,”
Brady said. Like Doug, he cupped his hand over the light, letting
only a bit escape between his fingers. He directed it on the map
and scanned it carefully. “I tried a bit of magic.”

He made a face and shook
his head, gazing in amazement at the map. “I don’t believe it.
There has to be a scientific principle to explain this!”

“
What did you do?” I could
feel my eyebrows climbing up my forehead.

“
I drew part of the cave
on the map, then wished the rest of the cave would show up. It
worked.”

I almost laughed at the
astonishment in his voice. “I wish we could see us on that map. You
know, like we can see the Rejects. It would be nice to know
where
we
are.”

Brady gave a sharp whistle
of surprise, which echoed around the cave. Faith and Olivia hushed
him and we all stared, wondering what was up.

Brady simply held out the
map. There, in the one of the caves that Brady had wished onto the
map, five small green dots had appeared.

“
How’d you do that?”
Olivia asked blankly.

I answered slowly, “I just
wished for it. I never actually thought it would work. Ronny was
right, we’d better be careful what we wish in here. Maybe we should
think how else we can use that map.

Brady said, “Well for one
thing, we can use it to get out of here.” After a moment of study
he said, “There’s a tunnel on the right side of this cave. We need
to take it.”

He pointed along the cave
wall with the thin beam of light and the shadow of what could be an
opening was visible about twenty feet away. He held the berries
carefully, aiming them as if they were a flashlight. We got to our
feet and carefully made our way across the rough cave floor. In
here, broken rocks and strange dips and bumps covered the cave
floor. The others were all stumbling in the dim light, but I found
the way strangely easy.

We’d just entered the new
passage, which was even lower than the last one, when Brady tripped
and fell. The bag hit the floor and he landed on top of it hard.
The light died like someone had flipped off a switch. There was a
loud squishing sound. I heard him move, but the light didn’t show
up. For a long moment, no one said anything. The darkness was so
thick, it felt like it was going to smother me.

Brady’s guilty voice came
out of the dark. “The good news is, I looked at the way out very
carefully. This passage only goes one way, so we can’t get lost.
The bad news is I forgot to bring a lighter and the one Olivia
brought is wherever the Rejects left it. We can’t light any of the
candles, so we’re back to crawling.”

“
Why do we have to crawl
again?” Olivia sounded offended.

“
Maps don’t show where the
tunnel gets low.
You
don’t have to crawl, but I don’t want to hit my
head.”

“
Oh, right,” Olivia’s
voice was subdued now. She grumbled, “I totally hate how nothing
electrical or digital or battery operated works in this
place.”

“
Yeah, you’ve said that
before,” Doug said. His voice sounded all
I-really-hope-you-never-say–it-again. Olivia fell
silent.

The passage seemed to go
straight for a long way and the cool air of the cave was starting
to soak down through my skin into my muscles. I began to shiver and
hoped the others couldn’t hear my teeth chattering. They might
think I was afraid. How embarrassing.

Suddenly, there was a dull
thud and Doug gave an undignified yelp. I hoped we were far enough
away that Ray couldn’t hear us. Doug sounded like his teeth were
clenched together tightly. “The tunnel takes a sudden right turn.
Watch it.”

One by one, we carefully
crawled around the turn. I felt the tunnel began to slope
downwards, slowly at first, then more steeply. We hadn’t gone far
when I sensed this tunnel open into a larger space.

“
Where do we go from
here?” I asked, worried.

Brady said, “I wish
Fangface could help.”

The whirring of wings and
the strange high-pitched squeaks that announced Fangface were a
welcome relief. Brady’s voice was so high with excitement, he
sounded a lot like the bat. “He can lead us out. Follow
him.”

“
How?” Faith said. She
sounded confused. I didn’t blame her. “We can’t see
him.”

“
Listen
to him.” Brady didn’t actually say ‘duh’ but you
could hear it anyway.

We followed the tiny
squeaks as quickly as possible. I found it more difficult than I
expected – the sound was quiet and bounced off the cave walls,
making it hard to tell the direction it came from. Finally, I felt
walls close around me and knew we’d entered another narrow
tunnel.