The Gathering Darkness (8 page)

“It’s too dark.”

“Okay, I won’t leave. I’m just going to look around the well for something. Hang on.”

I stood in the middle of the well, gnawing on my bottom lip, my hands clutched against my chest, afraid he wouldn’t come back.

“I promise I won’t leave sight of the well,” he yelled out, his voice now an uncomfortable distance away.

I nodded nervously, not thinking he couldn’t see me.

An immeasurable amount of time passed as I stood there, too frightened to move again. Then the sound of Marcus’ voice filled me with relief.

“I found a fallen tree. I’m going to lower it down. It’s heavy, so watch out.”

With my eyes glued to his silhouette, I hobbled backwards until my back hit the damp rocks that made up the wall of the well.

With many grunts and some colorful words, Marcus managed to lower the tree into the well. Some of its limbs broke off, crashing around my feet, but the main part of the tree stayed whole. As he climbed down, I worried the dead wood would break under his weight and he would come crashing down, but it held.

Once his feet hit the ground beside me, I didn’t care who he was anymore; I flung my arms around his neck and held on tightly. After a brief hesitation, I felt his hands on my waist. My eyes closed, and I pressed my face into the softness of his flannel shirt, allowing myself a moment to bask in the security of his arms.

Why did being in Marcus’ arms feel so right? Not so long ago, I was on the verge of making out with his brother. Reluctantly, I tore myself out of our embrace and took a step backwards.

“Thanks,” I said, suddenly shy and embarrassed. I tried not to put any weight on my injured ankle and ended up stumbling back into his arms again as he caught me from falling.

Marcus helped lower me into a sitting position. “Is it just your ankle? Did you hurt anything else?”

I shook my head.
Just my pride
, but I wasn’t going to admit that.

Marcus surprised me by pulling a folded piece of newspaper out of his shirt pocket and a lighter from another pocket. I sat quietly amazed as he ripped the paper into shreds, gathered some sticks that had broken off the tree on its way down into the well, and made a small fire.

“Wow, I can’t believe you just happen to have a fire-starting kit on you.”

His mouth turned up at the corners, into the promise of a smile. It reminded me of the way he’d looked at me on the bus earlier.

“If I’d really been thinking, I would have brought a flashlight.”

I let out a sharp laugh. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

The glow from the small fire flickered across one half of his face, leaving the other half shadowed. I couldn’t help but stare at him as he busied himself with building a stick pyramid over the weak flame. He tilted his face toward me. I stared at the light dancing in his dark pupils, and a strange feeling came over me. A vision formed in the space between us.

A young girl with flowers in her hair and clothed in a long, frilly dress, flitted happily in and out of the trees. A handsome young man chased her playfully. Their laughter filled the air. Then without warning, the vision turned to one of horror. Out of nowhere, someone grabbed the girl and boy and dragged them through the woods. Screams replaced laughter. Their fading cries of despair tore at my heart.

Another voice in the distance pulled me out of the trance. There was a light pressure on my shoulders. Someone was shaking me. My eyes focused on Marcus. He stared at me. I blinked.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” he asked.

My mouth hung open in shock. I snapped it shut and swallowed. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“What just happened?” His hands lingered on my shoulders as if he didn’t want to let go. Their weight warmed my skin.

“I-I don’t know.” I lied. “I must have blacked out.”

“Maybe you hit your head when you fell.”

I tore my gaze away from his. “No, I’m fine, really. I didn’t hit my head.” I didn’t want to tell him about the vision. He would think I was crazy. “I’m just freaked out that’s all. Now can we get out of here, before it gets any darker?” I acted somewhat annoyed, masking my real feelings. Not even sure of what those were.

Although this was the worst situation I’d ever been in, Marcus made me feel safe. It was the oddest thing. He brought light to my darkness here and now, just as he had in my bad dreams at night. He comforted me, and I was glad now that he’d been the one who’d found me.

His arms dropped to his sides. “Can you stand?”

I nodded and tried to push myself up. After some effort, Marcus helped me. He kept an arm around my waist for support. I let him.

“Do you think you can climb?”

“Well I’m not staying down here all night.”

He reached down and lifted a long piece of wood from the fire and used it like a torch. The small, flickering flame, held high, illuminated the entire bottom of the well. I saw Marcus’ eyes rest on something behind me. I turned to look. He bent and picked the object up, turning it to catch the light.

“It’s a bone,” he said mesmerized.

My mouth fell open. It wasn’t a stick that I’d pulled out from under me. It was a piece of a skeleton. Marcus bent forward and dug the point of the bone into the soft layers of earth that made up the floor of the well. It wasn’t long before his curiosity uncovered more parts to the skeleton.

“Okay, enough,” I said horrified, staggering backwards until my back hit the rocks. The story Sammy had told me about two young lovers being murdered on Skull Island flooded my head. My good leg gave out and my knee buckled. Marcus dropped the bone and caught me before I hit the bottom of the well.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked again.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Let’s just get out of here.” I twisted out of his grip and limped toward the makeshift ladder.

I wrapped my fingers around a splintery branch. Marcus’ hand hovered protectively near the small of my back. But before I could reach the next branch, something shiny in the stone wall caught my eye. The flame from the stick glinted off its surface.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to a dark crevice in the wall between some rocks.

Marcus held the burning stick higher, and at the same time took the necessary steps to get to the object. Forgetting about the skeleton and the growing darkness, I left my perch on the tree and hobbled to the rock wall. Marcus pulled a handful of moss away, letting it fall to the ground. The object he uncovered was metal and ancient looking. A limb from the tree must have scraped some of the moss away from it on its way down, exposing it.

Marcus pulled the object from the crevice. It dangled from a long chain that had once been silver in color. The pendant was a familiar looking double spiral. Tarnished with age, only a small bit of silver shone through the patina. We both stared at the object, speechless as he turned it over in his palm, wiping away some dirt with his thumb.

As Marcus rubbed the object, the flame from the end of the stick he held shot up into the air like a blow torch, startling both of us. It flickered wildly, as if trying to tell us something. Our eyes met and then shot back to the pendant. Probably a draft, I tried telling myself—although I hadn’t felt one.

As I watched Marcus wipe away more dirt with his shirt tail, it dawned on me where I’d seen the ancient symbol before. “I know what this is,” I said pointing to the object in his hand. “I did a history project on Celtic symbols last year in school.”

Marcus lifted his gaze from the pendant to me.

“It’s a double spiral. It was used to symbolize the equinox, when day and night are equal … .” My voice trailed off, as what I’d just said sunk in.
Day and night … Day and Knight.
I truly was losing my mind.

Marcus was silent, as if considering what I’d just told him, so when he finally spoke, I jumped.

“Here, you found it. It’s yours now.”

He dropped the stick onto the dying embers and took a step closer to me. The faint scent of fabric softener from his clothing camouflaged the musty scent of wet earth that surrounded us. He worked, gently placing the chain around my neck, lifting the hair off my shoulders from under it. It felt awkward, as if he gave me a gift, but I didn’t stop him. The chain felt cold against the back of my neck, but when his fingers grazed my skin there, a warm tingly feeling replaced the cold. I felt my face flush and was glad for the darkness.

We were close enough now to kiss. Too shy to look into his eyes, I stared at the hollow in his neck, the spot where his T-shirt formed a vee. One of Marcus’ hands still held the pendant while his other smoothed the hair over my shoulder. I barely breathed as he slipped his hand out from underneath, letting the cold metal fall to my skin. The moment the double spiral touched me, a shimmer of energy like a mild electrical current shot through me, jolting me slightly. A gasp flew from me at the same time as my hand flew to the pendant. The cold metal turned warm against my skin—unnaturally warm.

The soft pressure from the hand on my shoulder turned into a tense grip. “What’s happening?” I could tell by the look on Marcus’ face, that he’d registered the shock on mine the moment the metal had touched my skin. “Take it off.”

I couldn’t bring myself to remove it. I shook my head. “No.” I felt as if the pendant had wanted me to find it, and I wasn’t giving it up so easily. Almost defiantly, I looked into the dark eyes that stared back at me. “I’m keeping it.” My hand gripped around it protectively. Marcus let go of my shoulder. I glanced at the dark hole where the pendant had come from before grabbing the tree limbs and climbing out.

It wasn’t an easy climb. Some of the limbs were slippery with moss and rotting bark, but after some effort on my part, my head emerged from the hole, only to find more darkness.

Relief came nonetheless. I pulled on roots and rocks, and clawed at the dirt until I was on my hands and knees on solid ground. I collapsed face first into the musty-smelling, but soft, moss-covered earth, panting.

Seconds later Marcus emerged behind me. I rolled out of the way and onto my back. He crawled to my side and stared down at me. My chest heaved as did his.

“Thanks for rescuing me,” I said in between pants. “I could have been down there all night.”

Marcus stared at the pendant in silence, ignoring my words. He seemed mesmerized by it. Then his gaze lifted to mine. “Come on. Let’s get away from this place.”

I didn’t like the tone of his voice. “Away from this place” implied a lot more than simply, out of here did. He sounded spooked, which made me even more spooked. I didn’t want to be anywhere near this tomb in the pitch darkness, which would be soon.

M
arcus stood, pulling me up with him. I looked down at myself, brushing away dirt and other bits of forest floor off my clothes. While I examined the rip in the knee of my jeans, I felt a hand brush lightly against the side of my face. I straightened. Marcus’ fingers were in my hair. He pulled his hand away, and in it was a dried leaf. Instinctively, I lifted my hands to my hair and began to pull my fingers through the tangles.

“Crap, I must look like … .” I struggled for the right word without sounding vulgar, “like … .”

“Like someone who’d gotten lost in the woods and had fallen into a hole and then climbed their way out?”

“Yeah.” I let out a quick embarrassed laugh. “Like that.”

Marcus grinned.

“I can’t ever remember being so dirty.”

“Because Boston’s so clean?” he teased.

“Immaculate.” It was me who grinned now. “Well there was one time last month, when a car drove by and splashed my new boots with dirty puddle water and … .”

As I babbled away nervously, a breeze blew somewhere up above, rustling the leaves in the tree tops, reminding me of the situation I was in. My mood grew serious again. “Did you bring the extra newspaper you didn’t use? You never know if we might need it again.” I laughed at the irony.

“Yeah,” he said patting his shirt pocket.

An awkward moment passed as I balanced on one foot, wondering how I was going to put pressure on the injured one to walk.

As if Marcus had read my mind, he said, “You won’t be able to walk on that ankle.” He turned his back to me and crouched. “Here, get on.”

I climbed onto his back, and for a second didn’t know what to do with my arms. But when he reached down and grabbed my legs, being careful with my injured one, I wrapped my arms around him, clasping my hands together at the front. I felt my heart beat against his back and wondered if he could feel it—how embarrassing.

As we bounced along through the forest, dark wisps of his hair tickled my face, but I didn’t complain. Marcus smelled good, too. Not perfumed or fruity, but fresh like the outdoors. Like laundry hung outside on a cool day, lightly scented with smoke from the campfire we’d left behind on the beach. I found myself savoring every moment of my piggy-back ride.

“How long did it take you to find me?” I wondered out loud.

“About an hour, but I walked really fast … ran at times.”

“You were running through the woods to find me?”

“Ah, yeah, well I only had a couple hours before dark, and when I didn’t find you right away I hurried.”