The Doorway and the Deep (42 page)

Despite the chaos surrounding them, despite the ongoing roar of the world gorge expanding, Oliver said the words softly, like he might if he and Lottie were sitting together in a quiet park. “Lottie,
no
.”

“It doesn't matter!” she yelled at him. “I can heal myself. Oliver, just
grab hold
.”

Oliver shook his head.

Lottie lunged forward. She wrapped both her hands around Oliver's wrist.

“Don't!” Oliver said. “Let go, Lottie. I'll—”

“If you won't grab me, I'll grab you!” she shouted. “But it'd make things a lot easier if you just held my hand.”

“I
can't
.” Oliver's voice was broken.

But even as he said it, Lottie slipped one hand through his, threading their fingers and locking them tight. The pain was instantaneous. It was an overwhelming, unrelenting burning that felt like Lottie had stuck her hand into a roaring fire. A green pigment washed up her fingers, her knuckles, her wrist. Still, Lottie held tight. She didn't cry out. She gritted her teeth and worked up the will to say, “Give me your other hand!”

This time, Oliver did not argue. He swung his hand up, and Lottie caught hold. The pain doubled, searing through her skin and coloring her other hand deep blue.

“It's okay,” she gasped out. “We've got you now.” Then she called back to Adelaide and Eliot, “Pull us up!”

She felt a jolt on both legs. Her stomach dragged across the ground, and Oliver rose from the gorge by a foot. His hands and Lottie's now rested in the sand.

“Good!” she said. “Nearly there. Just—”

The awful booming sound came again. The ground rumbled. A great crash echoed from somewhere nearby. The earth Oliver was resting on crumbled.

Lottie screamed. She lost her grip on Oliver's left hand. A heavy weight pulled on her arm. Hot wind blasted into her face. She could no longer feel solid earth beneath her. She was falling into the darkness below.

She heard Eliot's scream very near her ear. Adelaide's shrieks came after, though higher up, at the surface. All was shouts and warm air and the rush of silver.

Then, all was darkness.

Then . . .

A light in the darkness.

And a voice that said, “My,
my
. Visitors.”

“As 't were a spur upon the soul, / A fear will urge it where / To go without the spectre's aid” (Emily Dickinson, “I Lived on Dread”)

“Home-keeping hearts are happiest, / For those that wander they know not where / Are full of trouble and full of care;” (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Song”)

“I am the master of my fate, / I am the captain of my soul.” (William Ernest Henley, “Invictus”)

“I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, / Hoping to cease not till death.” (Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”)

“What though on hamely fare we dine, / Wear hoddin grey, an' a' that; / Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine; / A Man's a Man for a' that: / For a' that, and a' that, / Their tinsel show, an' a' that; / The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor, / Is king o' men for a' that.” (Robert Burns, “A Man's A Man For A' That”)

“God help me! save I take my part / Of danger on the roaring sea, / A devil rises in my heart, / Far worse than any death to me.” (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Sailor Boy”)

“Yet, love and hate me too; / So, these extremes shall neither's office do;” (John Donne, “The Prohibition”)

“Slow, slow as the winter snow / The tears have drifted to mine eyes;” (Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Change upon Change”)

“This told, I joy; but then no longer glad, / I send them back again and straight grow sad.” (William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 45”)

“Two sturdy oaks I mean, which side by side, / Withstand the winter's storm, / And spite of wind and tide, / Grow up the meadow's pride, / For both are strong.” (Henry David Thoreau, “Friendship”)

“Exultation is the going / Of an inland soul to sea, / Past the houses—past the headlands— / Into deep Eternity! / Bred as we, among the mountains, / Can the sailor understand / The divine intoxication / Of the first league out from land?” (Emily Dickinson, “Exultation Is the Going”)

“So wrap up care in a cobweb / and drop it down the well / into that world inverted / where left is always right, / where the shadows are really the body, / where we stay awake all night,” (Elizabeth Bishop, “Insomnia”)

K. E. ORMSBEE
lives in Lexington, Kentucky. She lived in lots of equally fascinating cities before then, from Austin to Birmingham to London to Seville. She grew up with a secret garden in her backyard and a spaceship in her basement.