Hidden in the Heartwood {sapphic paranormal}

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

13. || dark as a dungeon.

Silence filled the vent shaft as River sat atop its edge, picking at the cuff of their flannel and waiting to hear something from the woman; maybe a gasp, a laugh of disbelief, some kinda anger, anything. But only the jingle of the harness clips echoed up from the hollow void.

"Boots?" River called out into the dark, squinting to find the red glow of the flare below. It flickered like a dying ember in the distance. "That ol' afterdamp ain't gettin' to ya, is it?"

The wet crunch of her boots along the floor of the mine faded, but her voice finally rang out, "I'll be quick," as the thud of the vent door closed.

It wasn't any sort of acknowledgement, but at least it was a response. And maybe that meant they hadn't completely spooked her and messed everything up; everything being Vera's plan first and foremost because getting this cursed woman to the hemlock on the Cold Moon was the ultimate goal.

And Vera always knew what she was doing whether River liked it or not. She had, afterall, convinced the preacher to burn her in the old forest, forever souring the land both above and below. Not even when the hill was stripped did they find anything of worth, just pure rubble and waste still as it was today. Ever vengeful, Vera made damn sure that if she was going up in flames, then her husband's land, rich in timber and minerals would too.

With a sigh, River leaned back and started looking around the shed to see if Jedidiah McAfoos had anything that needed borrowed. Mostly rusted junk, oil cans, some sheets of ribbed metal. But the door to the outside was tempting them something awful because what use could that gas fracking company find in land scorched by a witchy woman if they weren't drilling?

River had barely begun unfastening their climbing harness to go investigate, when a piercing shriek tore up through the vent shaft.

"Boots! What happened?" River hollered, then held their breath to listen, peering down over the edge. Their pulse thumped loud in their ears as they strained to see the flare where she had left it, cursing themself for letting her go down alone. They had their reasons of course, but what good was stubborn remorse a hundred years later? "I swear, if ya make me come down there just 'cause a damn rat ran across your toe..."

"River, hurry," she pleaded, voice distant.

Readjusting the abseil line, River clipped themself to and made quick work of the descent with their dim little lantern, leaving a hundred years worth of bull-headed guilt back at the surface with their rifle.

As their boots touched the floor of the mine, fumes of dead organic matter not meant to ever meet the god-given air, burnt their nose with a tickle. Metallic and damp, its caustic vapor clung to their tongue as they tried in vain to swallow it down, but it lingered like a love gone sour and nothing could rid them of her taste. Except maybe a sip of moonshine, and of course that had ended up with the strange, cursed woman.

River unhooked themself from the line and detached the lantern, holding it up to the remnants of the vent door that led to the heart of the mine. Familiar chicken scratch scrawled out lesson poems across what wooden slats hadn't been reduced to splinters and dust. Even a hundred years later and three hundred feet above, River's handwriting had never got much better. Grabbing a slat from the black wet ground, they used it to prop open the door and hoped it wasn't so rotten that it'd collapse on itself. With the rest of the mine sealed off, they'd need every bit of air flow.

River wasted no time finding the main gangway where the woman had dropped a flare every hundred feet or so. She was smart, they'd give her that. And following her flares took far less time than sweeping every coal room and chamber that split off the gangway. But the deeper River ventured, the tighter their chest got because breathing was hard enough down there, but more than that, they could feel the depths of the mountain stirring, same as they could the day of the explosion.