New Birds

The Lake Part 27

Samantha led. He followed. The land dropped off substantially behind the aviary, but there was a narrow path, a groove between the taller rocks. It was still a rather steep descent, and he watched as Samantha grabbed at indentations in the stones on either side of her to keep herself from sliding. When she came to a fork, she looked back at him.

He shrugged, unable to offer a direction.

She first went right, but it only led them to an impassable sheet of sloping rock. Marshall tossed a large pebble out onto the flat rock and watched as it rolled, picking up speed, until it hit open air and disappeared down the side of the mountain.

"Not that way." Samantha laughed. They turned and went back to the fork to take the other path, which finally led them to an opening in the mountainside.

"I think this is it," she said.

"Want me to go first?" he asked, looking over her shoulder and down a narrow tunnel. Apparently not, for she ducked her head and entered. It was a bit of a tight squeeze. He bent as he scuttled after her, his head sometimes encountering the occasional drop in the stone ceiling. It wasn't much of a tunnel, however, and on the other side of it was a huge cavern. Samantha stepped aside to give him room to stand next to her on the lip of rock that protruded about three feet above the cave's floor. A wide dark pool of water took up most of the cavern. The spacious cave extended another thirty feet above them and was lit by thin streams of light, entering from several small openings in the walls above them. Rows of stalactites hung from the ceiling like ribs from some ancient beast.

"Wow, it's huge." She hopped down and walked across a smooth patchwork of grey and white stones to squat near the water and gently touch its surface. Her cast, which she had removed just the day previously, had left a slight bluish tinge to her wrist. She submerged her cupped hands and brought them up, letting the water seep back to the pool between her fingers.

He squatted beside her, his elbows resting on his knees. She ran a wet hand over his wrist. Its coldness startled him.

He dipped a single finger in and swirled it about. "This is the water that led me and Marshall E here. Did you know about it?"

She shook her head. "I was just trying to get far away from Kelly."

"I keep thinking that if only I'd left Marshall E back in Smoke Junction, while I fetched this water for him. Or if I only gave him more time to rest."

"You can't think like that," she said. "And I know, I shouldn't keep comparing our situations, but I felt better whenever my connection with Kelly was cut off. Whenever she went away. You never got to test that. Your brothers were always with you. Do you think it's possible that it was Marshall E's death that saved you and not the water?"

"No, we definitely got better on Tilly's soup," he said. "The second jar we rationed but it kept us well too, even the small amounts we took from it."

"How well?" she asked. "Like how you feel now?"

"No, but I eat well now and drink this water daily. After leaving the safe house we had to travel very far with very little." He looked out across the water. "But there was something I felt at the time of his passing."

"What?"

He shrugged, not wanting to say the word euphoria. But a brief feeling of euphoria had passed through him as he drank from the jug Tilly had first handed him. The feeling had most likely coincided with his brother's death, for it was a similar feeling that followed each of his brothers' death. It was there and gone to be replaced with emotional grief. Maybe euphoria wasn't the right word. It felt more like a strong peaceful connection to something just out of his reach. It may have belonged to his brothers as they passed over. But he wasn't entirely sure for it was difficult back then to separate his thoughts at times from theirs. He still questioned if this feeling might have been a brief acknowledgement of something he wasn't yet entitled too, or just the feeling of suddenly being granted more space in his own head? He never did feel ill again, though. Since arriving here. Since Marshall E died.