Omega

Chapter 8

The first day of spring semester, I woke while it was still dark outside, hours before my alarm clock went off. Lying there in the dark, I thought of the conversation I'd had with my mother the night before, and I wondered how she managed to be so emotionally detached. All through dinner my stomach had been in knots as I fought to be civil through all the secrets she kept. 

For the first time in my life, I began to wonder if she really loved me. I had faulted my dad for years because he left us, and I thought he couldn't possibly love me if he could just walk away like that. Now, years later, my mother was leaving me, too. 

Not permanently. 

But still. 

I guess she thought that since I had a boyfriend now I was completely fine in all aspects of life. I kicked myself mentally for not talking to her about how things had been at school this year, but then again, I didn't really think it would make a difference. She had proved time and time again that her first concern was for herself and her research. Nothing would stand in the way of it, even if it meant abandoning her entire family, including me. 

I rolled over and let my eyes adjust to the hint of wintery sunlight that was beginning to lighten the room. Thoughts of my mother and her precious research had kept me awake for much of the night, and now that it was morning, I knew there was no way I could go back to sleep. With a sigh I dragged myself out of bed and dressed in skinny jeans and an over-sized sweater before shoving my feet into my Hunter boots and grabbing a floppy beanie hat. I crept downstairs silently, carefully avoiding the creaky parts of the staircase, and slipped my parka off the hook by the front door. After easing one side of the solid oak double door open, I slipped out into the darkness and down the porch steps. 

Zipping my coat against the bite of the north wind, I made my way around the side of the house towards the stables. We didn't have horses, but the sturdy wooden structure served as our garage and storage shed; the hayloft was full of Christmas decorations and outdated furniture, and made for a great hiding place when I was little. 

Just beyond the stable stood a smaller structure made of stone with a single door in the middle: the spring house. Inside, a set of narrow stone stairs led below ground through a man-made tunnel that connected to one of the caves on the island, where a fresh water spring bubbled up through the smooth rocks and flowed into the sound. Following the spring would lead right to the mouth of the cave on the shore, but thanks to some ingenious engineering by my Cromwell ancestors, a heavy iron gate was mounted into the mouth of the cave, preventing any other families on the peninsula from accessing our spring. 

Even though I went to the shore almost every day, I rarely used the spring house tunnel because it crooked half way down and turned towards the north side of the peninsula, away from the house. Today, though, I wanted to be away from the house. 

And I especially wanted to be out of sight of Adam's house, in case he woke up early and saw me. As I brushed an angry tear out of my eyelashes, I settled on the decision not to tell him how upset my mom's leaving had really made me. 

Feeling my way down the gentle slope of the tunnel, I ran my hands along the walls on either side of me, worn smooth over decades of people guiding themselves to the spring and back beneath the cold, black earth. 

The darkness in this tunnel completely enveloped you when you ventured far enough into it. Damp, thick air assaulted your lungs with its pungency, and could make you panic and gasp for air if you weren't familiar with it. Imagine, the suffocating weight you feel with every gush of blood through your veins as your own mind takes  over and drags you further beneath the earth. I had heard urban legends of servants falling victim to their own minds in the darkness and emerging completely deranged, if they ever emerged at all. 

I shivered at the thought, my skin tingling as if from a sultry caress. The rush of energy that followed worked its way from my center and writhed beneath my skin, awaking feelings I hadn't known existed, before what was left escaped my lips in a wisp of breath that fluttered my eyelashes closed. 

I sank against the wall of the tunnel, one hand pressing against my stomach, moving lower, driven by instinct; the other hand stretched out against the damp stone, fingertips white against its surface. 

I took a rattling breath to steady myself, but through the heavy, humid air, the musky scent of cedar and wood smoke fought its way to me, awakening in me a beast dictated by blood. Memories blazed against the back of my eyelids, memories that were not my own, yet familiar as if I had experienced them yesterday. 

Something brushed up against my rib cage, soft, like fingertips, searching, learning. I froze, eyes pointlessly wide in the pitch black, desperate to at least know what had me paralyzed, even if I couldn't fight it off. A wild thought danced at the back of my mind and I grasped at it, whispering "Adam?" into the tunnel. The sound of my voice echoed once before the entire sensation was gone and I sagged against the tunnel, gasping for air as my heart hammered against my breast. 

With trembling fingers I dug into my pocket and extracted my cell phone. I hadn't expected to have service, but the tiny white "x" at the top of my screen was still enough to rip a breathless sob from my throat. I remembered the urban legends surrounding this tunnel, and they taunted me from the edge of my consciousness until I wrenched myself away from the thought. 

Turning on my cell phone flashlight, I let my eyes adjust to the light and slowly shone it around me, up and down the tunnel. As far as I could see, I was alone. Fear jarred me as I tried to stomach the fact that being alone might be worse than someone being in the tunnel with me...

I could hear the spring bubbling lightly ahead of me down the tunnel, so I knew I was more than halfway to the end. Making up my mind, I continued downhill, my pace quickening as the sound of the spring grew louder, and the smell of a salty breeze drifted up to meet me. another fifty yards past the spring, dawn's light cast dancing shadows through the salt roughened bars of the gate.

Normally, I would wade through the shallow pools where the fresh water spring met the salty sound, and perch on a rock just outside of the gate until the sun came up. This morning, though, I splashed through the pools with total abandon and fumbled with the latch on the gate, before bursting though and letting it clang shut behind me. 

Tears flowed freely from my eyes as I scrambled over the jagged rocks to the path along the shore and broke into a jog until I had put some distance between myself and the tunnel. As soon as I was far enough away to not see the gate, I sank to my knees in the damp sand and sobbed until my throat was raw and my voice a mere whisper. 

As the morning grew lighter, I began to drag myself towards home, exhaustion anchoring my feet to the earth. I shut out the sensations of the sea spray and the chilly wind against my skin, focusing only on putting one foot in front of the other until I reached the stairs up to my ancestral home.