Haven (War of the Princes) (8 page)

           
“I’m going to live with
Mom
,” I said spitefully, studying his reaction carefully to read how far I’d crossed the line. The way I said “Mom” could only have meant my real blood mother. The one who had left us for her career.

           
That gave him pause. He finished chewing, turned slowly to face me, and sighed. Then, he put both hands on my shoulders, kissed my forehead and said, “It’s
your
funeral, sweetie.”

           
He went chuckling and groaning into the living room. I glared at his back, furious.

           
I slammed the front door when I left, and skipped tacking up my dad’s grumpy pony,
Grendel
. Instead, I climbed a step stool and hoisted myself onto his bare back. I would have liked to have gone riding dramatically down the street, my speed matching my emotions, but
Grendel
refused to go any faster than a brisk walk. Pressing the stocky little horse to go faster would have ended with me losing a chunk of my leg.
Grendel
was even grouchier than
I
was.

           
Despite the sluggish pace, I arrived at the graveyard well before sun down. It was easier on my nerves to see the watery acreage in daylight, but awkward to ride past familiar faces visiting their dead relatives.

           
I said hello politely to my neighbor, my first grade school teacher, and the old flower shop lady before I reached the mausoleum. To my relief, not many people ventured to the center of the Graveyard. The tombs were too old and gloomy for a person to want to visit more than once in a lifetime. The
gravekeeper
paid me little notice on his rounds, and I released
Grendel
to trim the hedges that were already missing quite a few flowers.

           
I scrambled through the badger hole, hastened by the angry growls of its tenants, probably rushing to bite off my fingers as punishment for trespassing through their home.

           
There was no reason to waste time hanging out inside the mausoleum, but I did light and set out the votive candles I brought, making a trail down into the spiraling stony depths. It still took a superhuman effort to deal with the fact that there were no windows or doors nearby that I could escape through if the whole thing began to crumble.

           
Humming and singing to myself, I tried to ignore the way the flickering candlelight created the illusion of movement on the stone-carved faces of the dead. When there were enough candles to brighten the nearest parts of the vast room, I couldn’t stop myself from admiring the handful of beautiful and handsome faces scattered among the many others. I wondered what had brought them to such a young end. They must have been some of the first settlers of Haven Valley. For a short while I was enchanted by the eerie mystery of it. My reverie lasted for only moments. It’s not like I was going to sit down and write poetry about it. I was claustrophobic.
 

           
Placing my last candle at the foot of the dead end, I double checked the empty tomb nook for spiders, and then slid inside.

           
The stone casket was still open the way I had left it, and dim, aquamarine light filled the packed dirt tunnel inside.

           
This time I refused to read the warnings on the walls, and rushed past them. When I came face to face with the strange dry pool, I couldn’t resist reading the message chiseled above it.

           
DON’T LET THEM IN.

           
My eyes flicked from the writing to the glowing pool.

           
I had reasons to go in. I planned to interrogate Rune, if he was still there, about this outer world of his, and learn as much as I could in the name of science. There was no reason a society as advanced as Haven Valley’s should be ignorant of the outside world. The message could mean anything, or even nothing. Seven hundred years was a long time.

           
My hand reached out and I cautiously touched the aqua water. It was chilly, but again, my hand was unharmed and dry. Even knowing it was unnecessary, I took a deep breath before climbing into the pool.

           
Again, like the first time, I felt nearly weightless, drifting slowly down to the bottom of the pool. My long, unbound hair floated around me, the only sensation that made me feel like I really was under water. I gazed at my fingertips and their strange blue green hue, wondering why my eyes didn’t sting from being open and why I didn’t feel the need to breathe. I was serene.

           
Raising my other hand, I stared with wonder at the lantern I held. It was still lit. The impossibility of it was curious and alluring. Instead of flame, it simply shined white, like a glare from the sun, no matter which angle I held it.

           
My coat floated up around me and I remembered that I was cold. It was my only discomfort. I slowly made my way to the other end of the pool and kicked off the bottom so I would drift to the surface.

           
When I climbed out, perfectly dry, my skin was cool and tingling. I smiled. It was so humbling to experience something unexplainable, a secret, like magic.

           
The scent of raw oxygen clung to me as I wandered away from the dry pool, feeling adventurous and exhilarated.

           
Since this was my second visit, I let myself enjoy the beauty of the crystal veins in the cave walls reflecting the twinkling turquoise light from the pool behind me, along with subtle accents of gold from my little round lantern.

I didn’t wander the way I had the night before. Instead, I took a direct path to the ledge where I’d met Rune below.

I crouched to my knees, wincing at the dull pain as I sat down on my bruised shin. My lantern’s light was no match for the broad darkness of this large cavern. I held it up, leaning carefully toward the edge of the drop. I watched faint shimmers of light on the reflective water’s surface below.

“Rune?” I called out in little more than a whisper.

There was no answer but the gentle breeze that wended its way through the cave passages.

“Rune? Are you down there?” I said, louder. Silence was the last thing I’d considered. My pulse quickened. The idea that someone would be here to talk to had driven away my fears about returning to this place, but in the absence of company, I found myself afraid once again. I knew nothing about the outside of Haven Valley, so, naturally, dozens of horrific conclusions leapt to my mind. Being eaten alive by bloodthirsty, flying leeches was probably the best one. Being pulled into the floor by angry, long dead spirits was probably the worst, but everybody’s different.

“Rune?” I repeated. No reply but the slow dripping of water.

The darkness seemed to deepen before my searching eyes.

Biting my bottom lip, I scooted away from the ledge. When I crept back toward the aquamarine pool I was disappointed and scared in equal portions.

What was the point of sitting around alone in a big drafty cave, filled with who-knows-what? Rune’s friends must have found him and left, or perhaps I had imagined him entirely.

I decided in that moment that if I was going to come back here, it would be with my friends or not at all.

When I was halfway between the ledge and the pool, I heard it: the faint murmur of a voice. Goosebumps stood up on my skin. It sounded like a real haunting.

I was about ready to make a dash for the pool to flee from the sheer creepiness of it when I heard the voice say my name. How could I not be afraid in that dark strange place? In spite of my instincts, I hurried back to the ledge, following the sound.

“Katelyn,” he said weakly. “The ghost. I dreamed she was here. I dreamed it.”

“Rune?” I ventured, kneeling again at the edge of the cliff. “Is that you?”

 
“Katelyn the Ghost? Are you really there?” His voice sounded exhausted, strained.

“I’m here, and I already told you I’m not a ghost,” I replied, already relieved to be talking to my link to the outside world.

“Oh,” he breathed. “Yeah. I wasn’t sure.”

There was a certain calm about his heavily accented voice that subdued me and made me forget my myriad of questions. A few moments of silence followed.

“Tell me, Katelyn,” he said, sounding tired. “What was your favorite thing about life?”

“Don’t say
was
!” I scolded him, appalled. “I told you I’m not a ghost.”

“No, you’re right… it was a stupid question,” he sighed.

 
Feeling guilty, I answered. “I guess it’s seeing something for the first time. Like a new town.”

“What else?” he prompted.

“Um… sunflowers?” I added, saying the first thing that came to mind. It was a strangely simple question for such an unusual encounter.

“Go on,” Rune said quietly.

“Spending time with my friends. Making clay birds. Relay races, the dumber the rules, the
funner
they are. Toasting cinnamon rolls on rainy afternoons. I like rain, but sometimes I wish there was more of it,” I replied. “I don’t know, there’s lots of stuff that I love. What about you? What were- I mean
are
, your favorite things?”

“Mine?” he asked, sounding unsure, as if he hadn’t come up with the question in the first place. “I haven’t thought about it in so long. Drawing things, painting, it just makes sense to me. Racing, now that was a good feeling. Fishing with my family,” he continued, his voice sounding tight. “I know there were other things but I can’t remember. Sometimes it’s the little details, those tiny little sparks, that keep you fighting and alive. I just can’t remember.”

Something was wrong. I could hear it in his voice, unfamiliar though it was.

“Those things, you still have them in your life?” he asked, voice wavering.

“Uh… yeah. I see my friends every day and I have to deal with my family every night,” I answered, unsure what to make of the topic.

“I’m glad for you,” he said sincerely. “Never take what you have for granted.”

“Have your friends come back?” I asked, recalling that he was injured. This would be his fourth day in the cave, if what he said the evening before was true. Any thought of demanding an interview about the outside world was forgotten.

“No,” he replied. There was another short pause. I kept trying to see him in the dark, but the cave was too broad and his light was off. “Would you like to know the truth? The truth is they aren’t friends. I
can’t
have friends.”

I settled myself more comfortably, attempting not to press my bruises.

“Why?” I asked curiously.

“I’m a Dragoon. We are allowed no friends, no family. No connections. It is our duty,” he said, unemotionally. “But you know that. Everyone knows that.”

“Actually, I didn’t,” I muttered.

“That seems unlikely,” he said lowly. I could just barely hear his labored breathing. “But then, you said you were exploring here. I thought about it after you left. No one from Breakwater ventures toward these caves, and that is the only town on this side of the Whispering Sea. I thought then that you must be a ghost, lost here forever, like I will be.”

“
You
sound like the ghost,” I accused him gently. “I can’t even see you.”

“My light only has an hour left,” he explained, and then I could see a flickering. His lantern was weak indeed, but it illuminated enough for me to see him laying flat on the cave floor below, the wrappings of my sandwiches beside him. Even despite the distance and the darkness I could see the weakness upon him and the shadows heavily encircling his eyes.

“I don’t think it matters much if I light it. You left me only about three hours ago, but already I can feel the infection spreading,” he continued.

I bit my bottom lip. He thought I had been gone a few hours, but in reality, it had been nearly twenty-four. I had hugely underestimated the severity of whatever had happened to this person.

           
“Infection?” I echoed.

           
“My arm, it hurts more. Standing sends the world spinning. I can’t see well enough, but I feel it. It’s infected. Brendon and the others have either been killed by the
Lurcher
or given me up for dead by now. I’m no fool, once the infection really gets into my bloodstream, I’m as good as dead,” he said with such resignation, it hurt me to listen to him. “But it has been nice to have some company, crossing over. Thank you Katelyn the Ghost, for talking with me.”

           
My mind was racing. I didn’t know what to do, but something had to be done. He really might die there and I was the only one who knew he was there.

           
My first instinct was to run to the authorities, but Professor Block was very clear about my arrest and Rune’s detainment.

           
“It’s possible that Brendon couldn’t find the passage to this part of the cave. The tunnels are complex and we were pursued by
Lurchers
when I came in,” he sighed heavily. “Having a light doesn’t guarantee I’d find my way out of here. No, I think this is all there will be for me. I wish things didn’t have to be this way. I hope Mother and Father remember me the way I was, before I became a Dragoon. I wish I could have
lived
.”