All These Shiny Worlds by Jefferson Smith

Author:Jefferson Smith [Smith, Jefferson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780994079541
Publisher: Creativity Hacker Press
Published: 2016-01-27T23:00:00+00:00

***

“Kaaliya?” She heard her name whispered and a hand touched her shoulder. Her name came again and someone shook her. Shailen. “Are you okay?”

“You came?” she asked. She scrunched her eyes and rubbed her forearm across them. “How?”

“I’m sorry it took us so long,” he said. “I tried to climb down…”

She looked at the dirt on his hands and saw the deep earthy stain on his thighs where he must have clung to the rope for dear life.

“But the rope, the bucket, it doesn’t reach down here,” she said.

“We had to borrow more rope.”

We. Of course he’d run to the village and gotten others. There weren’t many Pit dwellers who would bother tracking down a reckless girl lost so far below the inhabited ledges. She was surprised by the gesture, and amazed at Shailen’s bravery. She started to thank him but then her heart dropped.

“Who did you get to help?”

She hoped it was Old Jai. What better person to lead her out of the darkness?

Shailen’s eyes weren’t on her but on the effusive glow of the ceiling. “Your father.”

She sat up.

A torch lit the narrow tunnel into the chamber. She heard a thud, followed by cursing. Her father squeezed in through the gap and the constellation of spiders above retreated ahead of the greasy torchlight. Shailen shrank away, distracted as he watched the ceiling move.

The gap had been much too small, and she wasn’t sure how her father had managed to get inside. A welt was already forming on his forehead. Dirt and grime skinned his hands and knees, and she realized how out of place that was on him. His smile, supposedly of joy and relief, was a leering glare in the dancing orange fire of the torch.

“My dear Kaaliya!”

The cushion of moss under her felt like guilt and she avoided his eyes. His hand reached out to pull her to her feet. She stood without his assistance and gritted her teeth at the pain.

“I’m so happy to have found you.” He pulled her close with his free hand and she flinched. She kept her hands at her side and her head down, waiting. He moved her to arm’s length. “I was worried I’d lost you like your mother. You can’t leave me like her, dear girl.”

Shailen tore his eyes away from the ceiling where shadow and smoke had replaced the glowing spiders. His curiosity shifted to concern as he read her expression. There were things about her she’d never meant for him to know.

“Are you hurt?” her father asked. He bent, inspecting her closely, the heat of the torch biting and the smoke stinging her eyes. Kaaliya looked away from Shailen as her father took inventory of the bruises and scrapes on her legs, then lifted her ragged shirt to inspect, finally ended with her hand in his, turning it over and over. “So much climbing has made your hands rough.” He sighed in dismay. “Come, let’s get you home.”

Her father dragged her out toward the tunnel, the torch held before them.

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