From the Caves by Thea Prieto

Author:Thea Prieto
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781636280035
Publisher: Red Hen Press
Published: 2021-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

Stop, groans Tie.

Sky and Mark lower Tie gently to the slanted floor of the tunnel. In the slim and jagged passageway, halfway into the pitch dark of the sleeping chamber, Tie, Mark, and Sky suck the smoky air. Tie’s clenched body is too wide to rotate in the narrow space, so Mark has been carrying her backward through the tunnel, back-stepping in small, guarded shuffles. Their path also drops too sharply into the blackness for Tie to rest flat, so instead of laying her with her head pointed downward, Mark props her into a recline, her shoulder blades resting back against his.

In this position, Mark can support all of Tie’s weight and Sky is relieved. There is only sound, scent, and touch in the tunnel’s darkness, and Tie’s new smell is worrying, her rapid breaths make his chest thump acid, make his muscles braid. When it is safe to release Tie’s legs, Sky scrambles away, forcing his breath to slow while wiping sweat from his grainy eyes. The fast stabbing in his ribs lessens as he pulls air deeply through his nose, and his shivering body calms when he releases air slowly through his mouth. As his blood begins to steady, he hears Tie matching his breath. He reaches out to her knees again and feels her body slowly loosening its grip.

It’s a little better, says Tie after a long inhale and a long exhale.

I can’t stay here, says Mark. The roots will burn, the drinking water needs to be jarred, then the fire—

I’ll check the roots, says Sky, and he trots up the passage before Mark can stop him. Above, in the red firelight of the upper cave, the heat has grown to wringing, and Sky notices at once that Teller has moved. He has dragged himself closer to the fire, his ribs pumping fast from the effort. The hot touch of his skin stings Sky’s fingertips, but he still tugs Teller away from the fire, to where the warmth is drawn upward into the windy main passageway already lit gray with early morning.

You’re going to hurt yourself, says Sky to Teller.

Teller, heat-knocked and staring, does not answer.

Try to rest, says Sky.

Back at the fire, the skins of the roots have already shriveled black on one side, so Sky quickly retrieves the metal pokers to remove the nubs from the heat. The dying fire burns his face and the metal bites his fingers, but he manages to arrange the cooling roots in such a way that they do not touch, the same way Mark arranges them, then uses the pokers to spread and thin the gleaming coals. The black chunks he brushes into the charcoal heap, near the snapped blades and dull claws of glass, and he nudges the pot of boiled wash water and rags into a dark corner. By that time, the drinking water has cooled enough to pour into the glass jars.

A cautious pause. Sky searches Teller’s face—his unseeing eyes, the awful knots in his cheeks—then glances toward Mark and Tie, who are hidden from sight around the bend in the tunnel.

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