6:6
“Who wants to go for a swim in rat-infested waters?” Kim added because it had to be said.
“That would be a solid not me!” Ben called from the darkness.
“And in a dark cave with the potential to drown?”
“Wow, you’re really selling this, aren’t you?” Dempsey muttered, wandering over to squat next to the lake’s edge and reach his hand down into the water.
Kim grinned. “It is a sexy proposition. Full of Magickal water rats and drowning. In the dark. Underground. Watery underground grave. Did I mention the Magickal water rats?”
“Who could possibly say no?” Ivan asked, dropping to the ground and yanking at his boots.
Gwen plopped herself next to Ivan and removed her shoes. “I know I’m excited for the chance to die horribly.”
“But not loudly,” Prairie said from Gwen’s side where she was toeing off her low boots.
Dempsey pulled his hand out of the lake and shook the water from his fingers. “I’m a decent swimmer.”
“I don’t know if Sass can swim,” Patti said, toeing the water’s edge. They were all doing an excellent job of not paying attention to the water rats bobbing frozen on the surface of the lake. It was amazing what humankind could adapt to. Or ignore.
Sass stuck its head out of the window of its house and clearly looked at the water. Then the water rats. Then stuck one of its arms out of the window and stared at the little paw that did not have webbing between the toes. Then back at the water. Finally, it looked up at Patti and gave a tentative ‘peep’.
Kim cocked her head to give the mouse an assessing look. Then she very carefully shifted her gaze to one of the rats. Then back at Sass. “Hmmm…”
“Hmm what?” Patti asked.
Kim held up a finger and ‘hmmed’ again.
“Would you let me try an experiment?” She addressed the question to Sass rather than Patti.
“Not sure Sass speaks English,” Patti replied.
Sass thrust both its arms out the window, resting its chest on the sill, and looked at Kim intently.
“Patti? Could you try translating for me?”
Patti frowned. “I am not an animal whisperer.”
“Sass isn’t really an animal though, are they?”
“You might have me there. What do you want?”
“I’d like to try to form a bubble of ice around Sass. With a bubble of air inside it so they can breathe. Then maybe it wouldn’t matter if they can or cannot swim.”
“That seems chancy.”
Ivan looked thoughtful. “What you’re describing should work similarly to diving bells. Or really a bathysphere.”
“What’s a bathysphere?” Patti asked.
“It’s a spherical submersible that is, or was, used to make deep sea dives possible. Initially people used diving bells for that purpose. Wet bells are pretty much a bell that was open to the water at the bottom with a bubble of air trapped at the top. But they didn’t handle pressure that well so the bathysphere was invented. Because it’s a sphere it handles pressure well, letting divers get a lot deeper than they could with the initial bells. If I had the time and resources, I could build one but given our restrictions what Kim is suggesting might work.”
Kim scratched an ear. “Yeah. I can make the ice thin so it can be cracked easily for this first attempt so if I’m wrong about the air in the sphere we can get Sass out really quick.”
“Still seems chancy.”
“You want to leave Sass behind?” At Patti’s dubious look Kim added, “Can you ask Sass?”
“It’s a pretty hard concept to visualize and that’s how I’ve been conveying ideas to Sass.”
Sass looked up at Patti, a pleading look on its face so… damned… cute… “Fine!” Patti snapped. “I’ll try.”
As Patti focused her thoughts and started humming in the mouse’s direction, Sass perked up making Kim think that Patti was successfully explaining the idea. It was weird asking a mouse for its permission to do something but in the short time Sass and Patti had been with them Sass had pretty much transcended ‘mouse’ and become a member of the team. It just felt wrong *not* to ask if it wanted to be put in a bathysphere of ice.
Patti’s eyes focused once more. “Well, either than worked or it-”
Before she could say more Sass waved its arms energetically. Once the mouse had their attention it formed its hands so they vaguely cupped a ball of air between them. Then it waggled its head. A lot.
“I’m guessing that’s a yes?” Patti interpreted to which Sass said, “Squeek!”
Patti unhooked the house from her belt then looked at Kim. “You want Sass in or out of the house?”
Kim looked at the house then at the mouse nose poking out of the window. “In. I think.”
She reached out and took the house from Patti then placed it in the palm of one hand. “Oof, heavier than I expected.”
Sass’s ‘Squeeee!’ kind of suggested it understood. And maybe was a little offended, making Kim add, “Not heavy. Just heavier than expected!”
The ‘squee’ this time was less drawn out, kind of grudgingly accepting if one were to anthropomorphize and, really, with a Magickal mouse shouldn’t you?” Sass was clearly *not* a mouse. Or not just a mouse. Or- whatever, the point was anthropomorphizing felt apropos rather than egotistical.
“I need to dip Sass in the lake,” she said to Patti.
“Because?”
“I need the water on Sass’ surface. I then separate that water, creating the bubble. That’s how it worked with the rats.”
Patti sighed. “Fine.” She hummed and focused, then nodded. “Good as I can do. Let’s see if it worked.”
“Yes, let’s let me dip an animal into water and see if they don’t bite me. Excellent.” She lowered her hand towards the lake. The house floated for a second then sank. Quick as she could she yanked it back out of the water to reveal a sopped mouse with a sour expression.
“Sorry,” she mouthed, hoping Sass got it was a necessary sacrifice.
Concentrating Kim pulled the heat out of the air around the mouse, focusing on keeping a cushion of about five inches of air all around the house. The heat traveled through her palm, up her arm, and settled somewhere below her sternum and in its place a roughly spherical container of ice formed around the mouse house.
Kim peered carefully through the ice. “Patti? Can you, I don’t know, ask Sass if they can breathe?”
“You are really stretching my mouse communication skills here.” Patti scrunched up her nose, then she started singing A Mouse in Old Amsterdam quietly. She paused and looked at Kim, “What? It’s Sass’s favorite.”
“Uhm,” Kim shrugged, “I like that song. Used to sing with my niece.” And then she joined in
Patti smiled and sang about seeing a mouse. From inside the bubble came a rattle and then a very muffled “Peep!”
Kim and Patti sang the next line together and again from in the bubble, came “Peep!”
“Okay.” Kim stopped singing. “We should probably conserve the air in there. Can you let Sass know I’m going to thicken the ice now?”
Patti cocked her head, then shrugged. “Fine.” She then sang the line about the mouse with clogs.
Kim sang the line about clippity and clopping, then nodded as ice formed around the sphere thick enough the view of the house within distorted. She pinged her finger against the surface, testing the thickness, then nodded and started to hand the sphere to Patti only to stop and wrinkle her nose.
“Do you have gloves?”
“Uh that would be a no.”
“I have one!” A glove arched out of the darkness from the direction of Ben’s voice. Ivan snatched it out of the air and handed it to Patti. She slipped it on then held out her palm to Kim who placed the ice sphere on it.
“So,” Ivan asked, “who is going and who is staying?”
Siobhan frowned. “I don’t think anyone should stay.”
“Uh, why not?” Kim asked, thoughts of going below ground – ugh, underwater – double ugh, into darkness – where she couldn’t light a flame flavoring her question.
“If this is the entrance, and it’s the only entrance, that means anyone that doesn’t come with us is left out.” Siobhan said, pitching her voice to carry to Ben – where ever he was at the moment, “Anyone want to volunteer for that?”
“No.” Ben came stomping out of the woods, a belligerent look distorting his features.
Kim considered it for a solid minute before also saying, “No.”
“So,” Siobhan asked, “can everyone swim?”
Everyone indicated they could – excellent – and then one by one they yanked off whatever they didn’t want to have destroyed by water. Kim considered her sneakers, then decided the benefit of having her feet covered where ever they ended up trumped some squishing and kept them on. When she stated her logic Gwen, Prairie, and Ivan grudgingly put their own footwear back on. Not knowing what they were going to face they could find they really needed foot protection.
Actual tears pricked Ben’s eyes as he debated the merits of destroying his jacket or being without all the things in its pockets. Eventually he zipped up the front all the way to his throat and popped the collar up around his neck. Siobhan did take off her vest and her skirt, leaving herself in a long shirt over leggings. Gwen dropped her hat next to Siobhan’s neatly folded clothes and Prairie dropped several hair clips on top of the hat. That was the extent of what any of them were willing to sacrifice.
That settled they stepped into the water one by one. Ivan cleared the debris from the hole, revealing an entry maybe a foot more than the three feet Kim had measured. It would be a tight fit for a few of them, specifically Dempsey and Ivan who were the largest of the group, followed very closely by Dan.
They all just stood in the water, eying the hole until eventually Gwen wrung her hands and said, “So, I guess someone has to go first.”
With that she shrugged and dropped to her back with the water covering about as much of her as your standard bathtub where you had to debate whether to get your legs or your shoulders beneath the water. Poking her boots into the hole first she shimmied forward until the maw swallowed her little bit by little bit. Right before her head cleared the space she took a huge gulp of air. A few seconds later her voice called out from the hole. “Not dead!”
“Cool!” Ivan leaned down to call back. “Is there air in there?”
“Would I be talking if there wasn’t?”
“Smart ass.” Ivan shook his head. “How much?”
“There’s maybe eighteen inches of air then a solid ceiling. Or, you know, for you guys out there with your guy measuring system, twenty-four inches.”
“Ha ha,” Ivan called back. “So not very much?”
“Enough!”
With that established the rest of the group maneuvered themselves into the hole until it was just Ben and Kim standing in the lake. There was splashing from within the hole, probably as they each swam to clear the space for the next person.
“So, this should be an adventure,” Kim said, dragging out the time before she had to let the earth eat her.
“Such an adventure.”
“After you?”
“No. Really, after you.”
“Together?”
They both sat like they were about to shoot themselves down a water slide, then laid back and pushed off from the lakebed so they slid forward and under the overhang before either one of them could chicken out. At the last second, they both took a breath then dropped their heads back to lie flat with the ground, the water flowing over their faces, as they slid fully into the dark.
And it was dark. So dark. Like floating in the womb. If the womb was potentially – probably – swimming with water rats. That thought caused Ben to jerk and his lower body sunk below the water, pulling him down until he was thrashing and flailing to get keep his head above the surface. Just as he was starting to despair, he’d drown, in the dark, with water rats lurking below the surface waiting to eat his corpse he felt himself buoyed from below.
“Damn it, Ben. Stop thrashing.” Kim gritted out between her teeth. “I created a very small pocket of air under you to keep you up but it’s going to pop any second because this,” a splash accompanied the words, “wants to be water.”
Ben slowed the movements of his arms and let himself drift up to float. “How did you do that?”
“Magick?”
“Funny.”
There was a pause. “I think, maybe, I told the water it wasn’t water, but air. Is complicated. Better to call it Magick.”
“Everyone here?” Siobhan’s voice sounded like it was far away, echoing where Kim’s and Ben’s voices seemed to be sucked up by the earth too darned close to their faces for Kim’s comfort.
A chorus of yeses and yeps followed until all nine of them had sounded off.
“Okay. This space seems fairly contained. I’d say it’s maybe the size of two rooms.”
“That seems about right,” Ivan called, “I’ve felt along the walls and I’ve definitely come to a back wall.”
“Did you find anything else?”
“No. It feels like rock rather than dirt so I’m guessing it’s a cave.”
“Anyone else?” Siobhan asked.
There was slapping sound of flesh on stone. “The roof is definitely as Gwen said, approximately a foot and a half from my face.” Prairie announced.
Patti’s oof had Gwen calling out, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Patti called back. “Think I found a stalactite. With my face. Guess I didn’t need that eye that much.”
“What?” Gwen screeched and started splashing in the direction of Patti’s voice.
“Kidding!”
“Do not kid about injuries!”
“Yeah, realized that was stupid after I said it.”
A sound of water moving and then Dan’s voice was coming from a short distance away. “I think I found the opposite wall. Siobhan, you were right. It feels like maybe thirty feet from wall to wall.”
“Anything else?”
“Hold on, let me get this light going.” There was the sound of whirring and then a beam of light emerged across the dark space, playing on the wall. Dan ran the beam up, confirming the height of the ceiling, then to the side along the wall. “I don’t see anything on the wall suggesting this is man-made.”
“No carve marks?” Ivan called.
“No. Wish we had a better light.”
“Like this?” Dempsey called and then there was a soft blue glow from the center of the space, revealing the large man floating there holding a piece of crystal from which the light was emitting. “Give me a-” he pressed the crystal to the roof then drew his hand back, leaving the crystal adhered to the stone somehow. “Better?”
The object drew Ben’s attention away from thoughts of water rats. “What is that?”
“Magick,” came the droll reply.
“Well,” Kim muttered to Ben, “You did ask.”
The glow of the blue crystal, reflecting off the water made their faces look eerie. It danced over the stone walls and the needle-like teeth of the stalactites protruding from the ceiling, creating oscillating shadows on the stone and an odd reflection on the surface of the dark water they floated in.
“That’s,” Gwen gave a long, dramatic pause, “better?”
Siobhan, drifting towards the back of the cave, called out, “I’m not seeing anything besides cave. I’m guessing the entrance may be below the water.”
“Of course it is,” Ben muttered.
“Hey, Patti?” Kim called, slowly turning her floating body to do a full one-hundred-and-eighty degrees survey of the space in which she pinpointed where everyone in the group had landed as well as the surface of the cave, the position of the ceiling, and dark water that held the promise of monsters below the surface. Can’t think of that! She focused on the stalactites instead for a moment, counting them as she forced her breath into a steady rhythm. Once she was certain her voice wouldn’t warble, she continued her thought. “Is the ice sphere holding up?”
Patti called out from the side of the cave near Dan. “Seems good.”
“Okay. Since the entrance probably is underwater I’m going to leave it.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Siobhan bobbed up and down in the water before pulling something out of the water. Or her bag. Under the water. “Ha! I did have it!”
“What is it?” Ivan, who was closest to her asked.
“It’s an alchemical compound that should act as a rebreather.”
“Should?”
Stopping her treading to shrug made her bob a few inches into the water. “I’ve never tested it.”
“Let me try it.”
“No.” Siobhan shook her head. “If anyone is going to be a test subject it will be me. I have a higher tolerance for alchemical backfires.”
Ivan grunted. But how did he argue with that?
“How long can you hold your breath?” she asked.
“Fairly long.” He’d probably have answered that even if he could only hold his breath for two seconds. Here was hoping he was telling the truth and not just being valiant.
“I’ve got several alchemical lights on me. I’ll give you one. Who else can hold their breath a decent amount of time?”
Kim hesitated to answer because she knew where the question was leading. Diving into the murky abyss of the water appealed to her about as much as swallowing a tack. But…
“I don’t have to hold my breath,” she answered. “I can create a bubble of air around my head. Kind of like what I did for Sassafrass but without the ice.”
“How long can you hold it?”
Drifting in the water, staring at the ceiling pretty darned close to her face, Kim contemplated her life choices. It was only when Siobhan called, “Hello?” that she answered. “Maybe indefinitely.”
“Can you do it for anyone else?”
“That would be a probable ‘no’. I had to put the ice around Sass’s bubble to trap the air inside because I have to concentrate to retain the surface tension of the bubble of air. The ice around Sass is the equivalent of my will.”
“Then,” Ivan called. “Put ice around a bubble for us.”
“No can do. I can’t just put the ice around your head. Pretty sure you’d either A, get frostbite on your neck. Like major frostbite. If it even formed a seal that would retain the air. Or B, which is the one I’m betting on, it might try to form the entirety of the sphere right through your neck and thereby decapitate you.”
Ivan grunted. “Decapitation bad.”
“Yep,” Kim agreed. “Decapitation bad.”
“How about making a sphere of ice around us?” Gwen asked.
“And how do you move the sphere of ice? Or get it to sink? Ice floats. Even if I get it to sink, which literally can’t happen because ice floats except in a physics experiment that I don’t even want to think about, then you’re going to have to try to run around in it like it’s a giant hamster-ball and you’ll burn up all your oxygen. Plus, that’s a metric butt-ton of ice. I don’t think I can make a sphere that maintains pressure and holds in air big enough for a human.”
“I have a Magick device that will let me breathe underwater,” Dempsey said.
“Okay,” Siobhan said. Before she could expand Dempsey added, “I do not have it with me.”
“So,” Gwen muttered, “useless information.” Then louder she said, “I can hold my breath for a long time. Like maybe four minutes.”
“Bullshit,” Dempsey muttered.
“Not bullshit. I think it’s an offshoot of my Magick. I had to learn to suppress my response to emotional stimulus pretty early and part of the whole not gasping, not drowning thing involves being able to mentally tolerate the symptoms. You can train your brain to ignore the chemical receptors that trigger the whole ‘need to breath thing’. Not forever because breathing is good. But I’m not going to gasp for breath as fast as other people. So, suck it, Inspector Gadget.”
“I can’t hold my breath,” Dan admitted, cutting through the tension between Gwen and Dempsey. “Guess I’m staying up here.”
“I’ll stay here too,” Prairie offered. “I can hold my breath, but it might be good if we stagger who is underwater and who is above so some people are fresh, just in case.”
“Yeah,” Dempsey said. “I’ll volunteer to stay.”
“I guess that makes Ivan, Gwen, Kim, and I diving down,” Siobhan said. “If you three can swim to me I’ll get you lights.”
As they turned and swam to her there was a rattling sound as she shook four vials in which smaller capsules of glass were suspended. The shaking broke the glass and released the suspended liquid within into the mixture in the outer vial which in turn emitted a bluish-green light.
“Do you want the crystal?” Dempsey asked.
“Do you want to hear me scream like a small child?” Ben muttered to Prairie who’d swam over to tread water next to him.
Prairie giggled. “I know it’s not funny but…”
“It’s a little bit funny,” Ben supplied.
Without thought Patti sang the line from Your Song by Elton John about a feeling inside.
Kim was doing a leisurely side stroke, giving herself plenty of air with which to say, “I love that song.”
Patti replied, “Anyone that doesn’t has no soul.”
“Even people without souls like it.” Dempsey and Patti craned their necks to lift their heads from the water and stare in Prairie’s direction. Ivan stopped swimming and looked too. She opened her eyes real wide and did this thing with her mouth that caused dimples to pop out on her cheeks. “It’s a good song.”
Ivan laughed and finished swimming to Siobhan. Once Kim and Gwen got to her Siobhan handed out the lights. “These should burn for about an hour. I hate to use them because there’s no way to douse them but I’m thinking if there was ever a time to bust them out it’s when we’re going to dive into black water in a cave.”
Kim blanched. “I did not need that reminder. Well, let’s get this over with.” She went quiet. Her eyes closed. Then she blew out a slowly steady breath until her lungs emptied, about twenty seconds.
Without opening her eyes she dove under the water. A second later Siobhan was swimming next to her with her glowing vial held out to form a nimbus of light that cut the darkness for about two feet in front of them and an apparatus like an oxygen mask strapped over her nose and mouth. Another moment and Gwen and Ivan were swimming near them. The combination of their four torches created a haze of light that bound them together as a group against the hunger of the dark water.
Kim gulped and forced herself to breath slow and even despite the thought. They swam for what felt like a long time but was probably only about thirty seconds without coming in contact with the bottom of the cave. It had to be fifteen feet, maybe twenty feet, though dimensions were hard to determine in a space that was defined by black above and black below and black all the way around.
Kim was pretty sure they were going to reach the limit which Ivan and probably Gwen could hold their breath before they hit bottom but just then a surface loomed out of the darkness just beyond their lights. Siobhan poked Kim and gestured to go forward. It only took a few more second to hit the wall of the cave where it met the ground.
Ivan tapped Kim’s arm and pointed upwards, then followed the gesture with a quick retreat for the surface. Siobhan looked to Gwen who gave a thumbs up. Still good.
As a group they swam along the wall. Siobhan ran her free hand along the wall where it met the ground. Kim took up a position about four feet higher and did the same. Gwen went up another five feet. They’d swum for maybe another twenty seconds when Siobhan stopped. She had maybe a foot on Kim, so she felt the crack first.
Gwen dropped her foot down, poking Kim who looked up to see Gwen spell out D-O-O-R in sign. Kim gave a thumbs up, which was a lot easier than nodding underwater. Gwen thumbs-upped too, then pointed to the surface and headed that way.
Kim poked Siobhan and made the same signs Gwen had, spelling out ‘door’ then added a hands up shrug to signify ‘why?’. Like why was there a door in a cave?
Siobhan gave the equivalent shrug then swam over to find the other side of the door. Then she swam up the length of the door, stopping when she reached the top with eyes wide on what appeared to be the portion of a lintel with the letters T-R-I to the far left. There was clear indication that the rest of the stone had been chipped or broken off the wall. Above this was three slightly recessed alcoves, curved at the top like the kind of niches in which sculptures were displayed in ancient architecture. Siobhan slid her fingers along the surface of the niche and found rectangular indents at the back of each, like maybe for a bas relief sculpture.
When Kim swam up next to her she gestured to the broken stone. Kim’s eyes widened. Siobhan moved her arm through the water, pointing at her eyes and then out into the water.
As they turned away from the wall, Ivan came swimming down to them, likely following the glow of their lights to pinpoint their location. Gwen followed right behind him. Siobhan gestured to the broken lintel and then out at the dark water around. Gwen gave a thumbs up, noting her understanding and started swimming further into the darkness along the wall. Ivan swam back into the water, away from the wall with Kim following.
He stopped swimming and grabbed something off the ground. Holding it up to the light he showed Kim it was a piece of stone with a half circle slightly raised from the surface and a little bit of something else below that, like the rest of whatever was there had been broken away from this piece. Pointing at himself then back where they came from, he indicated he was going to swim back. Kim gave a thumbs-up and continued to scan the ground.
Enter The Woods 