“I guess,” she said.
David took the two ends of the wire and then, with great care, touched them to the poles of the battery.
For a moment, nothing happened. Stevie looked up at the rocks and the dark and wondered if she was moving slowly through time. Maybe she was already dead. Maybe this was it. Ellingham would take her at last, like it had swallowed Hayes and Ellie.
Then, a strange noise, something angry, hissing.
Then a bang—a bang so loud it burned her ears. A cloud of white dust shot past them and there was an acrid smell. When she opened her eyes again, she found she was pressed deep into David, and David into her. She couldn’t really hear because of the ringing in her ears, and she was coughing uncontrollably.
But they were alive. Dusty. Maybe with hearing damage. But alive.
They both got up and cautiously peered around the rock. There was a pile of rocky rubble under the entrance, and a tiny chink of light. They stepped forward. The ground around the explosion was pitted, and the walls were blasted. Above them, the hatch was bent upward—not completely open, but not completely closed either.
“That was amazing,” she said.
“Yeah it was. Yeah it was!”
He turned to her and grabbed her in a huge, enthusiastic embrace and started jumping up and down. She started jumping too, because it was hard not to jump, and because this was something worth jumping for. They were not free, but they were not trapped either. And it was cold and snowing, and they were in a hole in the ground.
“We still can’t get out!” he said. “We’re still stuck! We blew it up and we’re still stuck! We may freeze to death!”
The jumping was getting old, and she slowed up. He did as well. They both gasped for breath for a moment. She could see him better now that they had a tiny bit of light coming down.
“So what now?” he said.
Above them, there was a grinding noise. A pair of hands gripped the sides of the hatch and pulled it back.
Then a face appeared.
“Germaine?” Stevie said.
22
“HEY,” GERMAINE SAID. “DID YOU GUYS BLOW THIS UP? I THOUGHT I saw something blow up.”
Germaine Batt was dressed head to toe in winter gear—ski pants and jacket, goggles, a massive hat, plus walking poles to help her get through the snow. She pulled back the goggles, revealing a raw red mark around her eyes where they had been. She also didn’t seem that shocked about any potential explosion she may have witnessed.
“I can’t believe I’m looking at you and how much I love you,” David yelled up.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he yelled.
“Do you have a rope?” she called down.
“No,” David said. “We didn’t plan to fall into this hole.”
“Okay. Hold on. I’ll be right back.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” he yelled. “But can you keep the hatch propped open? We’re kind of paranoid about being stuck in holes in the ground.”
Germaine took off her backpack and used it as a wedge.
“Germaine,” David said, turning to Stevie in wonder.
“Germaine,” she repeated.
Snow poured down into the hole, but Stevie and David sat under it anyway, refusing to give up their square of sky. They squeezed together in the foil blanket. The cold was penetrating now. Her feet and hands were numb. Her skin was starting to burn all over, and she was getting tired from the effort of trying to be warm.
“What if she doesn’t come back?” David said.
“She’ll come back,” Stevie said, pushing herself into his side. “She’s Germaine. Fire and flood cannot stop her.”
Germaine did come back.
She returned with some sheeting that had been on the ground where the paintballs went off on Janelle’s machine. She tied these into a few knots, then tied them together. She looped the other end around the statue. Germaine dropped the sheet rope down. David gave it a test tug and nodded.
“You want to go first?” he asked Stevie. “I’ll spot you.”
Stevie had never climbed anything like this before. Her hands were numb with cold, and her feet slipped several times on the knots. But her determination to get out gave her the arm strength to keep pulling herself upward. The few times she lost footing, she felt David hold her up from underneath. Germaine helped pull her up into the deep snow above. She crawled out of the earth like she was coming out of her own grave. After being in the dark underground grotto, the bright whiteness of it nearly blinded her. The cold was so pure and numbing. David climbed up next, Germaine and Stevie pulling him out as he reached the top. They trudged back to the Great House. There was no worry now about anyone yelling at them. They were far beyond those kinds of cares. Pix regarded them with a weary acceptance as they dragged their snowy, wet selves in through the front door.
“You’re back,” she said. “And you have . . . Germaine?”
“Hey,” Germaine replied.
Pix shook her head.
“Get warm,” she said, pointing them to the fireplace. “I give up.”
It’s a funny thing about being cold—sometimes it doesn’t hit you until you start to get warm again. As soon as Stevie was in front of the fire, she started to shake almost uncontrollably. Her feet and hands burned.
“H-h-how are you here too?” Stevie said through chattering teeth.
“You guys n-n-never turned up on the coach that day,” Germaine said. “I f-f-figured something was up. I took the c-c-coach back when they were doing the next pickup. I told the guy I forgot something. Then I s-s-stayed. It was really easy. I wrote to my parents and said I was staying.”
“You c-c-can do that?” Stevie asked.
“My parents t-t-trust me.”
Stevie and David looked at her blankly.
“What’s that l-l-like?” David asked.
Germaine shrugged.
The rest of the group came out to see the stragglers from the snow and were surprised to find Germaine Batt had joined their number. They had a lot of questions, but none of the three were up to answering them yet. They were covered in dust, still coughing. The ringing was getting less loud, but it had not stopped entirely.
And then, it arrived.
Anxiety does not ask your permission. Anxiety does not come when expected. It’s very rude. It barges in at the strangest moments, stopping all activity, focusing everything on itself. It sucks the air out of your lungs and scrambles the world. Her vision went spotty around the edges. The ringing in her ears swelled again. Her knees buckled.
“Stevie?” someone said. She really didn’t know who.
She stumbled away from them all. The Great House was turning into a hideous parody of itself. The fireplace was like a terrible maw of fire. Her friends’ faces made no sense. Everything was rushing. She was on a current she could not control.
“Where’s your medicine?” Janelle said, kneeling next to her.
Her medicine was in a hole in the ground, having been dumped out to carry bricks. She was going to ride this one with no help.
She stared at the grand staircase sweeping up in front of her. Anxiety, her therapist had told her many times, never killed anyone. It felt like death, but it was an illusion. A terrible illusion that inhabited your body and tried to make it its puppet. It told you nothing mattered because everything was made of fear.