Root (52 page)

“
Astounding!” said Bern, staring
down the tunnel at the enormous pit. “Incredible.”

We pushed through to the other side, where
Lille rushed over and gave us each a hug. Jeff looked on all
sheepish and befuddled. The freckled lady crouched before some
pieces of root arranged in a tic-tac-toe grid. She was trying and
failing to create something out of them.

“
What are you trying to make?” I
said.

“
I don’t know. Anything,” she said.
“A poncho … a toga … something to cover my butt.”

“
Picture something you know real
well—its smell, its feel, the way it flows—and it will
come.”

“
Oh look at you, acting like a
professor now,” said Karla. “Just make her something already.
Unless … that is … you enjoy keeping her in the nude.”

“
That’s not it at all. It’s just …
if she’s gonna be here, she needs to learn.”

“
Calm down,” Karla giggled. “I was
only joking.”

“
But what if we’re not Weavers …
like you guys?” said Jeff.

“
I don’t think that’s possible,” I
said, laying my sword down. “I think everybody’s a Weaver … deep
inside.” I collapsed against the tunnel wall, feeling completely
drained.

Bern and Lille kept whispering to each other.
They tossed glances, looking at me with a strange expression I
could only describe as sheer awe bordering on worship. I wasn’t
used to getting that from people, to say the least. It felt weird
and I didn’t like it. Not one bit.

“
Well,” said Lille. “After something
this, I suppose we could all use some tea, don’t you
think?”

***

She was a tea addict, that Lille. Either that,
or an obsessive compulsive. Only that could explain her mastery of
tea. Every pot she brewed was different and distinct, even if the
cups she poured came out perfectly clear. Darjeeling, Keemum,
Oolong, Lapsang Souchoung—she had every possible variety in her
repertoire.

On top of that, she somehow conjured a
remarkably close approximation of cinnamon scones. I had yet to
figure out how to make anything remotely edible from a root, and
here she was passing around a basket of these luscious pastries,
flaky, steaming and moist.

Karla took advantage of our break time to fit
the freckled lady in a cottony summer dress with a floral print,
while Isobel braided her hair. It turned out she had a
name—Claire—and she came from New Orleans.

Bern cleared his throat and banged his staff
against the floor of the tunnel to get our attention.

“
Lille and I were thinking … it’s
time we all had a chat about our future.”

“
What future?” said
Claire.

Bern ignored her.

“
We obviously would have an issue
returning from whence we came, since James has conveniently put a
rather large canyon between us and the other end of the tunnel. Of
course, if we so wished we could manage to devise some manner of
suspension bridge to get us across, but—”

“
Get to the point Bern,” said Lille,
jabbing her elbow into his side.

“
The point is … we have no desire to
go back. There’s nothing left for us in the ‘Burg but consternation
and persecution. Anything we created at our little cottage and our
cabin can be recreated elsewhere. So, in short, we plan to continue
onward. Thanks to James, it’s guaranteed to be free of Reapers … at
least, until the tunnels repair themselves … which, considering the
scale of the damage, will take quite some time. But the question is
… do any of you care to join us?”

“
Well, I sure ain’t going back,”
said Jeff. “Not if those … things … are down there.”

“
I don’t care one way or another,”
said Claire. “But I guess I wouldn’t mind tagging along with you
all, wherever you guys decide to go.”

“
I’m torn,” said Karla. “We have our
friends left behind. Astrid. Xiao Ke. And I miss my little
dome.”

“
And Nonno is down there,” said
Isobel. “Remember?”

“
Your little dome?” I said. “Your
little dome is trashed.”

“
Trashed?”

“
One side’s bashed in. The roof’s
collapsed. Your stuff’s strewn all over and turning back into
roots.”

Karla sighed.

“
So … uh … where would we go?” said
Jeff.

“
Upward and outward,” said Bern. “I
don’t know exactly where that will lead us or what we will find,
but I’m hoping it leads us closer to a certain enlightened soul we
once met in Luther’s square. Some of you may remember
Victoria?”

“
Do you have any reason to believe
she’s up here?” I said.

“
No,” said Bern. “Other than she and
her people don’t seem to be anywhere else we’ve bloody looked. And
believe me, Lille and I have looked far and wide for that
particular community of free souls, even before Victoria decided to
pay us all a visit.”

“
Free souls?” said Jeff.

“
Unbound to life,” said Bern. “Or at
least life as we know it … on the other side.”

“
Ooh! I like the sound of that,”
said Claire.

“
You mean, dead?” said Isobel,
scrunching her face.

“
Listen up you all,” said Lille. “We
can’t be certain we’ll find what we’re looking for up there. But
there’s a sweet breeze coming from the passages ahead of us. To me,
that’s reward enough. It certainly promises to make our
explorations more pleasant than all the stink and stagnation we
find down below.”

“
Sounds good to me,” said Karla. “I
think I will join you.”

“
Me too,” I said cupping my hand
over Karla’s.

“
And me,” said Isobel, adding her
hand to our stack.

***

And so, it was unanimous. All seven of us
agreed to go onward and upward with Bern and Lille. Of course I was
going to end up going wherever Karla went, even though she had made
up her mind without first checking with me. But maybe she just
knew.

I didn’t have the luxury of worrying too much
about our long-term prospects. My mind kept dwelling on my little
problem back at Inverness Station. Depending on how things went
there, I might not be sticking around long enough to reach any
community of free souls.

My mind couldn’t stop dwelling on the prospect
of an unnatural and involuntary death. The thought of leaving this
existence that way made my heart quail, not because things were so
wonderful in Root, but it was the only place that Karla agreed to
be with me. I was still convinced we could carve a decent life on
the other side, but so far I had totally failed to convince
her.

She must have noticed the worry in my eyes.
Either that, or she was totally clairvoyant.

“
I was thinking about your issue,”
she said, as we slogged behind Bern. “Don’t worry. I’ve spoken to
Isobel. We have a plan.”

Isobel nodded and grinned.

“
What kind of plan?”

“
Don’t worry. We’ll take care of
things. I’ll make some arrangements. Just stay put. Don’t get on a
train and don’t leave the station. We need to be able to find
you.”

“
What if the bounty hunters have a
different plan?”

Her brow furrowed. “Stall. Just try and stay
in the station. We will try to get there as soon as we can. The
problem is, I don’t know which of us is going to fade
first.”

“
Well, it’s not gonna be me,” I
said. “I’m in no hurry whatsoever to get back.”

“
You act as though you have a
choice,” said Karla.

“
Personally, I can’t wait to go
home,” said Isobel. “I’m going to laugh in Papa’s face. It turns
out, the joke is on him. There
is
a place to hide where he can’t reach.”

“
Don’t you dare disrespect Papa,”
said Karla. “He will bash your head in.”

“
I don’t care anymore.” She skipped
ahead to catch up with Lille and Bern who was setting a blistering
pace for a man with a lame left leg.

***

The higher we climbed, the narrower the tunnel
became, and the more tightly it wound. It now had the dimensions of
a culvert I used to play in back in Ohio. I could touch either wall
without stretching and had to crouch slightly to avoid bumping my
head.

A faint blue glow, barely discernible as
light, revealed each curve. Random spots flashed like fireflies
from time to time without pattern and without repeating. Shadows
lay thicker in side tunnels. Any creature that might be lurking
could watch us pass, itself unobserved.

Bern no longer walked at the head of our
little expedition. The adrenalin that had driven him had waned and
he now lagged far behind with Lille and Claire. Jeff, of all
people, had become our trailblazer, calling back to us at every
junction to make sure that we followed.

Wind whistled through the passage, scented
with a mix of something resinous and something else that smelled
like sun-cured hay—a refreshing change from the rotten egg
emanations of the Reapers.

“
I wonder if this was such a smart
idea,” said Karla. “This place is so sterile. We have not seen a
single soul.”

“
That’s good, isn’t it? No pods
means no Reapers.”

“
I suppose,” she said.

“
I sort of like it here,” said
Isobel. “If only it wasn’t so dark.”

As we turned the next bend, there came a
gushing, dripping sound.

“
Hey guys!” said Jeff. “It gets wide
here. And … there’s like a waterfall or something.”

We climbed over a hump and down into a wide,
circular bowl filled ankle-deep in cool, clear water. A pair of
trickles, faintly illuminated by some external source, dribbled
down from a large, round hole in the ceiling.

“
It’s a sinkhole,” I said, splashing
out to the center. Jeff was already there, staring up at a thousand
pinpoints of light.

Karla came up beside us. “Oh my God! Are
those—?”

“
Stars,” said Jeff.

“
But are they?” I said. “Is that
even possible? I thought everything here was tunnels and
roots.”

“
What else could they be?” said
Karla, entranced, the star light glinting off her
forehead.

Isobel seemed somewhat less impressed, but she
hadn’t been in Root long enough to know how dreary and
claustrophobic it could get.

Bern and Lille caught up, walking with the
increasingly chatty Claire, who was telling them about her sordid
life as a waitress in a strip club. Seven heads gawked at the sky
through that hole.

“
Looks like this is the end of the
road,” said Bern.

“
Not so fast,” said Lille. “What’s
up there, I wonder?”

“
You mean … we should abandon the
tunnels?”

“
Exactly.”

***

Bern wove us a thickly knotted rope with a
grapple at one end. Jeff and I took turns tossing it up through the
hole, until it caught securely on the overhanging rim.

Bern gave it a firm tug to set the hooks. He
brushed his hands off and looked at us. “Alright then? Who’s
first?”

“
Tsk, tsk,” said Lille. “You don’t
expect me to climb that swingy thing. I’ll drop and shatter my tea
set.”

Under Lille’s guidance, Bern wove a second,
identical rope and grapple. We set it alongside the first and
created rungs between the knots, strengthening and stiffening the
resulting structure until we had ourselves a sturdy
ladder.

“
Now, that’s more like it,” said
Lille.

“
I’ll go first,” I said. “If that’s
okay.”

“
Be my guest, lad,” said Bern.
“Better you than me.”

There was enough of a glow for me to see the
smiles all around as I sank my fingers into the soft rungs. A wind
swirled down and buffeted me as I rose above the basin. As my head
poked above the rim I was greeted by a sky without limit, carpeted
with millions of stars.

“
Oh my God!”

“
What do you see? What do you see?”
said Karla, anxiously.

“
No tunnels, that’s for sure. Just
open sky. There’s another world up here … a whole ‘nother
world.”

Isobel came up behind me, quick as a monkey,
with Karla close behind. The others joined us, one by one, with
Bern bringing up the rear. We milled about, heads tilted back,
gawking and exclaiming in disbelief.

“
Look, there are mountains!” said
Isobel.

Indeed, the horizon was rumpled with peaks and
veiled with shreds of something gauzy that had to be clouds. A
faint patch of glow highlighted one stretch of hilltops, as if
there were a distant city or a fire just beyond.

“
Is this Heaven?” said
Claire.

“
Looks like … Arizona,” said
Jeff.

“
Are you alright Bern?” said Lille.
“Your breathing’s gone kind of ragged.”

“
I’m just … speechless. This is
beyond my dreams.”