The Book of Miranda | gxg | ✔︎

(26) Come To The Water

I touch a hand to the back of the secret portrait-door before letting Exie re-light her candle. The canvas is backed with wood, a dense enough material not to betray our trespassing by the light we carry. It takes Exie several matches to get the candle going. It trembles as she lifts it; her hands are shaking like aspen leaves. I wordlessly hold a hand out for the candle holder. She relinquishes it.

The staircase we're in must fit entirely inside the school wall. There's no protrusion on the other side, at least that I remember; I'm sure I would have noticed such a thing when we were chasing after willows. But the rose window is inset enough to indicate a thicker wall than I think is typical of gothic architecture, and I no longer hate my father for his speechifying on that matter. I've learned a few things from it, and if those things prove utilitarian in this instance, I'll roll with it.

We've got exactly one direction to go right now, so I point down the staircase and get puppy-dog eyes from Exie. I take the lead. Her fingers surreptitiously grip the fabric at the back of my shirt as we file down the tightly compressed stone stairs. It takes both of us a hand on the wall just to keep from slipping; the staircase is ladder-steep and so narrow, my whole foot doesn't even fit on each step. At least they're not slimy. We've made five or six circuits when the flight abruptly ends. I step gingerly into a low hallway, and grimace as damp seeps through my sock.

Exie gasps. "There's water."

"Where?"

"No, just around. Look."

She tugs my wrist, and I get distracted by that sensation for long enough that I nearly run the candle holder into a wall. When I recover my focus, I see what Exie means. The tunnel wall glistens. Trickles of water run down it like the ground itself is leaking, which is probably exactly what's we're dealing with here. Wet patches make dark spots all the way up the tunnel. And a tunnel it is: long and straight as the line on the map. At the end of that line is the map-blob underneath the school's willows. I think I know what we're going to find down here now.

The tunnel does not echo as Exie and I creep down it. She's still clinging to the seam of my shirt in an attempt to be surreptitious. I let her have it. Definitely not because I want this proximity to continue. By some miracle, I manage to keep our candle aloft and alight all the way down the tunnel, though the same cannot be said of keeping the remaining fabric of my socked feet dry. The dampness is concentrated in patches at first, but by the time we're halfway across the lawn at my estimation, the whole floor glistens. My feet were already chilled by the time we unfolded Barnabas's dove. They've gone numb since then.

The tunnel begins to broaden slightly before we reach its end. My scattered attention picks up on the change, a fact made all the more remarkable by the level of distraction the tunnel's dripping sounds are now giving me. If Melliford Academy tasked a Horror playwright or set designer with recreating a spooky subterranean passageway, they couldn't do better than this.

It's only a dozen steps later that my light stops reflecting off the walls up ahead.

I slow so quickly, Exie nearly runs into my back. Her hand knocks against me, and she lets go of my shirt in what feels like a minor panic. I wait, pretending to watch and listen and not notice her until I feel her grip it again. Only then do I step forward into a cave. My light isn't strong enough to reach its ceiling or other side. The walls swing wide around us, half cut, half natural. The floor is a gently sloping shore of wet rock that ends up ahead. When I lift my light, a reflection winks back at me. I can hear Exie's breathing as I approach with insect's footsteps. It's water. An underground pool, so undisturbed, it might as well be glass. But that's not all that's here.

At the edge of the water is what looks like an altar. That's the only word that jumps to mind for it; it's too low to be a pulpit, and too crude to be artistic for anything but stone-age people. It is made of stone. Rough stones, uncut but fitted together by some bygone craftsperson so they stack firmly without the need for mortar. The flat piece that tops them is soot-blackened. I run my finger over it. No divine energy smites my soul from my body. My finger comes away barely smudged.