Cor would not step on his own shadow.
Since the shadows began taking people, Cor had tried to keep even his own shadow away from his feet. Idra had seen dark shapes reach from doorways, touch a passerby’s shadow and pull the person flat into it. Out here, on sunlit chalk, the shapes could not cross the open ground.
He walked sideways across the quarry, making short, laborious adjustments as the sun fell. Idra watched him instead of the path. It was how she missed the last arrow.
“Wrong way,” Ve said.
Their path ended at a cutting. Far below, an old cart rail entered a tunnel in the chalk. Across the cutting, on higher ground, stood the white house they had seen from the road. Its walls and roof shone together, without the usual dark band beneath the eaves. A banner hung above the door. They could not read it from here.
There was supposed to be a bridge. The woman who gave them the map had drawn it herself. But a week had passed since she’d crossed the quarry, and the bridge lay in the cutting, with one timber still attached to its hinge.
Ve sat on the stones. Her boot had rubbed a raw circle above her heel. She had refused to show it to Idra all morning because Idra would make them stop, and then the sun would set before they reached the house.
“It’s there,” Idra said. “We’ve found it.”
“It’s on the other side.”
Idra took out the map. Their missed turn lay half a mile behind them. The marked path wound around the quarry edge, a long white arc. Even walking fast, they would be on it at dusk.
The tunnel offered a shorter passage. She could see daylight beyond it, a small milky square. Cart tracks descended to its entrance and climbed the other side.
“We can use the lamp.”
Cor put his pack on the ground. “No.”
They had crossed three stretches of shade with the lamp that day. Beneath the culvert, the darkness had stirred but held away from its circle. They had not needed it in the open quarry. The chalk reflected so much light that even their shadows seemed shallow, and the blackened people along the road had stopped at its edge.
The lamp was heavy. Idra had carried it through the culvert, both hands on the handle, while Cor carried their water. He carried the lamp now, but she could take it again.
“We know it works,” she said.
“We know it worked there.”
Ve pulled a stone out of her boot. “I’m not walking back.”
Idra should have said that the long path would take them to the house. She should have let her sister be angry on that path. Instead she pointed to the square of daylight, which was so small it made the tunnel seem shorter than it was.
Cor looked at the sun. He had not slept properly since they left his street. Each night he sat up to keep their fire from dying, and sometimes Idra woke to hear him speaking through the trees. His wife had gone black on their doorstep. Idra had seen her pull away from the wood, flat and wavering, then slide beneath the sill. Cor had held the door open for her long afterward.
“We don’t answer anyone,” he said. “Keep your feet inside the light.”
Idra took the lamp.
The descent was easy. Their boots raised pale dust that lingered, making a golden haze around the lamp before it thinned into the tunnel. Ve kept one hand on Idra’s pack. Cor followed with the water, close enough for the bottles to knock against her arm.
The tracks were covered in fallen chalk. Under the lamp, Idra could make out splinters from old sleepers. The exit grew slowly. A cold current touched her face.
“Don’t look sideways,” Cor said.
She looked. They had passed a recess without seeing it. Its darkness had a depth that the lamp didn’t reach. Something made a slow folding motion inside it.
Then Ve said, from ahead of her, “There are people in the house.”
Idra stopped.
Her sister’s hand tightened on her pack. The true Ve was behind her.
The voice came again from beyond the lamp, with the small irritation Ve used when she thought Idra wasn’t listening. “Come on. They’ll shut the door.”
Idra lifted the lamp higher. Its light reached the rail, the wall, a pale discarded glove. No feet. No face.
She began to walk. Her pack jerked as Ve stumbled behind her, then Ve caught her balance and moved with her. Idra heard Cor’s bottles. She counted their steps, not because any number would help but because it gave her mouth something to do besides answer.
The recess was behind them when another voice spoke.
“Cor. You’ve brought the good water.”
He stopped so suddenly the bottles struck Idra’s elbow. She nearly dropped the lamp.
“Cor, keep moving.”
“I can hear her.”
“So can I. But it isn’t her.”
“You hear her too?”
He turned before Idra could answer, taking a step out of the circle.
Idra put the lamp on the ground and caught his sleeve. The bottle strap pulled tight across his chest. He was stronger than she was, but tired, and for a moment she held him there.
“Look at the floor,” she said. “Look where you’re going.”
His shadow reached beyond the lamp, long and distinct. Something joined it at the wrist.
Cor spoke his wife’s name.
Idra felt him pull. She pulled back. The sleeve tore at the cuff, a dry rip, and she fell to one knee. The lamp went over against the rail. Its glass broke. Light rushed sideways, flickered in the dust, and went out.
Ve seized Idra’s collar. Idra tried to stand and couldn’t; she was still holding Cor’s torn sleeve. Her sister dragged her a pace before she released it.
“Up,” Ve said. “Get up.”
They ran toward the square. Idra heard water spilling and Cor saying something, then no voice at all. At the exit, her hands hit the sloping chalk. She scrambled, slid, found a piece of rail and hauled herself up. Ve was already on the bank, reaching down.
Nothing followed them into the pale evening. The tunnel entrance remained dark. Idra called Cor once from the top of the bank, though she had told him not to answer voices.
Ve pulled her away.
They reached the house while the sunlight still touched its roof. The door opened before they knocked. A man in a clean white shirt ushered them through. He wore no shoes, and his feet were nearly as pale as the tiled floor.
“Water?” he said.
Ve nodded. Idra couldn’t.
He brought cups. Idra drank hers too fast and coughed. Ve sat at a long table covered with a white cloth. There were plates set at every place, and white cushions on the benches. A kettle steamed on a stove at the far end of the room. Everything gave back the light from the tall windows.
“Are there beds?” Ve asked.
“Upstairs. You can choose.”
“Other people?”
“Most are resting.”
Idra stood beside her sister, afraid that sitting would make her unable to stand again. Under the table, between Ve’s boot and the bench, lay a narrow dark seam. It might have been a gap between tiles.
The man set bread on a plate. “You need to eat.”
The seam widened. A dark finger slid across the white tile, then drew back from the sunlight on Idra’s boot.
From beneath the table, a voice exactly like Cor’s said, “You’ve brought the good water.”
Ve’s cup stopped halfway to her mouth.
The man stared at them. His bare feet shifted inward, onto the square of sun from the nearest window. He heard it too.
“You said the others were resting,” Idra whispered.
He looked toward the stairs. In the rooms above them, the floorboards creaked.
“Why do you think I stay down here?” he said. His feet had not left the sunlight.
She took Ve’s hand. Ve tried to pick up the bread, but Idra pulled her toward the door. They stepped out into the quarry, and the man shut it behind them. The banner above his head read WELCOME HOME.
It was not yet night. Farther up the slope stood a white spoil heap, with no building, no tree, no doorway. The last sunlight lay across it. They started climbing.
“There’s no water up there,” Ve said.
“I know.”
Ve kept climbing. At the top they could see the long path they should have taken, the fallen bridge, the small black tunnel mouth. From here Idra could see the long path passing below them, still open to the sky. It ran to the quarry road without entering another tunnel. She spread the map on the chalk and put her finger on that road.
“We go now. We don’t stop in shade.”
Ve looked at the reddened sky. “And when it’s dark?”
Idra had no answer. The lamp lay broken below, and Cor had carried all their water.
Ve pulled the map from under her hand and folded it. “Then we don’t waste what’s left.”
She started down toward the open path. Idra followed, keeping her eyes on her sister’s real feet.
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