MARIA MELVILLE’S WYLDCLIFFE JOURNAL
APRIL 10, 1919

As we stepped into the shadows of the caves, Zak stayed close to me. The men were grim and silent. They stooped and walked in single file down the narrow tunnel that led deeper underground. Every noise—the stealthy pad of feet, the scraping of boots against the rocks, a low gasp of breath—was magnified, echoing and rippling through the dark. I had never been underground before. I had imagined that the caves would be suffocating and enclosed. It was strange, though, because it didn’t feel like that at all. I felt curiously at home in the deep weight of the earth. Some of the men had lit glowing torches that burned red and smoky, but I felt that I could almost see in the dark. My feet didn’t slip on the rough stone. I was safe and sure-footed, sensing when the passage would twist and turn, and I felt convinced that we would find Zak’s father any moment, clutching a broken leg and glad to be rescued. And so to start with I wasn’t afraid. Not then, not yet.

Soon the passage widened out into a flat area, like a rough-hewn room, before coming to an abrupt stop. There was nowhere to go except back along the passage we had already come down. One of the men, the leader who had spoken before, said in a hoarse voice, “Our Brother is not here. We must go farther to where the evil spirits dwell. Who can show us the way?”

There was some hurried, muffled speech in the crowd, then one voice called out, “The Conjurer must show us. Fairfax. He is a magician with power over the spirits. Let him show us.”

“Fairfax! Fairfax!” The men murmured their approval.

I watched as Fairfax slowly pushed his way forward to the leader. He said, “I have some poor tricks, Josef, that’s all, enough to earn a penny in the marketplace. If you wish, I will put them at your service for the sake of your Brother. But no one here must ever speak of this deed. Do you swear it?” His blue eyes glittered oddly in the torchlight, and his handsome face looked hard and threatening. For the first time, I thought that perhaps he might be capable of doing evil. “Do you swear?” he repeated.

Josef spoke first. “We swear.” He drew a dagger from his belt and lightly scored the palm of his hand until he drew blood. Spitting on his hand, he then offered it to Fairfax. “We swear in blood.”

Fairfax grasped Josef’s hand firmly. “So be it.”

Now I began to be afraid, not of the caves, but of this blue-eyed stranger and the powers he was going to call upon.

Fairfax strode up to the blank wall of rock that barred our way and laid his head against it, as though he was listening for something. Then he began to search the surface of the wall with his fingertips, feeling closely for any cracks or crannies. I remembered how he had broken the piece of mirror and miraculously made it whole again. He began to speak rapidly in a strange language that sounded like curses. He closed his eyes, and sweat stood out on his brow. He ground his teeth and cried out loud, “As I will it, so shall it be!” The next moment the cave wall fell, like a sheet of water. Everyone stumbled backward, amazed, coughing and gasping in the dust. A way through had opened up, a low tunnel streaked with red and silver in the layers of stone. The taste of fear was in the air, whether of the new path that lay before us or of Fairfax’s diabolical powers, I couldn’t be sure.

“We go onward,” Josef growled. “Anyone who turns back now is an outcast.”

One by one we passed under the shattered archway and entered the newly opened tunnel. I don’t know how long we walked down it. Everything began to seem like a dream that I could not wake from, but at last the walls around us opened out and curved away. We had reached an underground cavern. By the light of the torches I saw that it was full of twisting pillars of crystal and rock, like columns in a temple. A few feet away a black lake spread out into the shadows. The company stopped and waited. My heart began to race. Something was going to happen.

There was a presence in the cavern, something that didn’t belong in the world above. I had laughed at old Rebekah’s tales of evil spirits, but now I wasn’t so sure. Anything seemed possible in that deep place.

“We have come for our Brother. Release him.” Josef’s voice rang out in the cave and echoed many times. “Release him, release him, release him. . . .”

There was no answer. Then a rumbling, groaning sound began to fill the cavern. Grim shapes, like lumps of half-finished clay, began to move in the flickering torchlight. I did not know their name then, but I do now. It was the Kinsfolk, the creatures of the earth, and they had been woken from their long sleep. A sound of fierce drumming filled my mind like madness—

I can’t! I can’t describe what happened next! It comes back in my dreams, again and again, but I want to forget it. I wish I could tear it out of my memory like Fairfax tore me from the grasp of those monsters and got me out of there.

Afterward, as I lay bleeding on the Ridge under the shadow of the stones, I heard their screams and fevered drumming as they discovered that they had been cheated. And I know that the Kinsfolk will never rest until they find me again, or until some other unfortunate girl is forced to take my place as their dark and cursed queen.