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“I’ll go in first then,” he offered, seeing my reluctance.
I startled, then quickly shook my head. “No, I-I’ll lead the way.”
Clicking on my penlight, I swept the tiny beam back and forth as we picked our way forward. The term “smelling fear” came to mind as we hiked, because it radiated off me in acrid waves. Bryant must have sensed my apprehension too, and he pressed a gentle hand on my lower back in reassurance.
“Is this it then?” he asked quietly when we reached a turnout to the left.
“No. This cave room was to the right. Or my left as I was leaving. Anyhow, this is only one of several.”
“How do you know which one to take then?”
I didn’t, not for sure. Last time was an accident after getting myself lost.
“We have to reach a fork in the main tunnel first. In any case, I’m pretty sure I’ll know it when I see it.”
The rotten-egg pungency of sulfur hit my senses, bringing back my last nightmarish excursion into the bowels of this mountain. Quickly I covered my nose and mouth with my palm, but it did little good.
“Never mind this. We should get out of this devil’s hole,” Bryant said.
I shook my head. “No, let’s keep going.”
“If you’re doing this for my sake, Callista—”
“I’m doing this for mine,” I said, clearing my head of the dizziness. “I think it’s close now. I can...feel it.”
For the dozenth time, my fingers dipped into my right skirt pocket and felt the smooth pink quartz I kept there as a comforting talisman. I knew it held no mystical powers, even Dove-caller had translated for Flying Deer that it didn’t, but it had become a security blanket of sorts. And it was the only thing I could cling to now while I battled the incomprehensible terror welling up inside of me.
“Here’s the fork,” I said. “We make a right.”
Another five minutes, and suddenly the cave room entrance appeared.
There was nothing remarkable about this particular tunnel opening. But I knew that it was the correct one by the whispery vibrations that electrified my spine, the static filled air that made the hairs on my neck stand on end, the rocks that drew me towards them like iron filings to a magnet.
“This is it,” I said.
“How do you know?”
“I know. Let’s go.”
Bryant pushed passed me and stepped inside first. I hesitated, then remembered I still held the penlight and forced myself to follow.
I halted and nearly dropped it when it shined down onto my traveling satchel half-buried from the scattered debris. I don’t know how I could have missed it before. It was here now in plain sight.
With trembling fingers, I pulled it out from under the loose rocks and rummaged through the contents. Everything seemed to be here—my Nikon camera, my digging equipment, my sampling and first-aid kits.
I checked around the rubble for my larger flashlight and headlamp, but they were still nowhere around. Probably smashed and buried further under the rock piles.
Bryant cursed something in Gaelic. I swung the penlight beam around to see him gaping at the yellow-green symbols and lettering on the rock wall. He stepped up to the smear of dried blood across the sunburst and crescent moon and sniffed it.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Bryant frowned and touched it. “Confirming.”
“Confirming what?”
He turned around to me. “You’re telling the truth then. You were here. You’re truly from the future.”
I nodded, clearing my craggy throat. “Yep. Blows chunks, doesn’t it?”
