Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [82]
It’s darker, this tunnel, and narrower. The bones are much closer to me. I pass by a large skull perched on top of a wall, and suddenly I can see the man it belonged to. He’s a big, brawny butcher, singing bawdy songs as he hacks up a pig. And the skull next to his, with a high forehead—that one belonged to a schoolmaster, pale and stiff-necked. The one over there, the small one, it was a little girl’s. She was pretty and pink-cheeked and full of life. Skull after skull. With their empty, unseeing eye sockets.
The voices I heard, they’re getting louder, more urgent. I tell myself it’s people up ahead. That or the sound of water dripping. I’ve seen wet patches on the ground and droplets on the walls. But there are no people. And the walls are dry. And then I realize what it is—it’s the skulls. All of them. They’re whispering to me.
“I want to smell the rain again,” one says, close by me.
“I want to taste melons. Warm from the sun,” says another.
“I want the sound of my husband’s laughter. The feel of his skin against mine.”
More join in until it’s one sad chorus of longing. They want roast chicken. Silk dresses. Lemonade. Red shoes. The smell of horses.
I’m losing my mind. I must be. And then a breeze blows through the tunnel, which is impossible, because we’re twenty-five meters underground, and I catch a strange smell, spicy and strong—cloves. I’m totally freaking out now. The voices are in my ears and the smell is in my nose and in my mouth and it’s so strong it’s suffocating me.
“Help me,” I say. “Please.”
“Miss? Excuse me, miss, but you’re not supposed to be down here.”
I look behind me. A security guard is standing in the tunnel, shining his flashlight on me.
“Miss? Are you all right?” he asks.
“I don’t think so.”
He walks up to me and takes my arm. “This way, please,” he says. “Lean on me if you need to.”
I need to. I stumble along next to him and after a few minutes, we’re back at the fork. He swings a metal grille closed over the tunnel’s entrance and locks it. There’s a red-and-white sign on it that says GENERATORS—AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. I didn’t even see the door before. When I was trying to decide which way to go.
“I’m sorry. I … uh … I couldn’t catch my breath,” I say, embarrassed.
He smiles. “It happens. Some people react badly. They feel ill or faint or become disoriented. This place can be overwhelming.”
But it’s got nothing to do with my breath. I lied about that. It’s Alex. She wanted me to come down here. To go down that tunnel. She wanted me to follow her. To find her.
The guard walks me down the proper tunnel and leads me to a folding chair. There’s a first-aid box next to it and a telephone. He tells me to sit down for a few minutes. I do, with my head in my hands.
It’s the Qwell. It has to be. I’ve been taking too much for too long and it’s built up inside me and it’s really screwing me up. Making me see things and hear things. On Henry Street. On the quai. And now here, in this freaky-ass spookhouse. It’s making me think I’ve got some sort of weird connection with a dead girl.
The guard has me sit for a few more minutes, then escorts me the rest of the way through the tunnels and up a staircase to the exit.
“I’d advise you to get some water once you’re outside. And to eat something,” he says.
Another guard checks my bag to make sure I didn’t take any mementoes. As if. And then I’m out. Aboveground. Back into the world of the living.
I get a cheese crêpe and a bottle of water right away, and then sit down on a bench under some trees in a park and eat. When I’m finished, I close my eyes. Lift my face to the sun. Take a few deep breaths. After a little while, I feel saner. Calmer. What happened in the catacombs was just an episode of weirdness brought on by too many pills. Like every other weird thing that’s happening to me lately. I have to back off the Qwellify. I have to take even less. And I will. Starting tonight.
I open my eyes and look at my watch. It’s ten past one. I’m going