Free The Ghosting of Gods by Cricket Baker Page A

the writing has bled purple, soaking into the creases of the paper. “Look, Poe, at the top it says
Promised Land
. The rest is a mess.” I hold it up to him. “Can you make out anything else?”
    He squints, shakes his head.
    Bethany tends to George, ignoring us. I dig out another wad. This one is mostly dry, with only part of the ink smeared.
    “Hey, it’s a map,” Poe says. “Look, those upside-down V’s are roofs, and that squiggly line has got to be the river, I bet. It’s the town. And we’re…here.”
    Tiny circles are drawn beneath the river. Exits, maybe, for the tunnels? I wonder if the smeared ink at the top of the page used to be a legend. “Get another one,” I say, indicating the dam.
    Poe picks out several more wads and flattens them out, but they’re all a mess of blotchy ink. I take the good one over to George. “Does it make any sense to you? Maybe it shows a way out of here.”
    He doesn’t even look at the parchment. “Are you questioning my leadership, young man?”
    “What? No, I just thought—”
    “Dispose of it. It’s polluted. Oh, this hurts. Nasty, naughty rock.”
    “Not a rock. A tunneler box,” Bethany says, her voice full of disgust.
    “A what?” Poe asks.
    “A casket.”
    Springing up, George knocks Bethany onto her butt. He pats his robe frantically and pulls out more candles, these bigger than before. He quickly lights them with some sort of crude matches, also stashed in his robe.
    Poe asks what the matter is.
    “Nothing at all. I’m fine, fine.” Blood trickles down both sides of George’s face. Dragging his robe sleeve across his forehead, he smears it red. “Shall we get along now? Best not to remind tunnelers of lost flesh. Onward!”
    “Lost flesh?” Poe repeats. “What does that mean?”
    “No more questions!”
    “It means they’re crazy,” I say angrily. Why doesn’t Poe understand this?
    “Never you mind,” Bethany says. “George, bend low, please.” She manifests another handkerchief and ties it around his forehead. “I think that will do until we get back to town.” She turns to me and Poe. “The tunnelers fear us. Why else do they cower underground? They desire only to indulge their useless fantasies of salvation in hiding. Nevertheless, we shall increase our pace.” She squeezes George’s hand. “Lead on, my brave darling.”
    George squares his shoulders, but his quivering goatee betrays his fear.
    “Who are the tunnelers?” Poe asks. Neither George nor Bethany answers, and Poe looks at me, as if I might know. Gettingno answer, he comes up with another question. “What’s that ticking?”
    George slaps his hands over his ears and whimpers. “Ghosts chained to bodies, ghosts chained to bodies,” he chants.
    Ghosts? I brace myself for voices, but all I hear is rhythmic dripping. Poe’s right. It does sound like a ticking clock.
    “They’re closing in on us,” Bethany says.

13
lost but now she’s found
    George and Bethany bolt.
    One of my candles blows out as Poe and I chase after them. Tossing the waxy weight aside, I curse at the big splash it makes. The water’s getting deeper. The ceiling drips badly, so badly I wouldn’t even call it dripping so much as
raining
. “We’re going to have to turn around,” I yell.
    “No ticking down this tunnel,” George calls back. Bethany sloshes beside him, until they’re both almost out of sight. All I can see are candle flames—their silhouettes blend with the darkness.
    Water creeps up my leg.
    “No ticking at all,” George calls back. “Just a bit of a swim necessary. I see—” Their candles snuff out.
    “Jesse?” Poe tweets, as a wall of water bears down on us.
    His elbow catches me in the gut when the wave hits us. Pain makes me suck in my breath, only I get water. Dragged under like the hapless branch I watched earlier, I wash down the tunnel. Slam into a barrier. I claw at the mud walls, trying to stop the current from taking me away, but it’s too strong.
    I