Courtney Summers - Defy the Dark

“Now. There’s going to be a cave-in—we’ll get covered up.”

“A cave-in? How do you know?” Roth asks, eyes focusing on me carefully, like he’s trying to decide if I’m drunk.

What can I say? That a faery girl in a mine warned me?

“You have to trust me,” I say, and even as I do, I suspect he won’t. He barely knows me. He knew my father. Trust me like you would trust him, please, Roth . I stand up straight, try my best to look like him, try to channel the intensity of my father’s eyes into mine.

“All right,” Roth says; I can tell he thinks I may be crazy, but he reaches for his radio.

In an instant, the mine changes. People abandon jobs, run, jump onto the carts and zip past us, supervisors driving like they’re racing. No one jokes in mines, and no one would doubt Roth’s word for a moment. People are running, running—

A blast, a sound that sends shock waves through the mine. The retreat miners would never do this while there are still miners in here. Words clutter Roth’s radio— accident, explosion, get out.

Rumbling echoes through the walls, ceilings, floors; it’s starting.

I have to be the last to go—if I’m here, maybe Ennor will make her family wait. She won’t let me die, she won’t let me get trapped in the dark, she knows I’m afraid of the dark—

No, I’m not, I argue with myself as I realize something: it’s not the dark I’m afraid of anymore. It’s failing the others. It’s failing my father by not being like him.

I stiffen my knees, like doing so will keep the ground below and the earth above from touching, from crushing me.

“Get on!” Roth shouts at me, shoving my shoulder.

“I want to know everyone’s out!” I shout back, but Roth isn’t really listening—he’s too preoccupied with yelling into the radio, watching carts fly past, counting people. He nods and leaps onto a cart; another miner grabs a passenger seat—everyone is ahead of us now, everyone is on their way out. I jump onto the back of the cart and we take off, speeding like never before.

Dust blinds me, settles in my throat until it feels like I’m breathing in sand. Just as we start to see light ahead, a rock hits the front of the cart; Roth slams the wheel to one side, lifting the wheels off the ground. It’s only for a moment, but it’s enough to throw me off balance—I hit the mine floor. I taste blood.

Rocks tumble down behind me, the tongue of the earth pressing me against the roof of its mouth, waiting to bite, to tear, to swallow me. I scramble to my feet and run toward the brake lights of Roth’s cart; they look like glowing red eyes in the distance. I’m not going to make it. The world is getting smaller and my feet clumsier. Am I running? I can’t tell—everything is hot and everything is getting blacker.

Maybe it’s because it’s getting darker that I feel her.

Her fingers slip over my wrist and for a moment, a fleeting moment, I see Ennor. Not her face, not her form, even, but her hair. It flicks behind her as she runs, over the stones like they’re grass. She pulls me along, weaving around rocks that rain from the ceiling.

She halts; I stumble past her. Her hair spins around her face, obscuring it. I turn to her and she throws both hands out, slams them against my chest with strength like the earth itself. I fly backward, falling, tripping, sailing, until I slam onto my back at the cave’s entrance. The air leaves my lungs, I’m choking, but I feel hands on me, strong hands, men’s hands, the miners tugging me to safety.

The light burns my eyes, forcing me to close them. I feel dizzy, disoriented, I hear my name but don’t understand where it’s coming from or who is asking for me. The only phrase I pick up, a phrase I hold on to like it’s a precious stone, is this:

Everyone’s accounted for. Looks like we’re okay.

They’re out. Everyone is out.

But I feel like half of me is still trapped in the mine.

Iam a hero.

They ask me questions: How did you know? Are you psychic? Did you have a gut feeling?

I tell them I can’t explain it, because the truth is, I can’t.

They decide it must be my father. That his spirit warned me, that he filled me, made my body warn the others. They toast him in my hospital room. Once I’m back home, I get cards from the wives and children of the men who would have been covered up if I hadn’t warned them. They tell me my father would be proud. They tell me I’m more like him than I realize. They tell me I’m a miner to the core.

Then they start asking when I’ll come back to work, they start saying I’m their lucky charm, that they need me there in the mine. And I wonder if things would change if I was part of it—if I’d be a miner through and through instead of a hero’s boy pretending.

No. I’m not a miner. And I’ve lived up to my father, I’ve respected his work, I’ve helped his people. And now I’m moving on—maybe forever. But even if I never come back, I’ll be free. I’ll be happy.

I’m not afraid anymore.

When you’re used to the inside of a mine, even the dead of night seems brightly lit—the moon, the stars, they all cast bright blue light on the world. I wonder if this sort of light would hurt Ennor.

The mine entrance is a wall of rock, and there are warning signs everywhere—in front of the entrance, on the rocks, by the guardhouse. I approach the entrance and put my hands on the stone. The dust curls like smoke at my touch.

I don’t know what to say—talking to Ennor in the darkness was one thing. She felt real there. Out here, where everything is lit and my body aches, she seems imaginary again.

But she was not, she couldn’t be, because if she weren’t real, I wouldn’t be certain that I am not a miner. I wouldn’t be certain that I have to leave this place, that I have to stop being a coward about the world outside of Middleview. I wouldn’t feel so certain that someone else knows what it’s like to be trapped.

I ease myself to my knees.

“Ennor,” I say; her name sounds loud in the night. I feel a little like I’m talking to a rock. No, I feel a lot like I’m talking to a rock. I suppose before I was talking to darkness, but I knew she was there. I could sense her, feel her.

And so I close my eyes.

“Ennor?” I say her name, and it feels more familiar on my tongue now that the world is gone.

There’s a long pause, filled with crickets and stars.

“Will.”

I don’t know where her voice is coming from; it feels like it’s from everywhere, like it’s filling, warming my heart and lungs. I grin like a child, extend my hand just like I would have in the cavern, desperate for her to take it.

She doesn’t.

“You’re leaving,” she says, voice low.

I inhale, drop my hand; the grin fades, but the longing for her touch intensifies. “Yes,” I admit. I wait a long time to speak again, and it’s only when the words leave my mouth that I realize how true they are. “I want you to come with me.”

“But I’m a Knocker.”

“Only half.”

“Which half is it?” she asks, toying with the words.

“You’re the only one who knows that,” I answer. I feel her fingers, slight and smooth, brush the tips of mine.

She grows closer, and I squeeze my eyes shut to keep myself from opening them. I feel her breath on my cheeks, I feel her fingers wind around mine, and she presses against me. There are tears on her face, but she’s nodding, nodding slowly. She pulls her face back and rises, pulls me up with her—I wince as I put weight on my bad leg. We’re still, and I know that she’s waiting for me to open my eyes. So I do.