Episode 210 · One Look

Krista had reached the turn above the footbridge when Tesa called her name.

She kept walking for three steps before stopping. Behind her, shoes struck the path at an uneven pace. Tesa was coming down from the road with her gym bag over her shoulder.

— Soles at home?

— Yes.

Tesa shifted the bag. Krista could still go home. She could turn at the bridge, take the street past the bakery and spend the rest of the night finding things to put away. Instead she went down the first step toward the bank.

— Where are you going?

— I need a little time.

— Down there?

Krista stopped with her hand on the railing.

— You don’t have to come.

— I know.

Tesa shifted the strap higher on her shoulder and followed.

At the opening beneath the bridge, Krista switched on her phone’s light. Tesa crouched beside her. The loose end of the tape wrapped around her bag strap caught on a projecting corner of brick.

— Wait, Krista said.

Tesa pulled back before Krista could free the tape. A strip tore away and stayed on the brick; Tesa pressed the remainder flat against the strap.

— That’s going to come off.

— Then I’ll know where I left it.

Krista ducked into the passage and checked the bend against the sketch in her head. Beyond the turn, she moved left until her light found the chamber entrance past the edge of the wall. She had checked that approach in daylight. Tonight it was a piece of darkness cut out of another piece.

Tesa came through behind her.

— You’ve been back.

Krista lowered the light.

— Yes.

— On your own?

— Yes.

Tesa waited. Krista had spent the walk preparing an answer for someone who would tell her to stop. The silence was harder to meet.

— I was measuring the passage. Looking at the repairs.

— Anything else I should avoid standing on?

Krista wanted to take it as a joke, but lowered the light to check their footing.

— Stay behind me until we reach the chamber.

The carved tree was still on the slab. The cut branch ended beneath her light, blunt and empty. Along the edge, the old chisel marks showed white against the smooth stone.

Krista put the notebook on the crate lid and took off one glove.

— You opened it before, she said.

— And bled all over myself. I remember.

— You were trying to keep it open.

— There were people in it.

Krista set her palm beside the roots. Warmth entered her fingers. She waited for a movement, listening so hard that the scrape of Tesa’s shoe made her start.

Nothing happened.

She had come to look at stone, she told herself. She could do that from here. There was enough she had not measured outside it.

Her hand remained against the carving.

She wanted to go in.

The pressure caught beneath her ribs. She drew a breath and found that she had stopped halfway through it. The slab moved back, taking its edge away from the wall. Warm air reached her sleeve.

— Krista.

— I know.

She held her palm in place until the gap was wide enough. Tesa moved beside it and put her hand on the stone.

— Go. Then come straight back.

Krista passed through sideways onto a short landing, with three broad steps leading down to the round room’s floor. Her light found the carved man and the tree rising from his chest, then the signs above the steps.

She turned before going down them. There were shallow branches on the inner face of the stone too, worn so smooth that her sleeve passed over them before she felt the grooves.

She put her palm against them.

— Take your hand off, she said.

Tesa stayed where she was.

— You’re on the wrong side.

— I want to try from here.

Tesa let go. The gap narrowed. Krista kept her hand flat and wanted it open again.

For a moment she thought it would crush her fingers. She almost pulled away. Then the pressure returned through her wrist and the seam widened.

Her knees shook. She set her shoulder against the wall beside the landing until it passed.

— It opens from here, she said.

— Good. Use it.

Krista stepped back through to Tesa. For a little while they stood together in the outer chamber, breathing the cooler air. Somewhere above them a tram crossed the bridge, and the brick hummed with it. Tesa was looking at the hand Krista held against her coat.

— How long have you known that?

— Since just now.

She flexed her fingers. The joints ached when she straightened them. Tesa took the hand without asking and pressed her thumb into the palm, the way she worked a cramp out of a boxer between rounds, until the ache let go.

— We can go home, Tesa said.

Krista looked past her at the closed stone. From here she could see only the tree. All the signs beyond it, the other face of the carving, the repairs she had never reached, were still where she had left them.

— One look.

Tesa rubbed the edge of the tape on her bag strap.

— I’m coming this time.

Krista opened the slab again, letting Tesa through before following her onto the inner landing. She noticed that the stone remained open for a breath after she took her hand away, then settled shut.

She touched the inner face once more and opened a narrow seam. The effort came quicker now and left her less steady. She closed it deliberately, palm flat, concentrating on bringing the edge back to the place it had occupied.

— Enough, Tesa said.

Krista took her hand off. She wanted to write down the difference while she could still feel it in her wrist. Her notebook was still outside, on the crate lid.

— Damn it.

— We’ll get it on the way out.

Tesa went down the three steps. Krista followed, lighting the edge of each one. On the last, the surface beneath her boot gave with a short, hard click.

She stopped.

The front edge of the tread had sunk, exposing a narrow gap beneath the step above. Through it she could see two dark edges pressed across each other and, between them, a pale chip of stone. One edge moved against the chip, stopped, then tried again.

— Don’t move, she said.