Episode 215 · Sunday Morning

On Sunday morning, Maxim fed Mina before checking his phone again.

She had left half her food the night before. Soles had warned him about that, so he had sat at the kitchen table until she came back to the bowl. Lucky had waited beside him with an expression suggesting that this was a poor use of available food.

There was still no answer from Tesa.

He called her, listened to it ring, then tried Krista. The two names sat one above the other in the list. Since Friday evening, neither woman had answered.

Yesterday he had worked. There had been deliveries to finish, then Soles’s bag and the dogs. He had expected Tesa to call about the evening visits. When she hadn’t, he had stayed. There were reasons for two people to want a day without him asking where they were. This morning, with both phones silent, he began going through the places he could check.

He left water for the dogs and locked the back door.

At Tesa’s building, the woman downstairs said she hadn’t heard her come in. Krista’s curtains were drawn. He rang twice, waited and called again beneath her window. At the gym, the man opening up remembered Tesa leaving on Friday with her bag over one shoulder.

— She’s not answered you either? the man asked.

Maxim went back to the truck.

He sat behind the wheel until the engine warmed. They knew the same people, had used the same streets all week. He had checked the places where somebody could have seen them. There was one place left where a phone would be no use at all.

He drove toward the garden.

The path above the river was slick. He took it slowly where the ground fell away beneath his boot. At the little bridge he stopped and looked down toward the old opening.

Mud had been pressed flat beneath it. More than one person had gone through. That would have meant nothing a week ago.

He crouched. A pale strip hung from a broken corner of brick, caught where someone entering would have put a shoulder. He touched it and felt the familiar roughness of sports tape.

Tesa had been picking at the loose end around her bag strap on Friday morning. He had told her to leave it alone.

He went down on his knees and switched on his flashlight.

The passage took him under the garden. Past the first bend, daylight disappeared behind his shoulder. He moved with one hand against the wall, carrying the flashlight in the other, until the floor opened into the outer chamber.

The carved slab was shut.

On a crate lid beside it lay Krista’s notebook. He knew the little squared labels on the cover. He had once waited while she straightened one that had gone on crooked.

He put the flashlight beside it and called both names, loud enough to hurt.

There was no answer.

He set his palm against the carved tree. The stone was warm. He remembered standing here with the others, trying to understand how much the place could take from a person before it gave anything back.

— Come on, he said.

He wanted it open. He wanted to see them standing on the other side, annoyed that he had made such a fuss.

Pressure gathered beneath his ribs. He set his feet farther apart and kept his hand flat. The edge of the slab moved back from the wall.

Warm air reached his face.

— Krista?

— Here!

Her voice came from below the level of the opening. He brought the flashlight through first, then stepped onto the narrow landing behind the stone.

The steps were gone.

He kept one palm on the slab and braced the flashlight hand against the wall. The beam showed the landing’s broken edge just beyond his boots; below it lay stone fragments and darkness. Across the gap, on the round room’s floor, Krista and Tesa were getting to their feet.

Tesa still had her bag. Her left hand was wound in tape from its strap, the knuckles dark through it. Krista held her phone as if she had been trying it when he called.

— Stay there, Maxim said.

Tesa looked at the empty space between them.

— We’d got that far.

He turned the beam along the broken floor. The near landing was sound where it met the slab. On the other side, loose pieces lay around the lip; the girls had stayed back from it. Anything laid across would have to reach past those pieces onto the round floor.

He swept the light over their faces.

— Can you both walk?

— Yes, Krista said.

— Anything new broken?

— My opinion of this place, Tesa said.

He took a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. His hand was beginning to ache against the stone.

— I have a ladder in the truck. It folds down. Rope, too. I’m going to get them.

Krista moved forward, then stopped at the sound of grit falling.

— Will it open again?

— I opened it once.

— You need to want it. Keep your hand there.

He looked at his palm.

— Yes. I’ve noticed that part.

The pressure had reached his jaw. He backed into the outer chamber before taking his hand away. The opening narrowed, with the girls still visible beyond it. Krista raised her phone to light the edge until it closed.

Beside the crate lid, he stood breathing through his mouth and wiped the wetness from beneath his nose onto his sleeve. Then he turned the flashlight toward the passage.

The truck had never seemed so far from the bridge. He ran the last of the path, the flashlight beam jumping across the wet brick.

He carried the folded loading ladder down first, stopping at the bend to work its ends around the wall. Then he returned for the rope and two short straps.

He secured the rope to the sound stone pier beside the slab with a short strap, then set the folded ladder within reach of his free hand. Only then did he open the stone again.

The girls were waiting in the same place.

— How long have you been down here? he asked.

Krista looked at Tesa.

— Three hours. Perhaps a little more.

Maxim kept his palm on the stone.

— It’s Sunday.