Alosha

  “Why are any of them open?” Cindy said.

  “We have to make a choice,” Steve said, still trying to catch his breath. “We have come too far to go back to the entrance.”

  Ali turned to Paddy. “Do you know?” she asked.

  He hesitated. “No.”

  “Have you been in here before?” she asked.

  He lowered his head. “Missy asked that before. Paddy said no.”

  The cave they had just hiked trailed behind them like a gully into a bottomless pit. Yet the two caves before them—through the two doors—leveled out. Ali wondered if they were already near the top of the mountain. It seemed too much to hope for.

  In the end, Ali knew she was the one who would have to choose. Like Karl, she felt the cave through the yellow door had fresher air. But the difference was slight—for all she knew they could be imagining the difference. Yet there was something mysterious about the first cave, behind the red door. It was identical to the other one, in appearance, but like the green and blue doors, it drew her. Almost like a voice, talking softly inside her head.

  Magic, Ali. Black and white magic. Let us show you.

  Yet the voice did not belong to Nemi.

  She was not even sure if it was real.

  “I think we should take the red door,” Ali said.

  The entire group stared at her.

  “Why?” Steve said.

  “I have a feeling about it,” she said.

  Karl was worried. “That’s not a good reason to choose it.”

  “It is to me,” Ali said.

  “I agree with Karl,” Steve said, stepping toward the yellow door, feeling with his outstretched palms. “The troll’s first choice probably has some meaning. I think I feel a faint breeze coming out of here.”

  “You didn’t say that a minute ago,” Ali said.

  “I didn’t feel it then,” Steve said.

  “Let’s flip a coin,” Cindy said. “Got a gold one, Paddy?”

  “We’re not flipping a coin,” Ali snapped. “I sense something about the first door—the red door. We have to check it out.”

  “If you sense something’s in there, we should avoid it,” Karl said.

  “Yeah. It might be a swarm of dark fairies,” Cindy said.

  “I can handle them,” Ali said.

  “I wouldn’t get overconfident. Not down here,” Karl said.

  “I don’t like the red door!” Paddy suddenly blurted out.

  The gang turned to the leprechaun. Ali stared hard at him. “You just said you don’t know anything about these doors. Why don’t you like it?” she demanded.

  Paddy would not look at her. “Heard stories, Missy. Evil stories.”

  Ali sharpened her tone. “Who told you these stories?”

  Paddy stuttered. “My pa . . . others.”

  “Other leprechauns?” Ali asked.

  Paddy shook his head, then nodded. “Yes, Missy.”

  “Then we definitely should not take it,” Karl said.

  Ali shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  Cindy spoke up. “You wanted to bring Paddy along so you could ask his advice. Well he’s telling you the red door is a bad way to go.”

  Ali knelt in front of Paddy, forced him to look at her. “I need to know what’s wrong with the red door. Tell me everything you know. Because I want to go that way.”

  Paddy looked unhappy. “They said it was bad.”

  “How did they know? Had they ever seen it?”

  He was vague. “Maybe, maybe not.”

  Ali stood, feeling frustrated. Her attraction to the red door remained. She spoke to the others. “Look. We can hike some distance into the first cave. Say a mile or two. If it doesn’t look like it’s going the right way, we can come back here.”

  Karl was not happy. “How will we know we’re going the wrong way? We won’t know anything until it leads us outside.”

  “I agree,” Steve said.

  “You can’t simply ignore what Paddy’s saying,” Cindy added.

  “Trust me,” Ali said.

  None of them looked like they trusted her, even Farble, who did not appear to like the smell of the red door. But once again they could see she had made up her mind.

  They walked through the red door, into the first cave. Once more, just before leaving the area, and unseen by the others, Ali wedged another one of her buttons in the door’s frame near the floor. More than the previous door, she didn’t want anyone closing the red door behind them.

  The new cave looked the same as the old cave. They kept walking. There was no talking. They were not fighting a hard upward slope, but all the exercise was still wearing them out. Their thirst was entering the danger zone. Ali did not understand why a person needed more water at altitude. Maybe it had something to do with the dryness of the air. She was not merely craving liquids, she felt heat in her chest and had begun to get sharp stabbing pains in her head. Her lips felt like dried scabs; they cracked and bled under her thirsty tongue.

  Worse, Karl’s flashlight had begun to dim. The light was more yellow now than white, and the beam only lit the area around their feet. When Ali asked Karl about the batteries, he assured her they were new.

  “But we’ve been in this cave over five hours,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the batteries do run out.”

  “What do we do then?” she asked.

  “Feel our way forward. Hope we don’t step into a bottomless hole.”

  Funny he should say that. An hour after they had stepped through the red door, they came to a deep chasm. They bumped into it suddenly—Cindy almost stepped out into empty space. Steve grabbed the back of her shirt at the last second.

  The gorge was a hundred feet across. Even with their failing light, they could see the other side clearly, and another cave where their one left off. The latter looked like a square hole in the wall because the walls on both sides of the chasm seemed to stretch forever in every direction. Karl took a pebble from his pocket and tossed it over the edge. They never heard it hit bottom.

  Yet there was a bridge, made of rope and wooden planks, hanging uselessly on the far side. Ali knelt and studied two metal hooks that had been hammered into the floor. She realized the ropes had been tied to the hooks. There were threads of rope lying close to the hooks, as if a knife had been used to cut the bridge. Had it been recently? Did it have anything to do with them? Ali stood and peered over the edge.

  “I wonder how far down it goes,” she said.

  “It could be miles,” Karl said.

  “What does it matter? We have to go back,” Steve said.

  “What a waste of time this whole cave thing has been,” Cindy said.

  “Not so fast,” Ali said. “What if this is the way out? Farble, did you ever come this way?”

  The troll had to think, not his strong point. Finally he shook his head.

  “Are you sure?” Ali asked.

  Farble nodded.

  “So I made a mistake,” Ali muttered.

  Steve groaned and sat down on the floor near the edge. “I thought we didn’t have time for mistakes,” he said.

  “What time is it?” Karl asked.

  “Six-fifteen,” Cindy said, checking her watch.

  Ali shook her head. “That’s impossible. Last time I looked it was six-forty. Your watch . . .” Ali did not finish—her watch said six-fifteen.

  “What is it?” Cindy asked.

  “I have the same time as you,” Ali said.

  “What’s the big deal?” Steve asked. “You read your watch wrong. It probably said five-forty.”

  “Yeah,” Ali agreed, although she felt far from certain. She was paranoid about the passing time—she didn’t see how she could have made such a mistake. She turned to the leprechaun. “Could there be magic in this cave?” she asked.

  The leprechaun was ill at ease. “Magic, yes, there could be some type of magic here. But leprechauns . . .” He stopped in mid-sentence.

  “What is it?
” Ali demanded.

  Paddy tilted his ears back the way they had come. “Hear something.”

  “What?” Karl asked.

  “Sounds like . . .” Paddy grimaced; his face would have turned white if it hadn’t been so green. “Dwarves!” he cried.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Karl muttered.

  “Me neither,” Cindy said.

  Yet Farble also looked scared. Clearly the elementals had more acute senses. Ali trusted that they were indeed hearing dwarves.

  “Is the sound getting louder?” she asked. It was possible the dwarves were in one of the other caves, closing in on the fork they had just left behind, perhaps preparing to hike to the main entrance. Paddy dashed that hope.

  “They’re singing! They’re coming this way!” Paddy exclaimed.

  “If they’re singing, they must be in a good mood,” Steve said.

  “Dwarves are never in a good mood! They sing as they go into battle!” Paddy was beside himself with fear—worse than when the elves had attacked. He practically bounced off the walls. “They’re going to kill us!”

  “Stop that!” Ali snapped. “No one’s going to kill us. They can only approach through this narrow cave. I have the fire stones. I can always fire off a few shots and scare them away.”

  Paddy’s face was a mass of nerves. “The stones will not work here! Not for you! No fairy magic works on this side of the red door!”

  Ali frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me that before we came in here?”

  “Missy would not listen to anything!”

  “Wait a second,” Ali said. “Say the stones don’t work, it doesn’t matter. I have other powers.”

  “They are fairy powers!” Paddy yelled at her. “They won’t work here!”

  “But I’m not a fairy. I’m a girl,” Ali said.

  Paddy was angry on top of his fear. “Missy does not know what she is. What can Missy do now? How will she save poor Paddy?”

  Then they heard it, with their human ears, the deep rhythmic chanting of the dwarves. To Ali it sounded like echoing thunder, heard through the deep valleys of ancient mountains and forgotten times. The chant sounded very old, and sad too, as though it were more about death than life, more about darkness than light.

  “Maybe we can talk to them,” Steve said hopefully.

  “Dwarves don’t talk! Dwarves kill!” Paddy cried.

  “Wouldn’t they at least talk to a fairy?” Ali asked, still reeling from the leprechaun’s words. Was she a fairy? Was this the seventh test? No, she had not passed the other three, it made no sense.

  Freaking out, Paddy started banging his head on the wall and talking to himself. “Dwarves will not talk to Paddy! Dwarves hate Paddy! Off with the leprechaun’s head! We’re going to take your head!” He hit his head again. “My poor head!”

  Ali caught a strange note in his voice. Was she finally beginning to hear truth? The leprechaun was acting like he had already talked to the dwarves. She grabbed his arm as he went to hit his head some more.

  “Stop that!” she ordered. “Stand here and talk to me. How do you know they’ll cut off your head?”

  “They’re dwarves!”

  “True. But you must know these dwarves to be this scared. You must have talked to them. What did you talk about, Paddy?”

  “Paddy never . . .”

  “Don’t lie to me! We could all die in the next few minutes! You tell me what you know and you tell me now!”

  Paddy looked so miserable she almost regretted yelling at him. Almost but not quite. Because it was obvious that he had been keeping a big secret from her. Why, he couldn’t even look at her! She grabbed him by the chin and forced his eyes to meet hers.

  “You made a deal with them!” she swore. “What kind of deal?”

  “No!”

  She shook him violently. “Tell me!”

  “To turn you over to them!” he cried. “But Paddy did not do it!”

  Ali let go of him and took a step back in disgust. “So that’s how it’s been? From the very beginning, you’ve been a traitor.”

  Her words wounded him. “Paddy not know you in the beginning!”

  Ali shook her head. “I don’t care. Karl, get ready to throw this traitor over the side.”

  “With pleasure,” Karl said, grabbing the leprechaun by the hair. Paddy squealed but could not shake loose.

  “Wait! Wait!” he cried. “Missy hurts poor Paddy’s arm in front of the pawnshop and Paddy sees she has fairy magic. Paddy knows she’s the one the dwarves search for. So Paddy makes a pretend deal with Missy. Missy must be pretending, too! Missy doesn’t even drink to seal the deal!” He was close to tears. “Paddy doesn’t know Missy is a nice fairy! Paddy knows nothing!”

  Ali finally heard truth in his words. She gestured for Karl to ease up. “Are you saying that once you got to know us you liked us and decided not to tell the dwarves about us?”

  Paddy nodded frantically. “Paddy gave the dwarves nothing!”

  “You wandered away from camp last night. Did you see the dwarves then?” Ali asked.

  “Aye. Paddy told them he didn’t know where you were. That’s why they’ll cut off me head!”

  “He’s lying,” Karl said. “The dark fairies attacked right after he returned.”

  “That’s true,” Cindy said.

  “How do you know?” Steve asked her. “You were asleep.”

  “So were you!” Cindy said.

  Behind them, down the dark cave, the chanting grew louder.

  “Paddy didn’t bring the dark fairies! They just came!” Paddy shouted.

  “How did they know where to find us?” Ali asked.

  “They know you! They can see you!”

  “How?” Ali insisted.

  “Paddy doesn’t know! Poor Paddy only knows he did nothing wrong!”

  Again, she heard truth. She considered. “Let him go.”

  “Ali?” Karl complained.

  “We have more pressing matters to worry about. Let him go.” Yet she knelt in front of Paddy as Karl released the leprechaun. “Did the dwarves promise you gold if you gave me to them?” she asked.

  He was filled with shame. “Aye. Promised me a whole pot.”

  “You wanted it so that you could get to be with Lea?”

  His eyes widened at the name, but he nodded. “Aye. Paddy lonely all the time.”

  Ali squeezed his shoulder. “Were you lonely when you were hiking with us?”

  Finally, he looked her in the eye. She was not sure what he saw there. What was a nice fairy to a lonely leprechaun? But he brushed the tears from his own eyes and shook his head. “Missy is kind,” he said. “Paddy should have known from the beginning. Paddy is sorry that he lied to Missy.”

  “That’s okay, I forgive you.” Ali stood and turned to the others. A faint orange glow could be seen in the depths of the cave. Dwarf torches, no doubt. The others saw the light as well. She continued. “We have to get to the other side of this gorge.”

  “How?” Karl gasped.

  “I would rather surrender,” Cindy said.

  “Dwarves don’t take prisoners,” Paddy said.

  “Isn’t there a law against that?” Steve asked.

  “We take the rope, make a lasso at one end,” Ali explained. “There are steel hooks on the other side, same as this side. We get the rope around one of those, we can climb across.”

  Karl looked doubtful as he studied the far side of the gorge. “It would take a lucky shot to catch one of those hooks.”

  “More the reason we should start shooting now,” Ali said. “Come on, get the rope out. I’ll do it if you can’t.”

  She might have put it more politely. Karl gave her an annoyed look.

  “I can do it,” he said.

  Of course the annoyance was not because she had snapped at him. They were all looking at her, no doubt thinking if they had taken the yellow door, they would be outside by now. She didn’t know what to say—they were right. For that matter, she
didn’t know why her intuition had prodded her to take the red door. Perhaps she had misread it, and was confused about many things.

  Karl surprised even himself. He caught a hook on the other side on his fifth try. Pulling the rope taut, he tied it to a hook on their floor. Naturally, on the other side, the rope was not tied, and that made the crossing that much more dangerous. That’s why Ali insisted on going first.

  “I have to see if the rope will support our weight,” she said.

  “Some of us weigh more than you,” Karl said.

  “Not to mention a certain ten-foot-tall troll,” Steve said.

  The dwarves were near. Ali could make out individual torches in the distance, and the noise of their chanting seemed to shake the inside of her skull. “We don’t have time for another argument,” she said, getting down on her knees. “I only need a minute.”

  “Be careful,” Cindy said, kneeling beside her.

  “I thought you hated me,” Ali said.

  Cindy was worried, but forced a smile. “How can I hate my best friend?”

  Getting onto the rope, figuring out how to hang, was the hardest part. But Ali knew there was no way she would be able to stay on top of the rope. Crawling onto her back, she stuck her head over the edge and grabbed the cord and pulled herself three feet out, at the same time wrapping her legs around the rope. Well begun was supposed to be half done, but she did not know if that applied in life and death matters.

  Her long maroon hair hung below her head like a red flag waving from the window of a spaceship. Nemi had talked to her about the test of space. She had never realized what he had in mind. She thought if she let go she would fall and never hit bottom. Her soul would be trapped forever in darkness, and, like a dark fairy, she would never have another chance to find the light of wisdom.

  She realized that was her fear talking. The tests were about nothing but fear, and courage. She remembered reading once that all babies were born with two fears: the fear of darkness and the fear of falling. The gorge gave her a chance to face both at the same time.

  “How are you doing?” Karl asked as she scooted farther onto the rope, leaving the ledge behind.

  “I love it,” she whispered.

  “Do you feel like you’re about to fall?” Cindy asked.

  “Don’t say the F word,” Steve said.

  “I feel fine. Let me concentrate,” Ali said.