“We’ll be fine,” he assures me. “The book says the tricky part is that the tunnels are all connected. It’s one big maze. There are supposed to be a pair of ropes that lead up to a higher level of tunnels, and that’s what we’re looking for.”
“We’re climbing ropes?” This is gym-class horror all over again.
“No.”
“Oh, thank God,” I mumble.
“The ropes are just our visual landmark. There are several exits, and the one we need to find is near the ropes. It will take us out to the northern side, where there’s a big trail that leads to that valley I told you about.” He slips on his hoodie. “You might want to put a jacket on. It’s going to be chilly inside. And it should take us about an hour to make our way through. Then there’s an easy path down into the valley on the other side, where we can make camp by a creek and have dinner.”
An hour. I can do that. Better than climbing up that rocky path behind us. And at least it’s out of the sun. I should have brought a hat like my mom suggested. I think the part in my hair is sunburned. Pretty sure my cheeks are too. But who’s got a vitamin D deficiency now, huh?
I flick on Reagan’s headlamp as we step into the mouth of the cave. The entrance is a big, round room. Scattered rocks lay in heaps, as well as a couple of empty water bottles and what looks to be a pile of toilet paper. So much for “leave no trace.”
A fat tunnel at the back of the room leads farther into the mountain, and that’s where we head. Once we are inside, sunlight wanes at our backs, and our headlamps become our new sun. It’s much chillier here, and the air smells damp and musty—like rock, I suppose. I never thought about rock having a strong scent. It’s not an unpleasant one, though, and the cool air feels good in my lungs. Clean. Uncomplicated. Much like our path. The tunnel is wide enough for the two of us to walk side by side, and the ceiling is several feet over our heads. Veins of color thread through the rock walls—marble, Lennon guesses—and though the floor is rock, it’s better than walking outside.
“This isn’t so bad,” I say, letting my headlamp bounce around the walls.
“I told you.”
We soon come to another tunnel. Two, actually: one to our left, one to our right. They’re both about the same width as the one in which we walk.
“What now?” I ask.
“You don’t need to whisper, Zorie.”
“Everything echoes in here.”
“Echo, echo, echo,” Lennon says in his deep voice, cupping his hand around his mouth. “If an echo bounces off the walls of a deserted cave in the middle of the woods, does anyone hear it?”
“Are you finished?”
“For now.” Lennon unhooks his black compass from the belt loop of his jeans and flips it open. “We need to head south. Seems like this is the maze part I was telling you about.”
“This isn’t going to be like the hedge maze in The Shining, is it?” I ask.
“God, I hope so. I love that movie,” Lennon says. “Did you know that in the book, there’s an army of topiary animals that come to life?”
“Please don’t talk about that while we’re in the middle of a dark cavern in the middle of the wilderness where no one can come to our rescue,” I say. “And no ghost stories, for the love of Pete. Did your survivalist teacher really tell you that story? Wait. Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
“I should tell ghost stories for a living,” he says. “That was fun. Until the bear. Well, that was fun too. Until the fight.” The bright beam from his headlight shines in my face. “Too soon?”
I hold up a hand to block the light. “Can you not do that?”
He turns his head away to beam light in front of us. “Sorry.”
“I’m not sad about Brett, if that’s what you’re thinking,” I tell him.
“Good. He’s not worth your tears. Though, for the record, you have terrible taste in guys,” Lennon says, shining his light back to the compass in his hands.
“Pardon me?” I say, lightly shoving his compass hand with mine.
He chuckles. “You’re pardoned. And forgiven. And absolved for all your sins. So let’s focus and get through here, because I’m starving.” He steadies his compass again. “Okay, so as I was saying, all of these tunnels eventually lead into a huge cavern room. If we hit that, we’ve gone too far west. So I think we can just choose a tunnel and try to walk in a northern direction.”
“We go to the right, then?” I say.
“Wrong north. Otherwise known as south. Take a left.”
He’s awfully merry for someone who has only a vague idea about where we’re going. We head left and continue into the cave, walking in silence for several minutes. A noise echoes in distant tunnels, and this raises my pulse. I probably should have asked about bats. Or maybe I’m better off not knowing.
As he navigates a sharp turn in the tunnel, I stew over his words.
“Sins?” I say.
“What?”
“You said I was absolved of all my sins. What did you mean by that?”
“I was just teasing.”
I don’t think he was.
After a short silence, he says, “I mean, you know how I feel about Brett. But Andre Smith, too? Are you into jocks, or something? What was up with that?”
This conversation is moving into territory that I don’t care to relive. “Andre was nice to me when I needed a friend.”
“Yeah, I saw him. Being nice to you.” He pauses and then says, “But I didn’t know you were seriously seeing each other. Brett caught me up and told me . . . well, more than I needed to know.”
I stop walking. “What did Brett tell you?”
“Can we talk about something else?” Lennon says.
“No, we can’t. Because if Brett was gossiping about me, I think I have a right to know.”
Lennon considers this and continues walking, until I have no choice but to either catch up with him or be left behind in the maze.
“Tell me,” I insist.
“All right,” he finally agrees. “Brett said you and Andre were, you know . . . exchanging body heat.”
That’s a funny way to put it. In a way, it makes it seem worse. Like Lennon—someone who sees all kinds of crazy sex toys on a daily basis—can’t even bring himself to say what Andre and I did out loud.
“Andre and Brett talk,” Lennon adds. “Multiplayer.”
“What?”
“Online gaming. One of the sports games, FIFA or Madden, or something. I don’t know. I only play survival horror games. Maybe a little Minecraft. Okay, and some Final Fantasy, but don’t tell anyone about that.”
“I don’t care.”
“Hey, I didn’t ask for it,” he says. “Brett volunteered it.”
“I only saw Andre for a couple of weeks.”
“I saw you guys out at Thai Palace once.”
“You were spying on us?”
“The restaurant is across the street from my place of employment,” he says irritably. “So no, I wasn’t spying. I don’t own a telescope.”
Ugh. I was hoping we could avoid bringing up that mishap. Like, forever.
“And if you want to know the truth,” he continues in a crabby voice, “I thought it was sort of shitty of you to flaunt that in my face.”