13. || dark as a dungeon.

Silence filled the vent shaft as River sat atop its edge, picking at the cuff of their flannel and waiting to hear something from the woman; maybe a gasp, a laugh of disbelief, some kinda anger, anything. But only the jingle of the harness clips echoed up from the hollow void.

"Boots?" River called out into the dark, squinting to find the red glow of the flare below. It flickered like a dying ember in the distance. "That ol' afterdamp ain't gettin' to ya, is it?"

The wet crunch of her boots along the floor of the mine faded, but her voice finally rang out, "I'll be quick," as the thud of the vent door closed.

It wasn't any sort of acknowledgement, but at least it was a response. And maybe that meant they hadn't completely spooked her and messed everything up; everything being Vera's plan first and foremost because getting this cursed woman to the hemlock on the Cold Moon was the ultimate goal.

And Vera always knew what she was doing whether River liked it or not. She had, afterall, convinced the preacher to burn her in the old forest, forever souring the land both above and below. Not even when the hill was stripped did they find anything of worth, just pure rubble and waste still as it was today. Ever vengeful, Vera made damn sure that if she was going up in flames, then her husband's land, rich in timber and minerals would too.

With a sigh, River leaned back and started looking around the shed to see if Jedidiah McAfoos had anything that needed borrowed. Mostly rusted junk, oil cans, some sheets of ribbed metal. But the door to the outside was tempting them something awful because what use could that gas fracking company find in land scorched by a witchy woman if they weren't drilling?

River had barely begun unfastening their climbing harness to go investigate, when a piercing shriek tore up through the vent shaft.

"Boots! What happened?" River hollered, then held their breath to listen, peering down over the edge. Their pulse thumped loud in their ears as they strained to see the flare where she had left it, cursing themself for letting her go down alone. They had their reasons of course, but what good was stubborn remorse a hundred years later? "I swear, if ya make me come down there just 'cause a damn rat ran across your toe..."

"River, hurry," she pleaded, voice distant.

Readjusting the abseil line, River clipped themself to and made quick work of the descent with their dim little lantern, leaving a hundred years worth of bull-headed guilt back at the surface with their rifle.

As their boots touched the floor of the mine, fumes of dead organic matter not meant to ever meet the god-given air, burnt their nose with a tickle. Metallic and damp, its caustic vapor clung to their tongue as they tried in vain to swallow it down, but it lingered like a love gone sour and nothing could rid them of her taste. Except maybe a sip of moonshine, and of course that had ended up with the strange, cursed woman.

River unhooked themself from the line and detached the lantern, holding it up to the remnants of the vent door that led to the heart of the mine. Familiar chicken scratch scrawled out lesson poems across what wooden slats hadn't been reduced to splinters and dust. Even a hundred years later and three hundred feet above, River's handwriting had never got much better. Grabbing a slat from the black wet ground, they used it to prop open the door and hoped it wasn't so rotten that it'd collapse on itself. With the rest of the mine sealed off, they'd need every bit of air flow.

River wasted no time finding the main gangway where the woman had dropped a flare every hundred feet or so. She was smart, they'd give her that. And following her flares took far less time than sweeping every coal room and chamber that split off the gangway. But the deeper River ventured, the tighter their chest got because breathing was hard enough down there, but more than that, they could feel the depths of the mountain stirring, same as they could the day of the explosion.

Most timber props had survived along the gangway, but by no means were they any reassurance of the mine's stability. Supports, they were hardly. Between the miller and the CBC and whatever other jagoffs who thought it'd be smart to betray the earth and cut down her old-growth forests only to be used to pry open her mouth, her throat, and her bowels, well, they should've been the ones that got swallowed up. To cut timber from ancients and expect them not to abide a vengeful earth? No, them props were merely a warning to anyone keen enough to listen.

So River listened. And tried to move fast, but soft, because every time the heel of their boots hit a little too hard, an echo cracked through the mine which sounded a little too similar to the roof when it started working itself. With every step forward, the stench of rotten eggs grew worse and the props started looking all buckled like broken bones and then the gangway came to a premature end. Raising the lantern, they shined it over heaps of jagged shale and coal and busted timber that blocked the rest of the chamber. One that led to a narrow vein of coal that had been at the heart of the second explosion.

"Boots?"

"In here," her voice cracked, calling from beyond the wall of rubble.

"How'd ya–" As River lowered the lantern, it lit up a crevice along the bottom side, just big enough to squeeze through.

Stripping off their jacket, River dropped to the floor and pushed the lantern through as far as they could, then flattened themself to bellycrawl beneath the tons of packed slate shards. Splinters burrowed into their fingertips as they gripped the busted ties of the gangway to pull themself along, carefully as they could. Any little bump could dislodge the rubble, crushing them instantly. They continued to push the lantern ahead until its light lit up the other side of the chamber.

Just as their arms, head, and shoulders cleared the opening, sharp pain tore up the length of their ribs. Warmth dampened their shirt, wetting their fingers as they reached down to feel a mangled piece of shrapnel sunk into their skin. With a steady hand, they took a breath and pulled themself free of its barb. Wriggling the rest of the way out, they grabbed up the lantern and stumbled to their feet.

Coal dust and gas still seeping from the walls of the mine continued to claw at River's chest, but they hurried quick as they could, slopping through six inches of water towards a red glare at the end of the chamber where nestled in a narrow pocket, that strange, cursed, no-named woman knelt before something heaped along the ground.

As she looked over her shoulder, relief flooded River and they rushed to her side. "You're all right."

But then that heap of something on the ground coughed a god awful noise and turned in their direction. "River Hawthorne," it sputtered. "Ain't you a sight for sore eyes."

And sore eyes was sure right. Two chunks of coal filled a pair of eye sockets, embedded in the raw pink flesh of what had once been Béla Jánošík's handsome face. The charred tip of his nose hung down around his lips, blocking the toothless grin that stretched from ear to ear—or well, at least to that bloody hole in his head where his left ear used to be.

"Good to know your humor's still intact, Bél." River lowered the lantern to light up his body. "Unfortunately, the rest of ya didn't fare too well."

"It's bad, ain't it kid?"

"Well, you remember when we was strikin' and Vera brought down that shepherd's pie?"

"That woman can't cook to save her life," Béla choked out a laugh. "You sayin' my belly looks like raw mincemeat?"

"Probably just looks worse than it is. I bet the company doc can stitch ya up no problem." River shared a knowing glance with the woman as she continued to keep hands on what she could of Béla's guts, packing them back into his ruptured abdomen before tying his shirt closed. "You uh, still hurtin' a good bit?"

"Was feelin' like the tail end of misery before this nurse here showed up. When I heard her voice, I thought for sure the angel of death was finally answerin' my prayers with a last sip of whiskey." As he barked that awful cough again, it wheezed from every open gash in his chest. Béla leaned his head towards the woman. "How 'bout anothern, darlin'?"

She picked up the flask from the floor and tipped it against his lips, dabbing his chin with her sleeve where the moonshine leaked through a hole in his jaw. Her tenderness towards this ghoul of a man was... unexpected. River could only hope she would show them just as much grace. Béla gave a gentle nod and she lowered the flask, twisting the cap back on.

"And then I heard her call out your name," he continued with a little more gusto this time. "Thought maybe the angel was comin' for ya too, that ya wasted too much time fussin' over me and didn't make it out 'fore that second blast." Béla lifted a skeletal hand to the woman's arm and she swallowed hard, but didn't flinch as he pulled himself closer to whisper. "Fool kid pert near killt himself tryin' to drag my ass out. Wantin' that Carnegie Hero money, I'm sure."

Reward of course had nothing to do with it. Béla was good people. Eldest son of the first Slovaks in town, he worked the mill and boarded with River at Vera's before the mine.

But had River just left him on the other side nearer the burning entry at least his body would've been found with the rest. He'd have been buried in that mass grave with the other immigrant scabs, but buried no less, and good and dead. Instead, River had dragged him here trying to reach the vent shaft, but the second blast sealed the chambers, entombing him in this vein where the curse turned him into some kinda undead haunt.

"What was the miller's wife doin' down here anyhow?"

And that pulled River out of their guilt right quick. "Vera? Down here?" They held the lantern to the back of Béla's head just to make sure his brains weren't painted on the coal face. "You musta really took a whoopin."

"I seen her with my own two eyes," Béla shot back with a cough. "In fact, she took my little canary. I swear I can still hear her chirpin' in these walls."

"Your own two eyes, huh?" River looked over the chunks of coal that fit a little too perfect in his eye sockets, a little too deliberate.

"Morning 'fore the explosion. What's it been, a week or so?"

"A week?" River's confused laugh caught tight in their chest, getting all twisted up with sorrow. "Bél, it's been—"

"Just a day, Mr. Jánošík," the woman lied with a smile that Béla sure couldn't have seen, but its warmth lilted her voice with a little mountain twang. She flashed a look at River before taking Béla's hand in hers and wouldn't you know, that damned blood red garnet started glowing again. "A very long twenty-four hours for ya, but we're here now."