“She never told me-”
“You were all twisted the wrong way, and the midwife nearly wasn’t able to get you turned round properly.”
I nodded mutely. Glancing back at the opening, I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the underground cold. I was very glad to see that up ahead the tunnel enlarged.
“Let’s continue on,” I said, eager to leave behind the subject of my awkward and life-threatening birth. I did not care for this image of myself as a wailing baby-and did not want Elizabeth to think of me so.
Down and down. Gradually the ceiling lifted. We crouched, then hunched, then stood tall and stretched, groaning in relief.
“Which way now?” Konrad asked, for our tunnel suddenly branched into three. The first angled gently upward, the other two downward-one of them quite steeply.
I looked at the map, sickened. There was no such branching indicated.
“There’s only one passage marked here,” I mumbled.
Konrad stepped closer. “Perhaps you’re reading it incorrectly.”
I pointed at the spot where we should have been.
“We’re lost,” said Konrad. “You should’ve let me help navigate.”
“You mean take over entirely,” I snapped.
“Two sets of eyes are better than one.”
“My eyes are quite capable of reading a map, Konrad!”
“You have been too greedy with it, Victor,” said Elizabeth quietly. “You might have let us share the responsibility.”
This stung deepest. Humiliation and jealousy choked my voice. “You think him a better leader, do you?”
“I did not say that-”
Konrad snorted. “It’s this pigheadedness that has gotten us lost.”
I shoved him hard against the wall-my twin, who, mere weeks ago, had been bedridden with fever. He lost his balance and fell.
“Victor!” I heard Elizabeth cry above the pounding in my ears.
Immediately I was overcome with guilt and reached out to help him to his feet. “Are you all ri-”
He grabbed me by the arm and shoulder and hurled me against the wall, then stood before me, glowering, his fists raised. I clenched mine, ready to spring.
“Stop it!” shouted Elizabeth. “Both of you, stop!”
There was such anger and authority in her voice that we both turned to look at her.
“Don’t you dare put this venture at risk!” she said.
Konrad sighed heavily and dropped his fists. “This venture is at an end. We must turn back.”
“Turn back?” I exclaimed.
“To continue on without a map would be madness.”
“Elizabeth can mark our every turn with chalk!”
“Shush!” she said.
“Do not shush me!” I shouted.
“I hear something!” she said.
We listened. Far, far away came a low murmur. For a skin-prickling moment it sounded like people whispering.
“Water,” said Elizabeth.
Konrad nodded. “But from where?”
He moved a ways down each of the tunnels in turn.
“I think it must be this one,” Konrad said at the threshold of the ascending passage.
“No, it is this one,” said Elizabeth, standing at the steepest downward-sloping tunnel. “The sound is clearest here. Victor, what do you say?”
I tried all three tunnels. It was virtually impossible to decide, for I thought I heard the whisper of water everywhere now.
“I don’t know,” I said, defeated.
“I do,” said Elizabeth. “This way our pool awaits.”
Konrad looked at her, then at me.
I nodded. “I trust her.”
“Very well. We can always turn back if we find nothing. Mark the turning, Elizabeth.”
Triumphantly she chalked the stone. “You are lucky to have my ears along with you.”
“We’re lucky to have all of you along,” said Konrad, and won a chuckle from her.
I wished I had the quick wit to make such flirtatious compliments.
We started down the tunnel, and the lapping sound grew stronger.
“You see?” Elizabeth said. “I was right.”
Quite suddenly the tunnel angled sharply upward.
“The floor is damp here,” Konrad said.
I ran my fingers along the slick stone. “The walls, too.”
For some minutes we walked uphill, puffing. Then the tunnel leveled off and opened out onto the sloped rocky shore of a vast pool.
“We found it!” Elizabeth exclaimed.
Its surface was not glassy smooth, as I’d imagined, but slowly swirling, as though in the grips of many hidden currents.
“I cannot see the bottom,” Konrad said, holding his lantern out.
“The light!” I said, remembering. “Trim your wicks. We don’t want to scare away the coelacanth!”
As our lanterns faded, a new light dawned in the cave, for the walls and low ceiling were glazed with some kind of strange mineral that emitted a purplish twilight.
“I wonder how deep it is,” I whispered, looking at the black water. Was it fed by the lake alone, or was there an even deeper source, fed by the waterfall? As I gazed at the pool’s surface, a portion of it shimmered, and a blue silhouette moved beneath it, its scales sparkling in the half-light.
“That’s him,” I breathed. “The coelacanth!”
It was but a quick glimpse, and then the creature disappeared into the depths. We all looked at one another, smiling. We had done it. We’d descended the caves and found the pool, and now all that was left was to catch the fish itself!
“I got no proper sense of his size,” said Konrad.
“It was too fast,” I agreed.
“He was a marvelous dark blue,” whispered Elizabeth. “Did you see those white markings?”
Hurriedly Konrad and I assembled our rods and tackle. Earlier this morning when William and Ernest had seen us with our gear, they’d eagerly started to hunt the garden for worms. They hadn’t realized that we’d need more substantial bait for what we sought. According to Polidori, the coelacanth ate other fish, things as big as small squids. But we’d let our younger brothers proudly present us with their pail of worms, and had promised to bring them back our prize. We’d brought heavy line, for we knew from Polidori’s specimen that these fish grew large.
We baited our hooks with the pickerel we’d bought from a local fishmonger after setting off from the chateau. Then we cast into different sections of the pool and stood back, paying out our weighted lines. Down and down and down they went, until I was afraid we would run out of line before we hit bottom.
“A hundred feet at least,” said Konrad finally, reeling back in a little.
“Will he eat?” whispered Elizabeth. “What if he’s satisfied his hunger already?’
“He won’t resist such easy food,” I murmured confidently. But as the minutes ticked by, I was not so sure. Maybe this creature did not care for pickerel. Water lapped at the toes of my boots, and I shuffled back a few steps.
Suddenly my rod gave a jerk and the line raced out.
“He’s taken it!” I cried.
“Don’t try to stop him yet!” Konrad cautioned.
I watched where my line entered the water. The coelacanth was moving swiftly, spiraling lower in the
