“Firelight,” she whispered.
Then, she saw it. Some of the flames still swirled down there in the hole. They turned lazy circles in a tiny tornado around Prescott.
Amber opened her mouth to scream at George to pull her back. She shut it again, holding her tongue. He wasn’t mesmerizing her. He wasn’t even looking in her direction. Prescott’s stare was directed down the tunnel, toward the graves. Amber pictured it. She remembered what they had left at the end of that tunnel and she saw the light coming from Prescott’s eyes. That hypnotic light would be traveling all the way down his tunnel to the mirror that she and Ricky had propped up. He was transfixed in his own gaze.
Amber took note of one other thing before she tugged the rope to signal to George.
He pulled her away from the hole.
Ricky was sitting up now, leaning back against a tree with his hands covering his face.
George crouched next to him.
“Ricky? You okay?” George asked.
Ricky pulled his hands from his face and looked at his own hands in the light from his headlamp.
He nodded slowly.
“Prescott is staring at the mirror,” Amber said. “He’s not moving.”
“Good,” George said. He stood up and began to walk away.
“Where are you going?” Amber asked. The triangle that the three of them made between each other was important. Panic shot through Amber when George began to break that shape by walking away. Remembering that she had just moved away from the brothers a minute before, Amber managed to take a deep breath and settle her heart a bit.
“Be right back,” George said.
Amber took Ricky’s damp hands.
He looked into her eyes and then his eyes darted away quickly.
“It’s okay,” she said.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I had everything. Everything. It was taken away from me.”
Squeezing her fingers hard, Ricky’s expression turned angry for a moment and then faded back to sadness.
“Amber,” George said. “Give me a hand.”
He was carrying one of the mirrors that they had dragged into the woods. It was covered with leaves until George turned it upside down and shook it. George took it towards the pit and then grabbed one of the long branches they had cut for the fire.
“I want to put a couple of branches across so we can position this mirror above the hole. In case he looks up.”
Amber nodded. It seemed dangerous to leave Ricky on his own. Amber kept a close eye on him as they worked. She saw George watching his brother as well. When the sticks were in place, Amber put the rope on again and George gave her enough slack so she could lay the mirror face down over the hole. Prescott was still down there, staring intently at the mirror at the end of his tunnel.
“Now what?” she asked.
“We wait until dawn,” George said.
# # #
Ricky shut his eyes. They danced beneath his eyelids as he slept. George made another small fire. One of Amber’s flashlights strobed and pulsed before the batteries gave out. With a knife, she occupied her hands by making a dozen stakes and setting them up like pikes around their position.
The hours passed slowly. They shivered around the fire. She and George discussed walking back to the car and then decided it would be safer to stay put. As dawn approached, and the forest began to wake up, it was clear that creatures of the night were fleeing back to where they hid. Amber heard screeches and pounding hooves. When the first rays of morning lit the sky above, she was afraid to look, afraid that the light might hypnotize her.
The sun rose over the hill and a few beams of light cut through the morning fog.
George stood up and tied the rope around his own waist.
“Can you…”
“Sure.”
Amber took up the slack that was looped around the tree. As she let loose enough rope for George to go near the pit, she heard Ricky open his mouth and work his tongue around.
“What’s… What is he…”
“He’s going to check on Prescott,” Amber said. She immediately regretted giving Ricky that information. All night, he had been pining for the escape that he had found in Prescott’s eyes, and she had just told Ricky where he might find that salvation again. Ricky didn’t run off for the pit, and Amber was able to breathe again.
“A little more,” George said after he peered down into the hole.
He grabbed the corner of the mirror and tilted it up. Amber realized what he was doing. The mirror caught a sunbeam and reflected it down into the hole. When George angled it just right, the beam shot straight down. She heard a horrible sound from the pit and nearly dragged George back.
He must have felt the tension on the rope, because George said, “It’s okay. Hold steady.”
The sound intensified and the pitch rose.
“He’s looking,” George said, turning his own head away.
Amber saw the sunlight flicker and worried that the angle was changing too quickly. Before the job was done, the beam would be gone. Then, she realized that the light was flickering because there was another light coming from below that was nearly as bright.
Ricky let out a sigh.
George lost his grip on the mirror and pulled back. The mirror crashed back down to the sticks they had laid to cradle it. George slowly moved to the edge and looked down again. When he looked back to Amber, his face was lit up with wonder.
“Come look!” George said.
Amber looked down at the rope and then quizzically back at George.
“Oh. Right,” he said. He pulled himself back from the edge of the hole and untied the rope as he crossed the distance. He handed the loose end to Amber.
“No,” Ricky said. “I want to look.”
Amber and George looked at each other for a moment and then he said what she was thinking.
“It’s okay,” George said. “We’ll have the rope.”
Amber nodded.
She watched George tie the knot around his brother’s waist and saw what he
