Aina puts her other hand back on Tone’s neck and nods to herself.
“The witch brought the rock down on our church. But she couldn’t silence us. Oh no, that much she couldn’t do,” she says, running her gawky fingers and bitten-down nails along Tone’s neck.
“I know what I must do. I must wash the sin away with blood.”
I hold my breath. Her hand works its way, almost tenderly, up into Tone’s hair.
“I said the rites over the other two,” she says. “That redhead girl and the blond boy. They didn’t understand the magnitude of giving oneself to God, but I showed them. They fought it, but I was patient—I didn’t judge them for their ignorance. I said the rites over them so that their sacrifices would count, too. It would have been better down here underground, of course, but God sees us all. He saw my offerings. Life by life.”
The light of the kerosene lamp flickers against the dripping walls.
“I liked her eyes, you know,” she says to me. “The redhead’s. That’s why I left them open. They reminded me a little of the pastor’s eyes.”
She stares at me for a few seconds, then the rest happens very quickly. Her hand turns into a claw, and she grabs Tone’s hair and shoves her down to her knees by the water.
I scream “NO!” but it’s drowned out by the wordless bellow of the walls and the drone of Aina’s voice as she puts the knife to Tone’s neck and pulls her head back:
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit—”
I’m shoved into the wall by something storming past me. Robert throws himself at Aina, his bound hands raised. He slams into her forcefully, throwing her off-balance and sending her headfirst into the water.
“Robert!” I shout, and I have no time to think, no time to see anything, because then she’s back above the surface again, hissing and spluttering, thigh-deep in the water.
Robert, however, is struggling to get up on the slippery bedrock; he slips and falls with his bound hands in front of him, and I see him land heavily. Aina lets go of Tone’s matted hair and shoves her toward the other wall. She takes two long strides toward Robert, her teeth bared like an animal.
“You took him,” she says, “you took him from me,” then she shoves him underwater with one knee to his back and holds him there. I see her take his head in both hands and pound it down onto the floor beneath the surface, see the muscles in her withered arms tense and the tendons in her neck tauten, and I throw myself into the water and try to tear her away, grab hold of her arms, but her slight body is stronger than what should be possible, and she claws at my face until my blood starts to run, and when I reach for my cheek in shock she throws me off her.
Robert’s flails have started to weaken. In the flickering light I see blood bloom out into the water from his face.
I get to my feet and suddenly—
everything stops.
Aina has frozen on the spot. The muscles in her arms tense up and release, tense up and … release.
The knifepoint that has sprung through her neck releases a trickle of blood that pools in the depression above her clavicle. She puts one hand to her neck and runs her fingertips over the blade, which glitters like a necklace beneath her jaw.
She opens her mouth as though to say something, but no sound escapes her lips.
Slowly she falls off Robert and down under the surface. I see the shadow that is Aina sink, lightly and gracefully, toward the bottom, and then start to drift toward the edge of the passage.
Tone stays standing there, her legs spread wide, her eyes on Aina’s body. Her breaths are heavy, and her face is covered in sweat. The cut that has now dried on her neck is in almost exactly the same spot as where the knife pierced through Aina’s.
Her hands are still clenched in front of her, as though around the handle of a knife.
My stupor is broken, and I throw myself at Robert. I grab hold of his arm and pull him up over the surface, then drag his leaden body halfway onto dry land and turn him faceup. His nose is a fleshy mess, and the blood drips from it in slow quivers that mix with the water in his hair. His lips are slightly parted, and his eyes are closed.
“No, no, no,” I whisper, hardly aware of the tears spilling from my eyes. “No. Please, no.”
I lean down toward his smashed face, and my tears drip down and mix with his blood, but just as I’m about to put my hand over what remains of his nose, he makes a sound.
His eyes flutter open.
His body lurches and he coughs, a gurgling sound that brings with it a belch of water. I move back slightly, sobbing, laughing, shaking, and Robert rolls over onto his side and throws up. He makes to wipe his mouth, but his hands are still bound. Trembling, I crawl around and untie the rope.
I look out over the water and see Tone standing there, her eyes still fixed on the dark shadow about ten feet from her. It drifts ever closer to the spot where the passage turns down into the underworld, leaving a mirage of blood in its trail.
Then suddenly she’s gone.
Aina has dropped over the edge.
It’s completely silent. Tone clenches her fists once, twice. I hear the echo of a little sigh, and then her shoulders relax.
I think I hear something in the distance.
It sounds like tinny kids’ cries.
Then Tone suddenly sinks to the floor, as though the strings
