It only lasts a few seconds, but I keep my grip on her and my eyes squeezed shut until the earth settles again. I feel her take in a long, deep breath, and I finally pull back though I leave my arm over her.
Again, the touch of her tingles through my body in an embarrassing, adolescent way. I have to shift myself back a bit, and I’m glad for the darkness. I have a feeling I’m blushing.
“How did you know?” I ask.
“Know what?”
“How did you know that wasn’t going to be a normal quake?”
“I didn’t.”
Her nonchalant answer doesn’t impress me. Quakes happen all the time in the valley, but this one was much higher in magnitude. I don’t know how she knew it was coming, but she did.
“Don’t bullshit me.” I grip her arm a little tighter. “You knew it was going to happen. How could you know that?”
“I didn’t!” She pulls her arm away. “There were so many during the day, I just…I had a feeling.”
“How did you know about this place?” I ask. “I’ve been up and down this mountain a hundred times, and I’ve never seen it.”
“It’s well hidden,” she says. “It was more hidden before; I just recently uncovered it.”
She hasn’t an
swered the question, but I’m sure prodding her isn’t going to do any good—not yet. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that she knows a lot more than she’s willing to tell me, and I’m going to have to work on my patience.
What she does know—about my past, at least—scares the shit out of me.
“Let’s get out of here,” she says.
She wriggles her way down to the base of the shaft, and I hear the distinct sound of metal clanking against metal, but no light shines through the opening. She curses, and the sound echoes through the small space again.
“What’s wrong?”
“It won’t open!” I hear her yanking at the lever a few more times, but nothing happens. “It’s stuck!”
“Do you have light?”
“Just a sec.” I hear her rummaging around. A moment later, I hear the whirring of a hand crank, and low light penetrates the darkness.
For the first time, I can get an actual look at the shaft. As I could tell from touch, metal covers the top and sides with just the earth at the bottom. The seams on one side have shifted—either in this quake or a previous one—and allowed dirt to enter, but still seems relatively sturdy. The shaft goes up about ten feet, but I can’t quite see what’s at the top. My focus is on the base.
“Hold the light,” I say. “I’ll try the door.”
With some maneuvering, we manage to switch places so I can shove at the door’s lever, but my luck isn’t much better than hers. Though I manage to get the lever to move, I can only open the door about a quarter of an inch. It’s barely enough to see any light beyond.
“I think something fell against the door,” I say. “Maybe the rocks above or branches from the tree fell.”
“Can you move them?” she asks.
“From here? No way. I don’t have the leverage.” I glance toward her and see that the shaft continues up. At the top, the light from her hand-cranked flashlight catches something shiny. “What’s at the top of the shaft?”
“Another door,” she says, “but there’s a padlock on it.”
“Does it have a keyhole?”
“No, just the combination lock.”
“I’m not great with combinations,” I tell her. “I don’t have anything to cut through it, either. Not on me, anyway.”