River Runs Deep by Jennifer Bradbury

and stowed the jar back in its place, covering it up with leaves again. He studied the symbol carved on the tree one last time. What was Pennyrile up to? He’d work it out later. Right now he had fish to catch. And Nick had waited long enough.
    *  *  *
    Back on the path inside the cave, Elias matched Nick’s strides. They took a jog without warning off to the left of the main path into a passage Elias had never been in before. They found themselves in a low-ceilinged room, the rock above them smooth and nearly flat. A cairn of loose stones had been built up in the middle like some sort of pillar, though Elias expected it was just for show and didn’t really hold anything up. But on the ceiling, all over the room, he saw names, dozens and dozens of them.
    Some were written in black soot, others in chalk. Names and dates, too. Some of them more than fifty or sixty years old. Elias scanned them as they walked. Even noticed an advertisement for a miracle tonic cure scratched in among them.
    â€œTourists like to write they names in here.”
    â€œLike you and Stephen and Mat do when you go exploring,” Elias said, reading all the while.
    Nick’s head see-sawed as if to say they weren’t the same, but he didn’t explain.
    â€œBut why are some of them backward?”
    â€œLots of ’em use a candle tied on the end of a stick. They hold the flame up close to the rock to blacken it, bit by bit. But they don’t want the wax dripping in they faces, so we put a mirror on the floor. They look in that, make the name by looking in the reflection, and sometimes they forget to switch the letters round to make ’em look proper.” It seemed right to Elias, somehow, that the images were reversed. His mind leaped to Nedra’s poem, the lady weaving, her mirror.
    â€œYou want to write your name?” Nick asked. Ladies’ names crowded up next to fancy ones with words like Honorable before them, or Esquire after them. Elias wanted to. Something about putting your name up on a wall was irresistible, sort of like you couldn’t stand long in front of a river or a pond without eventually tossing rocks out into it.
    But when he looked at Nick, he found him watching expectantly. And something about the way he stared told Elias he wanted him to say no.
    â€œNah,” Elias said. “Thanks anyway.” Nick smiled like Elias had said something right, and he started walking back down to the main cave. Elias couldn’t help but glow a little, feeling like he’d passed some kind of test.
    â€œStephen showed me this,” Elias said a few minutes later as they reached the Star Chamber. Croghan’s office was empty and dark.
    â€œStar Chamber’s good for more than just gawking. Got half a dozen tunnels that take us where we need to go.” He led them across the room as Elias lifted the light higher, trying to set some of the stars twinkling. He felt lucky indeed to see stars and sunshine within the span of a few minutes.
    They tucked into another tunnel where the floor sloped down sharp. They descended rapidly.
    â€œWe going fishing now?”
    â€œIf they any left to catch,” Nick said, and Elias could almost hear him smiling as he said it.
    â€œWhy you want to fish down here?” Elias asked. “Best part of fishing is sitting on the pier or out in a boat. Can’t nothing that grows underground taste good, can it?”
    â€œFish ain’t for eating,” Nick said. They dropped farther, and here and there Elias had to use the sides of the walls to steady himself. His foot splashed in a puddle, and he heard the sound of water lapping against stone for the first time. Nick offered Elias a hand now and then, or told him where to step to avoid a hole or a puddle. Elias was fairly certain they weren’t on the tour.
    â€œWhat are they for, then?” Elias asked once the walking became easier