The Spindlers by Lauren Oliver

in the tiny, narrow tunnel.
    â€œWe dig,” the rat said.

Chapter 12

T HE S EEDS OF H OPE
    M irabella burrowed through the soft earth, and Liza helped her, scooping mounds of dirt with her hands. They crawled forward foot by foot, placing more and more distance between themselves and the tree snake, which still choked and coughed and wrestled with the broom handle lodged in its throat.
    Liza was glad she did not have a fear of small spaces: On all sides, she was being squeezed by packed dirt, and she was constantly bumping her head, and her knees were scraped up from banging over small stones buried in the earth.
    The heat and the hard work began to fray Liza’s nerves, and Mirabella’s temper.
    â€œYou’re stepping on my tail again.”
    â€œI’m not stepping on anything. I’m crawling.”
    â€œThen you’re crawling on my tail.”
    â€œIt’s not my fault. It was nearly poking me in the eye before.”
    â€œIt wouldn’t poke you if you would give me space!”
    â€œThere is no space.”
    When Mirabella judged it safe to angle the tunnel upward, they ascended toward the surface and emerged at the far edge of the Live Forest. As Liza crawled out of the tiny tunnel, shaking dirt from her pajama bottoms, she took long and grateful gulps of air.
    Behind them, the trees of the Live Forest had once again gone to sleep, cocooned in mist. It was almost impossible to believe, even now, that in their roots slumbered the terrible snakes.
    â€œWell, now,” Mirabella said, suddenly cheerful again, as she brushed the dirt from her newspaper skirt, which had become quite hopelessly tattered. Only a few panels remained, and tufted bits of fur from her large, thick hind legs protruded between them. It was strange how once you saw a rat wearing clothes, it became slightly disgusting to imagine the animal naked. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
    Liza stared, speechless.
    â€œWhat I wouldn’t give for a mirror! And a little bit of rouge! I’m sure I must look awful right now—a mess. A frightful, frazzled, fizzled mess!” The rat adjusted her wig—which had begun to slip dangerously toward her chin—and blinked expectantly at Liza.
    â€œOh! Um—n-no. Not at all,” Liza stammered politely, even though the rat looked even more ridiculous than ever. Dirt was mixed with the powder and the mascara now, so her face appeared to be two wholly different colors, and a pebble and a small twig were caught in her wig.
    As they went on, the ground beneath them turned hard and gray and was punctuated by areas of gravel and large, jagged rocks. They had lost sight of the river, although Liza thought at times she could detect echoes of its strange babblings. She noticed that they had begun to wind upward; then the mist before them cleared and she saw vast boulders rising up in front of them, and a narrow path cutting through the rock.
    â€œIt’s—it’s a mountain,” Liza stuttered out. And it was: so many rocks layered on top of one another, forming a series of peaks. Of all the amazing things she had seen—Mirabella, the nocturni, the nids, and the tree snakes—this struck her as the most incredible. A mountain, Below!
    â€œMountains,” Mirabella corrected her. She had already started scrabbling up the path. “There are two of them—the Twins, they’re called. From here we must be very careful,” the rat added, lowering her voice. “We’re close to the border of the Bottomland: spindler land. From here, everything belongs to the queen, and to the Valley of the Lost Souls, where the spindlers have made their nests. There are spies everywhere. We must go like shadows—like shades—like dust!”
    Liza nodded to show she understood.
    â€œWell, come on, then,” Mirabella said. “Up we go, to the tippy-top. No point in gaping and gaggling.”
    The path they followed was no