SANTA MARIA HIGH (COMPLETED)

Part Three: 10

Her head throbbed. She felt aches in countless places and was almost caught by surprise when she found she could raise herself with bleeding hands and sit on the clammy floor. her head swayed, everything waltzed in a blur.

"You are awake!" Ada shouted, and floated to view.

"we thought you died like us." Obi said, "being dead doesn't feel as bad as I thought it would. And did you know those small caves had skeletons in them, this place is like a burial site_"

"we are not dead." Ada screamed back at Obi who sauntered to view, bouncing in the air, flapping his arms. Ada's face levelled with Hope, "are we..." she glanced at Obi and shook her head, disappointed, "am I dead?"

"what do you think?"

"i... i..." panic rose in her voice, "I'm not dead, I'm too young to die, this can't be death."

"if you are dead, you would know it."

Ada sighed, her airy shadow body hugged Hope, "I thought so." She smiled. "what do we do now?"

"we win." Hope said.

Something stirred in the dark corner near the tinkling water fall the moment she stood up. the huge cat turned its head, to her direction, two yellow eyes glowed. It growled.

"we seem to be having another cat problem." Obi said, "but it can't hurt us right, if we are dead. Don't worry Hope we'll protect you." He said, in his a self-assured smug raised of his shoulder as he posed for a fight. "Ada found a way out." he said. "follow her, we'll catch up."

"what about our bodies?" Ada asked, "we can't leave them here if we are not dead?"

It stood up full height, even taller than it had been in the tunnel. It tapped the floor with its paw, warningly. But Hope was neither listening to the twins or as concerned with the giant cat as she was with the sight that presented at the centre of the cavern. Anthony and Lisa, their bodies on the slabs resting on the infinity grove through which water glowed yellow shimmering and moving steadily between the two slabs. Something round rest in between the two round spirals, were they touch, it glowed too in tortoise-shell like pattern.

Suddenly it all made sense. The glow, same as in the eye of the cat, the shimmering loop of water between the two bodies moving in an endless Celtic knot double spiral, the same colour she must have seen in Anthony's eyes in the old chapel (where the exit Ada had found would most likely be), the same glow in Anthony's eye when he attacked her the day the shadows first intimated her with what was going on. "you dare!"

"You have all the answers you need." Dead Kenny was right. The puzzle was right before her eyes all along.

"you should have minded your business girl." The voice came from the cat and echoed all round.

She was still lost in thought to give it much attention. Answers were showing up to all her questions she feared her brain will explode with the information coming to place, fragments finding their rightful spot like a jigsaw puzzle. The mist began again from the edges, from each small sepulchres, from each in the numerous tires, seeping onto the centre, shrouding the two bodies and endless light.

It wasn't just the two bodies in the mist that were alive as she could tell from their breathing and the rhythmic fog of breath, the whole place thrummed with energy, with motion, everything here was alive and seems to be breathing along harmoniously, even the encroaching mists somehow found the rhythm too. Most of all, her brain was alive. If she was this smart all her life she would be in MIT churning data, and inventing god knows what in a foreign country.

Everything made sense at that moment. In a neat logical sequence. It was like the veil was lifted and all her foolish choices laid bare, like coming down here in the first place. And how no matter how her friends would try to deny it were all drawn her to a darkness they only had glimpse of, when an enraged boy sent a shadow to terrify them.