The m is perfe memory, a late-summer day when blue skies foretold the ing autumn crispness. Sped I had awakened o each other in a sea of books, thehe library in those magically empty moments between parents going off to work, or children off to school, and the hour when stores and businesses opeheir doors. By my stone dar, five long and miserable years had passed since our dimiribe took up our new home, and we had grown weary of the dark. Time away from the mine iably brightened Specks mood, and that m, when first I saw her peaceful face, I loo tell her how she made my heart beat. But I never did. In that sehe day seemed like every other, but it would bee a day unto its own.
Overhead, a jet trailed a string of smoke, white against the paleness of September. "We matched strides and talked of our books. Shadows ahead appeared briefly betweerees, a slender breeze blew, and a few leaves tumbled from the heights. To me, it looked for an instant as if ahead oh Kivi and Blomma were playing in a patch of sun. The mirage passed too quickly, but the trick of light brought to mind the mystery behind their departure, and I told Spey brief vision of our missing friends. I asked her if she ever wondered whether they really wao be caught.
Speck stopped at the edge of cover before the exposed land that led to the mirahe loose shale at her feet shifted and ched. A pale moon sat in a cloudless sky, and we were wary of the climb, watg the air for a plahat might discover us. She grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me around so quickly that I feared immi peril. Her eyes locked on mine.
"You dont uand, Aniday. Kivi and Blomma could not take it another moment. They were desperate for the other side. To be with those who live in the light and upper world, real family, real friends. Dont you ever want to run away, go bato the world as somebodys child? Or e away with me?"
Her questions poured out like sugar from a split sack. The past had eased its claims on me, and my nightmares of that world had stopped. Not until I sat down to write this book did the memories return, dusted and polished new again. But that m, my life was there. With her. I looked into her eyes, but she seemed far away in thought, as if she could not see me before her but only a distant spad time alive in her imagination. I had fallen in love with her. And that moment, the words came falling, and fession moved to my lips. "Speck, I have something—"
"Wait. Listen."
The noise surrounded us: a low rumble from ihe hill, zigzagging along the ground to where we two stood, vibratih our feet, then fanning out into the forest. In the instant, a crad tumble, muffled by the outer surface. The earth collapsed upon itself with a sigh. She squeezed my hand and dragged me, running at top speed, toward the entrance of the mine. A plume of dirt swirled from the fissure like a ey gently smoking on a winters night. Up close, acrid dust thied and choked off breathing. We tried to fight through it but had to wait upwind until the fog dissipated. From inside, a reedy sound escaped from the crack to fade in the air. Before the soot settled, the first person emerged. A single hand gripped the rim of rock, theher, and the head pushed through, the body shouldering into the open. In the wan light, we ran through the cloud to the prostrate body. Speck tur over with her foot: Béka. Onions soon followed, wheezing and panting, and lay down beside him, her arm roped over his chest.