The Anomaly(43)

“What’s up?”

Ken gestured to me to come forward. “We heard a noise,” he said. “Scared the crap out of me. But then she called out and we realized who it was.”

“Feather?” I said.

“Yes.”

He stood back so I could get closer to the wall, near where the small gaps were. “Feather? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” she said, though she sounded exhausted.

“Is Dylan with you?”

“No. He’s not there. He’s not anywhere.”

“What…do you mean?”

“He’s not there! He wasn’t there.”

“Not back at the raft? Why didn’t you wait?”

“I didn’t wait because the raft isn’t there, either.”

“What? Feather, look—tell me slowly, okay?”

There was silence as she gathered herself. “I climbed down the shaft,” she said. “I tried to go quickly but not too fast, like you told me. It’s a lot easier going down. Then I dropped into the passage and went back out to the opening in the wall. And I looked down, and…the raft wasn’t there. It’s gone. A storm’s come in and it’s raining and windy. And the boat just isn’t there.”

Ken blew out his cheeks. “So what did you do, love?”

“I waited,” she said. “I didn’t know what else to do. I figured maybe he’d taken the raft after we left, instead of the dinghy, for some reason. Maybe the water got too rough to stay there. But could he do that? Could he manage the raft by himself?”

“I don’t know. Probably, if he had to.”

“That’s what I thought. So, I waited. I lay on the ground and looked down from the opening, because I thought there’s no point climbing down if he’s not even there, and I could shout when he got back. But then I thought, maybe the raft came untied accidentally or something. But if that happened he’d still come back, right? He’d come back in the dinghy?”

“I’m sure he would have,” I said. I was trying to think through the possible scenarios and rank their odds. For some reason Dylan left in the raft, and had trouble getting back upriver. Or…was running late. Or…he came back, then went away again. Any of these was possible. “So what did you do?”

“It got dark,” she said. “I didn’t know whether he’d be able to see me up there. Or hear me, because it’s a long way down the wall and the river’s loud. I thought maybe I should climb down to where we got onto the wall from the river, but then I’d just be hanging there, in the dark, and cold. So…So I climbed up the shaft and came back here. I hope that was okay, Nolan—I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You did exactly the right thing,” I said. “We’d have started to worry soon if we didn’t hear anything from you.”

I was aware of Molly turning from the ball and walking back up the passage to the main room. I looked at Pierre and gestured with my head for him to go after her.

“But now what?” Feather said.

“Now…look, it’s eight o’clock. I don’t know what happened to Dylan. Maybe he freaked out because we were gone a long time, and went to get help. And because of the weather, he got stuck somewhere.”

“Do you think?”

“Probably. Either way, there’s nothing we can do tonight. There’s no point you spending the night hanging out of the opening staring into the dark. So we sit tight, and try again tomorrow morning, okay?”

“Okay,” she mumbled. She sounded strung out and very tired.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” I said.

I trotted up to the main room. Molly had returned to sitting in the same way she had been earlier, though now she wasn’t looking down the main passage. She was looking at the floor.

“You okay?”

She didn’t respond. I grabbed the remaining chunk of sandwich and half bottle of water from my pile and went down the passage again. I dropped to my knees close up to the wall and stuck my hand through the small gap there.

“Feather—can you see my hand?”

“Where? Oh, yes, okay.”

“Can you get to it?”

I heard her moving down to the floor and shuffling forward, wedging herself into the narrow space between the far side of the ball and the wall and floor. Then the sound of a grunt as she stretched toward me. A light touch, when her fingertips brushed mine.

I pulled my hand back, transferred the sandwich to it and stuck it back through the gap. “Take this.”

“Nolan…I can’t.”

“Yeah, you can. We have other stuff in here, you don’t. And you’ve climbed down and back up the shaft. Just take it.”

After a few seconds I felt the sandwich go. I did the same with the water.

“Thank you,” she said. Her voice was quiet.

I stood up. Ken was looking meaningfully at me, and I nodded. Gemma caught the look.

“I’ll hang here awhile,” she said.

We left her there talking to Feather and walked halfway back up the passage together.

“This is not good,” Ken said.

“Dylan wouldn’t just have bugged out, would he?”

“No. He’s a dickhead, not an arsehole.”