Tall pines and shrubby firs accompany my frantic steps. Banks of fog drift along the tallest tree tops with the morning chill consistent with Appalachian springs. Birds call to each other across branches. Pollen tickles my nose as I catch myself from tripping on every root and branch. My backpack is heavy and yanks me around with my erratic body movements. The nerve in my side aches with every vibration.

“Get back here,” my pursuer yells and yells louder into his radio, “someone get me an ATV out here - I’m not chasing this dude for my health!”

Just a little further, I tell my backpack. The cracks in my frames send me barreling to the ground, banging my knee terribly on a rock but I can’t stop. I’ve never felt one way or the other about jail but right now is worst time to have to go. I keep going.

It’s not illegal to go to a park. However, I managed to sell myself as a criminal to this park ranger. Kikito: tall, skin dark and warm from the sun, curls of dark hair bounding underneath his hat as he chases me. It was only a moment’s glance but he left an impression. Too bad I choked up over my damn backpack or else I’d be fine. It’s not every day you’re carrying around a stolen urn.

I look right, left, into thickets of bushes, tears and sweat burning my eyes. Then it’s there: twigs ripped away to show a small hole. Just the same as she’d left it. Knots twist like old roots in my stomach but when his yells echo further I take my chance and belly-dive down.

The smell of my mom’s basement hits me so hard I’m convinced I’m there for a minute. I expect it to remain narrow but it quickly opens up tall enough to stand in.

She grew up in this place, inspired by the tales from her grandfather. The jolly old man always had an interest in the supernatural. In a world less and less interested in organized religion, he still believed in magic. Not within spellcasters but nature itself. He escaped to the trails to explore their nooks and crannies. He often camped out with little to no human interaction, only the animals calling and leaves blowing in the wind.

He eventually came across a hole just off the trail large enough to invite curiosity. Drawn to the hole despite its size, he chipped away as it for weeks until the dissolved limestone opened up to a tunnel. He christened it Welkin’s Cave and visited every opportunity. The newfound path curled down, occasionally splitting into smaller treks to nowhere, but the main branch spilled into a vast den. Stalagmites rose from the floor to embrace the stalactites descending, scattered so far beyond his flashlight they went on forever. Even if there wasn’t anything obviously special about the place, he regarded its beauty as sacred. He spent many nights in the cave by campfire. Distant dribbles of distant runoff and unknown chirps spoke to him all night long.

A year passed before his last visit. The only thing that had changed was he had brought candles and a grimoire from a foreclosing bookstore chain. He arranged the candles in a circle and plopped down with the intention of something simple.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

That part of the story always changed when she told it just like he taught her: a spell to speak with the dead or a hex on some weeds in the yards. Regardless, he read from the book. Everything seemed fine until the cave glowed brighter than by candlelight alone. Luminous orbs seeped out of the walls and floors around him, gathering in momentum and volume by the second.

A voice made itself known through a series of sounds resembling language. Every syllable-resembling sound reverberated like an earthquake tremor. It was plenty proof of something beyond himself. He left his thoughts behind as he ran back up the cave, never slowing no matter how many rocks he twisted his ankles on. The voice didn’t follow but its vibrations felt half a step away. His heart skipped several beats when, along his race to freedom, he saw a glimpse of a silhouette peeking from a branching path. The wild strands of hair defying gravity always haunted him. He didn’t stop until he was in the parking lot staring back at the black forest. Only then did he notice that the forest was silent.

Her grandfather never went back and reserved the experience as a legend to tell his daughter and family. He never thought his youngest grandchild would ever look for it, let alone find it.

I see a finger painting on the wall, old and faded, depicting her and I. My hair was more like hers then, feminine and wild. “It doesn’t make you any less of a man if you don’t wear that to the barber. I just don’t want you to be itchy for the rest of day,” she had said to me when we got my first real hair cut. Of course I didn’t listen, so I got to spend the rest of the evening out of my binder and in crossed arms.

Mirana never cared. She always liked girls and I didn’t like anyone and we liked it that way. We came out her together sometimes but it was her reprieve from a world dominated by technology and mechanicals. We were night as day when it came to stuff like that. Still, she used the flashlights I made her all throughout high school.

It’s difficult to say her name. Thinking about her is worse. All I see are the last moments that I can’t bear. Her eyes looked black when they should have been a sea of brown and green, full of love and insight even when I didn’t want it.

My flashlight illuminates old footprints layered under fresher ones. Mirana hadn’t stopped until she had found the cave herself. She had started landmarking the cave before the busy stresses of post-college life. One stands here now reading “Welkin’s Lake” in front of a small branching path. Deep drips resonate from its distance. It’s not much of a lake but it’s beautiful when you shine lights on it.

I keep my hand on the wall when travelling deeper until it’s too wet to help. The trail isn’t aggressively steep but it goes on forever. It’s sudden when the den’s darkness swallows me. I pan to the walls with little success on judging its size. The ceiling can be seen covered in wet limestone bumps. I locate the circle, large enough to put a cow in and surrounded by melted candles. The grimoire lay nearby looking worse for wear.

I replace the candles and gently scooch the grimoire away. With a heavy breath I pull out Mirana trapped in a gilded urn. She takes my breath away but I place her in the circle and remove the lid. In my pocket is a folded piece of paper with some words on it. I take it out after I light each candle. There’s a vague understanding of what I’m about to say but I made sure I could pronounce them. I produce a talisman and begin.