CHAPTER 10 – ROOTS AND ROUTES

The door slammed behind him. Lucie and I stared at each other, taken aback by Axel’s sudden departure.

‘Do you know…?’, she asked.

‘Nope’, I replied, picking up the ibrik and heading to the kitchenette. ‘He surely has an idea, something to check before telling us for certain. Do you want some more?’

‘No, thank you. I’m already agitated as it is. I…’ She looked down at her clenched hands and chewed on her lip. Of course. I had been so excited by my discovery, I hadn’t even asked about Michelle.

‘Would you like a hug?’, I offered, not knowing what else to say. Lucie nodded quietly, and I sat back down on the couch, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. We leaned against each other wordlessly. Images from the hospital kept nagging me, and I pushed them away, refusing to remember the pain of David’s parents, or how awful he had looked when I saw him. However hard I fought the memories, my chest grew heavy and my eyes blurred. Lucie’s hand found mine and held it tight.

‘We have to find them. We have to bring them back. Somehow.’

‘We will’, I whispered a promise. ‘I’ll use everything I know, I’ll read everything there is if that helps us even a little. We’ll…’ My voice caught in my throat. We’ll what? I might have found a way, but where would it lead? Was it even the right path?

‘You’re troubled’, she said, lifting her head to look at me. ‘What is it?’

‘I… I don’t know. There’s just so much… so many… I don’t even know how to explain. There’s too much that’s happened lately, and it’s so confusing and so… so messy.’ Words started pouring out as if I had opened a door, without order or logic. ‘I mean, there’s the rusalka and the solomonars and Saint Wednesday, and it makes sense so far, it all happened on Saint Andrew’s Night, it’s all my folklore. But then… what does any of that have to do with… Hades? It doesn’t make any sense! And who was there that night, anyway? Why the smoke and shadows? Why take…’ My voice broke, and I had to swallow hard to continue: ‘Why them, and not me? If I have these… magic abilities? What if I’m wrong, and we’re losing time?’

The thought was so unbearable that I choked.

‘Imagine how I feel’, Lucie whispered. ‘I don’t know anything about all this. I don’t know what happened to Michelle. I don’t know what to do.’ She looked up at me. ‘And nor does Axel.’

‘No pressure’, I snapped, and immediately regretted it. She was right. ‘I’m sorry. I just…’

‘You’re confused, and scared. I get it. But we’re here with you. We’ll do whatever we can. But we need you’, she insisted. ‘We need what you know. I don’t see any other path right now. All this…’, she gestured widely, ‘it’s beyond what I know and what I can do. It’s not my world. It’s yours and, to some extent, Axel’s. These are your legends, your lore.’

‘Axel is Swedish’, I whispered tiredly. ‘It’s not his world either.’

‘If I knew what to do by myself, trust me that I already would have.’

‘I know. I saw.’

‘Then please pull yourself together and do what needs to be done’, she said. I stared at her in surprise; I hadn’t expected such harshness, and I opened my mouth to lash back. Lucie raised a hand to stop me.

‘I actually do know what it’s like, discovering that the old tales are not just that. So, yes, if that helps you move forward: magic is real, other realms do exist, and you can control those abilities. The path is right there in front of you. Now walk it.’

She stood and started to get dressed.

‘I left the rest of Sekhmet’s stuff in a bag outside your door. I’ll send you the adoption papers tomorrow. And now I’m going to get ready for whatever Axel has in mind, and you should too. Let me know where and when.’ And with that, she left me staring and closed the door behind her.

Still too stunned to react, I remained open-mouthed for a few more seconds before my brain caught up. I retrieved the bag and busied myself preparing the kitten’s litter and filling her bowls with food and water. Sekhmet followed me around, loudly meowing her approval or lack thereof until everything was settled to her convenience. Then I prepared my own things, filling my backpack with food, water, and warm clothes, checking the batteries in my lamp, and putting everything next to my rubber boots by the door. All the while, I tried to digest what Lucie had said. Hearing it declared out loud and with such certitude was unsettling, but also weirdly comforting. Although part of my rational mind was still fighting it, despite everything I had seen and done, the other part was already analyzing what I knew and pointing out what I needed to know.

I pulled the bean-bag next to the bookshelves and made a list of points that needed to be clarified. The twins and the kapnobatai didn’t seem relevant for the moment, so I focused on the geography of the underworld, Hades, and his subordinates. “Any news yet?”, I texted Axel after an hour had passed, but the message remained undelivered. He was probably somewhere underground, so I waved my impatience away and returned to my books, taking notes. Nothing that I read was reassuring, however: Hades, both the place and the god, were unwelcoming and rarely willing to let someone leave. I put the book away and, crossing my arms behind my head, I stared at the ceiling, thinking. We needed protection, but what, exactly? Sekhmet climbed on my belly, bumping me with her head until I started scratching her ears.

‘Do you know what we need, little one?’, I asked her softly. She stretched, exhibiting her tiny claws and minuscule teeth. ‘The real Sekhmet was the goddess of raw, unbridled magic, you know’, I chided her. ‘She would’ve helped. Maybe.’ The kitten sneezed, then curled up and closed her eyes. I sighed, not knowing where to find answers. I had had way too much coffee to try to sleep, hoping I would dream of Gheorghe. Could I even call on him at will? I didn’t know. There was probably no time to go back to the kapnobatai, either, and I was unable to do so by myself. I rubbed my temples tiredly, gazing at the rug, when a sudden thought made me sit up. Sekhmet protested. ‘Shhh, I know, I know’, I said, trying to reach for my laptop without disturbing her further. I scrolled through dozens of different sites, collecting only frustrating bits and pieces of information until I had enough to get a general idea and improvise from there.

The ram horns were one of the countless patterns that Romanian women had used since immemorial times for weaving and embroidering. These motifs were common knowledge – everyone knew about them and could more or less identify a rug or a blouse as “traditional”. However, few were those who could tell the original region by the type of patterns and colours; and fewer yet, those who knew what each shape meant.

One of them had been my grandmother. I had sat by her side every winter evening while she spun wool, weaved, or embroidered, but I hadn’t been able to remain still and focused long enough to learn any of her skills. ‘You’ll never find a husband’, she’d say, ‘if you don’t know any of these things.’ I would shrug it away, for what could a six year old care for marriage? Watching her at work would quickly mesmerize me into daydreaming as the shuttle moved back and forth on the loom, or the needle danced in and out the threads. The wool rug in my living-room had been a gift from her – part of my dowry, she had insisted, that she had made in my stead. I followed its patterns with a gentle finger, comparing them with the bits of information I had gleaned: the wolf fangs that protected the borders from tearing, the constellation of identical stars that would shine above my way, the protective eyes in the middle of a column.

My eyes blurred. Not only had I lost the one person who had loved me truly, but also, stupidly, her legacy, the knowledge that had been passed from mother to daughter for so long, only to be abruptly cut off before it had reached me. Why hadn’t I listened to her? Why had I dismissed so much of what she had said as mere folklore and superstitious tales? I had been so sure of myself, then, so proud of my rational, logical thinking which set me apart from the naive peasants. An idiot, that’s what you were, I thought. So much knowledge which would have, surely, prevented all this from happening, had I accepted it. I could have protected everyone. I would’ve even prevented them from getting in harm’s way in the first place. I bit my lip down hard and dug my nails into my arm, the sharp physical pain taking the edge off the torture of my own guilt. There’s no point in brooding on what ifs right now, I scolded myself sharply. Stop wasting time feeling sorry for yourself and get a grip. Make up for the lost time and repair your wrongs.

My will renewed, I set the kitten aside and headed to the bedroom. Buried somewhere in the chaos was my ie, the traditional blouse that was my only other inheritance from my grandmother. I rummaged through the closet, then pulled the mattress aside to get to the suitcases I’d stuffed under the bed, and after much digging, I found it in a pile of old clothes. With a pang of remorse at the way I had treated it, I pulled it out and unfolded it in front of me. A faint perfume of old, dry lavender spread from it – and for a brief moment, I was a child again, playing hide and seek in my grandmother’s trunk, where she kept her embroidered linen. I smiled fondly, holding the ie to my chest as I went back to the living-room where I could examine it in better light.

My recent research had taught me that every blouse was unique, and it told the story of the woman who embroidered it. Every pattern and colour held a meaning in itself, playing a part in the tale the cloth told. Moreover, and that was what interested me more than anything at the moment, each motif had a purpose – the final ornament becoming a sewn spell, one that protected, or brought luck, or called fertility. I laid the blouse on the floor, with my laptop next to it, and set to deciphering its message. On its white, soft fabric, the red and black design stood out boldly. The chest was covered in columns of scarlet stars, bordered by black zigzags: the meanders of life, guided by the sky. On the shoulders, richly decorated patches spoke of eternal movement and regeneration with their repeated helix patterns. Down the arms flowed what were called the “rivers” in parallel lines of simple, mirrored spirals: the shepherd’s hook, calling for the return of what – or whom – was lost. I stopped, leaning back on my heels to take it all in. She had died soon after finishing the blouse; and I realised she had known, without me saying it, that I would leave and seek a new life somewhere else. She had embroidered my ie with this in mind, and I had barely worn it a few times during the last nine years.

‘I’m sorry’, I whispered. Wiping my eyes, I buried my face in the soft linen. It would finally serve its intended purpose: protecting me. ‘I will learn, I promise.’ The smell of lavender filled my nose, and, briefly, it felt as if grandma Ileana was there with me again, comforting me.

The buzz of my phone jolted me from my reverie: it was, two hours and a half later, a message from Axel. “Might have found the entrance to Hades. Had to drill a hole in a sewers tunnel wall for us. Ready now. Text me when you get here.” An address followed. I forwarded it to Lucie, then changed my clothes quickly, and put the blouse on, layering several long-sleeves t-shirts underneath to keep the winter temperatures at bay. Pulling the fisherman’s boots on and shouldering my backpack, I took a last look around the apartment, but there was nothing else that I could see which would be useful during this particular descent. Sekhmet came running to bump my legs with her tiny head, and I bent to give her a scratch.

‘Be good, little one. I’ll be back tonight.’ Or so I tried to reassure myself, for my heartbeat had already sped up. She rubbed against my boots, then sat down and watched me leave, her head tilted.

I walked briskly to Port-Royal to take the RER line B to my destination, but the second I arrived, the view changed my mind. The strike was still going strong: the trains came every half an hour, and the station was packed from the platforms to the entry. There was no way in hell I would go through that again – not to mention it would probably take hours to arrive. I turned on my heels and headed to the nearest Velib’ station to take a bike.

The strike also turned the streets to chaos. Hundreds of cars were jammed together, and the horns filled the air with their maddening cacophony. Cyclists, scooters, and bikers squeezed through as they could, taking risks with no more regard to traffic rules, and passed on the sidewalk without slowing down whenever they could. I held on to the handlebars for dear life, with all my senses on maximal alert, glancing warily around and behind me every few seconds. My back was as tense as a wood plank; it was only a matter of minutes until the general anger got to me as well, and I joined the chorus of curses and swearing to which no one paid attention. A passing scooter almost pushed me into a car, and I yelled a strong of traditional profanities after the driver before I set foot on the ground to steady myself. I was shaking and enraged; the next one who would so much as brush me would get a bike to their teeth.

Calm down, I told myself as soon as the thought crossed my mind. It was so unlike me, this overwhelming aggressivity I felt. Never in my life had I wanted to kick someone so badly, and it scared me. I looked for the cigarettes in my pocket, but my fingers were so numb with cold I couldn’t even grab the pack. Starting to rub my hands together to warm them up, I felt they were wet, and I glanced down in surprise. And cursed.

‘It’s really not a good time right now’, I muttered as the light of the ram horns slid from under my sleeves. ‘I’m not in danger, please go away.’ I wiped my hands on my jeans, trying to get rid of the liquid ice, but of course it didn’t work. With a sigh, I settled my bike against the nearest wall and shove my hands in my pockets. Now what?, I thought, looking around to see if any of the passers-by noticed. Fortunately, they were too busy typing on their phones and dodging the cyclists to care about me. I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes, trying to steady my breath and let go of the anger that still bubbled in my chest, threatening to spill. I thought of Axel waiting for me, and what was expecting us ahead. It didn’t help, for I grew impatient to be on my way again, and the stress of our descent to the unknown added its weight on my already fragile nerves.

The cold started to crawl up my forearms, and I shook my head, annoyed at myself. Stop fidgeting and calm the hell down, otherwise you’re stuck here. I took a deep breath and counted to five, held it, then exhaled, still counting. Inhale, hold, exhale. Inhale, hold, exhale. I did my best to empty my mind, to focus on the sensation of the cold, crisp air as it entered my lungs. I visualised the numbers in my head, trying to give each of them a different colour in order to keep all other thoughts and images at bay. Slowly, with every breath, my shoulders relaxed, the weight lifted off my chest. I opened my eyes, still keeping the colourful numbers in my mind, and carefully took my hands out of my pockets. They still glimmered, but faintly; the light of the ram horns was dimming. I maintained the mental exercise until the ice was entirely gone, and there was only reddened skin to be seen. I would have to keep some balm in my backpack for now on, and gloves.

I crossed the Pont au Change on foot, holding the bike, as I didn’t feel at ease at all with the heavy traffic threatening to push me over the bridge into the grey, swirling waters of the Seine below. I smoked with my free hand, finding again the familiar relief it had on my nerves, even though it made me cough now and then. It was possibly a bad idea to pick up the habit again; but there was no other coping mechanism I could think of that could help me unwind, with everything that had been happening. And who knew what else was coming…

Once I left the river behind me, the road was mostly straight, although the traffic on boulevard Sébastopol was even worse, and the cyclists pullulated. I tried to shut away the noise and the stressful atmosphere, and pedalled as fast as I could. On boulevard Saint-Denis, the crowd on the sidewalks grew more dense. African street sellers spread their goods on the pavement, others roasted and sold chestnuts and corn. Groups of middle aged men stood and chatted animatedly in front of the kebab restaurants, some in Arabic, others in languages I couldn’t identify, while women in brightly coloured clothes and intricately knotted headscarves pushed through the crowd with their strollers or shopping carts, some carrying babies that slept peacefully on their backs, unbothered by the noise of the street. The smells of food drafted in the street, curry and kofta and cilantro, making my mouth water. My grumbling stomach almost made me forget I had to turn left on Magenta, and I made a mental note to improve my eating schedule.

Soon, I rode past Gare de l’Est and turned on rue La Fayette, where I slowed down to check the street numbers and scan the sidewalks for Axel’s blonde head that would stand out as usual. The crowd had already become entirely different, as I had entered the neighbourhood of the Grands Magasins: tourists chatted in all the languages of the world, stopped for pictures with their Printemps shopping bags, and drooled over the displays of Ladurée macaroons; while weary looking employes in uniforms tried to enjoy their brief cigarette break by the stores’ back doors. I dropped my bike at the Velib’ station and elbowed my way up the street.

‘Ru! Over here!’

Axel was leaning against a large blue door between a delicatessen shop and a café, his clothes covered in grey concrete dust. His face was even more drawn with fatigue; I had never seen him so close to collapsing.

‘Well, at least no one would wonder why you’re disappearing down a manhole when looking like that’, I teased, pretending not to notice how awful he looked and trying to hide how worried I was about him.

‘Whereas you are as clean and shiny as a new crowbar’, he retorted, stooping to kiss me on the cheek, ‘and just as conspicuous.’

‘Has Lucie arrived yet?’

‘She is around the corner’, Axel said, ‘and ready to go.’

‘How are we doing this?’, I asked as we set off. ‘And where are we going, exactly?’

‘Well, you made the connexion between the entrances to Hades and the ventilation shafts for the RER, remember? That you said you had read somewhere that they were called gueules d’enfer?’

I nodded. At first, it had seemed too far-fetched that the popular nickname of “hell-mouths” would literally point to a gate. These enormous shafts, hidden behind fake façades which blended with the other Hausmannian buildings, used to spew out the dark, foul-smelling fumes of the subway below, back when trains ran on charcoal. People, more accustomed to the Greek myths and legends in those days, had seen the similarity with the descriptions of the entrances to Hades, and it had caught my attention, too. I didn’t know where these empty buildings were, however, and I had turned to Axel.

‘Some days ago, we talked about the deepest place in Paris, and when you mentioned the gueules d’enfer, I remembered that, and something clicked. I had to check first, though, so we wouldn’t get on a fool’s errand.’

‘Go on, get it out already’, I replied impatiently, and he rolled his eyes.

‘To my knowledge, the Saint-Lazare train station is the place we were looking for. It is a tad far from here, but the nearest building of this kind is right there.’ He flicked a thumb above his shoulder towards the wooden door where he had waited for me. ‘So I figured, if Hades is somewhere beneath Saint-Lazare, there is a chance that we can enter through here, and walk the rest of the way underground.’

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‘It would make sense’, I pondered. There were a little too many coincidences to be wrong, and I started to feel more confident.

‘That door is most likely under alarm, however. I had to find us a way around.’

Axel turned into a narrow street that ended in a cul-de-sac, and Lucie stepped forward from the shadows of an entryway. I looked around for the manhole: it was barely noticeable, as it had been covered in concrete like the rest of the street. Only its edges had been left free, and they were filled with dirt. Without the white footprints around it, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it, or believed it to be open. Axel pulled a long strap from one of the innumerable pockets of his military fatigues. ‘Are you ready? We have to move quickly’, he said. Lucie and I nodded and stepped closer to the cover, hiding him from the sight of the passers-by. I briefly wondered where he had hidden the crowbar I had seen him use on the trap in the archives; however, he proved there was more than one way to open such a cover.

A waft of damp air, reeking of sewers, escaped from the opening. I pulled my scarf over my nose, already queasy, before slipping into the shaft. My backpack, too full, scraped against the damp concrete wall, slowing me down. I clung to the slippery rungs, freshly covered in muck, and made my way down carefully. With a splash, I reached the floor and moved away from the shaft, calling out for Lucie to start down. My steps stirred the blanket of slime at the bottom of the shallow water; miasmas rose and filled the tunnel. My stomach clenched, and I fought down the nausea. It seemed like a poor idea to throw up here, in this already foul place we would have to waddle through for who knows how long. I wanted to tighten my scarf over my face in an attempt to diminish the smell, but the sight of my gloves sickened me further. An exclamation of disgust announced Lucie’s arrival. She stepped past me into the main tunnel and shone her headlamp along it; I followed, dreading what we would see.

The stifling, moist air absorbed the light like fog; we could barely see a couple of meters ahead. Mould-stained pipes of all sizes ran along the concrete walls which curved towards the rounded ceiling. The floor was thankfully dry, with only a narrow gully conveying dirty, yellowish waters through its middle. A sickly white, shaggy substance filled the interstices between the pipes and covered parts of the ceiling like decaying cotton-candy. ‘What the hell is that?’, Lucie whispered, revulsion in her voice. I took a closer look: dead, bloated insects spotted the pallid surface, and I shuddered with realisation.

‘Spider webs, I think.’

Behind us, Axel splashed heavily as he crossed the fetid puddle to join us, and his powerful lamp swept the tunnel. Something moved swiftly at the edge of my vision, startling me: hit by the light, an army of innumerable roaches scuttered away from us and into the shadows.

‘Please tell me we don’t have to be here long’, I pleaded.

‘That way’, was his only answer as he took the lead. With a sigh, I followed silently. At least, keeping an eye out for the sticky webs dangling from the pipes and focusing on each step I took on the treacherous, slimy floor distracted me from the stench. Here and there, movement attracted my eyes, only for me to avert them immediately at the sight of crawling centipedes or other appalling inhabitants of the sewers.

On our right, another rounded tunnel opened, breathing out a flow of warm, sickening fumes. Concrete stairs, worn and damp, led down to a lower level, from which came a sound like that of a strong stream. I could bet, quite certainly, that it wasn’t a spring of clear water. In accord, we stopped and pulled our boots up as far as they would go, fastening the straps. Lucie caught my eye, her mouth tight, and we nodded to each other wordlessly, bracing ourselves for what was to come. The gully accompanied us, gurgling its contents along the stairs as we went down, ducking often to avoid the thickening threads of cobweb and trying not to touch the rusty pipes above the gutter. We reached the lower floor unwillingly; the turbulent current swept the bottom steps, engulfing in the narrow opening in its haste, where it swirled in a nauseous maelstrom.

‘Careful now’, Axel said, his voice blank, and stepped into the water.

‘Are you alright?’, I worried. Since he had arrived at my apartment this morning, I got an unsettling feeling that he was walling himself away from the world. The rare shows of emotion that were part of his usual behaviour had become even scarcer, and seemed almost shallow. I had never seen him so closed down since I’ve known him. It was disquieting.

Axel turned towards me, and I almost took a step back. In the dim, white light of our lamps, he looked almost spectral. The dark rings around his eyes had deepened, and the shadows on his face made it seem more sunken than it already was in the morning. He stared at me with hollow eyes, as if he didn’t understand my words, then a flicker of life returned. ‘Yeah, I am quite alright. We’ll be arriving soon.’

Lucie shot me a nervous glance at his words, but followed Axel as he stepped into the water, swaying for a few seconds before he caught his balance again.

‘Try to place your feet on the sides and your hands on the walls’, he said over his shoulder, then started moving down the tunnel. I prodded the floor carefully with my foot before going in: it seemed to be curved, as if we were in a gigantic, oval pipe. I held on tight to the end of the rail as I turned, trying not to be swept away before I could steady myself. The current ran into my thighs with the force of a mountain stream in spring, threatening to knock me down into its troubled waters. I took a few moments to brace myself before taking another step; and slowly, tensely, I followed Axel and Lucie through the reeking bowels of the city. Now and then, one of us would slip, and hearts would skip a beat, gruesome consequences flashing through our minds in a blink; then balance would be regained, and our bogging progress resumed.

Axel’s voice came to me, muffled by the heavy air and half covered by the gurgling of the raging current:

‘Stop! We’re there!’

On the right hand wall, at chest weight, opened the ragged mouth of a narrow hole, lined with vicious-looking rods of steel poking through the reinforced concrete.

‘Be very careful’, he advised. ‘This is the best I could do in two hours.’

‘It’s too high for us’, Lucie said, examining the gap.

‘But it is not for me. I will give you a leg up, and come in last’, he replied. She nodded and handed me her backpack; then, grabbing on to the edges, she placed a foot on Axel’s joined hands, and hoisted herself up.

‘Watch for the steel bars, they look sharp’, I warned her. Lucie pulled herself through with difficulty: the hole was so tight that she had to wriggle until she could place her hips diagonally, then advanced carefully between the serrated metal teeth. Her legs flailed inelegantly as she seemed to arrive head down on the other side, but finally she made it through. We handed her our backpacks, then my turn came. Axel was just bending towards me with his fingers locked when he froze, staring behind me.

‘What is it?’, I asked, panicking with my foot up, and the current almost pushed me over. I flapped around desperately and took hold of his shoulders, making him trip and hit the wall with a grunt of pain.

‘Sorry, I’m so sorry!’

He got to his feet quickly, grabbed my waist and nearly shoved me in the hole.

‘Axel, what is it?’, I cried, scared, trying to see what was coming.

‘Get in, right now!’, he yelled back, pulling his own scarf over his nose, ‘or we’re dead!’

I pushed myself through the narrow gap, my efforts fuelled by the emergency in his voice, when something caught the strap of my boot and stopped me. I struggled like a fish on a hook, unable to free myself.

‘I’m stuck!’, I yelled, my voice quivering with tears. ‘I can’t move forward!’

Behind me, Axel cursed loudly.

‘Can you come back?’

I wriggled, pushing with my elbows, and inched my way blindly back into the tunnel. Axel’s hands helped me down.

‘Okay, you have to go legs first’, he said, turning me around and lifting me up before I could say anything. Leaning against him, I passed my feet through, trying to turn a little so I would squeeze in diagonally. My lamp shone on the waters.

‘Axel, what the hell is that?’, I whispered, horrified.

Jostled by the current, a shapeless, revoltingly yellow mass advanced towards us.

‘That’s the reason why we must not be here when it comes!’, he answered sharply, and pushed me unceremoniously.

‘Lucie, help!’, I called, then squirmed and wriggled the best I could, ignoring the pain from the rough edges that scrapped my hips and ribs as she pulled my legs. At the last moment, I thought of protecting my face with my arms as I came to the other side. ‘Careful, here comes the floor’, Lucie warned me, and I let myself slide when my feet touched it.

‘Axel, come! Hurry!’

He didn’t need another call. Passing his arms first, he anchored himself on his spread elbows and, with one hard push, he was halfway through. For once, his height was an advantage, as he was able to touch the floor with his hands and support himself. He extricated his long legs awkwardly and fell in a tired heap on the ground.

We sat next to him, catching our breaths. I looked around: we were in a large, circular shaft of some sorts, its floor a simple metal grid through which a strong airstream blew. Powerful engines, probably fans, hummed in the darkness below. Opposite us, metal ladders led up and down to the other levels. Feeling queasy at the thought of the void beneath me, I closed my eyes and sought the reassuring presence of the concrete wall.

‘What was that? What happened?’, Lucie inquired. ‘What was deadly?’

‘Grease’, Axel whispered wearily. ‘A decomposing layer of grease. If you touch it and it bursts, the gases it liberates are fatal.’ We stared at him, wordless. ‘And the tunnel was much too narrow for us to avoid it’, he added.

‘A horrible way to die’, I shuddered. ‘In the sewers, laying on the bottom of a shit river, killed by grease. Ugh.’

‘But how does this kind of thing… appear? Where is the fat coming from? And why the deadly gas?’

Axel leaned his head against the wall and rubbed his eyes. ‘People throw anything down their sink. Do you know anyone who disposes of their cooking oil differently?’

I hadn’t even known I shouldn’t do it, so I kept a guilty silence.

‘Once in the sewers, the anaerobic bacteria will do their part, producing decomposition gases that are stuck beneath the layer of grease. Most of these gases are sulfur and methane derivatives – both fatal in different concentrations.’ Axel sighed deeply. ‘We need to get moving again.’ He tried to stand, but his legs gave out. Lucie and I jumped to our feet, and I caught his arm before he fell to the floor. We both stumbled, hitting the wall.

‘You’re worn out’, I frowned at him. ‘Sit down and take five minutes.’

Axel brushed me away and got back to his feet. ‘We need to go. Now.’

‘What you need to do right now is take a break, have some food, and drink some coffee. This isn’t the army, Axel.’

He stared at me and snarled: ‘My sister is dying. I do not have time to waste on luxuries.’

I hated when he was too stubborn to think rationally, and my already weakened nerves snapped. ‘Oh yeah? Do you even know what we’re facing? Who we’re going to meet? Huh?’

‘Why should that concern me?’

‘Take a good look at me, Axel.’

He raised an eyebrow, confused. ‘What am I supposed to see?’

I rolled my eyes. ‘I’m just about as impressive as a soaked kitten. Do you really, really think I can face Cerberus? Just one example, from the top of my head. Do you see me taking a huge, three headed beast down? Do you?’

I let the image sink in for a moment, and Lucie took the opportunity to intervene.

‘I think what Rusanda means is that we need you and your strength for the rest of this journey. And even if we didn’t, I’m sure you wouldn’t want your exhaustion to become a liability, would you?’

Her words seemed to hit home: Axel let his head fall, and sagged slowly to the floor. ‘Alright.’

‘Good.’ She sat next to him and took three sandwiches out of her backpack, while I poured the coffee. We ate in silence for a while; I was deep in thought, turning over what I knew about the Underworld in my mind and trying to figure out what to expect. Whatever was coming next, it would most likely be unpleasant, and I worried none of us was ready for it.

‘Penny for your thoughts?’, Lucie asked around a mouthful.

‘I’m afraid they’re not very cheerful. Mostly brooding.’

‘Don’t forget we know less than you, and everything you can share about this could be helpful. We’d better know too much than too little.’

‘You’re right.’ I scratched the back of my head, trying to put my thoughts in order. ‘The problem is not all the legends agree with each other. But what seems to appear each time is the marsh where the souls wait to cross into the underworld, the Styx river and the boatman Charon, then the Cerberus guarding the gates. Some stories mention restless shadows and such.’ I chewed my lip. ‘I’m not sure we’ve thought this through.’

Lucie stopped eating and stared at her sandwich until the silence became uncomfortable.

‘We are here now’, Axel said after a while. ‘People we love depend on us. We can but succeed, by all means necessary.’ He looked up at me. ‘And, after all, Hades himself called you here. It would not make sense for him to put obstacles in your way.’

‘I suppose… but still, I wish I hadn’t acted on my usual “we’ll burn that bridge when we get there” motto.’

‘That’s not…’, Lucie started.

‘I know. But I like mixing metaphors, and anyway, that’s how I’ve handled things my entire life. I’m not saying it’s the best way, of course. But that’s how I am – and now I’m questioning it.’

‘We lack time for regrets right now’, Axel said. ‘It will have to do. Should we get going?’

We packed the remains of our lunch and started down the ladders. The rungs were slippery with black, oily dirt, which quickly blackened our gloves, and the dust carried by the strong draught made us cough regularly. At the next level, we stopped to pull our scarves up, and I hoped none of us would catch anything nasty from the foul air we breathed.

The shaft ended in a low utility tunnel, bathed in a dim, grey neon light. Enormous pipes ran from the grid and along the walls, vibrating with the roar of the fans that must have been close. The airstream was contained, at least, and I took a deep breath of cleaner air.

‘Carefully now’, Axel warned us when we reached the fire door that closed the tunnel. ‘There might be an intruder alarm on it.’

‘What then?’, Lucie whispered, although the noise effectively covered our voices as well as our footsteps.

‘We will have to move very quickly, and hope that the alarm, if there is one, is not silent.’

I tensed, ready to spring. He looked at each of us in turn. We nodded, and he pushed the door open. I held my breath.

Nothing happened. Beyond, there was a simple storeroom, lined with metal lockers and electrical panels. In a corner, a battered plastic table was cluttered with sandwich wrappers and empty soda bottles. A lone bucket and a dirty mop stood guard by another door. We sneaked quietly across the room; Axel turned the handle carefully and peeked outside.

‘No cameras’, he whispered and motioned for us to follow. Another worn down corridor welcomed us. It had the same walls with musty paint, the same yellow linoleum peeling off in the corners like the previous room, beneath a sickly flickering light. Somewhere in the distance, a rumble resonated, growing stronger with each second before fading away. We were close to the RER lines, I guessed. The corridor stretched on and on for long minutes; we walked quietly, tensely, ears strained to hear if anyone was coming. We finally reached an intersection, and Axel pulled out a compass to check our direction.

‘Hey, you there!’

We jumped; adrenaline inundated my body. Three men in blue, stained overalls stood in the middle of the corridor on our left. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’, the one in the middle yelled. ‘Stop right there!’

We bolted in the opposite way.

‘Stop! Stop right now!’

Their heavy steps thundered behind us. Axel stumbled as he turned into another corridor at full speed, but caught his balance in a blink. ‘Hurry!’ I managed the change of course a little more successfully, but Lucie slipped on the old linoleum and crushed into the wall. I skidded to a halt and grabbed her arm. ‘Come on!’ Over her shoulder, I got a glimpse of our chasers closing in on us. Lucie got painfully to her feet and took off after Axel, limping a little. There was no way we could escape them at that pace. I thought furiously for a way to slow them down.

‘Stop, I said!’, the largest of the three bellowed. I froze. He’d reach me in a few seconds. My instincts kicked me out of the pilot’s chair and took the wheel. I dashed down the corridor. Axel and Lucie had gained a few meters; she didn’t seem to be limping anymore.

‘Ru, hurry! There’s a door!’

I forgot everything else but the run; my heart pumped wildly, my muscles burnt with live fire. The fisherman’s boots were not made for running. My feet already ached every time the heels hit the floor, and the folds bothered me at every step.

‘Stop right there, damn it!’

I felt something grasp at my backpack, making me tumble. The fall sent me sliding on the linoleum. I struggled to get up, dizzied; but the closest of the men caught his foot against my ankle and landed heavily on the floor. Pain shot through my leg. I had to stand up, and get past him.

‘There, he got one!’

His colleagues turned into the corridor, slowing down for only a couple of seconds.

‘Ru!’

Axel had only now noticed I had fallen behind. He was standing by an open door, holding it for Lucie. It was too far – farther than the men chasing us.

‘Ru! Are you alright?’

The man on the floor got on all floors, grunting. He seemed dazed by the fall, maybe even hurt. I hesitated; something pushed me to help him, or at least ask if he was alright. I moved carefully closer.

‘Come on!’

‘Stop right there!’

I darted, jumping over the guard with an agility I didn’t know I had; but he rose at the last moment and sent me sprawling on the floor along the wall.

‘You’re not going anywhere, you dirty vandal!’

I was done for. The others would have me in seconds. I lay panting heavily, my mind empty of everything but the heaviness in my lungs and the pain in my ankle. The man leered at me, crawling closer.

‘And a pretty one at that, too…’

‘Ru, watch out!’

My head snapped towards Axel, just in time to see him barrelling down the corridor. I pulled my legs up instinctively. He let himself fall in a controlled slide on the floor, and his heavy Rangers smashed in the man’s side, kicking the breath out of him. Axel was on his feet in a blink and pulled me up.

‘Run!’

He steadied his footing, facing the running men with his fists up.

I couldn’t let him behind.

Something deep inside me responded. My wrists tickled.

I shoved my hand in the pocket of my coat and closed it around the first thing it found. The comb. Help.

I threw it before us.

It hit the ground with a small, almost melodic clang. Like a bell, calling.

Where it fell, the linoleum swayed, peeling away in large ribbons, like leathery tentacles.

‘What the… ?!’

The men braked hard, staggering, before the raising wall. The concrete floor cracked. Sprouts shot upwards, thickening into branches as they grew, and entwining with the stripes of linoleum. Thorns pushed through the bark, until there was no breach left, and the men were blocked out of sight.

I buckled, panting. Axel took my arm and wrapped it around his shoulders, pulling me to my feet.

‘I would ask what did you just do, but we have to go.’

‘Wednesday’, I panted. ‘Gift.’

We stumbled along the corridor towards the door. Before I passed it, I shot one last glance behind me and, before my eyes, the newly grown ivy covered in leaves.