The Tunnels Below Read online

  Cecilia stood frozen in the artificial lights of the train carriage for some time before even daring to breathe. She could see from the light being thrown out on the other side of the doors that there was a small platform covered in soot. She waited for something to happen. Nothing happened. There was only stillness, silence and the imperceptible passing of time. No clock ticked but she felt as though an eternity was passing through her with each beat of her heart. A dusty mouse scuffing through the soot brought her back to the moment. Was it wearing a pair of shoes and a jumper? Cecilia moved closer to look but it had already disappeared. Now at the mouth of the doors, she knew for the first time in her life the weight of being nowhere. She looked for signs: there were none. She called for a response: none came. After what felt like hours of waiting and shouting for help, her fear abandoned her briefly and she stepped off the train. No sooner had she left the train did the doors clap shut and the train leave her.

  Cecilia found herself abandoned in a false night, the light from the train dimming as it departed. Her body shook and the sound of her own whimpering was as close as if she were listening to it on headphones. Her breathing hastened and she burst into tears. Cecilia’s legs wobbled and gave way: she crumpled to the ground where she wept violently, terrified and helpless against the colossal depth of the darkness all around her.

  3

  The End of the Line

  A thought of Hester popped into Cecilia’s head and gave her a moment of calm. In the safety of her mind she remembered all the times they had played hide and seek in the dark corners of their family home. Oh, how she wanted to go home. A longing grew in her chest, but she tried to hold it back, swallow the lump in her throat. Deep down Cecilia knew that in her current situation if she thought too long about getting home, the fear that she might never return could become real and suffocate her entirely. So she imagined that Hester was just hiding in the dark and all she had to do was find her; she felt better, stronger even, like she wasn’t alone any more because this was all a game, and eventually Hester would jump out at her and they would laugh. Then they could steal the raw jelly from the top cupboard, like they had so many times before, and eat it in the middle of the night.

  But this was not a game of hide and seek. In the end Cecilia had no choice but to get moving. It couldn’t possibly get any worse. She realised that the only person who could make a difference to her situation was herself. The train had gone, taking its light with it. Her eyes widened as they tried to find something to focus on, searching for some direction in the endless black. She shuffled forwards and found a wall; it was a huge comfort to feel something solid against her hands. The tunnel only ran in two directions as far as she should tell: left and right. This was useful because it meant she only had to make a decision based on two options. She squinted hard and coming into focus on the right there seemed to be the hint of a colour, an aura of orangey-brown. To the left there was nothing but black. Really she had no choice but to head towards the light. Cecilia took a deep breath and began to feel her way along the wall.

  She imagined what it might be like to go deep-sea diving at night, never quite sure what strange or fantastic creature might jump out at you. The thought was terrifying. Once again she remembered it was a bad idea to think too much. For a time she hummed the tune to ‘Greensleeves’ that she had learnt on the recorder at school, but her throat soon felt sore and dry. She moved faster towards the source of the light, and as she drew nearer she could just about make out an archway with autumnal colours shining through. Was she imagining it? She paused a moment, afraid to let go of the wall. She almost turned to look back at how far she had come but changed her mind. Wiping her hands on her coat, she stepped into the light.

  Her skin prickled. It was actually warm, which pleased her as she realised how cold she had been. Before walking through the archway, she noticed some writing, covered in dirt and gunge. She wiped it off with the corner of her jacket and whispered the words to herself:

  “Those who wander will regret

  If they return they will forget

  For those who step outside the lines

  Will lose all sense of place and time.”

  Cecilia considered it a moment before walking through into the small atrium in front of her. It was quite beautiful. The walls were pockmarked and there were tiny fragments of broken mirror glittering about the place that picked up the gentle hue of orange and shone it back. The orange light came from fluorescent tubes that ran round the edges of the space and climbed the walls, creating a pattern on the ceiling like the underside of an umbrella. It reminded Cecilia of a funfair—but without any people or music or candy floss or rides. So, really, on second thought it wasn’t like a funfair at all—and she certainly wasn’t having much fun!

  There, directly in front of her, was a window. It looked like an old ticket office but there seemed to be nothing beyond the glass. Next to the window was a door. It was a large metal door, and on it painted in capital letters the word ATTENDANT was peeling off.

  Cecilia nervously approached the window. She felt the same as when she had taken the long walk from her seat to the stage to do a reading in assembly. It was the worst. Her fingertips tingled with anticipation as she reached out and tapped the glass. Cecilia peered in but there was no response. She walked over to the door and tapped politely underneath the writing. She waited and waited.

  “This is silly,” she said aloud and made a fist and banged heavily on the metal. No sooner had she banged than she was answered: three loud bangs hammered back. She was held stiff in a moment of terror. Cecilia banged again; after all, what choice did she have? The same bang was returned. She changed the rhythm; the new rhythm was repeated and then out of nowhere she lost her temper and shouted, “Are you going to open this door or what?”

  It was extremely rude but Cecilia was desperate and she had no idea what was happening to her or where she was. All she could do was hope that there wasn’t something awful behind the door. She bit her lip as she waited for something to happen. Cecilia jammed her hands in her pockets. What if the person behind the door was dangerous—what were they doing all the way down here in the first place? The door swung open and a loud, deep, musical voice bellowed down from above.

  “What are you doing here, little thing?”

  Cecilia stood there, astonished. The man in front of her was not just a man: he was also an animal and he appeared to have the face of a fox. It’s rude to stare, thought Cecilia. This can’t be happening, thought Cecilia. Act normal, thought Cecilia.

  “Hello,” she said. “I’m lost!” She laughed nervously.

  “That you are.” His accent had a hint of Scottish in it. For some reason this put Cecilia at ease, perhaps it was because it meant that at the very least she was still on her own planet.

  “I realised I was lost a while ago and I’ve been wandering about for hours!” She looked at his face curiously. Maybe he’s getting ready for a fancy dress party, she thought, or perhaps she’d stumbled onto a secret location where they were shooting a film—but he sure looked real.

  “And what, pray tell, do you want me to do about your loss, little thing?”

  “Well, I was hoping that you might point me in the right direction?”

  The fox-faced man was strikingly handsome and quite tall—at least as tall as her dad, who was six-foot-two. He had spiky black whiskers and dazzling amber eyes, and although she could see he had a set of sharp teeth, they didn’t seem scary—rather, mischief whispered around the corners of his mouth as though he was about to share a secret.

  “Oh dear,” he said, folding his arms and shaking his head. “It’s a very, very long time since I had a wanderer in my midst. I think you’d better come in and sit down. Don’t worry, we will bring you up to speed, help you fill in the gaps! In the end, you know, there is no ‘right’ direction.” He smiled. “My name is Kuffi, by the way. Now, don’t you think it’s rather rude of you to disturb someone at his work with all that banging
and huffing and puffing and not even introduce yourself?”

  “I’m really sorry,” Cecilia replied, holding out her hand. “I’m Cecilia Hudson-Gray.”

  “No thanks, I’d rather not if you don’t mind. You’re filthy! Pleased to meet you, nonetheless,” he said, patting her on the head with a fury palm. She might have expected Kuffi to have paws but his hands were the same shape as a human hand, just covered in the same fur that covered the rest of him—thick, silky red fox fur.

  “Oh. Pleased to meet you too, Kuffi!” Cecilia said, looking down at her own soot-stained hands. They were so black it was as though she had been touching the souls of shadows and she wondered what the rest of her must look like!

  It was dark inside Kuffi’s cabin. However, Cecilia had begun to notice that there were different types of darkness. It seemed there were different shades that made a person or thing feel or look a certain way. In Kuffi’s room it was like a warm tropical evening in late summer, and although the room was quite sparse (aside from heaps of books), it felt cosy. The light was low and comforting and the entire room, which wasn’t very big, smelled sweetly of ginger and fresh earth. Cecilia thought the piles of books scattered everywhere looked like discarded empty crisp packets and her stomach rumbled as she thought of crisps. It seemed like such a long time since breakfast—then she remembered she had that half a packet of Cherry Drops in her pocket. She got them out and began unwrapping the crumpled tube eagerly. She held out the packet to Kuffi first, of course.

  “Cherry Drop?” asked Cecilia, warily holding out the packet.

  “Was that you making that noise then? Why were you growling at me?” he asked.

  “I’m not, honestly, it was just my stomach rumbling. I’m a bit hungry, that’s all.”

  “It sounds monstrous.”

  “It does feel like there’s a monster in there, to be honest,” said Cecilia, crossing her arms across her tummy.

  “Goodness! How awful. It sounds rather vicious. You scared me there a moment!”

  “You scared me too!”

  Cecilia and Kuffi chuckled with one another briefly, breaking the tension.

  “Sit down, sit down. I’ll fix you some tea but I’m afraid I have nothing to eat here. It’s best not to keep food on the premises. It attracts rat-faces, the pesky little thieves.”

  “Oh dear,” she mumbled, hoping that the rat-face people wouldn’t be as big as Kuffi—that would be terrifying. Kuffi went over to a kitchenette at the back of the room where there was a pan on a small hob over a bowl of coals. Cecilia sat down, popping a Cherry Drop in her mouth, then stuffing the packet back in her pocket. She left another one on a small hexagonal table. “I’ll leave this here for you for later if you like,” she said.

  “No open flames, you will remember that rule, right?” he asked, poking at the glowing embers.

  “Sure.” Cecilia shrugged.

  Kuffi got a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the cupboard below a basin near the hot coals. He brought out a large green glass bottle, which he uncorked and measured out the exact amount of water he wanted into a small blue china teacup, then added two more dashes to the pan before putting the bottle away and locking the cupboard. Cecilia found the whole process very serious. Kuffi stared into the liquid as he stirred the concoction, the steam rising up to tickle his whiskers. He added what looked like some spices, and something resembling a root of ginger, but no tea bag as such.

  When it was ready he brought it over to Cecilia and put it down very carefully next to the Cherry Drop on the hexagonal table between two armchairs, one of which Cecilia was sitting in.

  “Thank you, Kuffi. Aren’t you going to have any?”

  “Oh no, you go for it. I’ll have mine tomorrow,” he said, matter of fact.

  “Tomorrow?” Cecilia thought this was a very strange response.

  “Yes, tomorrow. Water is in short supply, so drink up!” he commanded.

  Cecilia sipped the drink quietly; it was soothing, hot and spicy, tasting just like the smells in the warm room, it was quite rejuvenating.

  * * *

  The two of them sat there a while, chatting. Kuffi had a way of making her feel very much at ease. Cecilia was so desperate to escape her situation and go home, she found it hard to believe that the creature in front of her had a fox face. Between the gaps in their conversation she had a second when she feared that he might try and eat her, but nothing about him seemed to suggest that this was his intention. In fact, he seemed pleased of her company. Somehow, in the midst of what was an awful set of circumstances, she even found herself laughing at a few of his jokes. She realised that normally Kuffi would seem frightening but there was nothing normal about what was happening. So she was grateful for the distraction and, as it turned out, Kuffi was fascinating. As Cecilia blew on her tea to cool it down, he asked her a really important question that confirmed he meant her no harm.

  “Cecilia. Are you OK?” He said this very gently and Cecilia winced a little bit.

  “I’m OK, I think. A bit confused but it’s nice to be somewhere. It was very dark and lonely out there for a bit.”

  “The Black of Beyond is no place for anyone, let alone a little thing like you.”

  “The Black of Beyond?” she asked, feeling a little confused.

  “The Black of Beyond is the place where you were lost. Legend has it that if you just keep walking you can end up walking from somewhere to nowhere. You’re a ‘Wanderer’—that is what we call fellows like yourself: confused inhabitants, ordinary dwellers, that have ‘wandered off’ and been lost in the Black of Beyond. When fellows like yourself turn up here, they’ve been gone so long or been so far into the Black of Beyond that they lose a sense of what’s real. It’s like their memories have been completely wiped. Most of the time they have the most magical stories to tell, though.”

  “Oh, well, it felt like for ever but I am sure it can’t have been more than an hour or two,” she said confidently. “I just really want to get home.”

  “And do you know where that is?” Kuffi seemed to be asking a lot of questions.

  “Well, back the way I came, I guess, back to the train that brought me here, to my family and my house and my cat. They will be worried about me by now, I’m sure.”

  “Cecilia, there are some souls that get lost in the dark of the tunnels and then lost in their minds; their imaginations take over. They even come to believe there is some sort of other world above us, dazzled by light and full of abundance. We all dream of a better place from time to time but these poor souls have become disillusioned by the darkness; they seem to have forgotten the dwellers and the society they belong to and they go in search of some light at the end of the tunnel. The Black of Beyond is a scary place but that’s all it is—the dark place at the end of the line. Maybe you are one of these poor fellows and you’ve forgotten your place or where you belong? Wanderers often look like you. Jasper, he’s similar, sort of bald… perhaps all your fur has fallen out and your whiskers… Where are they?” Kuffi said, inspecting her.

  “What, no! I’ve never had any fur or whiskers.” She almost laughed at how ridiculous it sounded.

  “Well, you still have quite a mane on top of your head,” Kuffi said, pointing at her crown of curls. “I know, why don’t we take a walk and reintroduce you to the dwellers? You can have a nap first if you like and then we will see if we can’t jog your memory a bit, remind you of the society that you belonged to before you went walking about in the dark.”

  “I’m not sure you understand,” Cecilia said. She still felt compelled to try to convince him one more time in case he’d misunderstood. “I can’t tell you where I am now but before I ended up here, I was on a train and before that I was walking down the road with my family. There was a sky above my head and the sun kept popping out from behind the clouds. The birds were singing in the trees and it was a lovely day out we had planned for my birthday.”

  “Sun, what’s a sun?” Kuffi said to Cecilia plainly
.

  How can anyone live without sunlight, she thought.

  “You’re joking, right?” Cecilia asked.

  “Of course not,” he said, settling into his seat to listen to her.

  “OK. Well… it’s a big ball of gas burning really, really far away from this planet—Earth. It helps things to grow and live, it keeps us warm and helps us know when to be awake and when to sleep,” she said, willing him to give in and say it was all a big joke, a birthday prank like on those TV shows that trick people for everyone else’s entertainment.

  “I see.” Kuffi seemed to be taking it in as a frown crept across his brow and his whiskers twitched involuntarily.

  “Cecilia, that’s a marvellous story. The sun, what a fantastic imagination you have!” And just like that, he smiled and pushed aside what she was saying.

  Cecilia was so frustrated. Why didn’t he believe her? She was about to burst as she stood up from the armchair. “You have to believe me, Kuffi. I’m from up there, from outside!” She pointed up towards the crumbly ceiling.

  But the more Cecilia tried to convince Kuffi of the outside world, the more fantastical and ridiculous her words began to sound. She got carried away, trying to explain her lush green world with its rolling oceans and snow-capped mountains, gesticulating and describing things in detail, and with each word she saw his pity grow through the expression on his face. She slowed down as it began to sound more and more like a fantasy world she had conjured up.