River Runs Deep Read Free Page B

prouder than a slave maybe ought to be, Elias liked him well enough. And now that he’d finally left his room, he thought he’d like to get out again. “When? Now?”
    â€œNot tonight. Later. Only you don’t go telling about it. Or about chasing haints off in the cave, you hear?” Stephen stood, tucked the book and pencil into his bag, and flung one end of the rope at Elias. “Hold on to this. I’ll keep the other end. Last thing we need is you wandering off again.”
    â€œNow see here—”
    â€œJust take it.” Stephen was firm. “If you want to come out with me, you’ll learn to do what I say.”
    Elias huffed. He wasn’t used to being spoken to this way by colored men, slave or free. Still, the promise of a chance to go exploring was worth a little wounded pride. “Fine.” They walked back up the little slope of the tunnel, Elias feeling like a dumb cow being led back to the barn.
    â€œYou haven’t been this far before, have you?” Stephen asked him as they entered the big room Elias had passed through a few minutes back.
    â€œOnly just now. When I was following . . . well . . .” Elias trailed off.
    â€œWatch this.” Stephen walked to the wall of the chamber, stuck the handle of his lantern in his mouth, and climbed up a pile of loose rock. He set the lantern on top and came back down. “Look up there.” He swept his arm at the ceiling. For a second, Elias forgot to breathe.
    There were stars. Hundreds of them. Twinkling up in the black. “How?” he whispered. How indeed? How had they managed to poke a hole in the cave all the way to the sky?
    â€œSomething, isn’t it?” Stephen asked, bending down and picking up a rock. “Some kind of shiny rock up there in the ceiling. Not gold or anything valuable. But it glints in the light. The smoke’s blackened it up so you see it only in patches.”
    â€œLike stars,” Elias said. He gave a tiny little sputter of a cough, but it didn’t catch.
    â€œExactly. That’s why we call this the Star Chamber.”
    Elias just gaped, wishing it wasn’t what Stephen had described. That it was instead an actual window to the outside.
    â€œYou much at throwing?” Stephen asked.
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œHere”—Stephen placed the rock in Elias’s palm—“heave it up there good—if you chip off some soot, you’ll make a new place.” Elias tested the rock’s weight in his palm and tried to gauge the distance to the stars. He had no idea how far it really was, but he wound up and hurled the stone hard and fast at a steep angle. It clinked against the ceiling immediately.
    â€œGood throw,” Stephen said, grabbing the lantern. “I charge fellas on my tour a quarter to do that.”
    â€œA whole quarter? Just to throw a rock?”
    â€œNot just to throw a rock. To make a star . And name it for their sweetheart. And if that sweetheart happens to be right there with them, you bet they pony up that quarter right quick.”
    Elias grinned. He couldn’t help but picture his daddy hucking a stone up there for his mama. He once saw him skip one nine times. He’d have made a whole constellation.
    Stephen slowly led Elias back up to the ward, pointing out things as they went. Elias expected the pace was on account of Stephen having slipped into the role of tour guide. That, or he was aware of how winded Elias had been on the trip down. Even now the air whistled and scraped over his throat as he drew breath.
    It was clear Stephen was proud of the cave, loved it even, and couldn’t help talking about it because of that. And Elias liked listening to him, but he kept thinking about the voice at his window, how it had warned him to go back, how it must have passed right by Stephen Bishop. Stephen had been awfully quick to decide that the voice and the footsteps Elias had heard