July Night

 Dove was falling.

She knew because her tiny little legs and stick-thin arms flailed through the air like whipping cattails stuck in the angry Oklahoma wind. Above her head, dry lightning struck across the darkening sky and wove through the heavy gray clouds.

There was a storm coming.

Dove hated storms. Every roll of thunder made her pint-sized chest tighten. Rain only made everything smell rotten and turn wet.

Dove was screaming, too.

She didn't know how any of it began. The screaming, the falling, the storm.

Suddenly, she hit the ground.

Hard pebbles dug into her back and underneath her shirt. All the air in her body ripped out of her chest and escaped through her mouth in a long, loud squeal.

"Dove!"

Her name came from somewhere up, somewhere above her foggy head.

That's right, she thought. Falling meant there was an up.

She pressed a white trembling hand to the nape of her neck, just where a pain throbbed at the bottom of her skull. Her fingers found something sticky and warm.

Blood.

She didn't want to look at it, so she wiped her palm on the denim of her jeans and hoped her momma wouldn't be too angry about the stain.

Her grey eyes stared up, and even with her fuzzy vision, the outlines of her three friends hung above. Their heads poked out of the sinkhole like curious turtles. She imagined them in thick, green shells, staring at the water below for the off chance a minnow might pass and dinner would be served.

"I'm here," she called out. "I'll—I'll look for a way out."

She didn't want to admit she was scared. Her momma told her she was brave for an eight-year-old. In two weeks, she would be nine.

Nine-year-old Dove wouldn't be scared of anything.

The young girl stood up on wobbly legs. Her red Converse was absent from her left foot. The back of her neck continued to bleed, definitely ruining her favorite sweater.

"Dove," Tommy called down to her. The boy's shaggy hair hung down in a black silhouette. His body was just a collection of shapes moving above. "Dove, you gotta be careful— Mattie went on and she's gettin' her daddy, okay?"

"Okay," Dove whispered. Her voice sounded smaller now, like she was the minnow staring up at three hungry turtles. "I'll just-- I'll wait."

"You're goin' to be fine."

Dove recognized the high-pitch of Rina's voice. Her friend shoved Tommy to the side with her bony elbow. "Mr. LeCruz can pick up anyone. I bet he'll just reach inside this hole and pluck you out."

Dove agreed with a quick nod at the mention of Mr. LeCruz. Matilda, who already ran off searching for help, would grab her daddy. Dove tried to ignore the ringing stuck between her ears, like a June bug was rattling somewhere in her brain.

There was nothing Mr. LeCruz couldn't do. And as soon as Mr. LeCruz saved her from the bottom of the sinkhole, she wouldn't even have to worry about the dark anymore.

Dove didn't mind it, the dark, or at least, not as much as her brother did. He always slept with a night-light, even though he was almost thirteen. Dove liked that she couldn't see anything through the thick layer of blue-black.

Now, as she frantically whipped her head from side-to-side, she realized the not-knowing abruptly turned terrifying. Besides grainy shapes, she failed to see anything two feet in front of her face.

She wanted to cry. She dug her front teeth into her bottom lip instead, because nine-year-olds didn't cry.

The little girl closed into herself and fell to her bottom on the cold stone floor.

She curled her hands around her knobby knees, shut her eyes, and prayed the sun would come up and the lights would come on.

"Dove—Dove, what the hell are you doin' down there?"

She snapped her eyes open at the curse word.

Tommy liked to use bad words, even if he was two months younger than Dove. When he did, his little chest puffed up like he was too big for his eight-year-old body.

Beneath where her feet anchored firmly on the stone floor, the ground pulsed with a golden light. The strange and sudden illumination uncovered every inch of the sinkhole and showed slabs of mossy rock pushed together.

If Dove stuck her arms straight out, her fingers would follow the entire circumference of the cave. It was smaller than she previously imagined, but she was grateful for the close quarters.

A stream of water trickled down between thin cracks in the boulder. The source didn't come from up, but from within the stone.

There must be a fresh spring underneath the ground.

The rock wall vibrated as the mysterious light grew stronger. Strong enough that Dove cupped her hands over her squinting eyes as makeshift sunglasses.

The cave shook back and forth like it was steadily breathing. The little girl's feet tried to find steadiness on the ground.

Maybe Dove was dead. Maybe she wasn't staring up at her two friends, but two angels with slow southern accents and identical silhouettes.

Her momma didn't talk about Heaven much, but Tommy's daddy did. He was the preacher, and he said there would be nothing but swimming pools of chocolate milk, love, and endless summer.

Dove liked those thoughts, even though she didn't really believe them. At least, not until now.

Whatever fear once weighed down her body disappeared as the light shone brighter.

That didn't even seem possible.

She stood on wobbly legs, sure that this was a safe place. That maybe, somewhere between the gray rock and green undergrowth, there was Heaven waiting.

Like a rope suddenly curled around her wrist, she found her hands pressing on the moss. It was colder than she expected, considering it was a simmering July night.

Her nails worked against the spongey vegetation, which was easy to break off considering it was paper-thin.

She wanted to see what was beneath the moss.

Why it shone so strongly.

Why the angels above her sounded like Rina and Tommy.

Why her head wouldn't stop bleeding.

"Dove!" Rina's scream echoed somewhere between the June bugs stuck in Dove's mind.

Dove heard her friend's worried voice, but she didn't care. Instead, every ounce of her attention was trained on the rock before her.

In bright, glowing runes, an alphabet she never saw before scrolled across the rough stone surface. There were handfuls of letters pushed together and spaced out. All were harsh corners and straight lines.

The shapes were purposely chiseled into the boulder long before Dove ever had the misfortune to fall headfirst into the sinkhole.

And somehow, Dove understood the ancient language perfectly, like it was as familiar as her own name.

In a featherlight voice, she spoke the words into the heavy, damp air.

"Let nei maðr hafþessir glory. Let eingworthyinnr mær hafmikr. Allow nei beast, nei vargr, nei sveinn takþessir fran mik."

Let no man possess this glory. Let only the worthy girl have me. Allow no beast, no wolf, no boy, take this from me.

Dove thought of the first words she ever read, of how the letters suddenly snapped together and formed meanings. She sat in her mother's lap and read off the grocery list like it was her favorite book.

Milk, apples, eggs.

Beast, wolf, boy.

Her lips stretched into a pleased smile. She was proud of her new talent.

"Guys!" Dove called up to her friends with a giddy laugh. She naturally slipped out of her new tongue and settled back into English. "I think—I think I found something weird."

At her words, all the light in the cave suddenly escaped. It was like someone flipped a switch. Without another second passing, Dove was plunged into complete darkness once again.

All sense of adventure abruptly left Dove's body. Instead, her attention moved back to the entrance to the sinkhole.

"Dove?" Rina shouted down. "Dove, turn the lights back on."

Like she had control of it. Like she could somehow pull the light back out of the moss and use it to lead her out of the cave.

"I'm scared," Dove admitted.

She wanted her momma, even her brother.

She needed Mr. LeCruz.

Seconds after her whispered confession, a long, low howl split apart the night air. Whatever fear Dove possessed now doubled as her skin crawled at the sound.

And then, another. Not the same as before, but higher-pitched.

Coyotes.

Her mind rang like the siren on the top of her momma's police car.

Dove's big brother always told her coyotes loved to eat little girls for breakfast.

She wasn't nine yet.

Dove was eight and stuck in a hole and needed her momma.

"Tommy!" Dove screamed. "Rina! Don't leave me alone. Don't leave me down here."

Another howl echoed across the forest. This time, closer.

"Don't worry." Tommy peeked over the sinkhole, like he couldn't hear the coyotes. "We're not going anywhere, just—we're makin' something, all right?"

Suddenly, a piece of fabric hit her cheek.

"Grab onto it," Rina shouted down to her. "Come on."

Dove's hands trembled as she curled her fingers into the softness of Tommy's sweatshirt. They must have tied their hoodies together and created a makeshift rope. She imagined her two friends bracing themselves against the wet earth, desperately clutching to the other sleeve with gritted teeth.

Another howl.

This time, beneath her feet.

Maybe she was losing her mind. Maybe she hit her head too hard.

Maybe she needed to go to the hospital. Maybe Rina's momma, in her white lab-jacket and cool, gloved hands, would press her palms against Dove's forehead and send her home with a prescription of bedrest and chicken noodle soup.

"Hurry!" Dove cried out.

Tommy and Rina reeled her up, until her bare left foot no longer touched the cold stone floor.

As they pulled her back onto the ground above, a loud crack from the sinkhole nearly forced Dove's hands off the sweater. It sounded like the rocks were tearing apart.

It seemed as if growls, as if the coyotes' howls, came from below.

While she white-knuckled the fabric, her feet ran over the slippery wall.

Her toes curled over moss and rock and, suddenly, fur.

Dove's heart froze.

"There's—" she whispered. "There's something down there."

She knew it was impossible, even as she said it. The sinkhole was small, only double the size of her.

Whatever was hidden below, she should have seen.

Her two friends either ignored her realization or couldn't hear above the loud collapsing stone. Instead, they worked like tiny soldiers with one mission, to bring her body back on-board.

When Dove hit the soft bed of long grass and overgrown foliage, her fingers ripped through tufts of greenery. She scrambled away from the perimeter of the hole, terrified of whatever she left down there.

The earth was wet now. The rain came down in thin sheets of warm droplets.

Dove imagined disappearing into the wet dirt. She wondered if she could be mud, just for a few seconds, just to stop feeling like prey.

"We—we need to run." Dove turned to stare at her friends with wild eyes.

She didn't remember the last time she was this scared. It felt like her momma kept hitting the brakes on the car, like Dove's seatbelt kept tightening up around her throat and chest, trapping her in an unending pattern of stop and go and can't breathe.

Tommy, naked to the waist, slipped his sweater back on with no hurry. His eyebrows raised up in disbelief, naive in a way all almost-nine-year-old boys are.

Even though Rina was the smartest girl in third grade, she shared the same stupid look on Tommy's face.

"Am I—" Dove's chest heaved as she caught her breath. "Am I speaking in another language? We need to run."

Another howl split apart the air. This time, it sounded inches away, hiding inside the cave.

It was enough to set them into motion. Realization fell over their expressions and without another word, the three children ran.

But it was too late. Dove knew that before her feet even hit the ground on her second step.

With her attention still trapped on the opening of the sinkhole, she watched as two pairs of red eyes appeared. Although the night dimmed the forest around them, the outline of heavy, black paws clutched to the cave's threshold.

Underneath the moonlight, Dove could make out the glinting of sharp, white canines.

Dove hoped it didn't hurt to die.