Page 130 of The Staircase in the Woods

Fuck, you too, Hamish?

“Ham, you died once already—”

“So I’m already living on borrowed time. I’m going, too.”

Every part of Lore resisted this.

Every molecule of her screamed,This is a bad idea.

Then again, that was how she’d lived her life this whole time. All the while she knew there was the safe way to do things, the quote-unquote “smart” path to take, and she always did the opposite. Took every risk she could. Any time there was a door, she didn’t go throughit knowing that’s where everyone else was going—instead, she’d break a window, or punch her way through a wall, or—

Or bust a hole in the floor and jump down into darkness.

Parachuting into Hell itself.

“Fine,” she said. “I’m in.”

—

Down, down, down we go.

Nick was right. They could use the pipes almost as ladders, affording them footholds and handholds. The pipes were bent, inexplicably, in ways that betrayed sane design. (Once more, Lore’s mind went not to a game, but to the old screen saver on her ancient Windows machine: the one that had colorful neon pipes ever growing and expanding, like a bundle of breeding snakes.) Sometimes, they heard water rushing through the metal—a wet susurrus as it traveled past. She could even feel it on her hands—it cooled her palms and she welcomed the sensation. Bundles of wires dangled next to them, with individual wires joining from random points in the darkness above, like threads pulled from faraway skeins. Sometimes they could use those to brace themselves when the pipe bends got tricky to navigate.

One of the things that tripped Lore out the most was…looking down? Darkness. Looking up? She saw meager light shining through the jagged, bitten shape of the hole they had busted in the floor. But everywhere else?

More darkness.

All around them: nothing but the black-teethed void.

It chilled her.

It was Nick who demanded to go first, so Lore went second. Owen after her, then Hamish last.

They did periodic check-ins up and down.Everyone okay? Anyone struggling?Owen was having a hard time with it. Nick wanted to push on but Lore asked him to wait—and to her shock, he did. She told Owen to hug the pipe close, rest against it. Everyone could take a rest then.

“I’m okay,” he said, after a bit. “I’m good. Let’s keep going.”

And so they did.

—

Down, down, down…

Minutes gave way to more minutes, time unspooling before them. How long had it been now? No way to know. Lore’s arms ached. Her calves were cramping. She worked out sometimes. Hamish definitely did. But the others? She didn’t think so. Everyone was still okay, but they were grunting more, panting more. How long could they hold on and hold out?

Fuck.

This was a mistake.

She saw it now.

“We have to go back,” she said.

“I…” Owen started. “I don’t know that I can. I can keep going down. I’m not sure I can do up.”

Fuck!

“I think we gotta try,” she said, suddenly desperate. She looked down. The pipes continued to descend. The wires, now in a fat bundle thick as both her thighs, also snaked down into shadow. “We turn around.”

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