The City of Ember (9 page)

CHAPTER 9

The Door in the Roped-Off Tunnel

Lina saw Doon immediately—he was reaching up to set a book back on its shelf. He saw her, too, when he turned around, and his dark eyebrows flew up in surprise as she hurried over to him.

“Your father told me you were here,” she said. “Doon, I found something. I want to show it to you.”

“To me? Why?”

“I think it’s important. It has to do with the Pipeworks. Will you come to my house and see it?”

“Now?” Doon asked.

Lina nodded.

Doon grabbed his old brown jacket and followed Lina out of the library and across the city to Quillium Square.

Granny’s shop was closed and dark when they arrived, and so Lina was surprised when they went upstairs and saw Evaleen Murdo sitting in her place by the window. “Your grandmother’s in her bedroom,” Mrs. Murdo said. “She didn’t feel well, so she asked me to come.”

Poppy was sitting on the floor, banging a spoon on the leg of a chair.

Lina introduced Doon, then led him into the room she shared with Poppy. He looked around, and Lina felt suddenly self-conscious, seeing her room through his eyes. It was a small room with a lot crammed into it. There were two narrow beds, a very small table that fit into a corner, and a four-legged stool to sit on. On the wall, clothes hung from hooks, and more clothes were strewn untidily on the floor. Beneath the window was a brown stain made by the bean seed in its pot on the windowsill. Lina had been watering it every night because she’d promised Clary she would, but it was still nothing but dirt, flat and unpromising.

A couple of shelves beside the window held Lina’s important possessions: the pieces of paper she’d collected for drawing, her pencils, a scarf with a silver thread woven through it. On the parts of the wall that had no hooks and no shelves, she had pinned up some of her pictures.

“What are those?” Doon asked.

“They’re from my imagination,” Lina said, feeling slightly embarrassed. “They’re pictures of . . . another city.”

“Oh. You made it up.”

“Sort of. Sometimes I dream of it.”

“I draw, too,” said Doon. “But I draw other kinds of things.”

“Like what?”

“Mostly insects,” said Doon. He told her about his collection of drawings and the worm he was currently observing.

To Lina, this sounded far less interesting than an undiscovered city, but she didn’t say so. She led Doon over to the table. “Here’s what I want to show you,” she said. She lifted the metal box. Before she could reach for the papers underneath, Doon took the box and started examining it.

“Where did this come from?” he asked.

“It was in the closet,” Lina said. She told him about Granny’s wild search and about finding the box with its lid open and Poppy with paper in her mouth. As she talked, Doon turned the box over in his hands, opened and closed its lid, and peered at the latch.

“There’s some sort of odd mechanism here,” he said. He tapped at a small metal compartment at the front of the box. “I’d like to see inside this.”

“Here’s what was in the box,” said Lina, lifting the covering paper from her patchwork of scraps. “At least, it’s what’s left of what was in there.”

Doon bent over, his hands on either side of the paper.

Lina said, “It’s called ‘Instructions for Egreston.’ Or maybe ‘Egresman.’ Someone’s name, anyhow. Maybe a mayor, or a guard. I just call it ‘The Instructions.’ I told the mayor about it—I thought maybe it was important. I wrote him a note, but he hasn’t answered. I don’t think he’s interested.”

Doon said nothing.

“You don’t have to hold your breath,” said Lina. “I glued the pieces down. Look,” she said, pointing. “This word must be
Pipeworks.
And this one
river.
And look at this one—
door.
”

Doon didn’t answer. His hair had fallen forward, so Lina couldn’t see the expression on his face.

“I thought at first,” Lina went on, “that it must be instructions for how to do something. How to fix the electricity, maybe. But then I thought, What if it’s instructions for going to another place?” Doon said nothing, so Lina went on. “I mean someplace that isn’t here, like another city. I think these instructions say, ‘Go down into the Pipeworks and look for a door.’”

Doon brushed the hair back from his face, but he didn’t straighten up. He gazed at the broken words and frowned. “Edge,” he murmured. “Small steel pan. What would that mean?”

“A frying pan?” said Lina. “But I don’t know why there’d be a frying pan in the Pipeworks.”

But Doon didn’t answer. He seemed to be talking to himself. He kept reading, moving a finger along the lines of words. “Open,” he whispered. “Follow.”

Finally he turned to look at Lina. “I think you’re right,” he said. “I think this
is
important.”

“Oh, I was sure you’d think so!” Lina cried. She was so relieved that her words poured out in a rush. “Because you take things seriously! You told the truth to the mayor on Assignment Day. I didn’t want to believe it, but then came the long blackout, and I knew—I knew things were as bad as you said.” She stopped, breathless. She pointed to a word on the document. “This door,” she said. “It has to be a door that leads out of Ember.”

“I don’t know,” said Doon. “Maybe. Or a door that leads to
something
important, even if it isn’t that.”

“But it
must
be that—what else could be important enough to lock up in a fancy box?”

“Well . . . I suppose it could be a storage room with some special tools in it or something—” A look of surprise came over his face. “Actually, I
saw
a door where I didn’t expect to see one—out in Tunnel 351. It was locked. I thought it was an old supply closet. I wonder if that could be it.”

“It must be!” cried Lina. Her heart sped up.

“It wasn’t anywhere near the river,” Doon said doubtfully.

“That doesn’t matter!” Lina said. “The river goes through the Pipeworks, that’s all. It’s probably something like, ‘Go down by the river, then go this way, then that way . . .’”

“Maybe,” said Doon.

“It
must
be!” Lina cried. “I
know
it is! It’s the door that leads out of Ember.”

“I don’t know if that makes sense,” said Doon. “A door in the Pipeworks could only lead to something underground, and how could that . . .”

Lina had no patience for Doon’s reasoning. She wanted to dance around the room, she was so excited. “We have to find out,” she said. “We have to find out right away!”

Doon looked startled. “Well, I can go and try the door again,” he said. “It was locked before, but I suppose . . .”

“I want to go, too,” said Lina.

“You want to come down into the Pipeworks?”

“Yes! Can you get me in?”

Doon thought for a moment. “I think I can. If you come just at quitting time and wait outside the door, I’ll stay out of sight until everyone has gone, and then I’ll let you in.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Okay. Tomorrow.”

Lina stopped at home the next day only long enough to change out of her messenger jacket, and then she dashed across town to the Pipeworks. Doon met her just outside the door, and she followed him inside, where he handed her a slicker and boots to put on. They descended the long stone stairway, and when they came out into the main tunnel, Lina stood still, staring at the river. “I didn’t know the river was so big,” she said, after she found her voice.

“Yes,” said Doon. “Every few years, they say, someone falls in. If you fall in, there’s no hope of fishing you out. The river swallows you and sweeps you away.”

Lina shivered. It was cold down here, a cold that she felt all the way through, cold flesh, cold blood, cold bones.

Doon led her up the path beside the water. After a while they came to an opening in the wall, and they turned into it and left the river behind. Doon led the way through winding tunnels. Their rubber boots splashed in pools of water on the floor. Lina thought how awful it would be to work down here all day, every day. It was a creepy place, a place where it seemed people didn’t belong. That black river . . . it was like something in a bad dream.

“You have to duck here,” said Doon.

They had come to a roped-off tunnel. “But there’s no light in there,” Lina said.

“No,” said Doon. “We have to feel our way. It isn’t far.” He ducked under the rope and went in, and Lina did the same. They stepped forward into the dark. Lina kept a hand against the damp wall and placed her feet carefully.

“It’s right here,” said Doon. He had stopped a few feet ahead of Lina. She came up behind him. “Put your hands out,” he said. “You’ll feel it.”

Lina felt a smooth, hard surface. There was a round metal knob, and below the knob, a keyhole. It seemed an ordinary door—not at all like the entrance to a new world. But that was what made things so exciting—nothing was ever how you expected it to be.

“Let’s try it,” she whispered.

Doon took hold of the knob and twisted. “Locked,” he said.

“Is there a pan anywhere?”

“A pan?”

“The instructions said ‘small steel pan.’ Maybe that would have the key in it.”

They felt around, but there was nothing—just the rocky walls. They patted the walls, they put their ears to the door, they jiggled the knob and pulled it and pushed it. Finally, Doon said, “Well, we can’t get in. I guess we’d better go.”

And that was when they heard the noise. It was a scuffling, scraping noise that seemed to be coming from somewhere nearby. Lina stopped breathing. She clutched Doon’s arm.

“Quick,” Doon whispered. He made his way back toward the lighted tunnel, with Lina following. They ducked under the rope and rounded a turn, then stopped, stood still, and listened. A harsh scraping sound. A thud. A pause . . . and then the sound of an impact, a short, explosive breath, and a muttered word in a gruff, low voice.

Then slow footsteps, getting closer.

They flattened themselves against the wall and stood motionless. The footsteps stopped briefly, and there was another grunt. Then the steps continued, but seemed to be fading. In a moment, from a distance, there was another sound: the chink of a key turning in a lock, and the click of a latch opening.

Lina made an astonished face at Doon. Someone had gone down the roped tunnel and opened the door! She put her mouth close to Doon’s ear. “Shall we try to see who it is?” she whispered.

Doon shook his head. “I don’t think we should,” he said. “We should go.”

“We could just peek around the corner.”

It was too tempting not to try. They crept forward to the place where the tunnel turned. From there they could see the entrance to the roped tunnel. Holding their breath, they watched.

And in a minute, they heard a thump and click—the door closing, the lock turning—and footsteps once again, this time quick. A long leg stepped over the rope, and the person it belonged to turned and walked away. All they saw was his back—a dark coat, dark untidy hair. He walked with a lurching motion that struck Lina as somehow familiar. In a few seconds, he had vanished into the shadows.

When they came up out of the Pipeworks, they stripped off their boots and slickers and hurried out into Plummer Square, where they flopped down on a bench and burst into furious talk.

“Someone got there before us!” said Lina.

Doon said, “He was walking slowly when he went in—as if he was looking for something. And he walked fast when he came out . . .”

“As if he’d
found
something! What
was
it? I can’t stand not to know!”

Doon jumped up. He paced back and forth in front of the bench.

“But how did he get the key?” he asked. “Did he find Instructions like the ones you found? And how did he get into the Pipeworks? I don’t think he works there.”

“There’s something familiar about the way he walks,” said Lina. “But I don’t know why.”

“Well, anyhow, he opened that door and we can’t,” said Doon. “If it
does
go somewhere, if it
does
lead out of Ember, he’ll be telling the whole city pretty soon. He’ll be a hero.” Doon sat down again. “If he’s found the way out, we’ll be glad, of course,” he said glumly. “It doesn’t matter who finds it, as long as it helps the city.”

“That’s right,” Lina said.

“It’s just that I thought
we
were going to find it,” said Doon.

“Yes,” Lina said, thinking how grand it would have been to stand before all of Ember, announcing their discovery.

They sat without talking for a while, lost in their own thoughts. A man pulling a cart full of wood scraps went by. A woman leaned from a lighted window on Gappery Street and called out to some boys playing in the square below. A couple of guards, in their red and brown uniforms, ambled across the square, laughing. The town clock rang out six deep booms that Lina could feel, like shudders, beneath her ribs.

Doon said, “I guess what we do now is wait to see if there’s an announcement.”

“I guess so,” said Lina.

“Maybe that door is nothing special after all,” said Doon. “Maybe it’s just an old unused supply closet.”

But Lina wasn’t ready to believe that. Maybe it wasn’t the door out of Ember, but it was a mystery nevertheless—a mystery connected, she was sure, to the bigger mystery they were trying to solve.

CHAPTER 10

Blue Sky and Goodbye

Lina slept restlessly that night. She had frightening dreams in which something dangerous was lurking in the darkness. When the lights went on in the morning and she opened her eyes, her first thought was of the door in the Pipeworks—and then right away she felt a thud of disappointment, because the door was locked and someone else, not her, knew what was behind it.

She went in to wake Granny. “Time to get up,” she said, but Granny didn’t answer. She was lying with her mouth half open and breathing in a strange hoarse way. “Don’t feel too good,” she finally said in a weak voice.

Lina felt Granny’s forehead. It was hot. Her hands were very cold. She ran for Mrs. Murdo and after that to Cloving Square to tell Captain Fleery she would not be coming to work today. Then she ran to Oliver Street, to the office of Dr. Tower, where she banged on the door until the doctor opened it.

Dr. Tower was a thin woman with uncombed hair and shadows under her eyes. When she saw Lina, she seemed to grow even more tired.

“Dr. Tower,” Lina said, “my grandmother is sick. Will you come?”

“I will,” she said. “But I can’t promise to help her. I’m low on medicine.”

“But come and look. Maybe she doesn’t need medicine.”

Lina led the doctor the few blocks to her house. When she saw Granny, the doctor sighed. “How are you, Granny Mayfleet?” she asked.

Granny looked at the doctor blearily. “I think ill,” she said.

Dr. Tower laid a hand across her forehead. She asked her to stick out her tongue, and she listened to her heart and her breathing.

“She has a fever,” the doctor told Lina. “You’ll need to stay home with her today. Make her some soup. Give her water to drink. Put rags in cool water and lay them across her forehead.” She picked up Granny’s bony hand in her rough, reddish one. “What’s best for you is to sleep today,” she said. “Your good granddaughter will take care of you.”

And all day, that’s what Lina did. She made a thin soup of spinach and onions and fed it to Granny a spoonful at a time. She stroked Granny’s forehead, held her hand, and talked to her about cheerful things. She kept Poppy as quiet as she could. But as she did all this, in the back of her mind was the memory of the days of her father’s illness, when he seemed to grow dim like a lamp losing power, and the sound of his breathing was like water gurgling through a clogged pipe. Though she didn’t want to, she also remembered the evening when her father let out one last short breath and didn’t take another, and the morning a few months later when Dr. Tower emerged from her mother’s bedroom with a crying baby and a face that was heavy with bad news.

In the late afternoon, Granny got restless. She lifted herself up on one elbow. “Did we find it?” she asked Lina. “Did we ever find it?”

“Find what, Granny?”

“The thing that was lost,” Granny said. “The old thing that my grandfather lost . . .”

“Yes,” said Lina. “Don’t worry, Granny, we found it, it’s safe now.”

“Oh, good.” Granny sank back onto her pillows and smiled at the ceiling. “What a relief,” she said. She coughed a couple of times, closed her eyes, and fell asleep.

Lina stayed home from work the next day as well. It was a long day. Granny dozed most of the time. Poppy, delighted to have Lina at home to play with, kept toddling over with things she found—dust rags, kitchen spoons, stray shoes—and whacking them against Lina’s knees, saying, “Play wif dis! Play wif dis!” Lina was glad to play with her, but after a while she’d had enough of spoon-banging and rag-tugging and shoe-rolling. “Let’s do something else,” she said to Poppy. “Shall we draw?”

Granny had drunk a full cup of soup for dinner and was falling asleep again, so Lina got out her colored pencils and two of the can labels she’d been saving—they were white on the back and made good enough drawing paper, if you flattened them out. With their sharpest kitchen knife, she whittled the pencils into points. She gave the green pencil and one can label to Poppy, and she herself took the blue pencil and smoothed out the other can label on the table.

What would she draw? Taking hold of a pencil was like opening a tap inside her mind through which her imagination flowed. She could feel the pictures ready to come out. It was a sort of pressure, like water in a pipe. She always thought she would draw something wonderful, but what she actually drew never quite matched the feeling. It was like when she tried to tell a dream—the words never really captured how it felt.

Poppy was grasping the pencil in her fist and making a wild scribble. “Lookit!” she cried.

“Lovely,” said Lina. Then, without even a clear idea of what it was to be, she began her own picture. She started on the left side of the can label. First she drew a tall, narrow box—a building. Then more boxes next to it—a cluster of buildings. Next she drew a few tiny people walking on the street below the buildings. It was what she nearly always drew—the other city—and every time she drew it, she had the same frustrating feeling: there was more to be drawn. There were other things in this city, there were marvels there—but she couldn’t imagine what they were. All she knew was that this city was bright in a different way from Ember. Where the brightness came from she didn’t know.

She drew more buildings and filled in the windows and doors; she put in streetlamps; she added a greenhouse. All the way across the paper, she drew buildings of different sizes. All the buildings were white, because that was the color of the paper.

She set her pencil down for a moment and studied what she’d done. It was time to fill in the sky. In the pictures she’d done with regular pencils, the sky was its true color, black. But this time she made it blue, since she was using her blue pencil. Methodically, as Poppy scratched and scribbled beside her, Lina colored in the space above the buildings, her pencil moving back and forth in short lines, until the entire sky was blue.

She sat back and looked at her picture. Wouldn’t it be strange, she thought, to have a blue sky? But she liked the way it looked. It would be beautiful—a blue sky.

Poppy had started using her pencil to poke holes in her paper. Lina folded up her own picture and took Poppy’s away from her. “Time for dinner,” she said.

Sometime deep in the night, Lina woke suddenly, thinking she’d heard something. Had she been dreaming? She lay still, her eyes open in the darkness. The sound came again, a weak, trembling call: “Lina . . .”

She got up and started for Granny’s room. Though she had lived in the same house all her life, she still had trouble finding her way at night, when the darkness was complete. It was as if walls had shifted slightly, and furniture moved to new places. Lina stayed close to the walls, feeling her way along. Here was her bedroom door. Here was the kitchen and the table—she winced as she stubbed her toe on one of its legs. A little farther and she’d come to the far wall and the door to Granny’s room. Granny’s voice was like a thin line in the dark air. “Lina . . . Come and help . . . I need . . .”

“I’m coming, Granny,” she called.

She stumbled over something—a shoe, maybe—and fell against the bed. “Here I am, Granny!” she said. She felt for Granny’s hand—it was very cold.

“I feel so strange,” said Granny. Her voice was a whisper. “I dreamed . . . I dreamed about my baby . . . or someone’s baby . . .”

Lina sat down on the bed. Carefully she moved her hands over the narrow ridge of her grandmother’s body until she came to her shoulders. There her fingers tangled in the long wisps of Granny’s hair. She pressed a finger against the side of Granny’s throat to feel for her pulse, as the doctor had shown her. It was fluttery, like a moth that has hurt itself and is flapping in crooked circles.

“Can I get you some water, Granny?” Lina asked. She couldn’t think what else to do.

“No water,” Granny said. “Just stay for a while.”

Lina tucked one foot underneath her and pulled part of the blanket over her lap. She took hold of Granny’s hand again and stroked it gently with one finger.

For a long time neither of them said anything. Lina sat listening to her grandmother’s breathing. She would take a deep, shuddering breath and let it out in a sigh. Then there would be a long silence before the next breath began. Lina closed her eyes. No use keeping them open—there was nothing to see but the dark. She was aware only of her grandmother’s cold, thin hand and the sound of her breathing. Every now and then Granny would mumble a few words Lina couldn’t make out, and then Lina would stroke her forehead and say, “Don’t worry, it’s all right. It’s almost morning,” though she didn’t know if it was or not.

After a long time, Granny stirred slightly and seemed to come awake. “You go to bed, dear,” she said. “I’m all right now.” Her voice was clear but very faint. “You go back to sleep.”

Lina bent forward until her head rested against Granny’s shoulder. Granny’s soft hair tickled her face. “All right, then,” she whispered. “Good night, Granny.” She squeezed her grandmother’s shoulders gently, and as she stood up a wave of terrible loneliness swept over her. She wanted to see Granny’s face. But the darkness hid everything. It might still be a long time until morning—she didn’t know. She groped her way back to her own bed and fell into a deep sleep, and when, hours later, the clock tower struck six and the lights came on, Lina went fearfully into her grandmother’s room. She found her very pale and very still, all the life gone out of her.