What Lies Beneath

Prompt: You were born with the ability to know what’s buried beneath your feet. You’ve worked with archeologists as your life’s work, but today is the day you say for the very first time, “We should not dig here.”

_____

You step out of the Jeep and into the cool autumn air. Everything is wet, permeated with the earthy scent of peat. The clouds above threaten rain but don’t seem like they’ll follow through. As soon as your feet touch the ground, your ability kicks into action, revealing the low, round alto hum of rocks; the violin-like whisper of grass; even the hollow knocking of the bones of small creatures decaying beneath you.

Dr. Otero waves to you from atop the small hill, the Scottish breeze tousling her short cap of hair. You head toward her, passing groups of assistants and trailers full of equipment along the way. They seem to be preparing for a big excavation, larger than any you’ve ever been called to help with before.

“Jackie,” the archaeologist greets you, clapping a hand on your shoulder even though she stands a full foot shorter than you. “I’m glad you could make it on such short notice. These events always go better when you’re around.”

“Well, the twenty thousand dollars help.”

Dr. Otero laughs, a high tinkle of a sound that quickly gets snatched away by the wind.

“I’m sure they do. Come on, I’ll show you where we’re planning to excavate today.”

She leads you to a hollow on the other side of the hill. It looks just like every other part of the landscape, clad in waving grasses and moss-covered rocks.

“What do you think you’ll find out here?” you ask as Dr. Otero takes out her GPS.

“I found some texts that indicate there may have been a settlement here at one time,” the archaeologist replies, checking the GPS against her battered notebook. “Nothing terribly exciting or new, but you never know.” She wanders a few steps east, then takes one step back and taps at the ground with the toe of her boot. “Here.”

Dr. Otero steps aside and you walk forward to take her place. As your foot comes down, though, the quiet symphony of the ground beneath your feet…stops.

You jerk your foot up again like you just walked on hot coals, your heart pounding.

“Jackie, are you all right?” Dr. Otero demands, taking a step toward you.

“Stop!” you shout, holding up a hand to her. “Don’t walk there!”

She freezes and looks down at the ground.

“What? Is there something breakable right here?” she asks. “We should cordon it off right away, if that’s –”

“No,” you interrupt. “Just…just wait.”

Slowly, you place your foot next to the other again. There’s the symphony you’re used to, sounds you hear every day. But when you step forward…. Gingerly, you take one step.

And the symphony dies.

A shiver rakes its way up your spine. Never, not a single time in your twenty-eight years, have you ever heard utter silence beneath your feet. There’s always something. This shouldn’t be possible. There can’t be nothing, there just can’t be.

Dr. Otero watches in silence as you step forward and backward in a strange one-woman waltz. You shuffle to the side, testing the ground with your feet. Left foot, sound; right foot, silence.

“Get someone to mark this off,” you tell her.

Immediately, the archaeologist barks orders to her team, summoning undergrads armed with plastic stakes and tape. As you rock back and forth, you point to where the boundary inexplicably lies. Silence, sound. Silence, sound. The rest of the team gradually stops what they’re doing to watch, observing as the silent spot grows larger. An hour passes, then two as you carefully demarcate this anomaly. When you finally circle back around to the beginning, you look up for the first time.

Before you lies a rough oval shape nearly the size of a football field, its boundary glaringly illuminated by orange tape. Its sheer size takes your breath away. And fills your lungs with apprehension. The settlement Dr. Otero mentioned could well be under there, but what foul magic could it harbor to negate your ability entirely?

Dr. Otero stares out across the landscape, at the space that is seemingly no different from what lies outside it.

“What’s down there?” Dr. Otero asks. Excitement and anticipation color her voice.

You shake your head.

“I don’t know.”

She turns to you, incredulous.

“What do you mean, you don’t know? You spent all that time marking this off, how could you not have seen what’s down there?”

“Every step I took into that space, all I heard was silence.”

The archaeologist draws in a breath. She knows as well as you that you’ve never experienced this before. Almost imperceptibly, she inches back from the silent ground before you. Perhaps a wise decision.

“Dr. Otero,” you tell her, unable to tear your eyes from the innocuous-looking grass, “we should not dig here.”