Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History by Ken Liu, Tananarive Due, Victor LaValle, Nnedi Okorafor, Sofia Samatar, Sabrina Vourvoulias, Thoraiya Dyer Read Free Book Online Page A

words you want to say to each other, and be sure to say ‘em quick. You won’t both survive the night.”
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    They had to stoop to enter the boxy blast enclave.
    In the far back corner, the water didn’t creep as high. A narrow, uneven ledge was raised enough for them to sit out of the stinking muck. Lottie hoped the water would drop by morning. Uncle Jim had said it might – if the rain let up. She couldn’t tell if it was raining outside, but it was surely raining
inside
. The only sounds were the chorus of dripping water and Uncle Jim’s sing-song prayer as he walked back up to the world above.
    “…Lord, take pity on your poor servants on this long night…” she heard his voice echo through the passageway. The words collided and faded, but she could make them out well enough to feel the prayer move her spirit. “Do not punish this poor shepherd, Lord, for we all have suffered enough.… Do not punish the innocent, Lord, for all they desire is the freedom to serve you better…”
    Every few words, his voice hitched in a sob. He was the very sound of despair.
    Then it was a faraway whisper.
    Then he was no voice at all.
    All around her, the dark.
    Uncle Jim had given them two lamps, but the two hundred miles since Augusta had taught them to save kerosene for dire necessity. They had checked their matchsticks before blowing out the lamps, and while Lottie’s had gotten wet in her pouch somehow, William had kept his dry. Lottie had fewer possessions now than ever. Before this night, she had never wanted for moonlight or air to breathe.
    But Lottie was glad for the dark, since she didn’t want William to see her tears. He was helpless to soothe her, so why should they punish each other? She huddled against the best man she knew, hearing Uncle Jim’s prayer in her mind, rubbing her belly.
    Uncle Jim had said that in the morning he would give them a treasure chest in the Irishman’s wagon: dry clothes, a packed traveling bag, food, boxes of matches, a new compass. And money – how much she could only guess, if Uncle Jim’s hired man didn’t steal it first.
    Neither of them had a timepiece, but she thought it had to be ten o’clock. At least.
    In seven hours, Uncle Jim would come back for them. Seven hours. Seven years, it might as well be. But he would come. He
would
come, this time.
    Seven hours, Lord. Let them last seven hours.
    Don’t let her mother’s lashes be for nothing. Don’t let William’s grandmother’s cries in her sickbed when the soldiers came be for nothing. Let it all matter for something.
    Unless he means to drown you both here
.
For your own good.
    And didn’t he? Hadn’t she heard his soul’s guilt in his weepy prayer?
    Lottie couldn’t swallow away her sob, and William slid his palm against her hot cheek, all tenderness. Did he know it too? Did he know Uncle Jim had sent them into the mine to die?
    Loud splashing flew toward them. Gone as soon as they heard it.
    They sat closer, their bodies hard as stone. The splashing had come from directly outside the mouth of their enclave. Had Uncle Jim come back so soon? No more than half an hour could have passed.
    “Uncle?” she whispered.
    William covered her mouth with the palm. His heartbeat pulsed through his skin.
    The next splash sounded like two limbs colliding. Then an undulating motion, one spot to the next. And sudden, impossible silence. They could be back out in the forest, jumping at bears and bobcats.
    “That ain’t a man,” William said. “Didn’t I say I saw somethin’? He saw it too.”
    “What it look like?” Lottie said. “A snake?”
    “Too big for a snake,” William said. “Too wide. Can’t say what it looked like, but it wasn’t no fish or snake. It looked ’bout as long as me.”
    “It’s a man, then,” Lottie said. “Somebody chasin’ us.”
    “No,” William said. “Not a man.”
    William calmly struck a match and lit his lamp. In the brightness, colored circles danced across Lottie’s