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Amy looked up, but there was only a rocky ceiling and the gap she had come through. Her arms and legs chilled, and her hands shook.
Quick. Just find Deanna, help her, and get the hell out of here.
“Deanna!” Amy searched around with the flashlight. It fell on the entrance to another room. Shivering, her legs leaden, Amy moved towards it. She couldn’t leave anyone alone in the darkness.
She had to let the people she was rescuing know they hadn’t been abandoned.
Someone was always coming for them.
She was.
“Deanna,” she called as she stepped into the chamber, her voice echoing from the rock.
It was a small room—not even a room, but rather, a cave. Amy searched around the floor—no one.
Any more exits or doors?
No.
“Where are you?” Amy called. She didn’t know if she meant Deanna or herself.
“In here,” a voice said.
Amy moved the light, and there she was. Deanna stood, hugging herself, her eyes wide, the mass of her hair in disarray. Relief flooded Amy, the tension in her chest releasing.
“Oh, thank God!” Amy said. “Are you hurt?”
“Just bumped my head a little.”
“Okay, let’s go back right away. I’ll take a look at your head when we’re up. Here, take this. I have another.”
She handed the light to Deanna and removed another one from her backpack. Deanna swept around herself with the flashlight, and it fell on something. Amy frowned.
A rock, big and flat. There was a large carving on top of it—a broad ribbon with three wavy lines. Something like a river in the form of a circle. Through it ran the broad line of a road.
“I’m freezing,” Deanna said, walking back towards the entrance.
“Wait for me,” Amy said, but then froze, her gaze glued to the rock.
Was Amy hallucinating, or was the carving glowing ever so slightly—the river blue, the road brown? Next to the carving, there was a handprint right in the rock.
Deanna’s light was already flashing in the first room. She’d be all right. Amy came closer to the rock, curious.
The glowing grew brighter, and it seemed as if the carving moved: the waves of the river seemed to flow, and it looked as though a small cloud of dust rose above the road. It was so pretty.
Was this a Pictish handprint?
A lonely hand… A lonely man…
Was it Craig Cambel’s?
Would she be touching his fingers if she pressed hers into the imprint? Holding her breath, she traced it gently. It was cold and damp. Had it been cold and damp when Craig lived here?
She laid all five fingers into the imprint. A buzzing went through her—like a wave of excitement before a journey, an adventure. Her heart raced, and her pulse beat in her temples, in the veins of her neck, in her wrists and between her fingers.
Fear struck her again—gripped her throat and her shoulders, clenched her airways till she gasped for breath.
She tried to pull back her hand but couldn’t. The rock pulled her palm like a magnet. The cold surface felt wet, as though water rose up from it.
