“The Blackmouths are still close, aren’t they, Elli?” Beatríz asked with a nervous weariness in her voice.
“They’re still around, Beatríz, but I can’t see them—they seem to be staying with us, but taking great care to stay out of the light.”
“How far across did you say it was, Elli?”
“Eight—maybe ten—feet now; but like the other one back there, this one also seems to have moved a bit further away—and,” she added, glancing across the black seam, and sounding the alarm, “it’s still moving away, I think!”
“What do we do, then, Elli?” said Beatríz, disconsolately. “We know we have to cross—the lantern seems to be insisting that we cross—but how are we to do that?” Elli, thinking hard, was glancing back and forth between the crossing and the edge of darkness where the Blackmouths were lurking. “You struck the Blackmouth who had the lantern, didn’t you? I can hardly imagine you thought about doing that, Elli, much less doing it.”
Still focused on the challenge at hand, Elli answered Beatríz, sounding like one just emerging from a dream, “If I had thought about it, Beatríz, I’m sure I would never have done it . . . but somehow I was prepared to do it.”
In the silence that ensued, the girls heard the stewing of the liquid near their feet and the panting of the Blackmouths.
“But Elli!” Beatríz said, breaking the silence. Both girls noted the heightened degree of excitement emanating from the area occupied by the now-restive cats, signaling perhaps a decision on their part to attack, notwithstanding the light. As there was no answer seemingly forthcoming from Elli, Beatríz said again, “Elli?” Beatríz waited just a second or so for her friend to acknowledge her. “Elli?” she now yelled.
“Beatríz, I heard you . . . but, I think we have to wait before we cross.”
“Wait for what?” asked Beatríz, impatiently.
“For something, Beatríz—something, anything, anything at all that will show us how to get to the other side—or something to send the lantern in a different direction—unless, of course, the Blackmouths come after us; then we’ll have no choice but to head into the water.”
The air was warm, but the density of the dampness, together with their soaked clothing and relative inactivity, caused the girls to shiver, Beatríz uncontrollably so. Beatríz then heard a somewhat different set of noises issuing from the darkness, remarking her detection to Elli. Elli looked and saw, as she had earlier, no bodies of the cats; but she did see the disembodied feet of a number of Blackmouths visible just inside the furthest reach of the lantern’s light, stealthily shuffling toward the girls, Elli noting an odd look about them. There were no eyes or black mouths at all visible—only “dismembered” feet!
“Elli, what’s happening?”
“They’re coming toward us again, Beatríz, but, but . . . even though it’s hard to tell for sure . . . it seems . . . yes! It seems that they’re backing in toward us, Beatríz, to avoid looking at the light. I don’t know if they intend to come the whole way, but they’re most definitely coming—slowly, but surely!”
“Elli, what are we going to do?”
Elli watched, transfixed, as the black paws advanced backwards toward them. Seeing nothing that would indicate the Blackmouths were going to stop before reaching the two of them, Elli said, “There’s only one thing we can do, Beatríz,” Elli said, as she glanced at her friend, “and that is to try to cross the water; I don’t know what we’re going to find in that stuff, but it’s hard to imagine it could be any worse than facing the Blackmouths.”
Elli flashed another look at the black paws still approaching with measured stealth and soon upon them, and said, “Okay, Beatríz, let’s go! Into the water! Grab my wrist—I’ll grab yours—and let’s get across as fast as we can! Try to stay upright!”
Before Beatríz could reply, Elli took two steps into the knee-deep liquid and then drew Beatríz in. The puree of turbulent, black mud impeded smooth and steady movements, and the soft, tacky bottom of the seam, thick as clay, sucked at Beatríz’s boots, nearly pulling them off, and causing her to tumble forward, nearly submerged in the putrid muck. She struggled to keep the lantern above the waterline, but wasn’t able with only the other hand to push herself back up out of the oily liquid. Elli leaned back on her heels and yanked with both hands on Beatríz’s free wrist holding the lantern. Beatríz rose from the water, and then her boots popped from the muck, one right after the other, sending her stumbling forward again, but this time—fortunately—into the arms of Elli, who hauled Beatríz to shore. The two collapsed next to each other, and Beatríz began to scream.
“Elli! Elli! What’s on me? Help me get them off!” She pulled frantically, but without success, at her legs and abdomen on things invisible to both girls beneath the mud that had coated Beatríz’s body, the dim light of the lantern lying by itself on the ground providing no assistance.
“I can’t see anything, Beatríz!” said Elli, as she began to claw away at the mud on one of Beatríz’s thighs, feeling one—and then another—of something clinging fast to Beatríz. Once she had cleared away much of the mud, Elli felt two distinct creatures attached, as if riveted, to Beatríz’s upper leg; they were about eight inches long and three inches wide, and as thin as cardboard. With dozens of rings of armor coiling each body from end to end, the creatures resembled squashed Slinkies.
“Elli! Elli! They’re biting me!” Beatríz screamed again. “I can’t get them off! Help me! Please!”
Holding their breaths and grimacing, the girls were together trying to dig their nails from all four hands underneath one of the attackers from the black world, but were making no progress when Elli yelled, “Hold up the lantern, Beatríz, and point it so I can see better!”
“Quickly, Elli! Get them off! They’re hurting me so!” Beatríz wailed, as she grabbed hold of the lantern with a flailing hand and swung the lamp wildly to find the dark circle behind her eyelids that would provide Elli light in front of hers.
“There! There! In that direction, Beatríz!”
“Elliiiii!”
“I’m trying, Beatríz! I’m trying! I need more light—keep moving the lantern and try to be steady! I’m going to try my knife—hold still!” Beatríz felt like she was going to go crazy, but managed nevertheless to keep her legs quite still while twisting her torso to get the lantern pointing correctly.
“There! Right there! Stop! Stop, Beatríz!”
In the increasing light Elli was probing desperately to find a spot between one of the creatures and Beatríz’s skin where she could insert the knife and hope either to kill the crustacean-like animal or to at least pry it loose enough to be able to pull it off with her free hand—and, of course, do so without further injuring her friend, or hurting herself. However, as soon as the light fell fully on Beatríz’s legs, and before Elli had inserted her knife, the creatures released their grip and dropped to the sodden peat, where they curled into tight balls and rolled quickly back into the black liquid. Elli stabbed at one or two of them as they rolled away, but her blade bounced harmlessly off their armored backs.
Relieved of the assailants, Beatríz flopped on her stomach to the ground, one hand still holding on to the lantern—that, amazingly, was still holding on to the direction it wanted to take its followers. Elli sat bending over her friend, probing for wounds; carefully scraping away all the mud, she found nine places where the creatures’ mouths had penetrated Beatríz’s skin, in addition to each creature having left behind an injury in the shape of an oval that no doubt hundreds of tiny barbed legs had created. At one end of each oval was a single hole the size of a pea reflecting a deep perforation by something like a sharp tongue or stinger; blood had initially spurted from each of the holes as soon as the creatures had withdrawn themselves, but