Leap
(n+1th draft)

Leap

For three days, Enna lay still in the Underhaven. The air was dark and wet; it threatened to choke her. Still, it was safer here than in the world above.

Her pink school jumper, ripped to rags, flowed around her, loosely waving in the darkness. She could not see her own hands, pale as she knew they were, through the blackened surroundings. They should have been right in front of her, she could feel them, but she hadn’t been able to see since the power went out. Enna forced her invisible hands slowly through the blanket of thickness, trying to perceive their position, her own place against the damp Underhaven wall. The water twisted her waist, digging her tiny shoulder into the cot. Sharp pain, like a breaking branch: the first real thing she had felt for days.

When the rain started, she had run from the streets with the world. Somewhere safe, they had said. When the rain starts, go somewhere safe and stay until the clouds recede. There was no “fast enough” when you ran from the wall of water. She had left her tight, buckled Mary-Janes behind in the street, next to her jump-rope, because putting them on would only slow her down. Gusts of wind whipped her hair and the skirt of her pink corduroy jumper around her. Tripping over fallen branches and tossed by the wind, she had sprinted between cars, through the open doors and fallen on the bare cot with her skinny arms clasped over her head. Her screaming, bleeding feet had left patches that stained the floor a vivid red before the lights went out.

The Underhaven provided the perfect barrier. Cement walls kept back the earth. Cement clouds blocked the perilous sky. Safety lay beneath the city ground, in the basement, where Enna could escape from torment and terror. When she slept here, she could not hear the noises from Above. No cars to scream at her. No Daffyd to make fun of her bruises. No rain. It was an impenetrable fortress, a castle among the sewers.

Mother called it perfectly damp. Nothing stuck to the basement’s bare walls except the ballerina, though the floor was constantly littered with running drawings of colorful fish. They wanted to escape from the paper, just like Enna wanted to get away from her gray world. Enna had always wanted to meet a fish.

A trickle of water ran from a crack in the wall. Enna had never tried to block or divert it because it had a pretty sound, different from the running water in the pipes over the cot, more soothing, and not frightening like the floodwaters. She set her head next to the stream when she needed to forget Daffyd. Stupid big brothers. They’re nothing but trouble, she often told herself as the water fought its way over the rough cement to gain itself a path.

On other days, she watched the ballerina, torn from her magazine to dance on the wall opposite the cot. She was frozen in a pirouette, perfectly balanced. The fading peach leotard she wore matched Enna’s only bra, the one Daffyd said she didn’t need. Whenever Enna tried to twirl like the ballerina, she bruised herself badly. Once she had gone into school with her hands bound in white gauze and a bruise on her arm and Mr. Aaron had asked very quietly if she had problems at home. Enna had said no, even though Daffyd called her names all the time. Another time she fell on her knee so hard on the concrete floor of the Underhaven that she hadn’t been able to walk for an hour. Her hands were always black and blue, but she had stopped crying about them months ago. She wanted that poise like nothing else.

When she fell asleep on the first day with the bracelet in her hand, the sound of the stream rushed in her ears.

Enna reached out for hours and finally found the wall. It was filthy, covered with the same slippery black silt that blanketed her. The Underhaven had grown closer. It surrounded her as it never had before, pressing in from all sides. She pushed against the dirty wall to lift herself from the cot, but her hand slid slowly on the mud and Enna did not move.

The stream had stopped flowing. For the first time in her memory, Enna could not hear anything. Perplexed by the change in her home, she let her hands float to her sides and felt herself rising. I’m under water, she realized with a shock. The Underhaven lifted her along. Enna could not find the ground at first, blind as she was, but soon the air guided her feet downward and held her upright with heavy chains. She pulled one leg against the restraint and felt the Underhaven hold her in place. Trust trickled into her as it pushed her gently, spun her in an age-long pirouette, and tossed her across the small basement, gracefully chaining her into its own arms. Silt fell and danced in Enna’s wake as the cement stage received her toes.

Enna rubbed her face with one wrinkled hand. Mud fell away from her eyes and she could finally see. Her once-blonde hair, now a pale green, floated in front of her face like a slow wind was blowing through it. Looking down, Enna saw to her dismay that her pretty school dress wasn’t pink anymore. The slime that had covered her sleeping body had given it an ugly brown color, and her white school shirt was stained green with mold. She stuck her tongue out in disgust. Mother’s gonna be mad, she thought. Stupid dirt. The water tasted bitter as it flowed through her mouth. It, too, was brown and gross, and too heavy.

The bracelet was still in her hand. Oh good, Enna thought. The silver chain was cold and thin, and pressed into her palm. She was glad now she had gone back for it. It reminded her of Mr. Aaron and his shining hair. Mr. Aaron had given it to her, years ago, but that was a secret. She closed her fingers around the bracelet and smiled as her arms were pushed back, crossing her chest once more.

A current of brown, broken intermittently by bursts of clean rain-water, suddenly swept down the stairs into her precious Underhaven. The new flood was frightening in its blackness. Enna snatched the chain close and ran, no, swam toward the door. The Underhaven tried to hold her back. It grabbed her hair and rags as she forced herself up the stairs, but her fear carried her through the open door and out of her beloved Underhaven. It was no longer safe, no longer a good home.

Outside, the rain was still falling, and the river was still suspended six feet above her head. It looked deeper than she had seen it for years, but still clear, and held an unusual rich green-blue hue. Most of its accumulated mud had already fallen to the street with the rain. A car was buried in it across the street. The sun barely shone through the deep sky-river and left spots of dim light on the damp pavement. So this is a flood, Enna thought, and the thought echoed frighteningly through the empty street. …It’s not so bad…

She took one step and felt the sky-river yank her up toward it. With a silent cry, Enna grasped with her free hand for the branch of a maple sapling planted in the sidewalk, waving strangely in the current, and held on for her life. Where was Mother? Where was Daffyd? They didn’t go above…did they? But it wasn’t safe there! Help! she called out.

There was only one man left to hear Enna’s shriek. Mr. Aaron stood three buildings down, staring at her. She only knew him by his flowing hair. It was dirty now, a brown and green crown connected vaguely to a starved beard. The wrinkles in his ancient face and hands were filled with the silt of the Underhaven. He, too, was dressed in rags that floated around his bones, the remains of ill-fitting blue-jeans and a teacher-shirt, most of its buttons gone. He smiled through the falling rain with a distant contentment. Peace surrounded the old teacher carefully, lovingly, as he nodded to Enna; he had to go.

Mr. Aaron then turned away and leapt upward, into the sky-river. Had she a voice to cry out, Enna would have yelled for him to stop. Her friend sprang into the water above them with a splash like death.

Alone now, Enna clung to her tree. Depth surrounded her; she was caught in the space between the fearful Underhaven and the deadly Above. There seemed no place to go, and it was so dark here…

…Enna…

The call came from Above; Enna looked up to meet it as it fell. It filtered through the sky-river with the sunlight and the rain, covering her face with dappled sound as the river drew her upwards. Someone wanted her. And that someone was above.

She shuddered as the sky-river began to fall. This, she had heard, was the most frightening part of a flood. Either it would take her, or she could leap through it like Aaron and hope for rescue.

...Enna, where are you?...

The water tightened again and tried to strangle Enna. It closed around her throat and chest like a too-tight neck on a wool sweater from Grandma that you couldn’t take off on Christmas morning. She could not stay here anymore. The middle-ground had forsaken her, just as the Underhaven had closed around her. Looking up, she could see the sun waving at her through the river. A dark shadow floated on the sky-river, perhaps a boat. There was life above! Enna released the tree branch and drifted to the road below. Her feet sank into the inch of silt the rain had pressed onto the road. She pushed against the filthy concrete with all her strength and landed with a crash in the sky-river.

It was cold at first, as she floated toward Above, but the water gradually grew warmer and brighter. Flashes of color danced around her eyes. One stopped and looked Enna in the eyes. It was a slender, blue streak. A fish? Enna tried to reach out and touch it, but her hands were bound at her sides. All she could do was watch as it blinked at her and then swam away. It became a color once more and disappeared.

She was so hungry for real light, for air; she began to struggle against the sky-river, squirming in the current to gain some hold on her own movement. The sunlight surrounded Enna. It stroked her belly and pushed on her legs, pushing her sideways as it lifted her. Shapes began to clarify themselves before her eyes. The sun was so close; it had stopped waving and started lighting the world Above. Enna could see a head. A helmet. A hand reaching toward her.

Enna breached the surface. She did not breathe.