dermining feeling t I  captured Emmeline’s utterance quite accurately. I pictured t garden, tortions of tcesque, urgent face; I ness of Emmeline’s voice. But ried, I could not recall t itself.

    I climbed into ter, o my feet, legs, back, felt distinctly cooler against t under t to top of my er rang in my ears, my ed from its roots.

    I came up for air, tantly plunged underer again. More air, ter.

    In a loose, underer fass began to so kno it otally invented. In t s of both.

    Air. ater.

    Introduced distortions. In tonation, maybe. Or times extra bits, added to camouflage rato carry meaning.

    Air. ater.

    A puzzle. A secret code. A cryptograp  be as ian o go about it? take eacely. It could be a  of a onation first. Play ress. Experiment ening, flattening t did t in Englis if you left it out and played ead? t number of possible combinations. t not an infinite number. A computing mac. So could a wo.

    the dead go underground.

    ? I sat bolt uprigo me out of nowhere.

    t painfully in my c. It  couldn’t be!

    trembling, I reaco t my jottings, and dreo me. Anxiously I scanned it. My notes, my symbols and signs, my squiggles and dots, ting in a pool of er and had drowned.

    I tried once more to remember to me underer. But t, intent face and te sequence s.

    t rail be tricks o come up  of nowhere?

    I didn’t actually believe t t so me, did I?

    Come on, be sensible, I told myself.

    I reaco put my under