Bind Our Loving Souls by April Marcom

I
touched it, as Helena and I knelt down and began scarping the dirt
away.
    Eddy only shifted his feet uncomfortably. “I
do not think this is a good idea. It’s too dark to see anything,
and no one’s used it in years.”
    “Exactly.” Didn’t he wonder what was buried
right under our feet, hidden for who knows how long?
    Helena giggled and apologized every time she
accidentally threw dirt on my skirt. Luckily, getting dirty’s never
bothered me. So I smiled and threw some back each time.
    Eddy never offered any help, only his opinion
that we should stop repeatedly, which was very annoying.
    One by one, the glowing stones were
unearthed, until the door was fully exposed. Helena took the
lantern and held it closer to the ground. We could see a flat
circle the size of a basketball where you would expect a doorknob
to be, so there didn’t appear to be any way of opening it. I tried
reaching under the sides to see if it was a door with nothing under
it that had been left there to rot, but a metal structure continued
down for the few inches I dug and forced my fingers through.
    “Could we pry it open with a stick?” I asked
Helena.
    “No,” Eddy replied unnervingly. “There isn’t
enough space between the door and whatever is under it to fit
anything between them. We should leave it alone. It was obviously
not built by any servant, so we could get into trouble. Let’s just
go to the gathering.”
    He meant not built by any human.
    “I hadn’t thought of that,” Helena said,
looking somber. “Eddy’s right, we should go.”
    “All right,” I said, standing up
hesitantly.
    As we finished the walk down the hill, I
looked back and decided to ask Enock to come and open the door
later. There had to be some point during the night when both humans
and Anvilayans slept.
    Everyone was excited to see us when we
entered the barn, lit so brightly because of the countless lanterns
hung everywhere. People sat on stall doors with giant brown and
black horses behind them that seemed to be quite accustomed to all
the commotion. In the back of the open area, between the two long
rows of stalls, stood four men playing violins and three women
playing wooden, carved clarinets. It was a huge gathering, full of
happy people and good times, but still not really my thing.
    So I only stayed for about half an hour
before I told Helena I was getting tired and left. She offered to
walk back with me, but I declined, wanting to be alone if I came
across Enock.
    I didn’t see anyone else all the way to my
room, and then I felt someone opening the door from the other side.
Enock stood there with a book in his hand.
    “What are you doing here?” I asked, stepping
into the room and letting him shut the door behind me.
    “Just reading the book I found on your desk.
Tell me, do you actually believe in ghosts?”
    I realized he was holding my teen ghost love
story in his hand. “Not really. It’s a book Jo Hanna gave me to
read during my trip here. I haven’t actually gotten past chapter
one.”
    Enock took my hand to lead me to a small
wicker sofa that had been placed in front of the fire while I was
gone. It was painted white with a red buttoned pillow that was long
enough to fit the entire seat.
    “Do you believe in ghosts?” I asked him as we
sat down.
    “Of course not.”
    I ran my hand over the red cloth. “Did you
put this in here?”
    “Yes.” Enock put his arm around me,
separating me from the hard backing. “I saw it in a storage room
and thought of how nice it would be to sit in it beside you… Has
the relocation been difficult for you?”
    I stared at the fire as I thought about all
the changes I’d had to make since I got there. It was quieter.
There were less distractions. And it was darker most of the time.
These were all nice changes. But I was dreading the bath I would
have to take in a giant man-sized pot eventually. And being cut off
from the rest of the world did really bother me. It also hurt to
think of my