Skin Deep

The Chinook called it Tah-kee-nah. The name appeared in a single fragmentary text, found in a cedar box in the upper cave system, written in a dialect so archaic that Sarah's linguistic software couldn't parse it. She'd had to call in a specialist — Dr. Henry Cloud, a Chinook elder and linguist from Portland — who'd taken one look at the text and gone very, very quiet.

"What does it say?" Sarah asked.

Henry set the fragment down with the care of a man handling explosives. "It says, 'The one below is sleeping. Do not make it dream.'"

"What does that mean?"

"It means we should fill this cave back in." Henry's voice was perfectly steady, which somehow made it worse. "It means the collapse in 1987 wasn't an accident. It was a seal."

Sarah looked at the text again. The edges of the cedar bark were blackened — not from age, but from fire. Someone had tried to burn it.

"Tah-kee-nah," she said. "What is it?"

Henry met her eyes. In the blue-white LED light of the cave, his face looked carved from the same stone that surrounded them. "The word doesn't translate to 'creature,'" he said. "It translates to 'the thing that is still becoming.'"