Ebb at first trails along behind me, but soon he passes through me and takes the lead. He begins disappearing around curves up ahead to scout things out. Moths line the way, fluttering along the walls, but with Little One close by, they stay away from me. With each step, the air gets cooler.

I haven’t been walking long when Ebb comes drifting back to me, looking at me strangely.

“What is it?”

“Well, the tunnel sort of ends up ahead.”

“Ends?” I ask. This can’t be the end.

“Sort of ends,” Ebb says, but with a nervous look, full of dread.

“What do you mean, ‘sort of ends’?”

He simply turns, and I follow.

I see what he means a few moments later, when we reach a dead end with only a small hole in the rock wall ahead of us. It’s just big enough for a person to fit through but not by much. It’s covered in the same silky cocoon material as the cave mouth. As I shine my flashlight deeper in to take a look, my heart quickens.

“It’s not a path anymore,” I whisper to Ebb. “It’s a slide.”

“I tried floating down a bit, but I didn’t get to the end. It just seems to keep going and going down. So I floated back up.”

“But…,” I say, staring down into the darkness into which the slide plummets, “if I slide down, there’s no way to get back up. Not for me.”

This, I realize, is why Ebb looks so filled with dread. He nods solemnly.

My heart is beating so hard, it feels like it could stop as I force myself to move the silky covering of the slide aside, and climb up—crouched—into the hole.

My fingers clutch the rock wall on either side of me to hold me still. The slide is so steep that already it’s hard to keep myself from sailing down into the darkness.

“Will you go first?” I ask breathlessly. “And meet me at the bottom?”

Ebb nods.

I peer down into the silky, slippery tunnel. I remember a lake Germ’s mom used to take us to as kids, and how it felt for us to jump in—those first days in late spring when the water was still so cold. How Germ would take the leap right off the bat but I would linger, scared of that first moment of being airborne, when I couldn’t turn back.

“You’ll be with me down there?” I ask Ebb.

“Yes,” Ebb says. “I will.”

“Okay,” I say. I try to slow my breath, but it’s coming fast. “Go ahead.”

Ebb nods, floats down into the darkness, then disappears. Soon even his glow is gone.

I hold my breath, and think about my mom.

And then I let go, and slide.