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Back When Darkness Loves Us
Chapters (56)
  1. CoverImage
  2. Title page
  3. Copyright page
  4. Introduction by Grady Hendrix
  5. Foreword by Theodore Sturgeon
  6. Acknowledgments
  7. WHEN DARKNESS LOVES US
  8. Part One
  9. 1
  10. 2
  11. 3
  12. 4
  13. 5
  14. 6
  15. Part Two
  16. 1
  17. 2
  18. 3
  19. 4
  20. 5
  21. 6
  22. 7
  23. 8
  24. Part Three
  25. 1
  26. 2
  27. 3
  28. 4
  29. BEAUTY IS ...
  30. 1
  31. 2
  32. 3
  33. 4
  34. 5
  35. 6
  36. 7
  37. 8
  38. 9
  39. 10
  40. 11
  41. 12
  42. 13
  43. 14
  44. 15
  45. 16
  46. 17
  47. 18
  48. 19
  49. 20
  50. 21
  51. 22
  52. 23
  53. 24
  54. 25
  55. About the Author
  56. About the Cover

Sally Ann gathered up their things and started back to the main cavern which had been their home since Clint was born. Born to the darkness, he was naturally oriented, and ran ahead of her, totally unafraid, at peace with the elements of his underworld life. She walked along slowly. She knew that she was planting a few seeds of dissatisfaction when she talked to him of the aboveground world, that he longed to see the magic things that she talked of, but how else was she to explain life to him? And she did believe that one day they would be discovered and taken back.

He was a very independent boy, and he had thoughts of his own about the world above. Sally Ann could tell he doubted that everything she talked about existed. She could hardly blame him. How could he believe in the sun when he had never even used his eyes? When she stopped to think about it, as she did now, it saddened her. She wanted all the experiences of life to be his: to run and play in the meadow, to hear the birds, to see the stars. I guess it’s a little like believing in God, she thought. One has to believe, and then belief becomes strengthened. If one disbelieves, then disbelief is strengthened. And turning your back, once you know the truth, leads to evil.

She showed him her tennis shoes in an attempt to pique his curiosity, but he wasn’t interested. And there wasn’t anything she could do but accept it, was there?

When Clint was far enough ahead of her, she called to Jackie and he joined her on her walk. Clint couldn’t see or hear Jackie, so he reserved his visiting time for Sally alone, after Clint was asleep. Many times they discussed for hours the best way to help Clint understand. Sally was confident that he was growing up to be a normal boy. He delighted in finding new kinds of life in the caves, some of which they gratefully added to their diet—like the crayfish that blindly lived in the fast-­running streams—and some of which provided hours of entertainment for Clint—like the dim-witted puff-fish that would let him pick them up and transport them from one pond to another and back again. He played war games with them, playfully pitting one against the other, with food as the supreme reward. They seemed, in their cold, reptilian way, to be almost affectionate to him. But then, he was always kind to them.