The Dam That Drowned Us

Chapter 60: Two Wolves, One Ridge

We came up the stair out of the round room into the tunnel and the tunnel was knee deep and the iron door was open and the west apron was under water and the sheep track was a stream.

The full moon was up over the ridge and the water in the reservoir was over the spillway and the whole basin was a lake again.

The pack house was on the highest ground in the valley and the water was at the step.

Elin went up the sheep track with the water at her knees and the page in her coat and I went behind her, and when we came over the crest the pack house was dark and the chapel was dark and the gatehouse was dark and the only light in the valley was a lantern on the roof of the pack house.

Megan was on the roof with the lantern and the gray dog and the pack was on the roof with her.

“The water is at the door,” Megan called down. “It has been at the door for an hour and it is not going down and the chapel is under and the street is under and the pack house is the only thing above it.”

“The key,” Elin said.

She went into the pack house through the door that was still above the water and up the stairs and into the room at the top of the house and came down with a small tin box in her hand.

She opened the tin box in the hall and took out a key.

It was an iron key and it was small and it had three teeth and it was on a leather thong and the thong was old and worn.

“This is the key my mother put around my neck,” she said. “I have had it since I was nine and I have never known what it opens.”

I took the key and turned it over in my hand and looked at the teeth.

“It is a door key,” I said. “It is a small door key. It is not a pack house key and it is not a gate key and it is not the key to the iron door in the tunnel.”

“Then what is it?”

“It is a key to a door in the dam. Your mother went down the west apron with a lantern and a paper and she came back with a key on a string and she put it around your neck. She went into the tunnel and she came out with that key and she did not have it when she went in.”

Elin looked at the key in my hand.

“Then there is a door in the dam that my mother opened in 1952 and locked behind her and put the key around my neck,” she said. “And she did not tell me what it was because I was nine years old and she was going to Cardiff and she thought she would come back.”

The water in the hall of the pack house was over the floor and rising.

“We have to find the door,” I said.

“How? The basin is under water and the tunnel is under water and the west apron is under water.”

I looked out of the window at the moon and the water and the ridge.

“The sheep track is on the western shoulder and the ridge is above the water,” I said. “There is a path along the top of the dam wall from the crest to the western buttress and it is the only thing that is dry. If there is a door in the western buttress it will be on the outside of the wall and the outside of the wall is above the water line.”

Elin picked up the lantern.

“Then we go along the top of the wall,” she said.

We went up the sheep track to the crest and along the top of the dam wall to the western buttress, and the moon was full and the water was up to the parapet and the wind came off it cold.

The western buttress was a mass of concrete and stone and it went down into the water and the water was at the level of the parapet. I put my hand on the wall and felt along the joints.

“There is nothing here,” I said.

“There is something here.” Elin put the lantern down and knelt on the wall and put her hand on a stone at the base of the parapet. “This stone is not like the others. It is dressed and it is set in a different mortar and it is loose.”

She pulled the stone and it came out and behind it there was a keyhole.

The keyhole was small and it was iron and it was in a plate of iron set in the concrete.

Elin put the key in the lock and turned it and the lock clicked and a section of the parapet swung out.

Behind it there was a stair.

It went down into the dam wall and the stair was dry and there was a lamp on the wall at the bottom and the lamp was lit.

“There is a room,” Elin said. “There is a room in the dam wall.”

We went down the stair.

It was a small room and the walls were concrete and there was a table in it and a chair and a shelf of papers and a lamp on the table and the lamp was lit and there was a window in the wall.

The window looked out over the reservoir.

“This is a control room,” I said. “This is the western arch control room. The arch is opened from here.”

Elin went to the table and picked up the papers.

“There is a note,” she said. “It is in my mother’s hand.”

She read it out loud.

“To the Alpha of the Drowned Pack. The western arch is the last gate and it is the only one that will take the water out of the reservoir fast enough to save the valley. The mechanism is on the wall behind the table and it is a wheel and it is rusted and it will take four wolves to turn it. If you turn the wheel the arch will open and the water will go down the south valley and into the sea. It will take a day and a night. Do not open the arch until the town is safe. Your mother, Ellen.”

Elin looked at me.

“She wrote a note in 1952,” she said. “She wrote a note to the Alpha of the Drowned Pack and she left it in a room in a dam and she put the key around my neck.”

“And the Alpha of the Drowned Pack is here,” I said. “And the wheel is on the wall.”

The wheel was on the wall behind the table. It was iron and it was red with rust and it was four feet across and it had four handles.

“We need four wolves,” Elin said.

I went to the window and looked out over the reservoir.

The moon was on the water and the water was up to the parapet and the pack house roof was a black shape in the middle of the valley with a lantern on it.

“The bond,” I said. “You are the Luna and I am the Alpha and the wheel is the western arch and the arch is the last gate.”

Elin came and stood beside me at the window.

“There is a thing about the bond I have not told you,” she said. “On the night of the storm, when we walked the church street, I felt something in my chest that was not the bond. It was the valley. It was the water and the mud and the graves and the houses. The valley was talking to me.”

“The valley does not talk.”

“The valley talks to a Luna.” She put her hand on the window. “The moon is full and the bond is sealed and the mark is on my wrist and I am the Luna of this valley and the valley is drowning. If I stand at the window and I put my hands on the glass the valley will hear me.”

“What will you tell it?”

“I will tell it to hold,” Elin said. “I will tell it to hold for a day and a night while we open the arch.”

She put her hands flat on the window.

The glass went warm under her palms and the water outside the window went still.

It went still the way a pond goes still when the wind drops. The ripples stopped and the water flattened and the reflection of the moon lay on it like a coin.

And on the ridge above the dam, a wolf began to howl.

It was not one wolf. It was twenty-one wolves and they were on the crest above us and their howling went down the valley and out over the water and the water lay flat and still.

I put my hands on the wheel.

“Elin,” I said. “Take one handle.”

She came to the wheel and put her hands on the handle beside mine.

“There are two of us,” she said.

“There are two of us and the bond is the third and the valley is the fourth.”

The wheel moved.

It moved an inch and then a foot and then it went around, and the arch opened, and the water in the reservoir began to go down.

The water went down the south valley in a brown line and the pack house roof came up out of the water and the chapel steeple came up and the street came up and the moon was on the water and the wolves were howling on the crest.

Elin took her hands off the wheel.

“The bond,” she said. “It is different.”

I looked at my palm. The mark was silver and it was warm and there was a second mark beside it, a small circle with a line through it, and it had not been there an hour before.

“A new mark,” I said.

Elin looked at her wrist. There was a second mark on it.

“Two marks,” she said. “What does it mean?”

“It means the bond has settled.” I put my hand on her face. “It means the valley has taken us.”

The window went cold and the water went down and the moon went behind the ridge and the wolves stopped howling.

And in the dark of the control room, on the table, the lamp went out.

Elin said, “The lamp.”

“The lamp is the lamp in the study,” I said. “The lamp in the study went out.”

We ran up the stair and along the top of the wall and down the sheep track to the pack house, and the pack was in the parlor and the lamp on the desk in the study was out and the page on the desk was cold.

“The lamp went out,” Megan said. “It went out an hour ago and I have tried to light it and it will not light.”

“It will not light because the line has failed,” Gwen said, from the door. “The line has failed and the lamp has gone out and the marks are loose.”

“The line has not failed,” I said. “Elin and I are here.”

Gwen looked at me.

“The line has not failed,” she said. “The line has changed. The line is no longer a wolf in the valley. The line is a wolf in the valley and a Luna at the window. The lamp went out because the old line died and a new line began.”

The water in the parlor was at our ankles and the pack was standing in it.

“Then we need a new lamp,” Elin said.

And outside the window, in the dark of the drowned street, a light came on.