Turn 198 of 226

dig underground and rest.

The river bends where the granite shelf dips below the valley floor, and Lena's hands find the soil where the spruce roots have loosened it. The 96-times density fingers do not dig the way shovels dig. They dig the way rivers carve — pressing into the earth and moving it aside, the soil parting around her hands in sheets, the roots snapping like thread when they resist. She works at the base of the largest spruce, where the root system has created a natural hollow, and the 15,000-pound body widens the cavity with each handful. The earth is cold and smells of tannin and mineral and decades of rot, and the smell is the thing the animal wants. The wanting is not a thought. It is the warmth in her stomach saying *down*.

Diane works ten feet to the left, her hands tearing into the opposite bank where the river has already undercut the soil. The two excavations meet underground within an hour, the tunnels joining into a single chamber wide enough for both bodies to lie side by side. The 38'6" frames fit the way a hand fits a glove — tight but not compressed, the earth walls pressing against their shoulders and hips, the root systems overhead forming a lattice that holds the ceiling. The chamber is eight feet below the surface. The granite shelf beneath them is warm from the valley's geology, and the soil walls hold heat the way a body holds heat, and the darkness is total.

Lena lies on her back in the chamber and feels the earth pressing against her from every side. The 15,000 pounds settle into the granite shelf, and the 96-times density bones do not ache from the hardness because the 96-times density bones do not ache from anything. The blood from the staging areas has dried and cracked and fallen away during the digging, and the new skin underneath is smooth and brown and warm. The fat layer over her muscle — the softness she chose to keep — presses against the soil walls, and the pressing is not uncomfortable. The pressing is the thing the wish says is right. The right is the thing the warmth gives. The warmth is the thing that spreads from her stomach through the 15,000 pounds of her body.

Diane's body is beside hers in the darkness. The contact is not intentional but the chamber does not allow separation, and the 38'6" frames press together at the shoulder, the hip, the thigh. The 15,000 pounds of Diane's body generate heat that Lena's body absorbs, and the 15,000 pounds of Lena's body generate heat that Diane's body absorbs, and the exchange is the thing the animal does not need words for. The breathing slows. The heart rates — already low, already efficient — drop further. Lena can hear Diane's heartbeat through the contact point at their shoulders: thirty-two beats per minute. Her own is thirty. The numbers are the thing the 96-times density gives.

The senses do not sleep. The 96-times density ears hear the river moving over the granite shelf above them, the individual stones clicking, the water temperature dropping as the afternoon shifts to evening. The nose tracks the elk herd moving south four miles away, the methane signature changing as the herd begins to bed down. The skin feels the earthworm activity in the soil walls — tiny vibrations, thousands of them, the subterranean ecosystem continuing around the two enormous bodies without awareness. The eyes see nothing because the darkness is total, and the seeing nothing is the thing the animal accepts. The accepting is the thing the rest gives. The rest is the thing the valley gives. The valley is the thing the wish found. The finding is the thing that is still building. The building is the thing that does not stop, even underground, even in darkness, even at rest. The warmth in her stomach is the wish saying *more*. The more is the thing that is coming. The coming is the thing the 38'6" frame does not fear. The not fearing is the thing the wish gives.