Spelunking Through Hell

**Spoiler warning!**
Ahead are significant plot details from the InCryptid novel, **Spelunking Through Hell** (2022). Read at your own peril!

## Publication Info

### ISBN

Paperback: 9780756411831
E-book: 9780756411848

## Story Info

### Setting Date

1965 (prologue)
2021 (main story)

## Continuity

### Novella

And Sweep Up The Wood

**Spelunking Through Hell** is the eleventh novel in the InCryptid series by Seanan McGuire. It features Alice Price-Healy.

## Synopsis

*Love, noun:*

1. An intense feeling of deep affection; may be romantic, filial or platonic.

*Passion, noun:*

1. A strong or barely controllable emotion.
2. Enthusiasm, interest, desire.
3. See also “obsession.”

It’s been fifty years since the crossroads caused the disappearance of Thomas Price, and his wife, Alice, has been trying to find him and bring him home ever since, despite the increasing probability that he’s no longer alive for her to find.  Now that the crossroads have been destroyed, she’s redoubling her efforts.  It’s time to bring him home, dead or alive.

Preferably alive, of course, but she’s tired, and at this point, she’s not that picky.  It’s a pan-dimensional crash course in chaos, as Alice tries to find the rabbit hole she’s been missing for all these decades—the one that will take her to the man she loves.

Who are her allies?  Who are her enemies?  And if she manages to find him, will he even remember her at this point?

It’s a lot for one cryptozoologist to handle.

## Content Warnings

* Physical abuse/trauma
* Emotional abuse/trauma
* Parental abandonment/trauma
* Body horror
* Medical trauma
* Abuse of authority
* Mind control
* Giant insects
* Semi-graphic sex

## Plot

**Prologue:** Fifty-six years ago, the crossroads take Thomas in the middle of the night as Alice sleeps, pregnant with Jane. Mary subsequently prevents Alice from following him into the dimensional tear.

**Chapter 1**: The present, three years after Annie destroyed the crossroads. Alice, wounded and returning from the dimension Helos, experiences a flashback of when she was twelve and broke her leg in the forest. The flashbacks are a price of her dimensional travel. She crashes through the window of the Red Angel and blacks out. Cynthia, the owner of the Red Angel who has known Alice from childhood, expresses concern for Alice's continued effort to find Thomas and the toll it's taking. After food, Alice leaves, planning to retrieve her stolen gear from Helos.

**Chapter 2:** Alice recovers enough to return to the family home, known to locals as the Old Parrish Place, on the outskirts of Buckley. In the basement, she pulls out her home tattoo kit and roughly adds two new portal keys onto her skin.

**Chapter 3:** Alice activates a portal and has a flashback to her time as a children’s librarian in Buckly, when her father was admonishing her for going into the woods.

She arrives on a bluff in Helos and approaches the camp of the creatures that has originally injured her and stole her pack. She’d killed many of them in their first confrontation, and the survivors attack upon seeing her. She kills them, and before the last one dies it points her to a cave.

**Chapter 4:** She finds the cave guarded by a crayfish-like creature, which severely injures her before she kills it. It was a protecting a hoard of loot including Alice’s pack, the gear that she was searching for as her bounty, and a set of some old books and map. She grabs everything and activates her last portal.

Alice flashes back to visiting the carnival with Laura when they were teenagers. In a time-space paradox, Laura recognizes that she is a different Alice inhabiting her friend’s body. Laura takes it in stride and offers Alice a corndog and a dark tent to ease the passing between time-space.

She lands in Naga’s dimension and drags herself to his office. Naga is horrified by her injuries and takes her for a treatment. His surgeons remove her very skin to repair her injuries.

**Chapter 5:** After Alice wakes up from her treatment, she goes to Naga’s tattoo artists to have her magical charms re-inked. This is painful, but not as much since Naga’s personal Johrlac numbs Alice’s senses for the procedure.

Afterward, Alice retreats to her bedroom and examines the books and map. She uses a translation charm to skim the book and learns of an explorer who found a dead dimension that seems like it could be holding Thomas. Alice remembers Naga specifically telling her not to explore in that area.

**Chapter 6:** Alice confronts Naga about what she learned and asks him for external tools to allow her more portals. He tries to dissuade her but ultimately gives her two necklaces with a handful of portal charms to supplement her personal tattoos. He also keeps one of the books for study.

Alice travels to Ithaca and checks in with her friends there. When she asks about the bottle world, Helen and Phoebe are confused that she doesn’t remember previous conversations about that pathway to finding Thomas. They warn her against visiting the bottle world with no way out, but Alice is determined. They promise to look for a way to retrieve her since she is determined to go explore it immediately.

**Chapter 7:** Alice hops through several worlds using both an Ithacan portal, the external charms, and her tattoos. She flashes back to the time that Apraxis nymphs were gestating in her skin and Thomas had to surgically remove them.

She arrives in Cornale, where she is taken into custody by the local government. Alice gets trigger happy and kills several of the guards, then flees.

**Chapter 8:** Alice fights her way out of the city with the help of a grenade, then finds the location that will allow her to portal into the bottle world. It takes multiple portal charms and far too much of her personal energy reserves. She lands in the bottle world and passes out.

**Chapter 9:** She wakes in what appears to be the women’s quarters of a harem, and learns it is ruled by an Autarch who claims all the women who fall into the world. She meets Sally, the Autarch’s lieutenant, who takes her to retrieve her pack from a storage room. When Sally accuses her of being an assassin, Alice attacks Sally and her guards, steals a weapon, and races to find the Autarch.

**Chapter 10:** She finds the throne room, surprisingly absent of guards. Thomas walks in, distracted as he studies Alice’s confiscated revolver. He hardly looks like he’s aged a day. He accuses her of being an imposter who killed the real Alice to try to get to him. They fight. Thomas recognizes her fighting style and realizes it’s really her.

**Chapter 11:** Sally arrives ready to defend Thomas, but Thomas assures her it’s the real Alice. The two compare a few notes on the last fifty years, and then they make love in Thomas’s quarters.

**Chapter 12:** Thomas tells her more about his rise to power on this world. When Alice tells him about her treatments, he is horrified and accuses Naga of ripping away the pneuma that Alice has been collecting across all her travels. Alice has a panic attack at the idea her benefactor has been lying this whole time and delaying her reunion with Thomas. With her permission, Thomas gives her a sedative to calm her down.

**Chapter 13:** Alice awakes to find Thomas and Sally conferring, Sally still suspicious. Alice realizes Sally is the friend that James Smith had been looking for, who was stolen by the crossroads. Then Sally shares that the other factions on this world are preparing for an attack.

**Chapter 14:** Alice opts out of the ensuing war council, and afterward Thomas finds her in his quarters. They argue a bit over each other’s life choices, and determine that it’s time to fight their way out of the bottle world. Thomas wants to offer everyone on the world a chance of escape, not just his people, so he sends messengers out to the other factions.

**Chapter 15:** Sally and Alice lead a small force to confront the invaders, and Sally airs her grievances about Alice.

**Chapter 16:** Facing the invaders, Alice takes point and kills a good number before the two forces have to meet. They win and loot the bodies. On their way, they meet some women and children who defected from one of the neighbors and take them into the Autarch’s compound.

**Chapter 17:** Thomas is in a war council, and Alice offers what suggestions she can. He orders his council to bring all their people into the compound and prepare for the worst.

**Chapter 18:** Thomas patches up Alice’s latest injuries and despairs at how cavalier she is about her own mortality. They strategize about escaping the bottle world; Thomas will need to pull the pneuma off Alice to fuel the spell, and he knows it will be torturous. Alice insists he do what he must to get the most people out.

**Chapter 19:** Everyone is gathered in the throne room. Thomas sedates Alice and then pulls the pneuma off her, layer by layer. Alice passes out, then wakes in a tent on Cornale under Helen’s care. They have escaped and destroyed the bottle world, though Alice is severely injured from the crossing.

**Chapter 20:** Rather than use her healing tattoos, which would sap more of her energy, she agrees to let Phoebe heal her. Phoebe’s conditions are that Alice cut ties with Naga and return all the refugees to their original homes. Alice agrees, and the healing spell ages her about a decade.

**Chapter 21:** The whole company travels back to Ithaca. Then Alice, Thomas, and Sally travel to Empusa to confront Naga. They leave Sally raiding Alice’s wardrobe and go to Naga’s office. Naga reveals the full extent of his betrayals, including a compulsion that prevents Alice from shooting him. Thomas uses his fire sorcery to kill Naga on her behalf.

**Epilogue:** The trio makes a pit stop at the Price compound in Portland to pick up some of the mice. Kevin wanders into the kitchen and embraces his father. Thomas and Alice promise to return for good after the people in Thomas's care are safe.

## Characters

**Major**

* Alice Price-Healy
* Thomas Price
* Sally Henderson
* Naga (antagonist)

**Minor**

* Mary Dunlavy
* Cynthia
* Laura Campbell (in flashback)
* Jonathan Healy (in flashback)
* Lamia surgeons and tattoo artists; a Johrlac named Lybie; a feline cryptid
* Helen and Phoebe: Residents of Ithaca; satyrs
* Rubina: Resident of the dead bottle world, allied with Thomas
* Aadya: Resident of the dead bottle world, allied with Thomas
* The O'Vera: Residents of the dead bottle world
* The Haspers: Residents of the dead bottle world
* The Murrays: Residents of the dead bottle world
	+ Nem, Cer, and Lyn: descendants of Lilu who seek refuge and passage off the dead bottle world
* Kevin Price

**Mentioned**

* Frances Healy
* Jane Harrington-Price
* Antimony Price
* James Smith
* Verity Price
* Sarah Zellaby
* Rose Marshall
* Enid Healy
* Arthur Harrington
* Martin Baker
* Aikanis, a satyr explorer

## Field Guide

* Tailypo
* Huldra
* Lamia
* Satyr
* Lilu
* Cuckoo
* Natives of Helos (may be called Haspers)
* Natives of Cornale (may be called O'Vera)
* Crossroads Ghost
* Aeslin Mice

**Mentioned:**

* Crossroads
* Revenant
* Sylph
* Routewitch
* Umbramancer
* Hitchhiker
* Fricken
* Centaur
* Bidi-taurabo-haza
* Apraxis Wasp (seen in flashback)

## Locations

**Earth**

* Buckley Township, Michigan
	+ Old Parrish Place
	+ The Red Angel

* Portland, Oregon
	+ Price family compound

**Other Worlds**

* Alice's travel trajectory: Earth > Helos > Empusa > Ithaca > Mul > Hríðarbylur > Unnamed worlds > Cornale > Lemure

* Helos: Home to violent lizard-bipeds.
* Empusa: Home to Naga and the lamia.
	+ University of K'larth, including Naga's suite of rooms
* Ithaca: Grecian-style world
* Mul: a world with monsoons.
* Hríðarbylur: A frozen world
* Cornale: Home to cannibalistic mantises.
* Lemure: The dying "bottle world" where the crossroads dumped its victims.

## Organizations

**Mentioned:**

* Crossroads
* Covenant of St. George
* Campbell Family Carnival

## Continuity

* References to Antimony killing the crossroads.
* References to Alice and Thomas' prior life together, including events of the Alice and Thomas Shorts.

## Inconsistencies

* Cer never tells Alice her name, the narration just starts calling her by it.
* Alice calls Martin her son-in-law, when they're of the same generation and related through Evelyn and Kevin's marriage.

### Pop Culture

* Alice in Wonderland, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit, Mad Max, Lord of the Flies, Bride of Frankenstein, the Odyssey.

## References

1. ↑ Fifty-six years after Jane's birth in 1965