by Jane Davitt
“Because that’s what people do.” The sand was hard-packed under their feet, stretching out for a hundred yards or so ‑‑ the tide had been out for hours, but now it looked like it was starting to come back in. Josh caught a faint whiff of something unpleasant, dark and dead-fishy.
He caught a flash of irritation from Caitrin, but before he had time to process the thought, he was given the reality of speech, the emotion echoed in her words. “Listen, you! If you’re calling my people liars, making up stories to ‑‑”
“I’m not,” he said, startled by her vehemence but more by the perfect mirroring of her thoughts; most people filtered out a large part of their emotions, but Caitrin seemed to say what she thought, for the most part.
Which explained both why she got into so many arguments with her mother and why she wasn’t seeing anyone, he guessed.
“I’m not,” he repeated. “I’m just saying that if Nick couldn’t feel anything ‑‑”
“Do you really believe he can do that?” she asked bluntly. “I know Uncle John does, and I’ve heard people talking about some pretty weird things that happened when Uncle Nick first came here, but I’ve always… oh, I don’t know. I believe he believes it, but me…” She shrugged. “I’m not a kid.”
“So why do you think the cave’s haunted then?” Josh said, the words coming out with more of an edge than he’d intended because he knew she was wrong. “God, how illogical is that?”
“Why would people have talked about it for all these years if there was no truth to it at all?” Caitrin looked annoyed.
“I know he can see ghosts,” John snapped, frustrated that someone who seemed to be fairly bright was being so stubborn about this one subject, “because I can do it, too!” Caitrin’s expression wavered, and Josh backpedaled immediately. “I mean, I can’t see ghosts.”
“Why would you say it, then? Just to make a point?” Caitrin was beautiful when angry, there was no arguing that.
“I can hear people’s thoughts.” He said it quickly, before he could talk himself out of it. It wasn’t like it really mattered what she thought of him, did it? He wouldn’t be here for long, and then he’d be a thousand miles away.
Caitrin frowned skeptically. “You can hear people’s thoughts.”
“Yeah.”
“You can hear my thoughts?”
“Yeah.” Josh wished they’d never started this conversation ‑‑ why couldn’t they have just gone into the caves, done a little bit of exploring, maybe made out for a while, and then gone home for the night? Well, him to John and Nick’s home, obviously, and Caitrin to her own.
“You can hear everything I think? Or just some things?” Caitrin was smiling now, like she thought he was just messing around. Maybe it was better that way.
Josh decided to go along with it. “Not everything.”
“Can you tell what I’m thinking now?” Caitrin stepped close to him, so close that she was pressed right up against him, and raised herself up onto her toes so she could lean in and whisper in his ear. “Can you, Josh?”
His body thought it could and started to respond eagerly right away. He dared to put a hand at her waist, steadying her, and her lips brushed against his ear.
Then she was gone, whirling away and running toward the nearest cave. “Come on, then!”
In the few seconds it took him to recover from the effects of the fleeting touch of her lips, Caitrin managed to get far enough ahead that he had to run full out to catch up, which took care of explaining away the flush on his face and quieted down the interested reaction in his jeans.
It also gave him time to decide to drop the subject; she didn’t believe him, and that was really for the best.
They arrived at the first cave, panting and grinning at each other, exhilarated by the run and then peered inside. “It’s dark,” Josh said dubiously.
Caitrin had a purse, the way every girl he’d ever met did. Hers was a brightly embroidered Hessian bag, slung across her body to bump against her hip, and large enough to carry just about anything. She reached in and pulled out a flashlight with an air of triumph. “Fresh batteries. We should be able to explore all of the caves with this.”
One light against the inky darkness didn’t seem like much to Josh, but it was better than nothing. He waved his hand. “After you.”
“Well, aren’t you the gentleman.”
“I’ll go first if you give me the flashlight,” Josh offered. “But I kinda thought you knew the way.”
“I haven’t been in them since I was a kid, but don’t go thinking there’re tunnels or anything like that,” she said. “They’re just holes in the cliff, that’s all.”
Josh couldn’t help wondering what she expected to see, given that anything interesting would’ve been discovered years ago if the caves were that basic. He’d been expecting something a little more impressive, but as he admitted to himself, that expectation had been based on way too many books as a child where kids had discovered smugglers’ caves with hidden entrances, maze-like tunnels carved into rock, and, of course, treasure and possibly a skeleton or two.
He didn’t remember the books mentioning large droplets of icy water falling from the roof of the cave to land with a loud splat on someone’s head or trickle down the back of their neck. His yelp of shock echoed from the rough walls, and the circle of yellow light cast by Caitrin’s flashlight wavered as she began to laugh.
“Thanks,” Josh said sourly, trying to move to a spot that wasn’t so drippy and wiping water from the back of his neck as best he could ‑‑ he could feel the fabric of his T-shirt collar absorbing some of it, though, and it wasn’t pleasant.
Caitrin snickered. “Are you sure you don’t feel the cold fingers of a murdered spirit plucking at your clothes?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that? You’re the one who thinks it must be true.” Now, though, standing in the darkened cave with the sounds of the sea outside ‑‑ and maybe closer than he would have guessed, if the rush of the waves, the gurgling of the water, had anything to say about it ‑‑ Josh could understand the temptation. The place sure felt creepy.
“When I was little, I thought I could hear things in the walls,” Caitrin said. There was still a hint of laughter in her voice, but it was quickly disappearing behind what John knew was nervousness. “Scratching noises, as if the men, in trying to claw their way free, had embedded an echo into the rock itself.” She bit her lip, then tried to smile. “Fanciful child, wasn’t I?”
There was no way Josh could keep away, not when she was so anxious and, at the same time, trying so hard to hide it. He moved closer. “I can see why. It’s pretty freaky, and what with growing up hearing that story ‑‑ I’m not surprised it scared you.”
“I ran home,” Caitrin said. In the backglow of the flashlight, her eyes shone eerily. “All the way. My dad was shouting after me, but I couldn’t make myself stop.” She cleared her throat and stood up straighter. “I think I’d forgotten all of that until just now.”
“It’s amazing how memories can be triggered,” Josh told her. He sniffed the damp air, thick with the smell of rotting seaweed. “By smell, most of all.” He was picking up her thoughts strongly now, her emotions intensified by her remembered fear. “You fell,” he said slowly. “Took the skin off your knees because you landed so hard and didn’t notice it until your mother saw you and cried out and then it started to hurt.”
“How did you know that?” Caitrin’s eyes widened. “My God, Josh, how could you know that? Did my uncle tell you?”
Josh shook his head. “You did. When you thought about it.”
They stared at each other in silence and Josh made sure to stay very still because this wasn’t really the best place for Caitrin to panic and possibly take off, not with the dark rocks slick and wet underfoot.
“I don’t believe you,” Caitrin said finally, but her voice shook and it was a lie. “Someone told you. Uncle John, or maybe even my mam, the last time you were here, and you’ve
remembered all this time.”
Josh didn’t answer. She didn’t want to hear that it was the truth, and he couldn’t be dishonest and say anything that would let her continue to fool herself. It was better to say nothing at all.
After what felt like a long, long time, Caitrin finally looked away, first down at the floor of the cave and then at the walls. “I wonder what it was like,” she said, and Josh was with her as she imagined the two brothers, hands tied as the water washed up over their mouths and noses. She had a vivid imagination ‑‑ she could feel the burning in her nostrils as the salt water stung at them, and the rapid skittering of her heart as fear became terror.
It was too much; again, Josh moved closer to her, and this time she moved willingly into his arms, lifting her face for the kiss they both wanted. Her lips were warm, her sweater soft against Josh’s palms. He didn’t care that the flashlight she was holding dug into his back.
“You know you believe me,” he said, even though he shouldn’t have, when their mouths parted. They were both breathing heavily.
“Shut up,” Caitrin told him. “I don’t. You’re a liar.” And she kissed him again, her mouth fierce against his own.
“Test me,” Josh demanded, pulling back from the kiss, his mouth stinging, his blood warm in his veins. He was tall enough that he had to bend his head to kiss her, and when she tilted her head back to look up at him, the cave dark, but not so dark that he couldn’t see the amusement in her eyes, that was what he did, flicking his tongue past the dark pink pout of her lips to taste her and forgetting his demand.
He tried not to listen as he kissed her, but he couldn’t pull back out of her head, not when their bodies were this close. He felt everything twice; his own awareness of her enjoyment of the kiss amplified by what she was thinking. His hands found the damp silk of her hair, and they stood, swaying together in the center of the cave, mouths busy and hungry, until Caitrin started to edge them toward a ledge running along the back of the cave, which was high enough that it was reasonably dry and wide enough to sit on.
They got there without taking their hands off each other, or falling over, which was an achievement in itself, the argument forgotten because this was way more fun.
Then, as Caitrin twisted free with a throaty, husky giggle, Josh, automatically reaching for her, did slip, his startled cry changing to one of pain as his outstretched hand slammed hard against the cave wall, fitting into a scooped-out depression in the rock. It crumbled like wet sand and gave way, leaving him with his hand stuck through what should have been a solid wall, feeling cold, dead air whisper across his bruised, aching fingers.
“Are you hurt?” Caitrin asked, turning to see.
Josh drew his hand carefully back through the hole, wincing as scraped knuckles were dragged across the rough surface again. “No. More surprised than anything. What the hell?”
Turning the flashlight’s beam to the wall, Caitrin prodded it with her other hand. More bits crumbled down onto the ledge they were standing on; she shoved harder, and a chunk of rock larger than Josh’s fist disappeared into the darkness behind, followed by a sharp, somehow wet, clack. “There’s something back there,” Caitrin said, sounding afraid and excited at the same time. “Some sort of space.” She shone the light in, and they could see that there was another cave back there, or another section of this one as big as the part they were already standing in.
“Uh-huh. It looks like it was…I don’t know, sealed up, or something. Here, careful.” Josh reached into the now-larger hole, gripped onto another chunk of rock, and pulled. He could feel it give, just a little, so he tugged harder and it came away suddenly; he almost lost his balance, but Caitrin steadied him.
“Which of us needs to be careful?” she asked, grinning, and then they were working together, tugging chunks of stone free. They dropped some of them onto the ledge beside them; others fell back into the space behind the wall, some of those splashing wetly as they landed in water. When the hole was big enough, they squeezed through ‑‑ Josh first, then Caitrin, holding his hand.
“God, it’s dark. You can’t even see where the water’s coming in,” Caitrin said. There wasn’t much of a place to stand ‑‑ just a few stones near the makeshift wall. Everything else was under water, the waves lapping at the rock as the tide came in.
“If it’s in here, but not in the cave behind us yet, there must be some sort of underground channel leading out to sea that surfaces here,” Josh said. “And the water must fill this place; the roof’s barely high enough to stand in.”
“It’s where they died, isn’t it?” Caitrin said, her voice stifled by the dark, damp air.
“I guess…” Josh took the flashlight from her and turned it on the partially demolished wall. “The salt must have eaten away at this; it’s not solid rock; more like soil and rubble, compacted.” The light illuminated the wall and he frowned. “Is it me, or is there something drawn on this? A pattern, or something?”
Caitrin twisted her head to look at it. “Maybe. It’s awful dark in here, and it could be just erosion.”
“No,” Josh insisted, “It’s painted on with something. Look, here and over there…” His fingers traced the shape his eyes were trying to identify and make familiar. It didn’t take long, not in this nightmare of a place, with the water dripping out of black rock into inky water. “God, it’s that spell you told me about.”
Caitrin gave a startled squeak Josh was willing to bet she’d deny making later and jerked her hand away from the wall. A moment later she was sliding over the rocks to land with a loud splash in the water a few feet away.
“Caitrin!” Heedless of the icy water, Josh scrambled down to her and extended his hand. The water was waist deep here, and he was starting to think that getting the hell out would be a good idea.
Caitrin’s fingers caught at his; they were cold and wet and stronger than they looked when she was panicking, which seemed to be now if her rapid breathing and frantic thoughts were any indication. Her ankle hurt, too; Josh could hear her thinking it. “I’m stuck,” she gasped. “Josh, I’m stuck. The rocks shifted when I stepped down.”
She was freaking out enough that he could tell she believed it, but he didn’t. “Relax. Here, stand with your weight on your other foot. Jesus, it’s cold.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Caitrin’s teeth were chattering, but she was making an effort to keep it together, which was good.
Josh felt down along her leg, trying to figure out how she was caught. As he reached her ankle, he encountered rough stone, and what felt like a large slab of it. Maybe she’d stepped into a depression with this foot and knocked the rock with the other. “You know, if you wanted to me to touch you, all you had to do was ask. You didn’t have to get all dramatic about it.”
She made an affronted sound, but her hand was clutching at his jacket. “Get me out.”
“I will.” He couldn’t get at her boot laces to untie them, which had been his first thought. Losing the boot would have been a small price to pay. “Here, I’m going to try to move this. When I say, pull, okay? As hard as you can.”
“All right.”
Josh couldn’t get much of a grip on the rock ‑‑ it was too rounded by years of salt water moving across it ‑‑ but he did the best he could. “Okay ‑‑ now!”
He heaved; the rock slipped against his fingertips, not seeming to have moved at all, and Caitrin made a strangled sound between her clenched teeth. “Bloody hell,” she gasped. “Ow. Did it move?”
Josh was almost afraid to tell her it hadn’t. “Maybe. Try again.” The results were the same, though, and he realized the water was already higher than it had been a few minutes before.
They were in trouble.
“Get me out,” Caitrin said, with more desperation than before. “Josh, please.”
“I will.” He straightened and touched her face. “I promise.” It was rash, he knew, but he had to do whatever it took to keep her calm, because if she was freakin
g out it was just going to make things that much harder and there was no way he was going to get her out of here without help. If someone didn’t come, she was going to drown as surely as the Lennox brothers had all those years ago, and he didn’t think he’d be able to bring himself to leave her.
“Be quiet for a few seconds, okay? I have to try something.”
Chapter Nine
“Nick? Love?”
Someone was touching Nick’s face ‑‑ it had to be John, of course, but it was so hard to drag himself back to awareness. They’d been ‑‑ and then. There was the taste of salt water at the back of Nick’s throat, and the sensation of choking ‑‑ he rolled suddenly onto his side, gagging, and John’s warm hand settled on his shoulder.
“I’m okay,” Nick gasped, turning his head to meet John’s worried gaze. “It’s Josh. He and Caitrin are stuck in one of the caves ‑‑ I think her foot’s caught ‑‑ and the tide’s coming in. We need to go now.”
John stared at him for a heartbeat, his eyes wide with shock, and then he nodded. “You can tell me all about how you know later.” He rolled off the bed and began to drag on his clothes, his movements quick and efficient. “Here,” he said, tossing Nick his shirt. “And I’ll get blankets, rope, and a torch.”
Nick pushed his arms through the sleeves of his shirt as he scrambled off the bed, his awareness split between the familiar surroundings of their bedroom, lit and warmed by the late afternoon light, and the cold, dark cave. “Something to move the rock with. We’ll need a ‑‑ a ‑‑”
“Crowbar,” John supplied. “Aye. I’ll get it. I’ll meet you outside.” He left, fastening his jeans as he went, and Nick didn’t allow himself even one deep breath before he hurried after him.
In the kitchen, Nick shoved his feet into his boots without bothering to tie them and stumbled out the door, which John had left ajar. He thought briefly about taking a jacket, but he didn’t want to go back for one, and John was already coming toward him with a blanket tossed over his shoulder and a rope wrapped around his arm. He had a flashlight tucked under his arm and was holding a crowbar and a pickaxe.
