The Girl Below(97)

“Positive.”

Caleb steered straight for a rock face that jutted out into the cove, swerving to the right just meters before hitting it. Behind its bulk, a body of water swelled and smacked against a second rock face that arched over the entrance to a cave. I’d suspected as much, but it wasn’t until the yawning black mouth of it was in front of me that my feet slammed into the pedals and refused to rotate them. “We can’t go in there,” I said.

“Relax,” he said. “It’s just a cave. I’ve been in hundreds of times with Dad.”

But already, a hammering had started in my stomach and was moving to my ears and throat. “Please, can we just go back?”

Caleb must have sensed my panic because he squeezed my hand, but he didn’t turn the boat around. “You really don’t want to miss this,” he said. “Come on. Don’t be a pussy.”

People who adore caves never understand the terror they inspire in those who do not, and as the boat moved forward into a space that made me think of a waterlogged tomb, Caleb said, “See? I told you it was amazing!”

Obediently, I looked around, trying to find the beauty he could, but everything in front of me was awful. The cave was roughly the size of a small church, with a high grotto on one side that peaked in a cluster of sharp brown stalactites. Their yellow reflections—drowning-men’s fingers—clawed at the surface. Elsewhere, the water was black and impenetrable and flowed into side caves even more horrible than this one. The ceiling was hidden in shadow, and water bled from the walls.

“Is this place ever submerged?” I said.

“I don’t know,” said Caleb. “But sometimes the entrance is blocked.”

“By what?”

“Water.” He saw my expression and laughed. “Don’t worry, it’s low tide.”

The paddleboat rocked and a splash sounded next to it. Caleb’s seat, when I turned to it, was empty. A meter away, he surfaced and waved. “Ahoy!” he shouted, then duck-dived, his feet kicking briefly above the water before it zipped shut behind him. An orange streak passed under the boat, then disappeared.

Alone in the cave, I fixated on the spot where I thought Caleb would come up, but the boat was drifting, and the water tricked me. The hideous silence was broken by the thunk of fiberglass hitting rock, and the boat jammed up against a wet cave wall, close enough to it that I could make out wormholes in the limestone. I tried to steer the boat away, to turn the pedals, but it had snagged on something, and I couldn’t get it to budge. I tried to rock the boat back and forth to free it, and was so charged with adrenaline that I barely noticed when a large plastic halo broke off in my hand.

“Suki! What the hell are you doing?” Caleb clutched the side of the craft and hauled himself in.

“The boat’s stuck,” I said. “We can’t get out.”

Caleb had to use his full weight to restrain me, to calm me down, and even then I was shaking. “You pulled the steering wheel off,” he said, picking up the plastic ring. “What happened?”

I pushed him off, angry that he’d brought us in here; that he didn’t understand. “I told you I didn’t like caves.”

He looked at me as if I was a crazy person but finally must have gotten that I was afraid. “It’s okay, we’ll go,” he said. “Just sit down.”

I sat down. It turned out that the boat wasn’t really stuck—in my frenzy I had tried to pedal in reverse, a maneuver the rusty old vessel couldn’t handle. Steering was tricky without the wheel, but the rudder was intact and Caleb managed to guide us out of the cave and into daylight. But it wasn’t until we were well away from the cove and I felt sun on my skin that I relaxed.

“You really freaked out in there, huh?” he said, his skinny arm still around me.

I managed a smile, but felt wretched. “I tried to warn you.”

“Anyway, check these out,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his swimming trunks and taking out three or four small metal cylinders. “Pretty cool, huh?” He handed them to me.

“What are they?”

“Empty shells from World War Two. There’re thousands of them down there. Dad says it must have been used as an ammunition dump.”

I examined the casings. To a boy they were treasure but the only thing they reminded me of was the air-raid shelter, that other waterlogged tomb.

“You can keep them if you want,” Caleb said.

“Thanks.” I put the shells in my bag.

After the rescue and the gift, Caleb had a new heroic confidence about him, but I felt diminished. The beach wasn’t far away, but my legs pedaled feebly, and it took us forever to get there. As we drew nearer to shore, I saw that other people had arrived on the beach, most clustered in a group at one end.