“I won’t look.”
He turned around. I scanned the grounds of St. Edmund’s but didn’t see a soul in sight, so I stripped down to my bra and undies, tucked my clothes and purse and phone and the wooden box into the tote Sam had brought, and jumped into the water before he could get a look at me.
It was cold.
Freezing, actually, because even in summer the water in New England was frigid and angry.
“What now?” I asked.
He turned around, surprised to find me already in the water. He fitted his own mask over his face, and I couldn’t help but laugh. I don’t care who you are in this world; everyone looks goofy in a swim mask.
He shoved his clothes into the tote and then hid it in some tall plants. Nobody would find it unless they literally tripped over it. When he turned around, he had a large, waterproof flashlight in his hand. He waded into the water after me, sucking his breath in when it hit his chest.
How weird we must have looked to anyone who happened to see us: two kids up to their shoulders in a part of the ocean that wasn’t exactly beach-like, matching masks on our faces and a suitcase-sized flashlight.
“Are you ready?”
“Ready for what? My swimming lesson?”
I wasn’t trying to be rude. It just kept happening. Like Margo.
“Trust me,” he reminded me. “Hold my hand, and keep swimming.”
I looked away from the shore out to open water.
There was nothing.
Nothing to aim for.
Where was he taking me?
He held my hand. I pressed the mask over my face, making sure it was sealed around my nose. We swam, paddling out fifty feet or so from shore. Then he stopped, looked at me, and smiled.
“Just swim until you don’t think you can anymore,” he said, his words almost lost on the sea breeze.
“Until I don’t think I—what?”
He took an exaggerated deep breath.
I did the same.
We dove.
Or he dove. Fairly gracefully too. I kind of belly flopped.
And we were under.
It was hard to keep hold of his hand.
The surface light only reached ten feet or so, and then he clicked on the flashlight.
I could tell the beam was strong, but even so it distilled in the water. I could only see a few feet in front of me.
The water chilled noticeably the farther down we kicked. I followed Sam’s lead, squeezing his hand hard, kicking harder.
Down and down and down.
I needed to breathe.
What if my aunt had been wrong about him? What if Sam was actually a sociopath (an eternal sociopath) who’d felt shunned by her all those years ago and had come back now to take his revenge on me? What if he was like one of those clam divers who could hold their breath for twenty minutes? What if he was going to drag me to the ocean floor only to hold me down until I drowned?
I didn’t want to drown.
Drowning was on my list of deaths I most didn’t want. It was up there with being burned alive. It was up there with being drawn and quartered. It was up there with being covered in honey and left for fire ants.
My list was very specific.
We kept swimming.
I needed air now. My head was getting fuzzy, and my lungs were burning. Without meaning to, I slowed down. Sam swung the flashlight at his face so I could see him. He pointed frantically: almost there.
Then he swung the flashlight back down, and I followed its beam to see probably the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
The mouth of an underwater cave.
But I didn’t have a choice.
I needed air, and at this point I didn’t think I’d be able to make it to the surface. I’d either drown down here or find air in that cave.
Letting go of his hand, I pushed again, propelling myself through the water with a speed and urgency I didn’t know I had.
I wondered how long it would take them to find my body.
I wondered if Sam would cover my tracks, make it look like I’d never even been to Enders Island.
I wondered if my family would miss me or if they were maybe all mourned out.
And then I was through the cave.
And the short tunnel led up, up . . .
And air.
I pulled myself up on a rocky ledge, gasping like crazy, filling my lungs again and again with musty air that tasted sour and still and thin.
Sam followed just after me, breathing heavily but nowhere near as short on air as I was. He set the flashlight on the ledge next to me and pulled himself up to a sitting position.
“Made it,” he said.
“Yeah, I’m just not sure about the return trip.”
“It’s much easier going back up. You have buoyancy on your side.”
“What about the bends?”
“The what? Oh, you mean decompression sickness? Don’t worry, we’re not deep enough for that.”
My brain ticked off the symptoms, just in case. Joint pain. Severe headache. Disorientation. Back pain. Chest pain. Lots of pain.
Nitrogen bubbles in your tissue and blood.
Stroke. Death.
Okay. Relax.
“Where are we?” I asked.
I looked around and answered my own question: a cave.
We were in an underground cave.
We were in a cave underneath the ocean.
Okay.
Okay.
“Breathe,” Sam said, putting his hands on my knees. I didn’t even have the strength to push him away indignantly.
“What is this place?”
“You’ll see. Can you walk?”
He hopped to his feet and bent to help me up, but I didn’t take his outstretched hand. I got to my feet shakily, feeling every muscle in my body protest. I put a hand against the cave wall to steady myself, breathing slowly and deeply, seeing spots of light dance across my vision.
Sam put his hand on my elbow. “I’m fine,” I said.
“It’s not far.”
“What’s not far?” But of course I already knew.
We started walking, Sam in front with the flashlight and me so close behind him that I kept stepping on his heels.
The cave was small, the ceiling just a few inches above our heads. In some places we had to squeeze through a tunnel that narrowed without warning. But he was right; it wasn’t far. In under a minute, we emerged into a slightly larger cavern. It was the size of a small living room, and there was a deep indentation running through the middle. Like a scale replica of the Grand Canyon. There had been a river here once, running through this room and disappearing into countless rooms beyond.
“No shit,” I said, stepping forward.
“Yes shit,” he whispered.
“This is where . . .”
“Yes.”
“How did you . . . ?”
“I found it,” he whispered. “When I was your age. Missi-tuk.”
“A river with unsettled water,” I said, remembering. “This is the river?”
“This was the river,” he corrected. “It’s been dry for a very long time.”
“It’s real?”
“Real,” he said. He bent down, searching on the ground for something. When he stood up, I saw he was holding a jagged piece of rock. Before I could guess what he was doing, he’d dragged the rock across his forearm, leaving a nasty trail of blood in its wake.
I watched, my stomach sick and churning, as the cut knit itself up before my eyes.
“No shit,” I said.
“Yes shit.”
“Did you show that to my aunt?”