He held the lantern out. He could just see, through the water, where the ceiling flattened out above the landing, now lost under murky seawater.
“I can make it,” he told himself. His voice sounded tiny and hollow in the echoing gurgles of the flooded stairwell. “Just a quick swim down, then up.” There was an iron hook on the wall by his hand and he hung the lantern on it. He felt in his pockets and pulled out the book of matches that Sebastian had given him earlier, when he’d first sent him out to join Colin. It had been only a few hours before. It felt like forever.
He spit and blew, drying out his mouth. Then he tucked the book of matches into his mouth and closed his lips tight, holding the matches on his tongue. Clutching the candle in his hand, he dove into the dark water before his fear could get strong enough to stop him.
The water was freezing. His muscles tightened and shook and he almost turned around, but he shook his head and kept going. He kept his eyes open and the chilled, salty water burned. He swam with his arms and kicked with his legs and the light from his hanging lantern got dimmer and darker and more distant and then it was all the way gone. Jonathan swam through freezing blackness. He tried not to think of the skull that rolled and knocked somewhere in the dark water there with him.
Down he swam, under the ceiling ledge. He stayed near the top, bumping and scraping on the rough ceiling stones. The water wasn’t still; it swelled and moved with currents and surges, no doubt coursing in and out through the Hatch with the rise and fall of the waves in the storm outside.
He swam along the level landing ceiling, his lungs beginning to burn. His lips were pressed together as hard as he could to keep the matches dry. A strong surge of water from below crushed him against the ceiling and pushed him back. He fought against it, digging his elbow into the corner where the wall and ceiling met, then kicked on desperately.
Finally, he felt the ceiling begin to slope upward. He was swimming up the far staircase. It suddenly occurred to him that he had no guarantee that the far side was above water. Maybe the other side of Slabhenge was all already underwater. Maybe he would swim up and up without ever finding air and then drown in some dark and flooded corridor, a book of matches in his mouth.
But at last his head broke the surface and he gave a final kick and gasped a mouthful of cold, delicious air. His feet found the stairs beneath him and he stumbled up, out of the water. He staggered, dripping and shaking out of the stairwell and into the hallway.
He was in utter blackness. Just like the first time he’d come here, when he’d dropped his lantern by the Hatch. He shook the water off his hand and pulled the matches out of his mouth.
The hallway was filled with the wet sounds of storm and flood. His gasping lungs added their own noise. His hands shook as he struck the first match.
It lit, a beautiful yellow flame in all that looming darkness. He smiled and held it to the candle’s wick.
Nothing happened. He kept holding it, waiting for the flame to grow and the wick to take light. But the match burned down to his fingers and then out.
“Damn it,” he cursed, his voice tight with shivering. “Of course, idiot. The wick’s wet.”
He struck another one and held it to the wick. Eventually, he told himself, the flames would dry the wick. And then it would light. He had to believe that.
He didn’t have time to wait. Colin could already be underwater. If he wasn’t yet, he would be soon. He stepped cautiously forward, his eyes darting from his feet to the flame and wick in his hands.
The second match burned down. He held it until it singed his fingertips, then stopped to light another.
On the fourth match, the wick lit. Weakly at first, a bare little blue ball of flame clinging to the candle’s tip. Then it grew and strengthened and stretched into a tall, bright finger of flame. He held his hand in front of it to keep it from blowing out and sped his steps to a jog.
The path came back to him. A familiar corner passed, then a stairwell he was pretty sure he remembered climbing up, then a twisting little passageway he was almost certain they’d filed through. He was close.
He dropped down a short staircase and stopped.
The water was here. Up to his knees. And he was pretty sure that Colin’s room was another staircase lower. Up ahead, he heard a waterfall. No, he thought, not a waterfall. The sound of freezing water pouring down a stone staircase. He ran toward the sound, the deepening water pushing back at him.
“Colin!” he screamed. “Colin! Can you hear me?”
“Jonathan?”
Jonathan almost collapsed in relief when he heard the familiar voice answer him.
“Hurry! I’m almotht under!”
Jonathan ran to the staircase. Water was gushing over the edge, bubbling and frothing. He leapt down the stairs, pushed along by the river of water, and came to a splashing stop at the bottom, his head going under but his arm stretched high to keep the candle out of the water.