Fatebound

Chapter Six ~ Caves

Friday 15th of January 2000.

Perhaps I was a little too adventurous today. I decided to venture out towards Spar cave, a mysterious place that I had been told about by some of the locals of Skye. They did warn me about going when the weather is off, but well, it seems the weather is always off here, so what's a girl to do?

Anyway, technically speaking, it wasn't exactly my fault that I got stuck, it was the weathers. I had expected a little wind, yes, but not a f*****n rain storm!

So... yeah. Clearly I got stuck in the cave and I hadn't realised where the time had gone either so the tide was coming in and I was officially stranded.

What a day.

Obviously I'm ok, more than ok actually because although I was almost swallowed by a sea cave, there was a turn of events when the only person I could think of to ask for a rescue was of course the mysterious and handsome tour guide I had met on my first day here.

Let's just say that once he had come to help me, a night I will never forget followed. I was recused by the prettiest man I've ever met, and I felt like I was suddenly swept away into one of my favourite steamy-romance novels.

But still, note to self. Don't go exploring caves in bad weather and if you absolutely must, always make sure to get back BEFORE high tide.

-M.

It was this passage of her mother's journal that Brea had read over and over again the day after the ghost-tour, and it was also this particular passage that had her feeling desperate to see the so-called 'Spar Cave' her mother had described.

You'd think that the writer would have learned from her mother's own mistakes, but she all but ignored the chill in the air, concluding that the weather was likely to be the same for the rest of her stay anyway, being Scotland and all. Besides at the very least, it wasn't raining!

With her cardigan securely wrapped around her and her head held high, the writer began the walk to the neighbouring town of Glenferrie and adventurously (and somewhat shyly) asked the first person with a boat that she saw, if she could hire them to take her the closest they could get her to the cave.

She was under the impression that the boat would wait for her to explore for at least twenty minutes, but she would later find out just how terrible her communication had been.

It was a rocky climb, one that she shouldn't really have been doing in her dress and stockings, but once she had finally made it to the entrance the pamphlets had described, she felt a sense of empowerment that she hadn't felt for a very long time.

"HEY MUM!!!" Brea yelled into the air, aiming it towards the sky. "I'M HERE!!" She continued.

"Just like you where once." She whispered as a tear slid down her cheek.

After that she gave a small wave towards the sky and started the steep decent on the beautiful white rocks that lead into the mermaid-like cave. Brea gasped at the sight that met her at the bottom of the naturally formed staircase.

It was beautiful, the locals had got it right. The walls seemed to be made of fairy dust and the floor of cinnamon swirls, a sweet that her mother had used to always bake for her. They where delicious and Brea missed the comforting smell that had always accompanied them.

Unfortunately, over the many years the cave had seen, most of the stalactites and stalagmites had been broken off and taken away. Brea found this to be incredibly sad. After all, why would you destroy something so beautiful, just to keep it in your pocket, when you could simply preserve it in your memories and allow others to see the beauty as well? She just couldn't understand it at all.

As the adventurous young woman continued to look around the beautiful cave, she began to loose track of the time, and lost herself in what the pamphlets had called 'the Selkies trance.'

She had read that apparently those who enter the cave, would sometimes fall victim to the spell cast by a Selkie queen, very long ago. The spell is said to keep you wandering the cave forever, lost in ints beauty, until you find that your unable to find your way back.

Of course, Brea didn't really believe in such nonsense... not really.

But she couldn't help but to be a little entranced with it all and to let her writer's imagination get away from her entirely already loose grasp.

Before she knew it, she was plotting out a fantasy book about selkies and magical spells and before she could even realise that she had taken a mis- step or even scream, she had found herself falling towards the caves floor.