What Lies Beneath the Fog

》27《

I followed Emma across the flooded pebble floor to the far left corner of the cave.

The small hole that we had discovered previously guided by the strange light was nearly completely covered by pebbles and little rocks again. The sea must have moved them back over it at some point. But, luckily, this part of the cave wasn't under the water now.

We knelt down and started to move the rocks away all over again. Emma's hands were trembling slightly with cold; I was starting to feel cold, too. Our walk in the pouring rain and across the flooded cave hadn't been the most enjoyable thing to do.

My thoughts strayed away from the cold, wet, and dark cave-- I imagined myself sitting by the fireplace in our cosy cottage, with Emma next to me, drying up by the pleasant heat of the fire... Just the thought of its warmth caused shivers to ripple over my back. The pain in my fingers, when they hit a rock much larger and sharper than the rest, brought me back to the presence and reminded me where I was.

A large, flat stone lay hidden under the pebbles, buried by them. It was blocking the passage to the other cave, leaving just that small crack we had peeked through before.

"We need to move this," Emma said, the exact thing that I was thinking.

"Let's move away as many pebbles as we can first, so we can see how big it is. It might be quite heavy," I told her.

It took a few more minutes of busy work before we uncovered all of it. The stone was large but not thick. It looked like a giant, slate-grey roof tile. Joining our efforts, we managed to move it, sliding it to one side over the round pebbles. I took out my phone, we needed some light. Without the sunlight creeping in through the crevices in the cave's walls from outside, the rest of the place was too dark.

A short passage, just about big enough to squeeze through for someone very small, opened in front of us. It descended gently, ending in another flooded cave. The quick and loud sound of raindrops falling inside from the ceiling somewhere high above and ricocheting off the walls replaced the sound of the sea filling the first part of the cave. There was no way to guess how deep the water in the other cave was, but judging by the angle of the descending passage, the second room was located deeper than the one where we were standing at the moment, most likely under the sea level.

Something caught the light of my torch and shone through the darkness. It seemed to be the same object we had seen last time. It hadn't moved at all, as if it was waiting for us to come and pick it up, defying the constantly moving water.

"Switch off the light," Emma said.

I did and noticed it, too. The object was not reflecting my light. It seemed to be emanating its own weak, pulsating light, well visible through the darkness of the cave.

Without any warning, Emma squeezed through the passage, and before I managed to turn the torch back on, I heard her treading across the water on the other side, water which arrived up to her waist.

"Emma! Are you crazy?! It could have been much deeper!"

"But it isn't. Calm down," she responded, approaching the strange object.

She picked it up and put it in one of the pockets of her yellow jacket along with a couple more of the larger stones from the cave's floor.

"Light me the way, please. I'm coming back," she said, looking around the dark cave she was in before turning to me. The smile on her lips was half sad and half contented.

"What is it?" I asked, offering her my hand and pulling her back.

"I'm not sure..." she said, reaching into her pocket and handing me the object for inspection once she was back on my side.

Holding her cold and wet hand safely in mine, I led her out of the cave. At the entrance, still sheltered from the rain, we examined it together.

It wasn't bigger than the palm of my hand. Long and oval, rather than round. It looked fragile and brittle, unlike most of the similarly shaped pebbles of the cave's floor. And very bright. It was probably the brightest of the beach's pebbles bleached by the sea, white, bone-white...

"A bone?" I asked, looking at it with a sudden realization.

Quickly, I handed it back to her, wiping my hand on my jeans. Was it really a bone? If it was, then I did not want to touch it, really.

"I think so," she said, turning it around in her hands curiously, "it might be a fragment of a bone."

"Uhm, ok," I said, unsure of what else to say.

There were so many questions I wanted to ask... Whose bone? Anne's? Or somebody else's? Maybe simply a bone of some animal that had died in the cave...

The pounding rain, getting stronger again, gave us a valid reason to change the subject, though.

"We should get back up while we can. I don't think we will be able to climb the stairs if the rain gets any heavier," I said.

"You are right, let's go. There's nothing else to do here, anyway," Emma replied, looking towards the dark corner of the cave one last time before we walked outside.

The old stone staircase looked like a waterfall, channelling all the rainwater from the top of the cliff towards the choppy, noisy sea. We were lucky that at least the wind had calmed down a little; it would be impossible to climb up if it was as strong as before. We would most probably remain trapped on the beach for who knows how long.

I made Emma go first, hoping to block her fall if she slipped. She started climbing up slowly and carefully, choosing the safest spots to place her feet on the slippery rock. It took us a long time, but in the end, we reached the top. We were wet through and cold, but unharmed.

I collapsed on the muddy ground, exhausted; Emma fell next to me. I didn't even mind the raindrops landing directly on my face. Closing my eyes, I just wished to rest for a few minutes. But Emma had other ideas.

"We have one more thing to do," she said.

I could feel her warm breath on my lips. It made me shiver with pleasure. She was so close. My eyes fluttered open, expecting the falling raindrops, but I found her face hovering just above mine, blocking out the rain, smiling, our lips nearly touching.

"Just help me do one more thing, please, then we can go home," she pleaded.

Then she was gone suddenly, leaving me to crave the closeness and intimacy of that fleeting moment. She stood up above me, offering me her hand to lift me up. I accepted it, seeing that it was all that I was likely to get right now. She had set her mind on something, and there was no way of reasoning with her.

I pulled myself to my feet and stood next to her on the edge of the cliff.

"Come," she said simply, following the muddy trail leading back towards the lighthouse, and I walked behind her, across the drowning, purple heather, swaying in the wind and rain.