Chapter 7
The back cavern was cozier than the main area, with a ceiling that was, at best, seven feet high. The curving stream that
cut through the ground was shaped like an “S,” narrow enough to step over and trickling dark liquid.
“Ugh, what the—shit.”
I swung around to put a spotlight on Seb as he crawled out of the tunnel. When he stood to full height, he banged his flashlight
against his palm. It was dead. “Seriously?”
“Maybe it needs new batteries? When’s the last time they were changed?”
“I dunno, when we were twelve? What do these take, C batteries? Christ, who keeps those on hand?” He banged on his flashlight
again several times before giving up and shoving it in the pocket of his shorts. “Okay, this back cavern has definitely shrunk,
right? Smells just like it used to, though.”
It did: very clean and crisp. Not the same musty smell that pervaded the main cavern. “Remember when you drank water from
the stream and pretended you’d been poisoned?”
He chuckled. “I remember you crying.”
“I don’t, but I do remember slugging you when I found out you were tricking us—and I remember you crying.”
He laughed. “Okay, okay. Maybe I got it a little wrong,” he said, tracking my flashlight’s beam with his eyes. “Funny that there’s no trash back here. The main cavern is filled with junk.”
“It took us almost a year to figure out that this area even existed. Can’t really see it unless you climb the ledge.” I shrugged.
“I’m guessing no one comes back here much. Not even cannibals.”
“Which would make it a good hiding spot for treasure,” he said, stepping over the stream. “So why does it feel so empty back
here?”
Empty and still, yes. Also small, so there wasn’t really much of anything to explore. Seb knocked the butt of his flashlight
against a small alcove, testing it like he was hunting for a stud in a wall. “No secret doors or traps here. What about that
spot over there? Here, move to this side of the stream so I can get over there. Hey, wait—”
As I stepped over to swap places with him, my foot slipped on the wet rock. I nearly fell, but Seb tried to grab my arm. As
he reached for me, I dropped my flashlight into the water. And before I could retrieve it, the light flickered and went out.
Darkness enveloped us.
Not like the dark of a bedroom at night, either. Utter and complete darkness. Without a visual anchor to keep me steady, I
wobbled on the slick rocks and started to go down again. “Shit!”
Seb managed to grab my upper arm, his grip firm. “I gotcha, I gotcha.”
I teetered on the ball of my foot for a moment, but his hand didn’t let go of my arm. When I finally steadied myself, I felt
his other hand patting me, testing . . . trying to find my other shoulder. And missing by a mile.
Warm fingers grazed my breast.
I froze in place, expecting his hand to move and surprised when it hesitated.
Um . . . ? Why wasn’t he moving his hand? Why wasn’t I moving it for him? He must’ve not been aware of where it was. Purely accidental.
The way my heart thudded, you’d think I was privately wishing that it wasn’t.
My clothes suddenly felt too tight.
“Shit. I—” He suddenly withdrew his hand. “Nope. That was not your shoulder. That was . . .”
Embarrassment warmed my cheeks, and I was temporarily glad we were in the dark so he couldn’t see me blushing. Of course, it was a mistake. He wasn’t trying to feel me up. Why did I even think for a moment that he was? Get it together, woman!
I flinched when I felt him roughly patting around my shoulder, where he finally ended up gripping me. “There you are, whew.
Really sorry about . . .” He chuckled. “You know.” He sounded embarrassed, but he also sounded like he was smiling.
Play cool. Make a joke of it. “It’s fine. I mean, surely we’ve all found ourselves in a dark cave, getting handsy.”
He made a strangled noise that was caught somewhere between surprise and laughter. “Hey, you’re the one who dropped your flashlight,
and that handsy business was purely accidental. It was not a grope.”
“Sure, that’s what they all say. This is my third cave grope this year.”
“Goddammit, I knew Harvard was full of perverts.”
“It’s a feature, not a bug.”
Seb snickered, and I smiled at him in the dark, feeling warm and elated. Secretly I loved a good verbal sparring with Seb.
Always had. But he didn’t have a comeback this time. An awkward quiet settled between us. Just for a moment. Then he lightly
squeezed my arms in a very non-sexy way.
“Hey, for real, though,” he said in a low voice. “Not hurt are you?”
“I’m okay,” I assured him, sobering up. I cleared my throat. “I don’t know where the flashlight is now, but it definitely
rolled away. Maybe you can reach it?”
Seb let go of me, and I hated that he did. Not because I wanted his hands on me. He was my childhood friend, for God’s sake.
The black sheep of our weird little Wag family. Sure, he was nice on the eyes these days, but that didn’t mean I wanted to
hook up with him. I just . . . hated being alone in the dark.
Really hated it. “Seb? Where are you?”
“Here.”
Water splashed. I couldn’t see anything, but I assumed he was hunting the flashlight in the stream.
“Fuck! Where is it? We need the other Wags in here with their lights. We’ll . . . Huh. Are you seeing that? Look down. Look
at the stream, Paige.”
I couldn’t see anything but black, but I did my best to look where the stream should be and still saw nothing. Wait, hold on . . .
Something faintly glowed in the center of the cavern floor. Glow-in-the-dark speckles. And—hold on. The speckles weren’t random.
They followed a pattern.
“Is that . . . ? Seb, tell me you’re not seeing Morse code.”
“Where are you?” His reaching fingers found my arm again.
No boob-grazing this time, which was probably a good thing. Of course it’s a good thing. Stop thinking about it.
“Stay with me,” he said. “Walk toward the speckles, that’s it. Can’t quite tell— Oh, shit. Welp, so much for dry shoes.”
I took wobbly steps, moving where Seb was leading. Two more steps, and we were standing over the phosphorescent speckles.
Most definitely Morse code.
Tiny dots and dashes had been painted into a sort of half circle:
- . . . . .-. --- .--
“Below,” Seb said. “It says ‘below.’ Below what?”
Excitement blazed through me. “Jaz!” I called loudly, voice reverberating around the cavern. “Get in here!”
Muffled voices in the distance began moving toward us. Punkin barked. After a minute, scraping sounds came from the tunnel,
and a tiny, bouncing light appeared—instantly making me feel better.
“Are you guys okay?” Jaz said, emerging from the tunnel with her headlamp. “Hey. Why are you standing around in the dark?”
“Look!” Seb and I both said excitedly together.
But the Morse code was no longer there.
“What am I looking at?” Jaz said as the sounds of Lulu giggling echoed inside the tunnel.
“Glow-in-the dark,” I said to Seb. “We only saw it because the lights were off. Come stand over here with us, Jaz, and switch
off your headlamp for a sec.”
When she did, the Morse code reappeared. “No way!” she said, flicking her headlamp on and off a couple of times to see the
glow-in-the-dark effect. “Is it paint? Did Wyrd Jack have access to that back then?”
“Radium was used in paint in the early twentieth century,” I said, a little excited that my art education at Harvard was already
coming in handy. “We probably shouldn’t handle it too much, in case that’s what it is.”
“What does it say?” Jazmine asked. “I know you nerds still remember how to read it.”
“It says ‘below,’” Seb told her as Lulu’s laughter emerged from the tunnel. “Hold on. Look.”
I got closer to see what Seb was inspecting. The code was written around the edges of a flat, round rock that looked a little
bit like a manhole cover. Seb began digging his fingers around it, brushing dirt away.
“Help me lift it,” he said before Lulu and Benny’s lantern light filled the small cavern and Punkin rushed in, barking once
to announce her presence.
“What’s going on up here?” Benny asked as he brushed dirt off the front of his shirt.
“Dude! We found a code. Get over here!” I told him.
Jazmine and I both kneeled on the floor and dug our own fingers under the edge of the round rock. A moment later, Benny crouched
along with us. The four of us lifted, and the rock moved. Just slightly.
“Lift!” Seb shouted, and we all complied.
The rock was heavy, but once it came away from the floor, we were able to shift it to one side. Dust billowed.
Seb coughed and waved it away. “Light—shine it here.”
Benny stepped over the stream, and his lantern shone brighter than Jaz’s flashlight. We all looked down into a black hole
in the floor.
“What is it?” Lulu asked, craning her neck to see.
“Let me get a better look. Give me your headlamp, would ya?” he said to Jazmine. “My flashlight bit the dust.”
Seb lay on the floor, belly down, and stuck his head into the hole along with Jazmine’s headlamp. His voice sounded like it
was coming from the bottom of a well. “Oh. Seriously? Wags, there’s another cavern down below this one. It’s flooded.”
“Flooded?” I tapped Seb, quietly requesting the headlamp as I lay on the floor next to him. “Let me see.”
I slipped the band of the headlamp over my forehead and dared to stick my head inside the hole. At first, I couldn’t really
see anything. Then my eyes adjusted and I saw what Seb had described—a small cavern about the same size as this one, but halfway
down was a waterline.
Definitely was flooded down there. Disappointment rose, but I pushed it away and quickly ran through possibilities.
“We’re elevated in this secondary cave,” I said, peering down into the hole, “so I’m betting down there it’s probably level
with the main cavern. If it is, then it can’t be that deep. A few feet?”
Seb pulled me back from the hole. “And if it’s not? How the hell would we get back up?”
“Maybe with that?” Benny said.