Chapter 14 Experiments in Getting Wet
“No, no, girl. I’m sorry, but you’ve got to stay here, love.
” Tadhg cracked the windows and shut the door behind us.
He folded down the backseat to make it roomier and poured out a bowl of dog food and some water.
There was a plush-looking dog bed back there.
I was halfway to asking if I could stay too when I remembered the cake.
“You can’t go because you don’t like caves, my little one.
And because the two of us will probably die in there.
Or at least one of us will, if she doesn’t change her ringtone. ”
“Or if he says another goddamn word about my phone calls.”
He poured out a little more dog food, wrapped his arms around Finn’s neck, and gave her a kiss on the head. “Just in case.”
I fished around in my back pocket and pulled out the folded map and smoothed it out.
“Okay. I think we’re parked heeere.” I pointed, and he moved in a little closer.
Then the wind picked up and blew his scent over to me, and my eyes fluttered against my will.
Okay. Distance is a good thing. Got it. I cleared my throat.
“So then all we have to do is walk down the road a little bit. Open the gate, enter this farmland—”
“Illegally.”
“Illegally. Make it down this path, take a right and then a left, crawl down some rocks—”
“Which will likely be steep and dangerous.”
“Which will likely be steep and dangerous. Splash through a little bit of water, crawl over whatever this is, and then the cave should be right here. Then we go in, take some pictures and stuff ourselves with cake, and come back. Total cinch!”
“This is really fecking stupid, you know that, right?”
“We’ll be back in no time.” I smiled a toothy grin that I knew would nettle him.
“And if I refuse to go?”
“Well, that’s okay too. I can go, and you can stay here and keep Finn from devouring the local village whole like Godzilla. I’ll be quick. I’m not going to save you any cake, though—just so we’re clear.”
“And you would go on your own? Without enough sense to even worry?”
“Yeah. I would. My listeners are going to want to see it. And I want to see it! And I don’t want to have to defend myself against a rampaging Simone when she finds out that I could have gone and skipped it.
So, yeah. Orla and Bill go, and they’re in their seventies.
Whereas I am extremely strong and athletic, to an almost Lara Croft degree.
And you don’t have to come. But it’s going to be great. So you should probably come.”
“Nobody—and I mean this—nobody on the planet is more aggravating than you are.”
“Aww. I didn’t know you cared.” I smiled, and he frowned harder. “You in or out, Mr. Big Stuff?” The glower that earned me sent Pop Rocks through my bloodstream.
“Fine, you mad cow. Only because if you died today, I’d never see the color of Mrs. Keilty’s ram.”
OKAY, SO IT turned out that lovely Orla and Bill, with their adorable bickering, heavenly mashed potatoes, and warm hugs, were dirty, dirty liars.
The path was decidedly longer and harder than they’d made it out to be. Some parts of the trail were hard to find, some had been trampled into a muddy stew by sheep hooves, and the bit where we had to go down some rocks was downright perilous.
The rain started about three-quarters of the way down. It was cold, each icy little bastard raindrop biting into my face and hands and getting into my eyes. It made the path slippery and harder to follow. Within minutes, it had gone from blustery sunny skies to pouring down with a vengeance.
“So this was your bright idea, was it?”
“Yes. This is exactly what I had in mind. Isn’t this Irish weather beautiful?”
“Are you going to admit I was right?”
“It’s doubtful. Ask again tomorrow, if we’re still alive.”
Tadhg held on to the sharp angle of a rock with both hands and slid down like goddamn Tarzan. He did this probably to make the point that I couldn’t, but also because walking down this wet, steep rock would likely result in some broken bits—teeth, tibia, will to live, who knew.
“You’re going to need some help with that.” He said this so matter-of-factly. How dare he mansplain my own ineptitude to me.
“No, I’ve totally got this. I’ll just . .
.” I tried to grab on to the rock and just .
. . you know . . . swing on down like he had, because why couldn’t I be a secret fucking gladiator?
But then my eyes strayed to the drop, and I nearly vomited into the wind and then curled up and died in humiliation next to my backpack filled with cake.
“Maya.” His voice this time was stern. Steelier than usual. I couldn’t have imagined such a thing was possible, would have sworn that the steeliness I had witnessed so far had reached the very boundaries of human irritation, but no. “You’re going to need help.”
“Yeah. Okay. Yes. I’m going to need help. Right now, please. Thank you.”
“Okay. First, throw me your backpack.”
“But the cake’s in there!”
“Great. Let’s go back, then.”
I sighed and tossed it down to him.
“Right. Now, you see that rock there?”
“This one?”
“Aye. It’s got a good grip. Turn around and put both hands around it. Do it now. Okay, now the other. Good.”
I did as instructed. Then I searched for some dryish, grippy places to put my feet, to sort of climb down like a ladder. But no. Dryish places did not exist in Ireland. Everything here was covered in shiny grass, or runny mud, or so much rain that you wanted to start collecting animals two by two.
“No. There’s nowhere for your feet. You could let go and slide down—but I’ll be honest, you’re likely to twist an ankle or cut yourself on the rock.”
“What are you saying?” I screamed, ass hanging over the edge. “I thought you had a plan!” I tried to climb back up to safety, to where I wasn’t doubled over and dangling.
“I do have a plan.”
“Well say it, dammit, before I lose my grip and plummet down ass-first.”
“That’s sort of my plan. Just lean back and let go.”
“What!”
“I’ve got you. I can catch you.”
“Fuck off! No way!” I tried again to scramble back up, but nothing doing. The rock was starting to cut into my hands, and as it turned out, despite all those smut-inspired self-love sessions, even my Olympic-grade tensile strength was starting to give way. “There’s got to be another way!”
“There’s not. You’ve got this. Just lean back, let go, and kick off with your feet.”
I laughed, but it was an unhinged, nervous thing—the last sound one made before they went swimming with crocodiles or signed up for speed dating.
“I promise I’ve got you. It’s not as far as it looks. Let go.”
“I’m going to break my ass, and then emergency services are going to have to airlift me out of here.”
“I would never let anything happen to that ass of yours. I’ve spent so much quality time with it, waiting for you to squeeze into the backseat.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. My arms were shaking now. But this somehow made me feel better. “Shit. You goddamn fucking tyrant. I’m going to do it! I can’t believe you did this to me.”
“You did this. Now let go.”
“Don’t correct me when I’m about to die! You ready?”
“Yes! Just do it!”
“Okay, one, two, three!”
And then I was falling. I was going to die before I’d even tasted the cake.
But he caught me in his arms like I was Buttercup jumping from the tower in a flowing blue dress and he was Andre the Giant.
He looked down at me with a crooked smirk.
All the wind was knocked out of me. For a second, I couldn’t breathe.
I looked up into his eyes, dizzy. He was so close.
But there was nothing to be afraid of. I was safe and in his arms. Again.
I gasped a huge, gulping breath.
“Took your breath away, did I?”
“No.”
“I told you I’d catch you. When are you going to start listening to me?”
“Never.”
He let me down and I shook off that clinging, velvety feeling.
It wasn’t far to the cave from there. We waded through a bit where the ocean water came up to our shins, but Bill had prepared us for that, so we splashed across in our already wet hiking boots. Though the rain had slowed, we were soaked, so we hardly noticed.
Then we curved around the shoreline and found it. The huge mouth of the cave, with a small stream running right through it, bubbling into the sea.
“Wow. I didn’t know a cave could be so pretty.” I took my phone out of its Ziploc and risked the drizzle to snap a couple quick photos before we walked in.
“Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
“Picnics should not be rushed, Tadhg. Don’t you know anything at all?”
“I know if you don’t keep the sass out of your tone, you’ll be walking back to Lisdoonvarna.”
“Might be preferable.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing!”
“That’s what I thought.”
Round gray pebbles squeaked and slid under our shoes as we walked in. The cave was plenty wide enough to avoid the stream, and somewhere not too far in was a soft glow in the shadows. Tadhg pulled a small flashlight from his bag and kept the ground illuminated.
“Here’s hoping there’s nothing creepy or menacing down there,” I joked.
“I wouldn’t worry.”
“There aren’t any dangerous wild animals in Ireland?”
“Well, you’re here now, but you’re non-native.”
I snorted against my will.
I could hear the rush of water, and the air was cooler here.
A cold breath howled slightly as it blew through the cave and skittered across our skin.
Then the cavern opened up before us. Above us was a large oval hole to the sky, where the sun was fighting through the drizzle and prisming through the drops of water into a sheen of rainbow.
Water trickled and crashed to the floor of the cave, where it had slowly and patiently carved out a little round pool over a millennium.
It tripped down the rocks, its melody echoing off the walls.
Ferns and moss grew, turning the stark, cold gray into something living, soft, and breathing.
“This is . . .”
“Yeah. Magic.”