A Study in Drowning(79)

“It’s all right,” she said, and she was surprised by how calm her voice sounded. “Turn on the flashlight.”

Whispering something unintelligible, Preston clicked it on. Light grafted onto the damp stone walls and illuminated the faded engraving above the water. The only enemy is the sea.

Effy had liked swimming as a child, when her grandparents had brought her to the natatorium at one of the hotels in Draefen. They had gone on weekend mornings, while her mother slept until noon, obliterated by last night’s bottle of gin. In her bright yellow bathing costume, Effy had splashed and played, and even made it a challenge for herself to see how long she could stand to hold her head underwater. Her grandfather had noticed her enthusiasm and paid for lessons, and though they had tapered off by the end of secondary school, Effy considered herself a stronger swimmer than most.

She had practiced holding her breath last night, to see how long she could last before her lungs started to burn and panic set in. Thirty seconds, forty, sixty—but Effy knew it would be different once she was under. It always was. When there was only the bleary, distant light from Preston’s flashlight, when the cold sank into her bones. She knelt down on the slick, barnacle-ridden step and began to slide her boots off.

“Just give me one last chance to convince you,” Preston said in an urgent, quavering voice. “We can find some other way . . .”

Effy set her boots down and stood there in her stocking feet, shivering at the feel of the wet stone. She shrugged off her coat, tied back her hair with its velvet ribbon. She stared down into the dark and impenetrable water.

Almost impossibly, a sliver of her reflection rippled up from that black mirror. A pale crescent of face, a puff of dark blond hair. The flash of high cheekbones and the feather of yellow lashes.

It made her feel both more and less afraid. She felt the way she had when she had seen the ghost in the hall—fear not of the thing itself, but of the dark water closing in around it.

She turned around to face Preston. She said, “Don’t be afraid. I know that I can do this.”

He curled his fingers around her arm, anchoring her there for just one moment. He looked her right in the eye, gaze steadier now, fierce with determination.

“Remember what we talked about,” he said. “Keep one hand on the left wall so you don’t get lost. The first dive is exploratory. Try to see how far the cavern goes, then come back for air and we’ll reassess.”

Under his collar, his throat was pulsing. Effy wanted to touch it again, to touch him, but she knew that if she did, she would never want to let go. Very gently, she extricated herself from his grasp.

“I know,” she said. “I’m ready.”

And then she turned back and began her descent. The water was cold and the initial shock of it made her gasp, rolling up to her waist and then higher, until her arms were submerged. She was buoyant now, having lost the sensation of the slippery ground under her feet.

She reached out, movements made sluggish by the turbid water, and found the left wall. It, too, was slick with algae and she could feel the crevices where the brick had crumbled away, letting the water in.

Effy heard Preston’s breathing quicken, but she was determined not to look back. Her hair drifted out around her head like pale flotsam. She took another deep inhale, and then ducked under.

Instantly the light dimmed; it turned the water a murky green in front of her, nearly opaque. Effy kicked, propelling herself forward. There was the dark shape of something in the distance, but she couldn’t tell what, and already her throat was growing tight.

She let herself drift a little farther, carried by the inertia of her initial kicks, until her fingers brushed against something hard and solid. The dark thing, whatever it was—she could reach it.

She wanted to keep going, to get her hands around it, to hold something, but she remembered her promise to Preston and turned back, kicking up toward the bleary light. She surfaced again, gasping, and saw that Preston had moved farther down the steps, now submerged up to his knees.

He grasped her wrist and hauled her up the steps, out of the water.

“Effy,” he choked out. “Are you all right?”

It took a few moments of labored breathing before Effy could speak.

“I’m fine,” she managed at last. “I saw something—I touched it. I don’t know what it is, but I need to get to it. I know that I can . . .”

Her teeth were chattering, but she didn’t even feel the cold. Adrenaline had cloaked her in a haze of numbness, all her blood pulsing and hot. Preston kept his grip tight on her wrist.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded, and with every passing second, she felt more certain. The beam of the flashlight flickered against the stone walls, against the water, dappling the black surface with gold.

Effy slipped away from Preston, and for a moment she saw herself through his eyes, drowning in increments as she retreated back down the steps, vanishing like a selkie beneath the waves.

It was nothing like swimming at the natatorium, where the water was clear and chemically blue. This was a dense and exquisite darkness. Her body, too, was heavier now. She no longer had the lightness of a child, all spindly limbs and easy faith. Her arms and legs felt so burdensome now.

Effy pressed her left hand to the wall and kicked, the black shape materializing slowly, like something moving under ice. She reached out and touched it again, trying to get a sense of its size. Rotted, ancient wood fell away under her hand.