A Song of Redemption

by Lillian I Wolfe

  “You learn something new every day,” I said as Orielle laughed. “I suppose you knew that?” I glared at her.

  As we zipped past Capri from about a half-mile out, I got a chance to see the various colored houses and gleaming white buildings that nestled on the sloping side of the limestone cliffs. This was the gentle side of the island, Lucca informed us. We were continuing on around to the less accessible side.

  I sighed. The little city appeared so inviting, although it would be packed with herds of tourists in the summer when most people came here. At this time, the air was chilly enough that I needed my sweater, so a resort was not as popular. To my thinking, it might be the ideal time to visit.

  Houses and businesses continued further down the coastline, then the limestone cliffs got more perpendicular with no flat surfaces for building. Through the clear aqua-shaded water, I could see layers of stone going deep below the water. In places, it was shallow enough to walk ashore, but not many places to go once you got there. In other spots, the deep blue hinted at depths that went on for hundreds of feet.

  I turned to glance at the wooden chest that held the life jackets and wondered how long it would take to access and put them on in case of an emergency? How well did Ferko know this coastline?

  A large bay into the steep cliffs came up on the right-hand side as I gazed on the beautiful green water. A small tourist boat bobbed around within the bay.

  “Grotto Verde,” Lucca said. “A popular tourist attraction, although the Blue Grotto is the more famous. It is on the other side of the island. Our destination is coming up soon now.”

  He pivoted and crossed to the chest, opening it to pull out three life jackets. Coming back, he handed one to Orielle, one to me, and taking off his coat, he began to put the last one on. Stupidly, I held the vest in my hand like I had no idea what it was.

  “Why are we putting these on?” Orielle had the wits to ask.

  “It is a precaution. We will be wading ashore from the place Ferko anchors the boat. It can be slippery on the rocks. The water can pull you under easily, so just in case you slip and cannot get a foothold, you won’t go under before we can help you.”

  Nobody had mentioned that sooner. While I wasn’t afraid of the water and could swim, I couldn’t be called a sea sprite. I was strictly a swimming pool kind of girl, so this made me a little nervous. But having been forewarned, I left my phone on the boat rather than risk losing it in the water. I took off my sweater and put the vest on securing it as he showed us.

  Ferko slowed and pulled in closer to the shoreline while I studied it with concern. In some places, the area was shallow, maybe only four feet deep along narrow ledges above the deeper sea stacks, but most didn’t give you any place to go once you reached the edge of the shore. The boat came to a near crawl, and as Ferko edged it into the land, I perceived where he was taking it. In one area a couple of fingers of rock jutted out several feet into the deeper water making a natural landing for the shallow draw speedboat. He pulled in as close as he could with the boat almost beached and dropped the anchor.

  Alongside, the clear water looked to be about three feet deep. I’d worn tennis shoes, and I now reached down to take them off as did Orielle and Lucca, then we hung them around our necks. Ferko would stay with the boat and keep watch in case we ran into any trouble. Why did I not have a good feeling about this?

  Lucca went over the side first and was almost up to his waist in the water. More importantly, the rock seemed stable as he offered his hand to Orielle, who slipped over the side next. The sea came higher on Orielle, who was slightly shorter than me, sloshing almost to her bust. Taking a deep breath filled with the salty scent of sea water, I took Lucca’s hand and slid over the side, my feet touching down on the rough rocky surface below the cold water. If I’d expected pleasant warm water at this time of year, my view changed immediately. The sooner we were out of this, the better.

  Lucca led the way, moving carefully over the rough rock until we reached the strip of dry rock where we could pause and put our shoes back on before we cut our feet on the harsh edges. That done, he led us along the strip, going upward until it gave way to a broader area above it. Here a ravine, filled with bushes and shrubs that thrived on the sandstone and limestone cliffs, sloped up toward the crest of the bluff. From this vantage, it looked to be at least five hundred feet above us. Lucca paused to double-check his GPS, then started to climb up the ravine.

  “It is not too steep,” he called back, “and you can use the plants to help pull you up if you need more leverage.”

  Orielle motioned for me to go in front of her, probably because she had experience at this and I didn’t. I looked for purchase for my foot and began the climb behind the Italian mountain goat. On the other hand, it provided an enticing view of his rear in those snug pants.

  Yanking on bush limbs to help give me stability, I followed behind him as quickly as I felt safe doing. Orielle’s huffs and grunts from below me provided gratification that I wasn’t the only one struggling with the climb. A tiny pebble somehow worked its way into my shoe that made my foot uncomfortable as I tried to wedge it into a small crevice next to a shrub. I curled my toes and nearly lost my footing.

  Grabbing the central stalk of the bush, my heart beat wildly with fear the roots would rip out of the rock. But, settled solidly into the stone, it held allowing me to work my foot back into place. Below me, I’d heard Orielle gasp, so I shouted down that I was okay. I hadn’t expected to be rock climbing today.

  A few feet further up, Lucca had come to a cluster of bushes and shoved one away completely. I blinked. A fake bush? Clearly on a ledge now, he knelt and reached his hand down to me. As I grasped it, he pulled me the rest of the way up.

  “Is this it?” I asked.

  He gave me a serious look and said, “No. I make a mistake. We are in the wrong place.”

  My mouth dropped open, and I pulled my fist into a ball with my annoyance. He led us to the wrong iffing place? How incompetent was he? I was ready to explode.

  Then, he started laughing and knelt to offer Orielle his hand at just the time I was ready to throw him off the cliff. “I am joking. We are here.”

  “You ass,” I muttered under my breath. He thought that was a good joke? Furious, I moved further onto the ledge and saw the almost five-foot-high cave opening ahead of me. Cautiously, I stepped into it a little, not going any further than I could see the solid ground under my feet while I waited for my eyes to adjust.

  In another minute, the other two joined me, and Lucca stepped to the front. “We will go in about twenty feet before it drops to the grotto. It’s a ten-foot climb down to the portal. There are indentations in the rock where you can place your hands and feet. It is safe if you go slowly. I will go first. The portal is another opening to the side, like a vent tunnel.”

  As he spoke, my eyes adapted and the grotto wasn’t as dark as I’d thought. An opening to the sky was higher up at the top of the cliff, which was still a long way up. I followed him as he led us to the edge, then leaned my head over for a peek. Enough light came through that I could see the walls and note the cuts in the rock that Lucca had indicated. From the look of them, I thought they’d been chiseled into the stone for whoever had researched and closed the portal.

  It got darker as the grotto went down, and I heard a slosh of water hitting the cliff. “What’s below?”

  “It is a sea grotto. The opening feeding it is under the sea, about ten feet below where we came in.”

  “So, the drop to it is about fifty feet,” I asked with tension in my voice. This would not be a place to lose my footing.

  He pulled out climbing ropes from his backpack and wrapped it around his waist, then handed one to each of us. “There are hooks just over the edge. Attach your rope to one, then if you slip, you will not fall more than twenty feet then we can pull you back up.”

  I followed his instructions as I moved to the edge and worked the clip to the hook as I lowered myself ove
r. After a minutes or so of working my foot across the surface and having to stretch a bit, I found the first notch with my foot and lowered myself down until I could dig my hand into it, then began easing my way down awkwardly. “The spacing of the notches may be a hard stretch for you, Orielle,” I called back up to her as she began to climb over the side. Ten feet can seem like a long way when you’re inching your way down in terror.

  Lucca reached it, swinging into the opening, and disappearing from view. A few moments later, he poked his head out and leaned to grab me as I came even with him. He latched onto my arm, yanking me in, and I ducked my head as I swung into the cave-sized opening. I slid to the back where he’d turned on a flashlight and peered at the closed gateway while he retrieved Orielle.

  Like Gavin, the team here had closed the opening with a natural-looking plaster mixed with mud and pebbles. I pressed my hand against the edge where the original stone was and tried to sense something from it. If they’d secured it and warded the entry, then there would be nothing to read here. If not, then I would likely get some indication of a yiaiwa or some other evil presence. To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect.

  “What is this stone?” I asked, noting it wasn’t limestone or sandstone like most of the island. It felt much harder.

  “We are not sure,” Lucca answered. “Tests show it might be granite, but that is not part of the geology for this island.”

  “Might be?” I questioned as I touched the surface again, noting it felt smoother than I expected.

  “Some aspects are not typical, but it is the closest we could come.”

  Orielle seemed to have a better idea for checking it out. Stepping up, she lifted the flashlight and ran it all along the edges, her eyes narrowing as she did. She pressed her fingers to the seam where it met the original stone and ran them all along it. She stepped back, whispered some foreign words, and stared at it. Curious, I looked at it also, seeing nothing different. Apparently, she did.

  “It’s not secure enough,” she announced. “The work is not adequately sealed. How did they do it?”

  Lucca frowned at her, then shrugged. “I think Holy Water and a prayer. I do not know.”

  “That would not be enough. Did you feel anything, Gillian?”

  “No. But I only barely touched it.”

  “Try again. Do you recall the chant?”

  I shot a sharp glance at her. “Do you think it would work better this time than the last time? Do we need the incense?”

  “I think using a protective oil will be enough. The chant may seal it.”

  She thought? Did we really want to do this with a maybe?

  I leaned closer to the portal and moved my hand around it hoping to pick up something from it. My fingers rubbed against something metal embedded in the granite, and I tapped Orielle’s arm, indicating to shine the light there. A silvery object, something that looked like a quarter-sized disc with a symbol scratched into it gleamed in the glow.

  She moved in to look at it and shook her head. “I do not know that one.”

  I cleared my mind and reached for anything attached to it. A murky image came through, a dark place with the scent of sulfur, a flickering flame against a wall, and heat warming the room as someone worked to shape the metal. A face appeared against the wall, red-eyed, but human-looking with dark olive skin. Belphegor.

  I knew it in a heartbeat, and I yanked my hand back. I breathed his name out, “Belphegor... This is Belphegor’s sign.”

  “You are certain,” she asked.

  I nodded as Orielle poured oil on her fingertips and rubbed it over the top, mumbling a protection spell as she did.

  I sensed evil coming. I didn’t know how, but I knew it. “We’ve got to get out of here. Now!” I grabbed Orielle’s shoulder and pulled her away from the wall. “Get going, Lucca. Get to the top and pull us up as we start climbing. We don’t have much time.”

  Thankfully, he didn’t hesitate to question, but hurried to the exit and started back up the wall. I shoved Orielle ahead of me, readying myself to follow when I felt a chill enter the grotto. “Go! Hurry!”

  I spun around, hands already raised, in time to see a pacura yiaiwa speeding toward me and barely six feet away. I threw both palms forward, fingers spread open, and a blast of white light energy shot into the attacker. It hit dead center, repelling it back across the grotto. I jumped onto my rope, climbing as quickly as I could toward Lucca, who was just hauling Orielle over the edge. I’d made it half-way up when the icy blast hit me.

  With a creaking sound and a crack, the rope snapped.

  My scream echoed in the grotto as I plunged toward the water fifty-five feet below me.

  Chapter 19

  IT TAKES ABOUT TWO seconds to fall fifty feet. Not a lot of time but long enough for me to figure I'd be joining Janna in the ethereal cemetery once I hit the water below. If nothing else, I'd be able to drag her foolish spirit through the gate and into the light before any of the yiaiwas came after me. The only things in my favor going into the water were that my body was still perpendicular because I was too scared to move, and I was wearing the life vest, which gave me some buoyancy.

  My feet hit the water, and I slid in with a bit of splash, going under for about eight feet, and worrying that I would run out of water before I hit bottom, before my body began popping back to the surface. My head came up, and I gasped for air, getting a bit of seawater along with it. I choked and coughed, spitting it out and flailing my arms around like an idiot,

  Once I realized I was still alive and relatively uninjured, I gathered my wits and began dog paddling. Although I was in about a ten-foot round pool of water, it was being fed by the sea on the other side of the rocks to the west, whichever direction that was. I was turned around and uncertain. The waves still sent undercurrents and tows, so I needed to find something to grab before I lost the strength to continue to fight the waves. With this in mind, I paddled toward the closest wall and began grasping at the rock, hoping to find anything jutting out. The water kept trying to pull me back and down as I fought against it, struggling to keep to the side.

  I heard Orielle screaming my name, but it sounded so distant. She and Lucca must still be in the cave, trying to see me or see if I was alive. From down here, it looked pretty dark, and although I could see the small opening at the top of the chimney of rock, it didn't give me enough to make out any details. Pushing myself against the side again, I resumed the search for a jagged edge of the rock to grasp.

  Ultimately, it took five tries, five times of being sucked away from the wall, to finally locate a slim, yet sturdy enough piece of stone that I could grab it and hold on. Now I knew what a bug felt like when I flushed it down the drain.

  I held on for my life and bobbed up to grab a deep breath of air, then dropped down again, the vest keeping me above the waterline, but not so much that I didn't dip into it up to my chin. After I caught my breath, I yelled back to Orielle, who still called my name every minute or so. “I'm here! Hanging on to a rock, but here.”

  She hollered something else, but I couldn't make it out. I think she said the word help in there somewhere. At least, I hoped she said they were getting help. I knew Lucca had brought the climbing ropes and maybe he had more in his backpack to help rescue me. I squinted up in hopes of seeing a line snaked down to me. But if I was on the wrong side of the grotto, then I might not see it, or I'd have to try to work my way around to reach it. I wasn't sure I could do that. It would mean fighting the tow of the water as it tried to pull me away from the edge. Already, I felt weary with having to hold on, and I shivered from the cold.

  Between the chill of the sea and the cold blast from the yiaiwa, I felt frozen. How long could I last? Worse, was the yiaiwa still around and would it try to finish me off while I clung here like a drowned rat?

  Feeling doomed, I pushed up against the side again and pressed my head against my hand, hoping to keep it above water for a while longer. Lucca yelled something, but the words didn't m
ake it to me. Even though they echoed in the grotto, I couldn’t hear them clear enough.

  Or maybe I was losing my hearing. How much time had passed? I shivered, certain I wouldn't be able to last much longer and figuring help was out of reach before I succumbed to the cold sea. Ferris would never forgive me for this.

  Hang in there, hunny.

  The words echoed in my head as I felt something lifting me up a little more, lessening my weight in the water, so it didn't take so much effort to hold on.

  “Janna? Are you here?” I whispered, not daring to believe that her spirit could possibly be helping me.

  Right with you, Gilly. Help is coming.

  About that time, I saw a pair of burning red eyes coming toward me. I screamed, bringing my free hand up hoping I had enough strength to send a blast at it. A sharp wave of energy surged through my body As I flung my hand in a pointed cone straight at the middle of the glowing red dots, a stream of energy burst out.

  A shriek echoed through the grotto as the yiaiwa broke apart in front of my eyes, then vanished altogether, lost in the dark or another dimension. Gone.

  The energy burst left me feeling weaker than ever with no support remaining. My hand slipped on the rock, and my teeth chattered as the cold shock rolled through my body. I couldn't fight it anymore.

  I felt the water pulling me toward the middle where it might tug me down in spite of the vest. A big enough receding wave could create enough power to yank me under. How deep was the water here?

  I closed my eyes, waiting. Then a reddish glow through the lids forced them open as a glow came toward me. A light for me? Was this the tunnel of light?

  A strong arm grabbed my arm pulling me toward its owner, then it wrapped around my waist. I felt the tug as I began rising out of the water toward the ledge.

  Who? A man's arm, but not Lucca, I thought. I felt dizzy and tired as I fought to stay conscious. Or maybe I was already out, and this was a hallucination?