Aunt Dimity and the Deep Blue Sea

by Nancy Atherton

  “He’s young,” I offered.

  “He’s an idiot,” Damian muttered, and charged onward through the fog.

  We came to a halt a short time later. While I caught my breath, Damian peered into the murk, as if to confirm his bearings. He nodded once, then swung around and put his mouth close to my ear.

  “Here’s the plan, Lori,” he whispered. “We’re going to leave the path here, in case they have a lookout posted at the Slaughter Stone. We’ll cut around the side of the hill until we reach the monastery terrace—it’s the highest of the three, remember? Then we’ll see what’s what. Keep close to me and don’t use your torch until I tell you to. No more talking—not even in whispers—from this point on. Understood?”

  I demonstrated my understanding by nodding.

  We boosted ourselves over the edge of the sunken path and began to climb. The hill was steep and the long grass was infuriatingly slick, but although I slipped and slid and bashed my knees repeatedly on half-buried rocks, I managed to keep my vow of silence. More important, I managed to keep up with Damian, who was as goat-footed as Peter.

  I was greatly relieved when we came across a sheep track, where the grass was sparse and the footing a trifle less treacherous. We followed the faint trail as it curved around the side of the hill, until our boots hit close-cropped grass and level ground. We’d reached the outer edge of the highest terrace.

  Damian motioned for me to crouch beside him while he surveyed the ruins. They gave me the willies. The plundered monastery’s skeletal remains loomed before us in the moonlight. Shreds of mist drifted like ghosts between the stunted pillars and clung like cobwebs to the broken arches. Shallow pools of vapor swirled sinuously along the ground, obscuring the foundation stones and curling like smoke around the crumbling walls. The only element missing from the magnificently haunting scene was the soul-rending scream of a massacred monk.

  Fortunately, the only sound to reach my straining ears was the muted gurgle of the spring-fed brook tumbling merrily downhill, and though I stared long and hard at our surroundings, I couldn’t see so much as a flicker of light glimmering in the gloom. It seemed to me that if a gang of thuggish islanders were grilling Peter in the ruins, they were being extraordinarily stealthy about it. The monastery appeared to be deserted.

  Damian evidently agreed with my assessment, because he put his lips close to my ear and whispered, “They may have taken him somewhere else, but we’ll have a look round, just in case.”

  We crawled from the edge of the terrace to the heap of stones that was all that remained of the church’s north wall. Damian stepped over the stones, bent low, and turned on his hooded flashlight. Tendrils of fog wrapped the narrow beam in a gossamer veil as he swung it from side to side, scanning the ground for clues. I moved beside him, my eyes trained on the cracked and pitted slabs that paved the church’s central aisle until he flung an arm across me and knocked me flat onto my bottom.

  I swallowed an indignant croak and stayed where I was, wondering what had set him off. Rolling onto my knees, I followed the ghostly thread of light from his flashlight as he inched toward the church’s eastern end, where an incised memorial tablet marked the burial site of a long-forgotten churchman. I raised myself higher, to get a better view, and clapped a hand over my mouth to suppress a gasp.

  The tablet had been moved.The great stone slab had been raised like a door on hinges, and in its place a chasm yawned, a passage hewn from solid rock, with steep steps plunging into utter blackness.

  I sat back on my heels, stunned by the chilling realization that Damian had very probably saved my life. If he hadn’t seen the peril in time and knocked me flat, I would almost certainly have crawled into the hole and tumbled headlong down the precarious stone stairs. I instantly forgave him for manhandling me and crept forward until I reached the lip of the yawning cavity. Coils of fog wafted down a staircase that was so steep it was nearly vertical.

  Not one fiber in my being wanted to find out where the staircase led, but fond thoughts of Peter and his parents enabled me to override every particle of my common sense and a significant percentage of my terror. I pointed first at Damian, then at myself, and finally at the chasm, insistently.

  He understood, although he didn’t approve. He tried to convince me, through mime, to wait in the church while he explored the dark passage, but the notion of huddling alone in the ruins while he descended to his doom must have ignited lightning bolts of dread in my eyes, because he soon gave up. I could go with him, he gestured, but only if he went first. I nodded my heartfelt assent.

  Damian slung his lanyard around his neck and threaded it through the snaps on his rain jacket, until only the tip of the hooded flashlight protruded, pointing downward. The staircase was so steep at any rate that he had to descend it facing inward, as if it were a ladder, so the light was further shielded by his body.

  I quickly arranged my flashlight in the same fashion, turned it on, and followed him onto the staircase. It was like climbing into a coffin-shaped manhole, though the passage became rounder and more constricted as we descended. A fat man would have had great difficulty following us—he would have gotten stuck like a cork in a bottle less than halfway down.

  The stone steps were deep, evenly spaced, and smoothly carved, but there were a lot of them. My knees were complaining, and I was beginning to think we’d end up treading the seabed when Damian tapped my boot to signal that he’d reached the bottom.

  I descended the last few steps, and he caught me around the waist as my feet touched the ground, as if he expected my knees to buckle. When they did, he eased me into a sitting position on what felt like a soft mound of sand.

  I could hear the far-off boom of crashing surf and smell a mingled scent of brine and seaweed, but I couldn’t see a thing beyond the small circle of light in my lap, where my flashlight was pointing. My hands were so cold that I had difficulty disentangling the lanyard from the snaps on my rain jacket, but Damian retrieved his light easily and proceeded to check out our surroundings.

  “We seem to have the place to ourselves. There’s no sign of—” He stopped short on a swift intake of breath.

  “See something?” I whispered, still tugging on the lanyard.

  “Oh,” he said softly. “Oh, dear.”

  An odd note in his voice made me look up.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He said nothing. His light was traveling in a wide arc around the floor, sliding slowly over a group of curious rock formations that seemed strangely familiar to me. I stared at them intently, turning my head to follow the path of the circling beam, until my brain finally caught up with my widening eyes.

  Goose bumps rippled all up and down my arms. If my hair hadn’t been tucked into a stocking cap, it would have stood on end. My aching knees twitched, as though willing me to flee back up the stairs, but my legs refused to move. I uttered a quavering moan, released the tangled lanyard, and pressed both of my hands to my mouth.

  The staircase had deposited us in what appeared to be a natural cavern, roughly circular in shape, with a sand-covered floor and a vaulted roof. There were three low, irregular openings in the chamber’s jagged walls, leading to further passages or perhaps to other caves. I didn’t particularly care where they went. My mind was wholly focused on the skeletons.

  They lay on their backs with their heads to the walls and their feet pointing inward, as if stretched out for a communal snooze—hollow-eyed skulls, knobbly vertebrae, the diminutive bones of fingers and toes, all in their proper order and tidily arranged, as if awaiting the arrival of an anatomist. By the time Damian had finished turning a complete circle, the beam of light had played over the grisly remains of some forty human beings.

  While I sat rigid with horror, Damian squatted to inspect a set of bones. He rolled a skull onto its side, touched a finger to a rib, a femur, a scapula. He did the same thing with the next skeleton and the next, until he’d worked his way around the charnel house. Then he stood and sho
ne his light in my direction.

  “You were right, Lori,” he remarked mildly. “The monks did run and hide.”

  “It’s the monks?” I exclaimed, sending echoes reverberating through the cavern. “Oh, thank heavens. ” I breathed a shuddering sigh of relief and leaned my forehead on my hand. “I mean, it’s dreadful and I feel sorry for the poor guys, may they rest in peace, but they died a long time ago. I was afraid we’d found evidence of a . . . a more recent mass murder. Are you sure it’s the monks?”

  Damian came to sit beside me on the sandy mound, as if to reassure me with his presence.

  “The monks were living in turbulent times,” he said. “They knew that their monastery was a likely target for Viking raids. They must have made an escape route for themselves, carving a passage from their church to the caves below and concealing the entrance with the false memorial tablet. Unfortunately, their hiding place was discovered. Perhaps the raiders had encountered the same sort of thing in other monasteries and knew where to look.” Damian reached over to untangle the mess I’d made of my lanyard. “Do you remember what Sir Percy told us about the skull your sons found in the cove?”

  “He could tell by its color that it was old,” I replied. “He also mentioned, in his colorful way, that it was cracked like a soft-boiled egg.”

  “These bones are similarly discolored,” said Damian, jutting his chin toward our silent companions, “and they show telltale signs of traumatic injuries. The raiders may have found the monks trying to escape and hurled them down the staircase.”

  “Clever of them to land in a circle,” I remarked dubiously.

  “Do you think we’re the first people to set eyes on this place since the eighth century?” Damian asked. “I expect an islander discovered the monks’ mortal remains many years ago—perhaps hundreds of years ago—and rearranged them, as a sign of respect. I find it rather touching.”

  “I find it unspeakably creepy,” I said, with feeling. “Can we leave now? The monks, God rest their souls, won’t help us to find Peter.”

  “I’m going to look into the side passage first,” said Damian. “I want to find out where they—”

  A faint, grinding thud sounded overhead, rumbled down the stone staircase, and echoed hollowly in the cavern. Damian swore under his breath, pushed himself to his feet, and leapt up the staircase, taking two steps at a time. I stood at the bottom, peering upward, and several long minutes later heard Damian pounding his fist against stone and shouting. After a few more minutes had passed, he began to climb down again. As soon as his hiking boots hit the sand, he reached for my flashlight and turned it off.

  “We’d better conserve the batteries,” he said.

  “Why?” I asked, though my sinking heart told me that I already knew the answer.

  “Because we may be here for some time. Someone closed the memorial tablet, and it’s too heavy for me to lift. I’d no right to call Peter an idiot,” he added, his voice edged with self-reproach. “I’m the idiot. I’ve led you straight into a trap.”

  “Percy will rescue us,” I said promptly. “Call him.”

  “I can’t.” Damian cleared his throat, as if preparing himself to administer another dose of unpleasant news. “My mobile is at the pub, with Cassie.”

  “What?” I cried.

  “My mobile was in the pocket of my blazer,” he explained. “The blazer I wrapped around Cassie. The blazer she was wearing when she returned to the pub with Kate and Elliot. If Mrs. Gammidge hadn’t swaddled her in blankets, I might have remembered it, but . . .” He bowed his head. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah,” I said limply. “So am I.”

  “I doubt that we could have gotten a signal.” He tilted his head back to look at the cavern’s roof. “Too much rock between us and the outside.”

  “That’s a comfort,” I murmured.

  “We’ll be all right,” he said bracingly. “I’ve been in tighter spots than this, and I’ve always found a way out. I just need a moment to think. I’m going to turn off my torch, so have a seat. You’ll be less likely to stumble over . . . things.”

  We sat side by side on the sandy mound near the bottom of the stairs. When Damian’s flashlight went out, we were enclosed in a kind of darkness I’d never before experienced. It was like being buried alive. I waggled my hand in front of my face, but I might as well have been blind. I could see absolutely nothing, but I could feel the hollow-eyed stares of Brother Cieran’s unfortunate brethren. I pulled my knees to my chest and swallowed the surge of panic that threatened to choke me. Damian and I were trapped in a bone-littered cavern, with no means of calling for help.

  “Well,” I said to the darkness, “at least we’re dry.”

  Eighteen

  When Damian failed to respond to my plucky comment, yet another ghastly image rose in my fear-racked brain.

  “We’re going to stay dry, aren’t we?” I asked tremulously. “The ocean isn’t going to rush in here and drown us, is it?”

  “It seems unlikely,” said Damian. “The sand’s bone-dry, if you’ll pardon the expression, and the monks have been here rather longer than we have. Since they haven’t been washed out to sea, it seems safe to assume that we won’t be either.”

  “But one of them was washed out to sea,” I reminded him. “The skull Will and Rob found must have come from here. Percy said it was ancient.”

  “It may have been separated from the rest of the bones,” said Damian. “A few of the monks may have . . .” His words trailed off.

  Five seconds later he switched on his flashlight, stood, and strode purposefully around the cavern, pausing at each of the three low openings in the walls. When I asked what he was doing, he hushed me and kept going. When he reached the third portal, he cocked an ear toward it and inhaled deeply through his nostrils.

  “Yes, this is the one,” he said. “Come with me.” I didn’t need to be told twice. I scrambled to my feet and ran after him, into the opening.

  Damian went forward easily at first but was soon obliged to duck his head to avoid hitting it on the roof. I was, for once, pleased with my notable lack of height. I had no trouble whatsoever walking upright, though I still had to walk attentively—the tunnel’s floor was sprinkled with loose, ankle-turning stones.

  Damian finished his thought as we walked on. “Some of the monks may have gone farther into the caves than the others. They may have tried to escape to the sea. The skull we found in the cove may have belonged to one of them. If I’m right, then we’re following in their footsteps.”

  “Why do we want to follow in their footsteps?” I asked.

  “If this tunnel led them to the sea,” said Damian, “it’ll lead us there, too. It can serve as our escape route.”

  The passage curved abruptly to the right, and the sound of the throbbing surf intensified. A chill breeze began to blow steadily against us. After perhaps thirty yards of downward progress, the passage leveled off and opened out into a much larger chamber. Damian’s light picked out knots of driftwood and tangles of seaweed scattered on the rocky, sand-strewn floor. Ten more strides took us across the chamber to a low archway in the opposite wall. We ducked under the archway and found ourselves looking down on a wondrous sight.

  We were standing on a ledge at the back of a cavern that opened onto the sea. The dense fog had apparently dissipated, because silver flashes of moonlight streaked the foaming waves that surged and crashed against the cave’s glistening walls. The sound was deafening, the tumult stupefying, and we kept well back from the ledge’s slick edge. Damian studied the unearthly scene until spray began to run in rivulets down our rain jackets, then turned around and led the way back through the tunnel to the relative peace and quiet of the monks’ cave.

  “The ledge leads around the wall to the cavern’s mouth,” he informed me upon our arrival. “But it’s no good to us now. The tide is too high. We should be able to get through in a few hours, though.”

  “Get through to what?” I asked, eyeing him
warily. “The cliffs out there are pretty perpendicular.”

  “I can climb them,” Damian said confidently. “You can wait here while I go for help.”

  “I’ll come with you,” I said flatly. “And don’t even try to talk me out of it. I’d rather break my neck falling from a cliff than sit here wondering if you’ve broken yours. Percy knows that we came to the monastery, Damian, but he might not know about the movable tablet or the hidden staircase. If—God forbid—you had an accident on your way to the castle, I could be trapped down here forever. And I simply will not allow you to do any sort of climbing until it’s light out. If you take one step toward that tunnel before sunrise, I’ll knock you senseless, I swear I will.”

  I started crying about halfway through my tirade and kept crying until I reached the end, when I began to sob. It had been a stressful night, and I was temporarily out of pluck. Damian reached toward his trouser pocket and cursed lustily.

  “Damn and blast,” he blustered. “Cassie has my handkerchief as well!”

  It was too much. My fearless bodyguard had been able to contain his temper while a band of murderous thugs kidnapped Peter and sealed us into a secret subterranean tomb, but when it came to a missing handkerchief . . . My sobs turned into a strangled giggle. I pulled a handkerchief out of my jacket pocket, buried my face in it, and sank onto the sand, shaking with laughter.

  “Are you hysterical?” Damian inquired, squatting in front of me. “Should I slap you?”

  “No, thanks,” I said, gasping. “I’ll stop in a minute. I’m s-s-sorry about your hanky.” It was an unwise comment, because it set me off again, but after a few more unsuccessful tries, I managed to regain my composure. “Forgive me, Damian, but you pick the strangest things to get angry about.”

  Damian sat beside me, with his shoulder touching mine, and turned off his flashlight. Darkness swallowed us, but it didn’t bother me as much as it had before. I’d purged my fear with laughter and tears. I could face whatever happened next with still-imperfect but much-improved equanimity.