Swim Deep - Page 62

Valeria turned in the water in front of me and pointed down. I nodded and followed her down the vast, vertical stone wall. I’d never seen anything like it. It was epic in size. We were like little ants scurrying in the water in front of it.

We descended along the wall, forty feet, fifty feet. It gave me some kind of primitive, primal feeling of mingled awe and fear. I remembered how the scuba guide Evan had hired had told us jokingly about the famous diver Jacques Cousteau. Rumor had it that years ago, Cousteau went scuba diving in Lake Tahoe. He emerged from the water and appeared to be emotionally shaken. “The world is not ready for what I have seen,” Cousteau allegedly said.

I had no problem believing that rumor as Valeria and I swam deeper along that enormous stone wall, Valeria slightly ahead of me. The light deepened to a gloomy cobalt blue. Despite the sound of air gurgling from my buoyancy-compensating device, I was struck by an overwhelming sense of silence and stillness.

At around sixty feet below the surface, Valeria paused ahead of me and waved her arms in excitement. I swam deeper and realized why. We’d come upon a break in the wall. The underwater cavern opening must have been thirty feet long. I couldn’t even tell how wide it was because the entrance spread so far. Valeria pointed into the hole and made a dive hand signal. I understood. She’d asked if I wanted to enter the large cave opening—not far, just a few feet to look around.

I gave her the “okay” sign in response.

We took out our dive lights. Valeria entered the large cavern first, her light beaming a path. I was relieved to see that the walls were wide and spacious. They shone a ghostly white. I had the brief impression I swam inside a giant stone whale. Adrenaline spiked through me, making my flesh tingle with heat despite the cold just outside my suit.

The tunnel of gray boulders narrowed some, but still, there were no tight spaces that made me claustrophobic or cautious. I shined my light all around the tunnel, seeing smooth stone, cracks, and fissures of various sizes. But I swam in wide-open space. Where my dive light didn’t penetrate, the blackness was so thick it seemed to have weight.

I don’t how long I swam, but suddenly, I realized I was alone. Valeria was nowhere around me. I abruptly stopped swimming, disoriented. How far had I gone? It was almost like I’d lost time there for a moment.

Almost.

I turned. I saw the cobalt blue of the lake beyond the opening of the cavern in the far distance. The cave opening wavered eerily behind Valeria’s oncoming dive light. I blinked and shook my head to clear it. What I saw bore no similarity to what Valeria had suggested with her sign language: a cautious, short entry a few feet into the cave to look around.

Valeria had to be a good forty or fifty feet behind me. I hadn’t even been aware of passing her. I shone my light at her as she swam toward me. She winced as the direct beam hit her face. I quickly tilted my light upward, hovering in the still, icy cold water.

The roof of the cavern went up and up, smooth stretches of granite interspersed with stacks of boulders. I thought I saw something. Acting on impulse, I switched off my dive light.

Up at the very top of the vertical tunnel above me, a light glimmered. I blinked, sure I must be imagining the solitary light.

At the same time, it was almost like I’d expected that light to be there.

Was it somehow a reflection of Valeria’s dive light as she neared me? But no… Valeria shone her dive light downward, just below my fins. Her light dispersed, while the one above me was a solitary pinprick of illumination, like a lit bulb.

That steady light made no sense.

I felt a touch on my shoulder and glanced down, only to see Valeria’s anxious eyes behind her dive mask. A shiver tore through me. She looked strange hovering just a foot or two away from me, the whites of her eyes showing. I couldn’t shake this feeling of eeriness… of the almost preternatural.

She gestured rapidly with her arm toward dark blue mouth of the cave. I nodded, and started to follow her out of the pitch-black cavern. I saw her turn, as if to make sure I followed her. I felt like a naughty child.

I had no idea why I’d swum so deep into that impenetrable darkness alone, or why I’d outdistanced her. It wasn’t at all like me. I’d been a cautious diver from the first, always following a more experienced diver’s lead.

Maybe this whole thing with the discovered box filled with all those sex things had me more bothered than I’d thought.

We surfaced into the blinding sunlight. Once Manny had helped us back onto the cruiser and we were taking off our gear, Valeria demanded to know what I’d been doing.

“Did you see something in the cave?” she asked tensely. “You took off like a torpedo.”

Confronted with her puzzled concern, I couldn’t think of what to say. I didn’t know why I’d swum away from her like that. Everything had gone black there for a period of time. Or it hadn’t, really… I couldn’t explain it. I distantly recalled swimming with a feeling of sure confidence, decisiveness.

Excitement.

“I saw a light,” I blurted out.

The lie had just popped out of my mouth. It wasn’t entirely a lie. I had seen a light, but not until I’d come back to myself and stopped swimming.

“A light?” Valeria asked, shrugging as Manny helped remove her tank.

“Yeah. The ceiling of the cave opened up, and way up high, there was a light.”

“That’s weird,” Valeria mumbled, her gaze on me odd, like I wasn’t exactly what she’d expected.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I swam ahead of you. I won’t do it again.”

Tags: Beth Kery Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net
readsnovelonline.net Copyright 2016 - 2024