‘It’s here,’ says David. He lets go of my hand.
I look up into his face and see a faraway fascination, eyes glazed, lips loose.
‘What is it?’
‘The colours. Don’t you see them?’
Geoff comes up to join us. ‘It’s beautiful,’ he says. ‘Like a rainbow. A trail. Leading inside.’
A shout cuts through the silence of the mountain. I spin round. Arnie is on his knees, his back to us, bent forward at the waist, his hands over his face. I run to him. There is blood on his fingers; he is clawing at his eyes, gouging. I take his hands and try to force them down but he’s strong, so strong. I can’t stop him from putting his fingernails into the corners of his eyes and ripping, ripping. David and Geoff grab him, wrestle him, until they have him still, lying on his back on the ground. He stops struggling and starts whispering. I put my ear to his lips, and hear, ‘Not any more, not see any more, no colours, no colours.’
David says to me, ‘Can you hold him while I get the first aid kit?’
I put my hands on Arnie’s chest and David slips off the backpack he’s wearing, then crouches over it, searching through the pockets. I can’t look at Arnie’s face, his ruined eyes. I stare at his hands, lying placidly on the ground. They are slick with his blood.
David unzips a small green case and unwraps a sterile gauze pad, then snips lengths of surgical tape to hold it in place over Arnie’s eye socket. He repeats the action for the other socket. I want to scream at him, tell him to run for help, find a hospital – shouldn’t we all be in the car, breaking speed limits, looking for doctors? But he snips the gauze, methodically, and Geoff watches the procedure with interest.
White tape knitting the remains of his face together, the gauze already staining pink, Arnie lies still, unmoving. I stand up. The broken rocks of the mountains form asymmetrical grey and brown patterns to the sea, which stretches onwards, like the promise of a calmness to come. But not now. Something is building. I can feel it.
‘The colours,’ whispers Arnie, and then he wails, like a dog hit by a car, a noise of such pain and fear that I can’t bear it. I step back; I want to be away from him, my own father, and I would rather that I died than have to hear that sound. He gets to his feet. I take his arms and he shakes me off, then starts to walk, fast, up the path that leads to the higher peaks of the mountains; he doesn’t need eyes, I don’t know how he’s doing it, but he’s climbing higher, leaving the path, dropping to his hands and moving like an animal over the rocks and stones, at speed.
‘Dad!’ I shout after him. He doesn’t look back. I run to David, pull at his arms. ‘Go after him!’
‘No. That’s his choice.’
‘He’s not… He’s damaged himself, he needs…’
David and Geoff turn back to the mouth of the cave. I can hear Arnie’s wails, getting further away, and I never wanted things to be like this, never; this is why I came here by myself. This is not what I wanted. I have to keep them safe. I have to go in alone. I pull myself up straight, try to take control.
‘Get Arnie. Drive him to hospital. Come back for me later.’
David grabs my wrist. ‘No,’ he says. ‘You and Geoff stay here.’
‘No, that’s not—’
‘This is right. I know it. Arnie said it.’
‘No.’ I try to break free, but his grip is so strong. ‘David. Please.’
He kisses me on the forehead, and I hate him for it. The hate, the wash of it over me, unravels my decisions, my certainty, and I feel my face contorting, my tears spilling.
‘Geoff, this is your job. Keep her safe. Keep her out of the cave.’
Geoff nods, very seriously.
‘I love you,’ David tells me, but I can tell he’s already thinking of the colours, the wonderful colours that Moira brings to the world, and he is going to find her and stay with her, because he won’t be able to stop her. And I am a puddle on the floor, I am all tears and no spine, just a woman, a typical weak woman, unable to do anything but wait and despair in equal measure.
He lets me go, and takes off his backpack once more, digging around inside it to produce a small silver flask. He unscrews the lid.
‘Do you know what this is?’
‘I…’
‘Rebecca and Inger sent it to me. It came from your basement.’
There was nothing left from the basement, not after the collapse. I think through what remained: a few pieces of paper, random pages from declarations and one barrel of water. Moira’s water. Her essence, contained in the liquid. Used in tiny amounts to give men a taste of her power.
David is about to drink it.
‘No,’ I tell him, ‘I don’t know what that will do to you.’
He strokes my face, and in that gesture I realise I no longer know him. Even before he drinks, before he faces the monster, he has become a stranger, a protagonist in some terrible tale in which I was never going to be important. He is going on without me, just as it should be. As Moira wants it.
He puts the flask to his lips and drinks. His throat moves, the swallowing motion, so calm, so controlled. He drinks it all, then takes a torch from his backpack, and walks away from me.
I watch him go into the cave. My failure skewers me, drops me to my knees, and Geoff stands over me as I mourn.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The first three caves were easy to negotiate. Not only were the paths clearly set out for the tourists, but the rainbow led him onwards. As long as he stayed in its stream, he felt the rightness of his route.
The third cave was smaller, and at the point that the path ended, the orange rope tied up on the final metal ring to form a double knot, the rainbow took over completely, pulling him towards the darkest area where it disappeared abruptly. David followed, found a hole in the stone walls that became a tunnel, where the rainbow pattern stretched onwards, slow-motion, like an undulating ribbon caught in the currents of the sea. He flicked on the torch, and the rainbow disappeared. Instead there was only the length of the narrowing tunnel, regular and smooth, leading downwards to what looked like a dead end – a fall of rocks and earth. He dropped the torch and wriggled his way into the tunnel, trying not to think of how he might not be able to turn around in such a small space.
The hard, packed surface at the end of the tunnel was as deliberate as a wall. Could the monster have placed it there? David put his palms to the rocks and pushed, and it did not give. He punched it, short jabs of his fist, as there was no space to bend back his elbow for a larger blow. After five attempts he felt the skin on his knuckles split, and the pain of it lanced through him, fierce and prophetic. It awoke the liquid in his stomach, and he felt it expand, grow warm, uncurl through his veins, snakes of intent, of meaning. They took him over, slid out through his fingertips like the tendrils of plants and slid between the cracks in the rock surface, so that the stones trembled, shuddered, collapsed into water, breaking like bubbles. The tendrils receded and the water filled up the tunnel. The light of the torch fizzled and died, and it was easy to see the rainbow once more, to swim along its wake.
The tunnel widened and David changed from dog-paddle to breaststroke, kicking out his feet. The trail tilted upwards, and he angled his body to follow, feeling the beginning of pain in his lungs, the constriction of his throat, the demand for oxygen, shouting for it, screaming, and the involuntary breath that followed, allowing the water to enter him, sink into his chest, icy stones.
It didn’t hurt any more. He swam on in perfect silence, encased in water.