She’d have been alarmed if his wave hadn’t been so blatantly cheerful. Instead she felt a spurt of excitement.
“What is it?” she panted when she skidded to a stop before him.
“There’s a cave up there. I can’t get to it, but if I boost you up, you should be able to reach the edge.”
She took his hand when he reached for her, and stepped up to join him on the wide ledge. The next flat surface was at least seven feet up.
Nick laced his fingers together and leaned over to offer a step up. That fall he’d taken a few days before had changed her perspective on heights, but Cyn gulped back her fear and settled her boot into the cradle he’d made.
“One, two, three.” Nick tossed her up high enough that she could get a firm hold on the edge of a rock. Then he put the heels of his hands beneath her boot and pushed her higher. Cynthia simply rose up on the strength of his arms, until she could get her hands beneath her and hook a knee onto the surface.
Crawling quickly away from the edge, it took her a moment to realize what was right in front of her, but when she rose up to her knees, Cynthia froze.
“How does it look?” Nick called.
It looked…like a cave. A real cave, not some hollow in the rock pretending at cave-dom. Her knees shook when she rose to her feet.
“Cyn?”
“It’s a cave!” she screamed, jumping up and down. Only a tiny bit though. The open air hovered a foot behind her.
“Good,” she heard him call from below.
“No!” She spun around and edged forward so that she could see him. “It’s a real cave, Nick! You’ve got to get up here.”
His eyebrows flew nearly to his hairline. “Is there something solid you can tie the rope to?”
After glancing around, she gestured for the rope, then tied it to a narrow outcropping that climbed nearly vertical at the mouth of the cave. Within moments, Nick was standing beside her, panting.
“You weren’t kidding,” he gasped. “That really is a cave
.”
“I know!” Forgetting the tension that had stretched between them all morning, Cyn grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the opening. He tugged her just as quickly behind him.
“Let me go first. We have no idea what it’s like in there.”
Once they got past the bright reach of daylight, Cyn was glad she’d conceded the lead. The roof of the cave sat low, so that even she had to bend her head. Any time her cloak brushed the ceiling, shards rained down, peppering her shoulders with rock. She tried very hard not to notice the spiders that scrambled away as her feet slid on the rough debris littering the floor. If there were cobwebs, Nick was clearing them for her.
“Keep close,” he ordered, tightening his hold on her hand.
“Don’t worry,” she muttered back. The air around them grew dimmer, the walls crept closer.
“Ow.” Pebbles rained down as Nick rubbed the crown of his head. “I think the end’s ahead. Either that or the floor drops out completely and that’s why I can’t see anything.”
“You’re not making me feel better!”
His chuckle rumbled through the cave like a dragon awakening. His foot slid loudly against the floor, and she hoped that meant he was feeling his way carefully and not tumbling over the edge. She squeezed his hand even tighter.
“Definitely the end.”
Peeking over his shoulder, she could just make out the shape of his fingers resting against a pale surface. Her eyes adjusted as she stared, until she could see his fingernails too, and the pockmarked texture of the rock. A musty odor filled her nose as she turned carefully to look around her.
“Smells like something died in here,” she murmured. “Do you see anything?”
“Not yet.”
She watched in amazement as he began running his hands along little ledges without any hesitation at all. Aside from the spiders she knew were there, she suspected more bones. Or maybe something not quite dried out yet.