“It’s okay, I’ve got it.”
“Sawyer, Sasha.” Doyle looked toward the wheelhouse and Riley. “You want to argue over who mans the harpoon?”
“We’ll switch off. I pilot, you take the harpoon. You pilot, I take it.”
“Fair enough.”
Riley stopped the boat, pointed. “First cave on today’s list is at about two o’clock, and about twelve feet under to the entrance. A narrow channel opens up into a canyon after about forty feet. It’s a tricky dive for a novice.”
“I’ll be fine,” Sasha stated, pulling on her wet suit.
“You passed novice stage in Corfu.” After stripping down, Riley reached for her own wet suit. “The mouth’s small, we have to go in single file—and it’s easy to miss.”
“I can find it.” Geared up, Annika sat on the side of the boat. Then doing what she wanted most at that moment, she rolled backward into the sea.
Though the pull was to go down and down, she surfaced immediately. It was enough, for now, just to feel the sea around her. She waved to the others.
“You’ve got to give us a minute here.” On deck, Riley hauled on her tanks.
Content, Annika swam around the boat, under it, careful to keep in sight, to stay aware, but basking in the feel of home.
When she circled again, she saw Sawyer. He pointed to his camera, so she posed, turning upside down as if doing a handstand.
She felt Sasha enter the water, then Bran. Moments later, Riley and Doyle. At Bran’s signal, she flipped around, swam ahead.
But not fast, she reminded herself, pacing herself with Sawyer, tuning herself to the others as she would to a school of fish or others like her. A knowing.
Fish swam by without a thought for them. She felt the slow pulse of a starfish that slept on a rock, heard the quiet fanning of sea grasses.
She felt Sawyer’s heartbeat—not so slow as the starfish, but steady and calm. His movements, and the others, came to her like whispers.
Deeper yet, she saw the mouth, gestured, but realized the others couldn’t see it as she did. So she gestured again, continued to go down. She waited until the others were ready before sliding into the opening.
Fearless, Sawyer thought. In the water, she was fearless. And impossibly graceful. She moved through the narrow channel like the water itself, in a flow. The walls narrowed, barely wide enough for a man to pass, and the light went murky. In that narrow space, in that murky light, she turned, swimming backward. Though he couldn’t see her face, he knew she smiled, probably counted heads before she turned again, continued on.
He saw an eel curled along a crevice in the rock, and hoped it stayed where it was. He wasn’t fond of anything resembling snakes.
The walls widened, then opened into the canyon. There the light shifted, just enough. He could see, high above, openings in the cliff that let the light leak through.
They spread out, two by two, to search. More, he thought, hoping Sasha might sense something, as she had with the Fire Star. He looked for anything unusual: a formation of rock, a change in the water, a flicker of light.
He nearly panicked when he lost sight of Annika, circled fast. He pulled out his knife, started to rap the hilt against rock to draw the attention of the others. Then saw her rising up from the dark below.
She took his hands quickly, squeezed them, released them to rub hers on his cheeks.
Doyle signaled time. Annika took Sawyer’s hand again, tugged him toward the channel, then slipped into it ahead of him.
By the time he hauled himself onto the boat, she’d pulled off her mask. “Your heart beat so fast!”
“What?”
“In the canyon, at the end, it beat.” She slapped her hand rapidly on her own heart. “Why?”
“I couldn’t find you.”
“I was right under you. Just deeper, to look. I could always see you.”
“I couldn’t see you. We couldn’t see you,” he added.