“Come on, it’s not that bad. I’m warming up already,” George said, as he swam up to her. “Okay, now follow my light.”
George put the flashlight in his mouth and glided through the darkness, while Lucie swam behind, following the bobbing light. Soon, they were at the mouth of the grotto, which was only about one meter high.
“This is the entrance where the rowboats go in?”
“It’s the one and only entrance,” George said, as he began swimming through the short tunnel. Soon, they were both inside the grotto, its towering limestone walls dimly lit by the weak flashes of light from George’s torch.
“So this is the Blue Grotto. I’m impressed.” Lucie laughed. “This is so silly, I feel like we’re spelunking in the dark.”
“Just wait a few minutes,” George murmured, checking his watch. His timing had been perfect, and it was now exactly 5:45 a.m. Sunrise would come at 5:53 a.m. He turned off his flashlight, and now they were in complete darkness.
“Was this place always here?” Lucie called out.
“It was a cave that formed over millions of years, and the sea level rose up to what it is now,” George replied. “In Roman times, it was the emperor’s private nymphaeum, his bathing temple. I’m sure he got up to all sorts of nasty business here.”
They swam around the grotto for a few minutes, and without warning, there was a sudden flash as the sunlight broke across the horizon, refracting against the deep underwater cavern and transforming the water around them into the most intense azure blue. It was as if Poseidon had flicked on a vast lamp at the bottom of the ocean, flooding the grotto with the purest light.
Lucie gasped in disbelief. She had never seen waters so blue, so bright, so inexplicably beautiful. She felt as though she were suspended in the liquid center of a sparkling aquamarine, as though she were having an out-of-body experience. How was such a place possible? The towering walls of the grotto now glowed in shades of cerulean, and she realized that the cave they were in was far larger than she had imagined. She was overcome with gratitude that she had waited till now, and it was George who had finally brought her here. Tears flowed down her face, mingling with the salty sea as she gazed at everything around her like a newborn, wanting to remember every sight, wanting to remember everything about this moment.
She lazed on her back, feeling absolutely weightless as the waters caressed her skin. She thought of Tiberius, of Caesar Augustus, of all the emperors who had swum these same waters, and she let her mind drift further back in time to commune with all the mythical gods that she knew had a hand in creating this paradise, hoping that they would inspire and heal her.
After a while, she swam over to George as if in a trance. He looked to her like an otherworldly silver merman, and she noticed for the first time that both their bodies shimmered and glowed under the silvery surface of the water. Lucie simply stared into his eyes, too moved to say anything. George stared back at her in that unbearably alluring way of his, and then he broke into a grin, filled with an intense happiness at the sight of her joy. He took her in his arms, and they kissed passionately.
“I love you,” Lucie declared, kissing him again and holding him even more tightly.
“I love you too,” George replied, thinking, We’re going to do this again, and next time I’m bringing a ring.
They kissed for a few more minutes, lingering against each other, and then Lucie let go of George. She drifted with the current for a few moments, and then she raised her arms, kicked against the water with her powerful legs, and began to swim out of the grotto, into the bright new day.