The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope - By Rhonda Riley Page 0,139

when I’m down there.” He looked straight at me, not smiling anymore but waiting, holding one hand out.

I shook my head again. I wanted to say yes, yes for him, but my fear held like iron.

Adam spoke softly, his face resolved and patient. “I want to show you what I see. I want you to feel what I feel. Come on. For me.”

I curled my hands, digging my fingertips into the bank behind me. Suddenly I remembered how he had done the same, the nights after Jennie and Momma, when he lay under me, arms outstretched, shaking his head but letting me take him all the same. Letting me have him. I had felt the dense coil of pain in him then. But in the end he came with me.

I owed him the same.

I let go of the bank and took his hand. Without a word, he helped me into my tank and fastened the weight belt around my waist. We moved carefully and slowly. He adjusted my mask, smoothed my hair, and pulled me close. “Just relax. I have you. Hold on. Keep a good grip on my belt and swim behind me. Keep your head down behind my tank while we’re in the current. Once we’re in the first room and get out of the current, move your fins as little as possible.”

I nodded, but my heart pounded, and my skin felt numb and hard. Then we went under, into the silence of water and my staccato breathing.

Over the brilliant mouth of the spring, he handed me the light. He gave a few powerful kicks and we entered the current of the spring. Like a strong, silent wind, it pressed at the top of my head. I kicked hard and could feel Adam using his hands to pull us into the mouth of the cave. The rough rope coiling out from his belt slid against my hip. Beyond our feet was the silver surface of the air. I tightened my grip on his belt. Then there was darkness, and I closed my eyes.

The walls of the spring mouth scraped my arm and the top of my tank. In jerks, Adam pulled us in, gripping the walls of the opening and pulling us down. Down, down, down. I tried to make myself as light and small as I could, forced myself to think of nothing but my breath, my hands on his belt, and my kicking legs.

Adam turned right abruptly and reached back to me with one hand to pull me up beside him. We were weightless, outside the press of the current, released. Adam took the light from my hand. Above us, the cavern wall exploded in light, a wide band of yellow cutting through the silver-gray of limestone. He touched my leg, reminding me to soften the movement of my fins, then, taking my hand, swam us up close to the top of the cave. He held his arms out as if to say, “See, it’s beautiful.” And it was. More mysterious than beautiful in its mobile shadows, golden light, and silver-flecked silt.

To our right, the cave opened farther into a black hole. We swam once around the cave, our movements liquid and slow. The only sound was my breath, ragged, uneven. I was still frightened and stiff against Adam. I could not tell which way was up or down. But the beauty seeped around my fear.

Holding me tighter with one arm, Adam did something to my tank that I could not see, and unbuckled my weight belt, then he loosed his hold on me, opening his arms a little, and I began to float away from him up, up toward the ceiling of the room, or what I thought of as the ceiling. I pulled at him and shook my head. He took my arm and held his other hand up for patience. I held tight to him, digging my fingers into his sides.

Still weighted, he bent over me to keep me from moving and adjusted the light on the floor of the cave. Then he unbuckled his own belt and it slid awkwardly down in a smoky puff of silt as we began to rise. Adam twisted, turning so that he was perpendicular to me and held me across his chest as if I were his bride. He adjusted the guide rope still tied to his waist. Nearly blind with panic, I clawed at him. He grabbed my hands with his and clutched them firmly