Page 63 of The Lover's Eye
A tumble of rock and dirt cascaded out from under one of his feet, breaking away and crashing below.Giles leapt forward to seize the man by the arm, towing him back to the group.
Everyone stood frozen for a moment, listening to the clink of residual pebbles skipping off rocks until they settled in the depths below.
“Are you all right?”Giles asked.
“Yes,” the coroner said, his voice wavering slightly.“Thank you.”
“What about your boathouse, Pemberton?”Bellows asked.
“What about it?”
“Could we reach the sinkhole if we started there and walked the beach?”
Giles shook his head.“It’s too far.The coast changes too much.”
“Even if it didn’t, we don’t have time for that,” Pemberton said, looking out at the sea, which was growing more illuminated by a thinning cloud.“Winds like this will bring the tide in fast.”
“It’s probably those same winds that broughtherin,” Bellows remarked dryly.
Pemberton was asked to guide the way.He led the group safely out of range of Ceto’s Hole and advanced them further up the coastline, until the cliffs softened and came further inland.The party picked their way down to the shingle beach, scaling ridges of water-hewn limestone and issuing all manner of threats for the boys to wait above.
Rocks rippled beneath Giles’s feet, their uneven texture palpable even through the thick soles of his boots.The men followed Pemberton around the snaking, unpredictable curve of cliff; everyone gone quiet, doubtless thinking about the unpleasant task ahead.The rocks turned large and slick, scattered with pebbles and blooms of moss—a perfect breeding ground of hazards.
When they reached the outermost protrusion of cliff, they became privy to a low, cavernous opening, too low to see beneath from standing height.It was clear that where they stood became the seabed at high tide.Sand squished beneath their feet, making unpleasant squelching sounds, and the stagnant scent of fermented seaweed assailed Giles’s nostrils.
At least, he hoped that was what he was smelling.
“We don’t have long,” Pemberton said, looking at the encroaching sea.Then to the coroner, “Make it fast, man.”
The shallow arch necessitated the men lowering to their hands and knees to crawl in.The coroner crouched first, staring inside.The cloud moved off the moon then, revealing the sea, the cliffs—the interior of that wretched hole—in pearlescent light.The seasoned professional grimaced at what he saw.
“I shall go first, then send each of you in one at a time to surmise your findings,” he said, then disappeared beneath the arch.
It wasn’t long before the coroner reemerged, his mouth compressed to a tight line.His trousers were soaked with saltwater, and he rubbed soiled palms down them in vain.“Lord Trevelyan,” he said, motioning toward the entrance.
Giles gave a terse nod and someone handed him their lamp.The metal handle was warm in his hands, a contrast to the frigid damp that penetrated his trousers the instant he lowered to the ground.He started making his way beneath the fragile limestone arch at once.He refused to show hesitation.
The unpleasant scent grew stronger as he progressed, taking on a sharp, acrid odor.He forced himself to breathe through his mouth.The rocky ground was sharp beneath his hands and knees, causing him to wince in pain on more than one occasion.He felt the scrape of rock against his back in spots, the meager opening shrinking and broadening without predictability.
If someone told me this was the entrance to Hades, I’d believe them.
The imagined pressure of rock vanished above him, and the night wind cooled and dampened his face once more.His eyes were still trained on the ground beneath him, but he could sense a second presence.Gathering his strength, Giles stood.
Nothing could have prepared him for what lay there, spread out among the splintered mosaic of rocks glowing in shades of blue, slate, enamel, and rust.He had never seen a living thing reduced to such a state of decomposition, half-preserved by the icy waters of the North Sea and half-feasted upon by its inhabitants.
Still, Giles knew it was her.
Much of Aurelia had been lost to the sea, parts of her reduced to skeletal form, some of the delicate bones of her wrists and ankles missing altogether.Scraps of fabric still clung about her in a desperate plea for modesty, but swaths of exposed flesh hung grey-green toward the elements.
What was left of the garment matched the discolored, unnatural tone of her skin, as if it and she had merged with the seafloor, no longer belonging to the air-rich parts of earth.Giles forced himself closer to her prostrate form.He would be expected to analyze her position and condition for the inquest.If he could only gather the barest information, he could leave.
The boys had been right.A gold chain still hung around her fish-nibbled neck, the oval pendant lined with half-seed pearls, only one of which was missing.The necklace had been done in the style purportedly popularized by the Prince Regent: a lover’s eye.But only memory told Giles this.
A piece linen fabric was still secured behind the glass pane of the pendant, but the watercolor depiction of the eye had been wiped clean with the invasion of seawater.It had been a seductive and daring piece, a means of displaying her affections while still maintaining a morsel of mystery.Aurelia had adored it, and the memory of it around her neck, the pendant sometimes tucked beneath the neckline of her gown, twisted something in Giles’s stomach.
His gaze drifted sickly up her neck to her face.The lover’s eye was not the only one of its kind to be missing.He felt his stomach roil with nausea and stumbled away.Surely he had seen enough to play his role in the inquest, to swear the body’s identity was Aurelia’s.
He would have recognized the necklace anywhere, and the only part of her that had not been marred and disfigured by the sea was the patches of hair that still clung to her skull—still golden, cleansed by the waves that had delivered her to this private, hellish beach.
