Page 45 of A Touch Enchanted

The once brown grass was lush and green. Flowers bordered the tree line that had once been dry as dirt. Ants built hills and mice burrowed beneath the earth. None of the animals here remembered this place as anything other than alive.

At the center, where an egg-shaped cave had once stood, a hole tunneled into the earth. The land around it was still wet and smelled faintly of sea salt. We stood over the entrance and peered down. Rough rocks created a spiraling stairway, too purposeful to be an act of nature.

Violet looked up at me. “Should we have brought a rope?”

“I don’t think a rope would’ve done anything for us, other than give us a false sense of security. I’d rather take my chances without one and stay on my guard.”

“Okay.” She moved behind me and unzipped the backpack. “I brought a flashlight.”

She handed it to me and I clicked it on, shining it down into the mouth of the cave. Pitch black nothingness reflected back at me. There was no telling how far down that thing went. But we didn’t come all the way up here to watch rabbits nibble on magic grass.

I took the first step onto a rough-hewn stair and tested my weight on it. It was solid. I took a few more steps, to ensure that the rocks would hold, before I motioned for Violet to follow me down. The cave smelled like ocean water, but it was bone dry inside.

“This is right.” Violet touched the walls. “I’ve been here before.”

“In your dream?”

“I’m not sure …” Her voice trailed off, as if she was trying and failing to pull up the right memory. “It’s a feeling more than anything else.”

“If you feel it, then I trust that we’re supposed to be here.” I shined my light down the tunnel, but was met with more darkness. “Let’s keep moving.”

We kept working our way down the circular tunnel. Nothing lived down here. No insects skittered in the cracked walls, no bones of smaller mammals crunched beneath our feet. If I didn’t know what used to be housed here, I’d say we were the first sentient beings to enter this space.

“Is the silence freaking you out, too?” Violet whispered.

“Mildly.” It was freaking me out a lot, but I didn’t want to add to her fear. This wasn’t natural. Caves weren’t meant to be this quiet, this dead inside.

As we went further down, the sound of running water gurgled up from the bottom. It almost startled the flashlight out of my hand. I hadn’t realized how long we’d gone hearing nothing but the sound of our own breathing.

After another fifteen minutes, a flat surface came into view. I took Violet’s hand to help her the rest of the way down and once she stepped off the stairs, she gasped. To our right, a wide cavern opened up before us. A soft golden light pulsed deep within. It didn’t feel threatening, but I kept her tight at my side anyway.

To the left, an underground river flowed. The current moved fast enough to coat the surface in a fine white foam. It smelled of salt and curved around a corner and out of sight. There was a good chance it connected the ocean on one side of the island to the other.

Violet tugged me toward the golden light. “Should we check it out?”

“Why are you asking me as if we’ll just go back up if I say no?”

“I like to make you feel like you have a choice.” She gave me a saucy smile. “Since I know how much you like being in control.”

She knew me way too well.

Following the golden light took us up a steep incline. I had to bend down at several points to avoid hitting my head on the rock ceiling, while Violet didn’t have that problem. The perks of being a shortie.

After one more steep incline, we began to descend. The light got brighter. A soft song drifted through the cracks in the wall, faint enough to make me think I might’ve been imagining it. It didn’t have a source, but rather it surrounded us, as if it was a part of everything all at once.

At a white marble archway, we paused. In front of us, the river of ocean water that we’d seen when we first came down here appeared again, and positioned in the path of the speeding current were two gates. On one side, a golden one, radiating with a light as bright as the sun, and on the other side, a black one, darker than the midnight sky. The gates appeared to be made out of tightly woven threads of metal that swirled in a series of celestial designs.

The rocks were notched on either side, so if both gates were lowered, it would cut off the flow of water from one side of the island to the other. The black gate was down, but the golden one remained aloft, still allowing the flow of water through. They had to work together in order to be effective. Much like how those of us with magic couldn’t do a damn thing without our other half.

Violet tapped on my arm and pointed to the center of the cavern, where a large marble tomb rested on a stone dais. The top had the word Ceti carved into it in large block letters, with a large emblem of the sun directly below it. No dates.

“Should we open it?” I asked.

Violet shuddered. “Absolutely not.”

“What do you think Ceti means?”

“I’m not sure.” She frowned, like she was trying to dig up a memory that was just out of reach. “I don’t think we’re going to find out down here, though.”

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