Page 65 of Unspoken Love

“I haven’t been over there yet. I’m…” She dropped off.

“What?” He took her hand in his, stopping her forward movement.

“I’m afraid of heights,” she blurted out.

“Oh, okay.” He nodded.

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll get the courage to go up there soon. Maybe.”

He took her hand in his as they moved. “I’ll help you through it if you want. When you’re ready.”

“Thanks,” she said and then motioned to a split in the pathways.

“Now which way?” he asked her.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “This way.”

“Thoughts?”

“I smell salt air.”

“Right,” he agreed, following her.

Almost five minutes later, they stepped into a room half the size of the other hidden room.

“Look,” she said, motioning to a dark spot along the wall.

“It rests in the quiet shadows,” they both said together.

She moved closer to the wall. Unlike the other room, there were no see-through seams on these rocks. No lines indicating that water had rushed into the cave. This one must be a little higher up than the other cave. They could hear the waves crashing not far from them now.

“We must be close to the other exit,” Nate said, shining his light around the room. “There.”

She noticed a ray of light coming from a small opening.

He walked over and glanced around the corner. “It goes down to the other exit,” he called back. He disappeared for a moment and then came back. “We’re at the back of the other set of stairs.”

She smiled. “Then, this”—she held her flashlight up to the dark spot on the wall—“must be the shadows.”

He moved back to her side. “What are you thinking?”

They both ran their flashlights over the area.

Faye took a slow step forward, aiming the beam of her flashlight higher across the darker stone. The crashing of waves outside grew louder, more rhythmic, like the tide was urging them to hurry.

“I’m thinking this,” she said, pressing her hand against a section of wall that was slightly darker than the rest, “wasn’t just mentioned in a love letter for poetry’s sake.”

Nate stepped up beside her, brushing his fingers lightly along the edge of one of the stones. “You think something’s hidden behind here?”

She nodded slowly. “She said it rests in the quiet shadows, and this feels like the kind of shadow you’d remember.”

“Maybe it’s another hidden passage.” He leaned closer, inspecting the edges of the stone. “Like the one upstairs?”

“But it’s stone,” she pointed out.

Still, she handed him the flashlight and then pressed gently along the stone surface, feeling for any indentation or catch. The stone was cool beneath her palms.

“There,” she whispered as her fingers brushed over a slight dip in the darker rock’s edge. “That’s not natural.”