AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It seemed to Sarah that Merlin didn’t like Kenver. In particular. It was not clear why, as they’d hardly spoken on the previous visit.
“More or less,” said Kenver, responding to his snide tone.
This elicited a sour shrug. “Don’t expect me to play host as you’re poking about.”
“Why would we? You are not the host,” Kenver snapped.
Sarah turned toward the garden and started off.
“Where are you going?” Merlin demanded.
Sarah paused, then decided that they should tell him. Someone should know where they’d gone in case of unanticipated problems underground. But his attitude made her wish it could be someone else. Still, she said, “Into the cave.”
Merlin frowned at her. “You saw that yesterday, did you?”
Sarah nodded.
“That explains the lanterns. If not the nosiness.”
“Not your property, not your cave,” said Kenver. “We have established that. And so, not your affair either.”
With a glare at Kenver, Merlin turned and stomped back inside the house.
“He’s quite angry,” said Sarah.
“It’s time he was moving on. I don’t know why Tereford doesn’t have him thrown out.”
“He said he has nowhere to go.”
“I don’t believe he has made the least effort to find any place.”
Noting that Kenver was also annoyed, Sarah led the way around the garden to the curtain of ivy that hid the cave entrance. She parted the strands and went through.
Kenver came in on her heels. “Extraordinary,” he said, looking around the sheltered space.
In the filtered green light, he lit the lanterns. Sarah looped the long skirts of her riding habit over one arm. Each holding a lantern to light the way, they walked into the cave, where Sarah showed him the sharp turn that disguised the true extent of it. They turned and moved slowly along a narrow passage. There were no other openings, so no possibility of getting lost.
“Watch your footing,” said Kenver. “The rocks are uneven.”
Sarah lowered her lantern to check the floor. It was scattered with flakes of loose stone. She held up her light to survey the walls. “Some of this looks man-made, doesn’t it?” she said. “As if the cave was widened with tools.”
Kenver extended his lantern. She was right. He hadn’t noticed. “Clever of you to see,” he said.
They walked on along the winding passageway. Kenver became conscious of a gurgling sound, and after a bit, the walls fell back, revealing a larger darkness. Kenver held his lantern high. They’d come into a sizable chamber. A small stream running through the back corner, from one low hole in the stone to another, accounted for the noise. Sarah stepped farther inside and raised her lantern as well. With more light, the rocks came alive, streaked with bands of red, green, purple, and orange. “Oh,” she exclaimed. She walked around, swinging her lantern.
Kenver did the same. The colors shifted and danced. “There must be mineral deposits in the cliff,” he said.
“It looks like a chamber in the hollow hills,” Sarah said.
“Where the fairies would revel and dance,” Kenver replied.
“Yes.”
He walked around the perimeter of the cave. “There’s no other entrance. This is the full extent of it.”
“You wouldn’t be able to see the gateway,” Sarah continued in a dreamy voice. “The stories say you’d reach a sort of veil. Or maybe a fog. A half-visible barrier of some kind. And if you pressed through, one more step, you would be in another, magical realm.”
She made it sound so real, so possible.
