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When she finally moves to stand, her eyes don’t stray from my own, not until she takes a full step backward from the water’s edge. As she walks toward the exit of the cave, she keeps stopping to turn around and look in my direction like she knows I haven’t moved a muscle, all the way until she reaches what she thinks is the safety of the cave’s exit.
Her hope is delicious.
She comes back every night, and every night, I stay deep underwater to wait for her. It becomes a routine that I grow increasingly fond of, and every minute she makes me wait is a lesson in patience.
“My name is Penny,” she says one night, watching the water drip from her hands. “What’s yours?”
Her conversations have become more and more bold the more nights we spend together. I never respond, but she doesn’t seem to accept that, trying to pull responses from me in ways that I would never expect.
“We’ve… Well, we’ve known each other for so long, it’s only polite that I know your name.”
Penny waits for a moment, and the drips of the water become the loudest thing in the cave. She sighs with her whole body when she doesn’t get a response.
“Sometimes I wonder if you’re really there or if I am… crazy.” She places her hand back into the water, tracing imaginary figures onto its surface. “Everyone else seems to think I’m crazy at least. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I’m imagining you.”
Her eyes lock onto mine, and I’m torn between pain and glee. I love her fear and trepidation, the way that she watches for me every time she steps into the cave as if she should be afraid, but I want her to know that I am here. That I can take her whenever she would like.
She is not paranoid. She is justmine.
“You have to exist,” she finally mutters to herself. “You absolutely must. I can’t have spent so much time talking to myself within these cave walls only to realize that I have fallen victim to a fantastical imagination.”
Penny slams her hand down onto the water, splashing it everywhere. “Won’t you just talk to me? Please? I will beg if I must. If it would please you to hear my cries, I will repeat them as much as you’d like, if only to have confirmation that I am not alone.”
I would like to hear her begging. I enjoy hearing it even now.
I say nothing.
She pulls her legs up and toward her chest to curl into a ball, perhaps trying to protect herself from the horrors of her own mind.
“You scare me,” she says, voice muffled against her arm. The admission is as much of a treasure as she is. “You scare me because I do not know what to do with you. I do not know what you are, or what you want with me.”
“I feel your eyes on me even though I know you’re not there. It’s impossible for you to be. But I feel your gaze nonetheless, and it makes my bones ache with terror. Please…”
She lifts her head, and my entire body shudders at the sight of her tears.
“Just give me a reason to believe.”
This time when I say nothing, her body heaves with a silent sob, and the satisfaction of it is so powerful I have to close my eyes.
Her cries echo the cave even after she leaves.
5
PENNY
It’s simply habit at this point, navigating my way to the cove.
My feet know where they’re going, but during the daytime, everything seems a little different. There are no shadows to conceal the creature’s lashing tentacles or those haunting yellow eyes.It’s unnatural,I think, making my way around a jutting rock face before slipping into the cove’s secret entrance.
It feels like the place belongs to me. To us.
I can leave my problems behind. I can forget Malachi and his relentless pursuit and take some solace in another’s presence. Even if I haven’t seen him. Even if he terrifies me. A shiver courses through me, but I press forward. “Pull yourself together, Penny,” I mumble, pinching my warming cheeks.
When the cove opens up ahead, relief, and a little disappointment, wash over me.
As far as I can see, it’s empty.
Shells crunch beneath me, and I clamber up onto a low dune to watch the ocean go out. The breeze is warm but not sticky like it can be when it comes in from the east. I can breathe easily here. Maybe it’s the ever-present rush of the waves crawling up towards my toes, or the sharp cry of the mynahs as they roost in the crevices for the season.
