37

The Gloup
Orkney Islands, Scotland

The drive was blessedly short and the wind tranquil beneath the cold lemon sun. When they pulled into the Gloup parking lot, Salem saw that between the early hour and the departing storm, the area was empty except for a flock of orange-footed puffins guarding the cliffs.

It was the smallest serving of luck, but Salem welcomed it.

Bode had given her a spelunking crash course on the drive over. “Stay close to the rock and look for handholds. We’ll keep you secure up top so you can focus on finding what you’re looking for.”

He offered her more climbing minutiae, which she had to trust her ears to store because her lizard brain was writhing at the thought of being dangled over the sea. She felt like a virgin sacrifice as they strode up the path toward the sea cave’s opening, its yawning mouth protected by only the smallest of fences.

“What will you use as a counterweight?” Charlie asked.

“There’s two anchors on the other side of that nearest fencepost.” Bode pointed toward them. “We cover them with grass when we’re done so no one trips on it, though you’re not supposed to cross the fence.”

Charlie seemed almost more nervous than Salem, the flesh of his face a split-pea green.

“Are you feeling okay?” Salem asked.

Charlie tossed a glance toward the cliff, where the puffins were strutting and squawking like small, colorful penguins. “Not a fan of heights.”

Salem nodded. “Me neither.”

She was afraid of the sea, too, but as the only true codebreaker here, she was the one who had to climb down. Bode threaded and tested the harness and ropes while Salem and Charlie huddled near each other, not talking, just drawing on the nearness of another human for comfort.

Bode’s set-up was alarmingly quick.

“Good to go! I’ve roped both anchors so we’ve got a backup if you need me to drop down, which you won’t. Legs go right in here.” He indicated holes in the harness and strapped it around her waist once she’d stepped through. She felt like she was watching him suit her up from a great distance, his tugs and cinches reaching her through a Novocain-like haze.

“This bandolier holds your flashlight, your phone, an emergency medical kit, and this empty pocket is for whatever you put in it.” He held up a flashlight trailing a safety cord. “Do not pull this out of your bandolier until you’ve slipped on the strap. If you drop it by accident and it falls all the way down, we have to pull you back up and give you another one. That takes time it doesn’t sound like you have.”

Salem nodded.

“Hey,” he said. “It’s okay to be scared. It doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong.”

She attempted a smile, but her lips were frozen.

He snapped a carabiner over her harness, tugged leather gloves onto her, and showed her how to hold the rope above and below the contact point to let herself descend in controlled bursts.

When he trusted that she had the basics, he patted her arm. “The lip is the hardest part of the entire climb. It juts out before curving back in, which makes it hard to reach the face for purchase. Once you’re past that, this is going to be safe. I promise. You decide how fast and how slow you go, and when you yell, I pull you back up.”

“Can I back up toward the ledge?” She thought it might be easier if she couldn’t see where she was going.

“Yeah, for sure. Keep your eyes on me. I’ll guide you.” Bode planted a confident smile on his face. “That’s good. Little steps are the best. You’re about ten feet from the edge. I want you to start leaning back, give the rope a test. That’s it. See? It’ll hold you. I won’t let you go.”

Charlie stood behind Bode, looking for all the world like he was trying to keep his breakfast down. Salem found herself flashing him an encouraging smile. That’s when she noticed the patch of yellow flowers to her left, not visible from the trail. She took it as a positive sign.

“I’m ready to go over!”

Bode’s grin lit up his face. “That’s the way! Take one leap back, feet straight out in front of you. Trust gravity and your rope.”

Salem closed her eyes. Below, the sucking gloop gloop sound of the sea squeezing through the cave walls was oddly soothing. She pushed off from the solid earth, one hand instinctively rising to shield her face as she inevitably slammed right back into the rock lip.

But she didn’t.

Instead she dropped, just as Bode had promised.

She hung there, twirling slowly.

She opened one eye and then the other. She’d descended at least fifteen feet, smoothly. The light trickled down from above, and less so from the openings on the east and west, but the sea and shadows refracted it, giving the cool cave walls an underwater feel.

“I did it!” she yelled, overcome by something like euphoria. “Woot!”

“Yeah!” Bode shouted back. “Start swinging yourself side to side so you can see more of the walls. Remember to always look for something to grab on to.”

Salem nodded. Her palms were sweaty and her heartbeat rapid, but she was discovering strength she hadn’t known she possessed. Part of her still felt vulnerable, like a giant worm dangling on a hook over the roiling sea, but a deeper, stronger part of her realized for the first time that she could do this. She began swaying to the left and the right, gaining momentum exactly as she’d done on those Linden Hills playground swings with Bel.

Left and right, left and right.

She guided her hand to the flashlight as she pumped, careful to slip the safety strap around her wrist before releasing the flashlight from its Velcroed perch. She clicked it on, it’s surgical brightness jarring inside the brackish cave.

While the wall to the east traveled out to sea and the wall to the west cleaved deep into the earth, the cave itself was an isolated pocket. If an Underground cryptographer hid something here, she’d had to have done it in the cave’s 3,300-square-foot area. The swath of each wall to be inspected was the size of a large house’s floor plan.

Searching for a code here amounted to reading a giant stone book written in an unfamiliar language. Salem was on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary, any man- or woman-made structure or sign. She expected the code to be rudimentary, as Stonehenge and the Flower Rock had been, so basic as to easily blend in with the scratches and dips of these ancient walls.

She must be meticulous.

Her brain ran a grid pattern of the north wall, the one she was presently facing. She located markers to her left and to her right and swung toward them, playing the flashlight across the moist surface. The swinging motion required her to scan the area, and to wait until momentum brought her back if she saw anything out of the ordinary.

Down there, you are your own force, your own counterweight, Bode had instructed her. It felt good to work in this protected space, to use the strength in her body coupled with the power of her mind. It left no room for her characteristic worry.

She was also comforted by the thought of Bode and Charlie looking out for her above.

Once she’d made a complete scan of the top portion of the north wall, she changed the direction of her momentum, pushing off the wall once she was close enough.

She dropped five feet and repeated the lattice pattern at the new level.

The rhythm soothed her, each pass requiring six or seven minutes, and then she’d switch direction, approach the wall, bend her knees, push off and drop another five feet. The smell of the sea was different nearer the shoreline. Salty, elemental. The rocks gave off an eternal chill, but the physical exertion kept her warm.

A small rivulet cut its way down the rock on the next pass. She directed her weight to return her to the spot. The rock changed color at the water source, became froggy and warm-looking, but when she tapped the spot with her toe, there was no give. Still, she reached for a promontory near the waterfall, grabbed on, and held herself with one hand while shining her flashlight into the hole with the other. She was looking for anything out of the ordinary—a shelf, a recess, maybe a huge X.

Nothing.

But the murmur of the sea comforted her. She’d previously had an antagonistic relationship with water. A lake had stolen her father. The ocean hid threats. It could rear up and grow angry at the drop of a hat.

This sea felt more maternal. Protective. Familiar almost.

She began her pattern anew, starting at the far west point of the line that had brought her to the rivulet’s mouth in case she’d overlooked anything when she’d first caught sight of the anomaly.

Flex legs, straighten them, push off, then left and right, left and right.

She saw it instantly. She didn’t even need to make another drop.

A flash of white.

Guano? There must be bats down here.

She swung past the spot, searching for a handhold.

She located one four feet to the left of the bright blotch. Perched on a small ledge, her toes curled with exertion, fingers bent into a claw to keep her attached to the wall, she flashed her light at the aberration.

There was definitely something abnormal there. An indent, she couldn’t tell how deep, and inside, the splash of brightness against the dark.

“I think I found something!” she yelled up.

There was no response. A fissure winked at her two feet closer to the indent. She stretched toward it. It was deep enough to dig her hand into. She grunted with the strain but brought herself near enough to look inside the hole.

The opening was the size of a carry-on bag.

While her hand was shoved deep in the fissure, though, she couldn’t aim the flashlight into the recess. Her position was precarious. The sea was as far below her as the opening was above. Stress twisted her belly. There was no way to stabilize herself and peer inside the hole at the same time. She could swing past it, but that wouldn’t allow enough time to examine. A trickle of sweat escaped her hairline and stung her eye. The panic began to rise, but there wasn’t time or space for it. She took a deep breath and remembered Bode’s instruction.

There’s always a place to grab onto. Trust the rock.

She swiped her forehead with her forearm. Her attention drawn upward, she spotted a handhold directly above, just within reach. Grabbing it would take her farther away from the recess, but it would put her within reach of another handhold off to the right, and another after that. In five moves, she’d be staring directly into the hole, her feet lodged in a shelf below the recess.

Her movements were constrained but certain. She needed to hug the wall and trust all her senses. The cool moss welcomed her touch, its softness leading her toward the sharp edges of the handhold. Inch by inch, she felt along the wall, plunging her fingers and toes into every opening she felt, testing her weight before releasing the previous support.

The air changed when she finally reached the recess, sweat running down her back from the pressure of restrained exertion. The flashlight still hung from her right wrist.

She swung it into her hand and snapped it on.

She blinked. The recess’ ledge was two feet across, and it looked to be forever deep. When her eyes adjusted, she spotted the white against the back of the ledge that had first caught her eye. It was only a few feet in but too deep to reach from her current spot.

She would have to crawl inside.

“I’m checking out a hole dead center on the north wall!” she yelled, not expecting a response this time. Sound must travel differently from down here.

She was inside the hole up to her waist when she noticed the change in smell. It was sharp and sour, the odor of fish rotting in the sun. Her heart slid sideways. She didn’t want to find anything dead.

She sucked in a deep breath. She’d power through it.

Pulling a knee onto the ledge, she pushed herself forward.

And was rewarded with a face full of rotting seaweed.

It didn’t slow her down. She brought the other leg up and in, brushing aside the seaweed with the flashlight. She shoved her body all the way to the rear of the mini-cave, almost on top of the flash of white that had called her back here.

It was a pile of shells. She touched them to be sure, and they crumbled in her fingers.

Disappointment wanted to join her in the small space, but she didn’t allow it. She’d only explored a quarter of the Gloup. There was work to do. She shimmied out backward, waiting until her feet were over the ledge and tucked inside her toeholds before she pushed herself off the wall.

She expected to swing to the left because she’d pushed off with her right foot. So confident was she in the rope holding her that she hung in the air for a split second, defying gravity like a cartoon figure, before hurtling toward the jagged rocks below, the end of the rope following close behind.

She didn’t even have time to scream.

She smacked a sharp ledge at an awkward angle.

Her world went black.