The Stars Over Bittergate Bay

Chapter 16

16

“ T his next part of the path is a bit treacherous. It hangs off the cliffside, so I’d prefer you go in front.”

“So that you can push me off?” Sidney teased as he stepped forward. Logically, Jonas knew he didn’t mean it, but it made his stomach twist all the same. The closer they got to the caves, the worse Jonas felt. And it wasn’t helped by the fact that the path that sloped down the cliff face was narrower than he remembered. Sidney had a hand on the stone to steady himself, and Jonas glanced briefly toward the water below.

“Yes. I’m going to take all your charts and claim your research as my own,” Jonas tried joke. It felt unnatural. Still, Sidney snorted.

“I’ve got bad news for you. It’s mostly useless.”

“Not so,” Jonas protested, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of the waves. “Just because it’s not what you thought it was doesn’t make it useless.”

“Was your mushroom research useless?” Sidney called. The research hadn’t been useless, but everything that surrounded it had been. The project had turned so sour, Jonas hid it behind two by fours.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to share with Sidney. The research, the testing, had been good. Interesting. Productive. But he’d been so focused on the work that he’d lost track of the larger picture. It was how Edmund had gotten away with so much before Jonas realized what was happening.

“My research partner and I were doing two different things. I was looking for a way to connect to the Mycelian neural network. To see if it could be accessed across realms.”

“Sorry, the what what?”

“There’s a fae race called the Mycelians. Mushroom people. They were in that bestiary you were looking at. Just like how mushrooms communicate with trees and other plants through their root networks, Mycelians do the same sorts of things. They don’t live earthside, but I was trying to see if it would be possible to create a strong enough network that we could communicate with them in this natural thin space between realms.”

“And can you?” Sidney asked, glancing over his shoulder as they came to the plateau of rock that jutted inward, forming the mouth of the cave. Jonas could see where the boards he’d nailed up years ago had been broken and washed away at the bottom. He reached into his satchel for the prybar.

“I don’t know. The person I was working with, we had a falling out before I could test it. It’s not safe to work down here by yourself. The tide gets high enough sometimes that it can flood the cave system. When he left, I boarded the whole thing up.” He hazarded a glance at Sidney. It wasn’t a lie, so he didn’t really know why he was waiting for Sidney to call him a liar. But it wasn’t the whole truth either. Sidney’s face was neutral, his nose and cheeks pink with cold.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” he said. Jonas swallowed. He wasn’t really sure if he was sorry anymore. And he couldn’t imagine trying to explain that.

Sidney didn’t know that he could be wet, cold and aroused all at once, but watching Jonas pry old boards off the mouth of the cave did the trick. Questions about Jonas’s mysterious research partner were all but forgotten; Jonas’s coat strained over his back while he pried open the cave, and with a grunt, he loosed the last board. Sidney quickly busied himself lighting his lantern, which was what he should have been doing from the start.

Jonas stacked the plank to the side with the others, and Sidney swapped lanterns with him. Jonas held the light inside and looked around.

“It dips down before it goes up and in. I see paw prints.” He pointed, and sure enough, muddy little paws had dirtied the smooth dark rocks well beyond where the light would reach. “Watch your footing here. It gets slick.”

The darkness beyond the mouth of the cave was at a level Sidney had never really experienced before. One hand on the cave wall, the other tight around the handle of his lantern, Sidney followed haltingly after Jonas, who was careful never to get too far ahead. He pointed out to Sidney the hollow where the water from the bay would fill at high tide, and then Jonas paused, frowning down into the deep black.

“Any chance you have a watch with you?” Jonas asked. Sidney had slipped his pocket watch into his trousers more out of habit than anything else. “Does it have an alarm?” Jonas asked, holding the lantern up so they could look down at the shining watch face.

It did, and Sidney set it for an hour at Jonas’s request.

“The cave won't be impassable, but we should be on our way out by then.”

They walked for several more minutes, calling for Ginger at random intervals, their echoes getting lost in the distant rumble of waves. Then, the floor began to slope upward, and the ceiling stayed put. Jonas’s long gait meant it was easy for him to step up onto the next ridge of rocks. Sidney had to scramble, which reminded him distinctly of the discomforts of being a bookish child forced to play outdoors. He just didn’t have the coordination that let other children climb trees and dash through forests and meadows.

A particularly high rise in the floor brought Sidney to a complete halt. Jonas was already two levels of stone above him, and Sidney, stuck, lifted his lantern to get a better look around. They might have been nearing the surface; something in the distance appeared to be giving off its own light. He turned back to look at where they’d come from, the darkness unfathomably deep.

“Here.” Jonas’s voice was so close that Sidney startled. He spun back around to see that Jonas had stepped down and was kneeling on the ridge above, reaching down for Sidney. “Lantern first,” he instructed. Sidney gave Jonas his lantern. Then he gave Jonas his hand.

Jonas pulled him up with an ease that Sidney might have found unfair if he also hadn’t found it extremely attractive. Jonas had also not pulled Sidney up onto the rock, but into Jonas’s arms.

Sidney sat, stunned, on Jonas’s knees. He forgot they were in a cave. He forgot how interesting and strange this all was. There was just the warm comfort of Jonas’s body. The quiet that settled as they looked at each other. The way Jonas’s hands smoothed carefully over Sidney’s wrist and waist.

“Thank you for coming back here with me.” Jonas’s voice was low. “I’d always wondered what happened to this place.”

“I think it’s incredible,” Sidney said. Jonas smiled, the first smile Sidney had seen on him since they’d started down the cliffside. Sidney tangled his fingers with Jonas’s and squeezed. He would have kissed him, but he could feel the wariness in Jonas, and it seemed wrong somehow. They needed to keep going. Gracelessly, Sidney hoisted himself up onto the next rock, and when he got to his feet, he gasped.

The mushrooms were still glowing.

Long, orange and purple shelves of fungi pulsed all around the walls of the circular cavern. In the center, a pool of water was surrounded by moss, and a little dog lifted her head, then came bounding toward them when Sidney called her name.

“Christ,” Sidney huffed, crouching to catch Ginger as she charged into him. “Are you part truffle pig?”

The soft glow from the bioluminescent mycete was impressively constant. Jonas and Edmund had intended to build a self-sustaining environment; he just hadn’t known success would leave such a bitter taste in his throat.

Jonas kept his eyes down, hoping to find a couple of the medicinal mushroom varieties he’d planted before it’d all fallen apart. Instead, he found a few blue caps and fairy brollys and he scooped them up, reaching for the satchel before he remembered that he’d passed it to Sidney twenty minutes before.

Sidney’s face was cast in the ethereal light of the mushrooms, his eyes wide, even as he held the little yellow terrier to his chest and stroked her head. The place was so spoiled by what had happened here, but Sidney still looked beautiful in it. Jonas wished, for a moment, that it had been theirs instead.

“Jonas, this place is amazing.”

“Despite our best efforts.”

“Could we salvage your project? Is there—I mean, we could test and see. This seems viable.” Jonas turned away so that Sidney couldn’t see him grimace. Even though Edmund’s experiments had long since ceased, Jonas couldn’t imagine Sidney getting tangled up in all that ugliness. And Edmund’s world was so deeply ugly.

Jonas walked back to Sidney, trying to shake the unease from his shoulders. When Sidney smiled up at him, he couldn’t make himself smile back. He bent down and tucked the mushrooms into Sidney’s bag. The little dog yipped and Jonas grit his teeth.

“We should go.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to look around?” Sidney asked, getting up with a groan. Jonas’s stomach twisted at the thought and he shook his head.

“No. Mrs. Byrne is waiting for us.”

Jonas’s chest ached well past the point where the glow of the mushrooms had faded into darkness.

Sidney didn’t have the coordination to carry Ginger and the lantern, and keep his footing, so Jonas took the dog. Aside from the occasional yip she was still, like she knew how much of an inconvenience she was being. Jonas still couldn’t swallow around guilt that was lodged in his throat, but carrying the dog was a welcome distraction.

When they were a little more than halfway out of the caves, Jonas heard a sudden, loud rush of water. He held up his lantern and Sidney stopped at his side, squinting as though that would help him see better.

“What is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“My alarm hasn’t gone off yet.” Sidney tugged his pocket watch out of his pocket with grit-covered fingers and flipped it open. “Twenty minutes, still.” Jonas grimaced. He hadn’t been back here in too long. The place had changed, even though it still made him feel like he was in over his head.

Jonas slid from one ridge to the next. In the place where the ceiling finally opened up, he splashed down into three inches of fast-moving water.

“Fuck!” His curse echoed away on the water that was sloshing up from the gaps in the rock below. Sidney landed beside him, his mouth a thin line. He looked concerned. Not afraid. Probably because he didn’t know he ought to be afraid. “We’ll need to go fast. The tide’s coming in more quickly than I expected.”

“Alright,” Sidney said. “Do you want me to go first with the lantern?”

“No.” The thought of Sidney getting too far out ahead made Jonas’s chest tight. He’d be left behind. Left to drown in the rising water. Trapped.

No. Sidney wouldn’t do that to him. Jonas forced himself to take a breath.

“I’ll go first and you follow me. Step where I step, alright?”

“Alright,” Sidney nodded. Too trusting, Sidney. Did he know how stupid it was that he’d come down here? But it was too late for that now. Jonas took another breath and ducked, dropping into the lowest part of the cave, water rushing against his knees.

On Sidney, the water was thigh high. The roar of the waves made it impossible to hear. Jonas pushed ahead, his lantern smacking against the wall as he held Ginger tucked under his other arm. He had to trust that Sidney was behind him. This little outcropping of rocks was too narrow for him to turn back and look.

“Almost there!” he called out.

“Good!” Sidney shouted. “Because I hate this!” Jonas laughed, the ball of anxiety tightening in his chest.

Jonas felt the roll of water before he heard it. The ground under their feet shook with the reverberations of a wave. Jonas dropped his lantern, reaching for Sidney, turning his back to a massive wall of water. He leaned his head against the rock and tucked the dog into his chest, his grip furiously tight on Sidney’s wrist. The wave smacked hard against them, pouring over his shoulders and then rushed backward, yanking Sidney out of his grasp.

“Sidney!” Jonas spun, feet slipping. Didn’t see him. The water rushed out and the path was clear. Jonas ran for the entrance. Put the dog down. Find Sidney. Put the dog down. Find Sidney.

The water swelled as Jonas half tossed Ginger onto the higher rock shelf. Jonas moved to shuck his coat when he saw him.

Sidney’s black hair shone against the far wall of the cave. He was pulling himself up when another wave crashed over his head. Fear made Jonas stupid. He should have been watching his feet, but he stepped too far and dropped off the shelf into the water.

Everything around him went dark. The water was so loud that it was like he’d stuffed his ears with cotton. For a moment he couldn’t breathe, as water flooded his nose, mouth. His lungs. He’d fucked this so badly and now they were both going to die in this stupid cave.

Something thin and firm slammed into Jonas’s chest with the force of a torpedo, and Jonas crashed back against the rock shelf. Jonas reached up and behind him, cold air chilling his skin, as he hauled himself up, head and shoulders, waist over the edge of the ridge. And Sidney was pulling himself up beside him, on top of him, hands slipping against the wet stone.

Jonas fumbled to help him, furious at the way fear wanted him to turn and vomit. Not now. Not yet. Sidney tumbled to the side, pushed himself up onto his knees, choking up mouthfuls of water. Ginger yapped at them from above, as Jonas tried to help Sidney upright.

“Fuck! Sidney?—”

“You alright?” Sidney wheezed, his dark eyes bright and wide as he looked at Jonas. His hair hung over his face, and he raised a shaking hand to push it away.

“Am I alright!?” Jonas’s raised voice echoed over the water. He was panting. Couldn’t catch his breath. Still, Sidney was up and saying nonsense. That was a good thing.

“You dropped into the water!” Sidney accused. Jonas’s brain scrambled through the last few moments. Water spilled over the rock shelf and pooled around their knees. “I was making my way back and I saw you step off the shelf! What were you thinking?”

“You saved me?” Jonas demanded. Sidney rolled his eyes.

“Well, if slamming you back against the rocks is the same as saving you, then I suppose?—”

“Sidney. Gods,” Jonas exhaled. And then he kissed Sidney.

Sidney’s mouth, the warmth of him, his breath, cleared the fog of fear and regret from Jonas’s mind. Everything that had happened with Edmund was so long ago. And Sidney was here now. And he was different. And Jonas wasn’t sure that he deserved him.