Chapter 6: Underworlds
Let's take this overboard
“Are you sure we’re not stealing some old fisherman’s boat?” Simon asked skeptically. Wille just huffed, smiling sideways at him.
“Simon, it’s all right. Promise.”
Wille sat in front of the canoe, steering them slightly offshore as Simon paddled in the back. The water was blindingly bright, and Simon immediately regretted forgetting his sunglasses on his bunk. Around another bend, there was a stone archway, and Wille turned.
“The caves start here, but we’ll paddle a ways up.” Simon’s arms were burning, and it was hot, and he was on the verge of a headache, and he’d hardly seen anything more beautiful in his life than the hot blue water up against the red rocks, or the way Wille’s hands moved subtly with every oar’s push.
When Simon had thought he couldn’t row any longer, Wille finally signaled them to shore. They hauled the canoe up steep shambles of rock where it could lay untouched by the incoming tide. Wille reached out his hand, beckoning Simon towards a hole in the cliff. “This way,” he said softly, and in they went.