“Door’s closed. Try to open it,” Somers ordered. “Careful,” he added.
“The structure may be unstable.” Vance pushed on one door. It didn’t move.
He pushed harder. The wood creaked but stayed put. Then he braced a shoulder against it and leaned in with his full weight.
The door opened at once and without a sound. It gave way surprisingly easily. As if it had just been oiled.
Vance nearly lost his balance. He caught himself, raised the lamp, and looked inside. Total darkness.
Not the same darkness as outside. This one was dense, sealed off somehow. The beam of his lamp hit it like a wall and went no farther.
Vance took one step inside. Then another. And stopped. Something was moving in the dark ahead.
He stood perfectly still. The movement was faint, barely noticeable. Not violent. Just a soft, rhythmic shifting of the water.
The kind of movement you feel when machinery is running nearby. Or when something very large is moving slowly through the water. He aimed the lamp toward the source.
The beam hit murk and showed nothing. “Vance, report,” Somers said sharply over the line. “Inside the structure. Detecting water movement,” the diver answered.
“Source undetermined.” “What kind of movement?” the engineer asked. “Oscillating. Weak.”
There was a pause. “Could be current through cracks in the masonry,” Somers suggested. “Could be,” Vance agreed.
He took another step. The floor under his boots was stone, level, with no trace of silt. It looked as if water had not been in here for months.
He dragged one boot slightly and heard the dry scrape of metal on stone. That was all wrong. In a few weeks the whole place should have been covered in silt. Here there was none.
He raised the lamp a little higher. The beam slid over walls with peeling but still clinging whitewash. Ahead stood the dark outline of an icon screen.
The details were hard to make out. The high vaults disappeared into darkness above. Then suddenly there was light.
Not a flash. Not a reflection from his lamp. A different light entirely. Warm, yellow, flickering. Vance switched off his lamp.
The light remained. It came from somewhere deeper inside the church. It was weak, barely visible, but steady.
It trembled exactly like candlelight. “I see a light source,” Vance said slowly. “What kind of source?” Somers asked at once.
“Unknown. Yellow. Flickering.” “Phosphorescence?” “Doesn’t look anything like it.”
Vance switched the lamp back on and moved forward. His heavy steps echoed off the walls and rose into the vaults overhead. He kept one hand on the signal line.
He was ready to yank it at any moment. The light grew brighter as he approached. It was coming from the altar area.
Vance came closer, moved around the icon screen, and stopped. On the altar stood burning candles. Not two or three.
Dozens of candles stood in neat rows on metal stands. The flames swayed thickly in the water, as if in oil. Wax melted and drifted upward in small drops, but the candles did not go out.
Vance stared at them in silence for a full 30 seconds. Then he finally said, “Burning candles observed inside the structure.” There was a long silence on the line.
“Say again,” Somers said. “Burning candles on the altar. Dozens of them. Flame is stable.”
“That’s impossible.” “I’m looking at it with my own eyes. I know flame can’t burn underwater.”
Vance stepped closer. He reached toward the nearest candle. He felt no heat.
The water between his fingers and the flame remained completely cold. He carefully touched the wax. It was soft, pliable, real.
“Wax is fresh,” he reported. “These candles aren’t old.” “How did they get there?” Somers asked.
“I don’t know.” The diver swept the lamp around the altar area. The altar table, the side table, a dark but visible icon above the central doors.
Everything was in place. Everything looked as it would in a working church. The phrase “working church” lodged in his mind.
Vance pushed the thought away. The church had been underwater for six months. No one could be here. No one should be here…
