The narrow, winding tunnel at the back of the cave leads downwards through the heart of the cliff itself. A draft of cold air periodically brushes your faces as you begin the descent, as though something buried deep below is breathing in and out. For some reason, you think of the foul blast of Old Tom's breath against your face in the car, hours earlier. The cave walls drip with moisture and the light from your flashlights catches green-black moss and growths of gray-pink fungi, glistening wetly like something fleshy and living. A trick of the light sometimes seems to make them rise and fall with the wind from below. All of you instinctively try to avoid touching the growths, even when the sides of the cave become uncomfortably close.
Cormac has produced some white chalk and stops periodically to mark your route as you make your way down the forking paths of the cave network. He's explored many of the old mines around Wicklow in the past.
"Try to keep track of where we've been," he says quietly. "It's easier to get lost in places like this than you realize. And they don't always look the same coming back that they did going in."
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