FOURTEEN YOUNG WOMEN with lit lanterns in front of them walked in two neat rows with Mr. Ingles leading and observing the slimy intestine-like structure.
‘Can anyone tell me how large this system is?’ Mr. Ingle spoke loudly, eyes flitting to each student, hoping to see a spark of interest or an unravelling curiosity. He saw none, just the lanterns adding to the low light of the cave.
Young Susan Matthews stared down, not wanting to answer the question, even though she had been looking forward to today since its announcement two months ago.
Instead of answering Mr. Ingles, Susan focused instead on the small sewn heart on the inside of her glove. It was the size of her pinkie nail and the bright pink stitching was hidden unless folded up or felt when slipping the glove on.
‘What about when it was discovered?’ he called out again and was met with the static silence and the rustling of dresses brushing against one another.
‘Miss Gween?’
A short girl with a bright blue ribbon and coarse dark hair spoke softly, ‘I’m not sure, sir.’ She stood nervously in front of the group, hand shaking and holding the lantern.
Mr. Ingles raised his lantern, the light bouncing against the slick walls unevenly, fitting around curves and disappearing into cracks. ‘Come girls, where is your curiosity? This is Vermont’s most unique cave system! I have expressed this to you for months in preparation for this visit.’ He sighed. ‘Let’s move to through the next passage.’
The two lines of young women shuffled into one, sinking further down the path smoothed down into sinking steps. The passageway narrowed, squeezing in the girls. Their lamps seemed to dim with the encroaching ceiling riddled with short jagged stalactites. Susan ran her hand against the wall, first shocked by the cold stone, then moved by it. It felt like a dead thing. Similar to a dog found by Mary Blue and Susan on one of their nature walks. The old dog had walked some way into the woods and lain down in the middle of the path, too tired to walk further. Susan knelt down and stuck a hand into its fur feeling for a heartbeat. It was still, just like this cave. Susan looked ahead and saw Francine and Mary holding hands, both white-knuckled and doing their best to hide their fear by staring straight ahead and following the first light. A shiver went through Susan, not from the encroaching chill, but a fit of jealousy.
‘Watch your step, girls!’ Mr. Ingles called out, the warning trailing back like a snake.
Susan looked down and saw the floor shift, no longer smooth, but separating, creating a path fit for someone with two legs, one very short and the other uncomfortably long. They shuffled close, one foot barely able to fit in front of the other.
They moved closer together, Susan’s gloved hands brushing against Mary Blue’s white cotton dress with faint purple trim. It felt like how it used to be. Their feet could barely fit in front of the other easily. Susan being last in line had the view of the heads bobbing up and down like a centipede. Finally, the girls’ pace quickened. Mr. Ingles moved quickly, and the girls followed suit to fill in a great round room where they fitted together like a crescent moon. The walls were white and grey, streaked with some giant paintbrush. Their lights curved and coiled around the ridges of the room, unable to see it fully. Susan stayed near the path they had come down, ready to answer her instinct to run from this place. She was compelled by its history, a centuries-old pit, ancient and forbidding. She could not shake the feeling of being unwelcome, as if entering someone’s home without their knowledge.
‘This room was first discovered thirty years ago in 1863,’ Mr Ingles began, raising the lantern to show off the space. ‘By a young boy, not much older than yourselves.’
There was that shiver again. A girl like her could never be credited for discovering such a wonder. No, her calves still stung from her last adventure into the woods which she did often. This looked like collecting tiny bones and rocks offered to her by some small God, one that lived nearby. It existed in every tree and rock and leaf. Susan honoured it by taking offerings of toast and tea and in return, the woods would harbour her and Mary…
‘Miss Matthews.’
Susan twisted out of the sensation and faced Mr. Ingles who had been calling for her. ‘I shan’t ask again.’
She looked to her fellow students, the sullen, scared, and bored faces, and replied, ‘Oh sir, I’m not sure of the answer.’
He curled his lip and looked at Miss Catherine Ross, who was covering a rip in her dress with her right hand. ‘Miss Ross, can you tell me the name of the cave?’
Susan cursed herself, knowing the answer.
‘Corporal Cave, sir.’
‘And why is it called that? Anyone?’
Susan raised her hand, one amongst many.
‘You, Miss Mary Blue Jessup?’
‘It is because of the human-shaped rock formations found in the cave.’
‘Very good. Now, these natural formations are caused by the water passing downward through the soil above the limestone which absorbs carbon dioxide and then becomes acidic. Now, girls, it’s a weak acid, so the water is able to dissolve a small amount of the limestone rock as it passes through cracks and pores throughout the cave. As the water drips into the air-filled cave, dissolved carbon dioxide is given off. Now, look—because the water has lost carbon dioxide, it cannot hold as much dissolved calcium. The excess calcium is then precipitated onto the walls which thus causes these formations—shall we observe some?’
There was no response from the girls, just a look of fear and uneasiness that settled on their wandering eyes. In the corner reaches of the room were rock formations the size of Susan’s father under a dripping stalactite. The rock’s mouth was agape as if the water was draining into it. Susan, as if compelled, touched the figure, expecting a pulse. The warm wet stone was still then throbbed. She pulled back and bumped into Mr. Ingles.
‘What is it, Miss Matthews?’
‘It’s…it’s alive?’ she could scarcely believe her own naivety.
Mr. Ingles chuckled and simply said, ‘Oh, what a brilliant imagination you have.’
He moved onto another set of curious students gazing at a figure.
Susan stared at the formation, following the mouth to the eye sockets, perfectly rounded and smooth.
Mr. Ingles then called the group together at a far entrance on the left side of the room.
‘Miss Ross, can you tell me what lies beyond this room?’
Catherine cleared her throat and said with precision, ‘There are ten more rooms, all connected with hazardous paths that are known as a boneyard.’
‘Excellent memory, Miss Ross!’
Susan drifted from the lesson, staring now into one of the dark gaps in the wall. She walked over to it and peered in. With what little light there was, she swore it looked like people. Large and thin figures, sitting at a table, standing with their back to her. Frozen in time.
‘That is the Poker Room,’ Mr. Ingles said, appearing behind her, lifting his lantern to peer into the room. ‘Named such for the scene the rock mimics. Peculiar, how nature reflects us, is it not?’
Isn’t it more we see ourselves in nature? We attempt to recognize what we know—we project to make ourselves more comfortable by making it familiar. Susan didn’t have the heart to retort, her heart was too distracted. Her eyes turned behind her right shoulder staring at Mary Blue, comforting Francine, squeezing both hands and bringing them together in embrace. She rubbed the heart inside her glove and remembered.
‘I can’t go,’ Mary said, untying the yellow ribbons from her hair.
‘You were given permission.’
‘No—I can’t go with you to New York.’ She smoothed the ribbons out at her desk and began unbraiding her hair.
Susan stood slack-jawed in the doorframe. ‘We’ve been speaking about it for months—I don’t understand. We were meant to leave after going to the cave—we’d sneak out after while the students were inside?’
‘I can’t go, Susan. I don’t want to. My dreams aren’t your dreams, Susan—you must venture out on your own.’
The moment drifted from her mind. The memory is practically electrified.
‘This cave is more unique than any I have seen. It appears older, and it is rarely explored by experts. However, local people adventure here quite frequently. It is vast and empty.’ He seemed to finally recognize the students’ expressions. ‘Ignore the fear of the unknown, of the dark. Humans have the divine right to explore all of God’s earth.’
Susan’s gut disagreed. Her hand moved against the grey slick bulb jutting out of the wall and wondered to herself, would God create something like this? Maybe her God would. Why would it be here? No, her God would be frightened of this place. This place is so deep, so hidden—but it could fit a human however irregularly and I could breathe and see where the flame allowed. Still—she could feel in the stone that it was explicitly inhospitable.
‘Now come, this chamber will be of great interest.’
The young women stepped through a body-sized gap and stood like mice trapped between two walls. Mr. Ingles did his best not to be too pressed against them. They fitted together in the small chamber, the air faint and the smell of a creek bed familiar and present.
‘This is called the Lighthouse Room. If we were to extinguish our lights, we would see a fascinating light crack through there.’ The girls followed his gaze and observed a rift in the stone. Susan swore it looked like a half-turned mouth. ‘There is an opening just beyond there that reaches the surface and the sun is able to refract down. It is very unusual for the cave.’
‘Has anyone tried to enter it from the surface?’ asked Miss Celia Adams, pressing her gloved hands together.
He did not look perplexed and answered, ‘I do not believe so.’
‘Now take a look around, girls, before we head back out.’ They separated but not far, touching the walls and crevices. Susan stayed in her spot, watching the mouth. It was that nagging feeling again. It was as if the mouth was speaking to her and in some low voice it said ‘Turn back while you can.’
‘Why is it so wet here, Mr. Ingles?’
‘Well, Miss Ross—this cave system is believed to be connected to a special health spring a few miles away...’
‘The Lovewell Spring Spa?’ Mary called out, finally engaging with her known curiosity.
‘Yes, that very one. Miss Jessup knows it well as that is where her father works—yes. It is believed, girls, that the spring can rejuvenate the body inside and out. Very fanciful idea, of course.’
Of course, Susan thought, backing into the stone, a polished knee digging unto her lower back and a slickness absorbing into her nails. Here was the source, a potent belly of recovery, but what if the spring was a gift and here we stood in the gift giver’s home, unwelcome and undesired? We felt like we were taking advantage of its hospitality.
‘Let us begin heading out,’ Mr. Ingles finally said.
Susan squeezed herself to the front of the group, walking up the natural steps and pressing herself forward. Just look for the light, she thought. She gripped at the slick walls and held her dress in one hand, climbing up and up. Finally yards away, the pinpoint light of the cave entrance revealed itself. She practically charged for it when she heard near the back of the cave Mr. Ingles’s voice ring out, ‘Don’t go too far ahead, Miss Matthews!’
She paused to catch her breath and waited impatiently. Sarah Gween leaned against the wall and said in a shallow breath, ‘Mr. Ingles, I’m terribly thirsty.’ Several of the other girls agreed with her, themselves looking flush from the trek. He caught up to them and then checked his water pack. He gave it a shake then a serious frown. He shook it again, opened the lid, and flipped it over—nothing.
‘I’m sorry, girls, I must have forgotten to fill it.’
‘But I need some, Mr. Ingles—’ Sarah begged, her pink cheeks burning. The chorus began. The whining and cries for water. Mr. Ingles did not handle this very well. Susan knew he bent easily to their wills if they cried loud enough.
‘Alright, girls, alright.’ He finally said then looked frantically around. ‘Surely…’ he said to himself walking, to a dripping stalagmite. He brought the lip of the canteen to the tip and let it fill gradually then brought it to his lips. He nodded with a grin and handed it to Sarah. ‘It is perfectly cool and crisp.’ All the girls took it like some communal wine, except one. Susan stayed near her spot, close to the outside, and crossed her arms to the offer of water. We need to get out of here, she thought. Whatever sense the girls had all felt was being lost on them.
Mr. Ingles hiccupped and then apologized for the indiscretion. His hand went to his stomach, pressing hard. His face began to turn a strange colour, a shade too pale. It moved through the girls, hiccups and stomach grumblings loud enough to echo around the cave. It started with Mr. Ingles. The colour in the face continued draining till it looked as white as ivory. His mouth dropped open. Within seconds, perfect stone crawled from his mouth and covered his face, his eyes, the slickness of his curls, and melted down as he walked forward in a panic.
The other girls had barely time to react. Each one began sprouting, their dresses and laces ripping at the seams and falling around their grey forms. Susan screamed, the ghastly realization dawning on her. The girls in front of her stepped towards her, falling, the formations pointed like deadly spikes in her direction. Susan fell back from them, crawling backward on her hands and feet. One would crawl over the other, mouths agape mid-scream, their hands reaching out and freezing into stone. One was mere inches from Susan’s nose. Susan skittered back, hand reaching far back to chunks of stone that nicked her hand with sharp edges. She slid on the blood now forming below her dress. Susan closed her eyes, trying to ignore the rush of screams and squishing of impalement. She rushed back and felt the spray of warm water splash onto her face. Then finally—quiet.
She dared not open her eyes until the warmth on her face became too great. She slowly opened them and saw the mouth of the cave full of stalagmites like rounded teeth, hanging from them silks and cotton dresses with ribbons floating down to the cave floor. Susan paused and realized she was outside, the light hitting her hair, the warmth most welcome and unnerving. She stood, her own dress ripped and drenched in her own blood and her gloves ripped and barbarically ruined. She saw tucked behind the forward rocks a matching ripped glove. Mary—she thought, a gasp of mourning quick on her lips.
The forest quietened around her, the burrowing of rabbits, and ducking of snakes under rocks. Even the birds were still, staring from the nearest tree. Susan, moved from ritual, began pulling off her dress, the blood-soaked fabric sinking into the earth. Next went her corset, the strings hurriedly pulled and unknotted. All that remained were long white socks, soles dirty with water, a white chemise, dotted with blooming pinks, and the single white glove. The heart began itching inside her palm. She stepped into the cave, encouraged now, to go deep inside and be with her Mary. Welcome at last. Nature came alive, and the cave remained as it has always been.
