a. Stream which loses itself among the rocks.

The group is bigger than usual this afternoon. It's hot out, exceptionally hot for this time of year, and hordes of tiny bugs have taken advantage of the weather to screw and spawn and swarm around Evan's head. Worse: there is an abysmally pimpled squad of teenagers in the back, looking like they'd much rather be spawning too, if anyone would spawn with them. Even worse: there is what Evan is pretty sure is a blind woman lurking at the group's edge, behind even the teenagers. It's her big dark glasses that tip him off, but also her posture: super-erect, careful. No one appears to be with her. Usually they don't recommend that people with disabilities take the tour, for obvious reasons. It's not strenuous, by any means, but there are rocks to step over and gaps to get across and then, later on, the boat. Accidents are certainly possible, even for those with all their senses. Plus, what does a blind woman want with a tour like this? It's not like she'll get to see any of the stalactites. That's what everyone wants to see, the stalactites. It's too late to worry about that now, though. Evan has to start.

“Gather 'round, folks,” he says. He waves the bugs away from his face. He smiles his biggest tour smile.

b. Entrance to the cavern.

Evan is contractually obligated to warn his tour group against gum-chewing a minimum of six times. The management has indicated that they will be vigilant on this point. Once he has completed all of his warnings, Evan leads the group to the mouth of the cavern. Evan thinks it looks more like a big hole than a mouth. Why do we have to put mouths on everything, he wonders. It seems so desperate.

The group is mostly comprised of couples. Evan thinks what he always does when he sees two people holding hands and whispering about the possibility of stalactites: that if he had a girlfriend, not to mention a wife, he would take her on much better dates than this. Though the stalactites are nice. No doubt about that. They remind Evan of old candles, the kind that last forever and seem to know you.

The little girl is making the loveliest sounds. The sticking of her hands against rocks, the laugh rattling in her head. Scuffs and squeaks. I am nearly pierced.

The blind woman is still there at the back of the group, not saying anything. She should at least alert him to her situation. It's only by luck that he has noticed it. She should alert him so that he can help her. Anything less is just rude.

One pair of the hand-holders, Evan notices, is accompanied by a little girl, who is invested in a game of picking things up and putting them down again.

Evan knows he should approach the blind woman himself, but for some reason he finds that she makes him nervous. The large black glasses are like wards, or like the inversion of a mask. Masks, it turns out, are in the rare category of things that are pretty much the same inside-out. Even inside-out and backwards.

“She can't pick that up,” Evan says.

“It looks like she can,” the little girl's father says. “But—Mirabella, put it down.”

The little girl puts the no gum-chewing sign back on the ground, turning it the wrong way. Evan imagines what she'll look like when she grows up. Fat, he thinks.

Evan clears his throat. “Follow me,” he says. He gestures for the group to follow. A gesture like slinging a body over his shoulder, he has always thought.

Everyone follows, stepping over the lip and into the coolness of the mouth.

c. Cottages.

“To your right, you'll see some structures,” Evan says. “These were built and used by ancient inhabitants of the area, who would come down into the darkness to worship their gods.”

Now the cave is lit by electric lights strung up along the rocks; it's not the least bit dark. The dark is no good for photographs, or for lawsuits. But it has all the markings of darkness: the slick rock walls, the echo, the chill. It's not difficult to imagine. Evan can imagine it.

“You mean they were devil-worshippers?” someone asks. The teenagers have perked up. Evan can see them perking.

“Not really,” Evan says. “This was a holy place for these people. They'd caravan down, perform their rituals by torchlight, then snuff out the torches and sit around in the dark, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for something holy to happen.” Evan is required to give out this information about the ancient inhabitants. The management has been clear about that. This kind of detailed description is supposed to foster a sense of wonder and possibility in the visitors, which, to be fair, it often does.

“What would happen?” asks Mirabella's father. Mirabella is hanging off his arm like a rag doll. She might be prettier than Evan had thought.

Evan claps his hands together. “Well,” he says, “lots of things, apparently. They'd see magic, like lights, or blue-eared deities, or their dead relatives. They'd come out saying they'd walked on the ceiling. Sometimes their hair would turn white. According to the legends, some of the men stayed down here for so long they drove themselves insane. Humans aren't meant to be in complete darkness for very long, you know. It messes with our senses.”

Suddenly Evan remembers the blind woman. “Um, sorry,” he says. The people at the front of the group look around, confused.

I don't know what he's apologizing to me for. It's not so dark in here. This boy thinks I'm stumbling around in his world, arms outstretched, but he shouldn't be too sure. Look out for that rock.

The blind woman does not seem to register Evan's apology, or even his insult. The string lights are reflecting in her sunglasses. It's not clear whether she's listening. Evan takes a deep breath.

“Okay,” he says. “Onward!” He turns on his heel and trips over a rock.

The teenagers laugh. The couples gasp.

“Are you all right?” say the women.

“Watch out there son,” say the men.

“Ha! Ha!” says Evan. “Now where did that come from?” He feels his face turning pink. He hasn't tripped on a tour in a long time. He blames the blind woman. He'll just ignore her from now on. He'll stop worrying about her. She'll just have to make her own way.

d. Broken rocks fallen from the roof and sides.

But what, really, does she think she's doing here? Can't she see she's making it harder on everyone? Even the teenagers shy from her, and usually teenagers would never notice a thing like blindness. Teenagers are astute at detecting presence; they're not as good with absence. Evan's mother always said that being polite meant making other people feel comfortable, and the blind woman is not making anyone feel comfortable. Evan's mother wanted him to be a doctor. This was only supposed to be a summer job. He tries to do everything as correctly as he can. He wanted to be an anthropology major, but his mother said: who majors in anthropology? And do they make any money? Is he making any money now, he wants to ask her. But this would not be polite, and also she is dead.

This tour guide is remarkably jittery. I frighten him, perhaps. But why shouldn't I be here? I enjoy the closeness of caves; I crave the safety of immurement. It's perhaps not usual, to love being underground. Some fear burial even more than they fear death. Some Victorian coffins came with a safety mechanism: a bell above ground, connected to the dead body by a string, so those buried alive by mistake could alert the night watchman, twitch their toes to ring themselves back to the surface. Buried while only sleeping, imagine. Waking up from a nap entombed. But even those buried correctly, well, their bodies decay, they twist and pop and swell and ring their bells. Beware, if you are the night watchmen, then. The corpses may call you. Still: similar systems remain available. Hope springs eternal.

e. Door leading from the outer to the second cavern.

“Here's where it gets a little wonky, folks,” Evan shout-says. “Beyond this door is a narrow passageway. You'll see the walls are smooth from being touched; some of you may be able to touch both walls at once, if you really reach. Stand back, now.”

Evan opens the door. He's always liked this door because of its utter irrelevance. Why install a door in a cave system? No one has ever been able to explain this to him, and no one on a tour has ever asked. It's as though he's the only one who sees the door for what it is. But it looks different to him today. It feels different, too. Bigger, perhaps. There are markings across the front, markings he's never noticed before. He's straining to open it.

The way I saw it, my daughter cut herself out of me with a spade and a pair of pliers. She bent back my ribs to make space. She split the skin of my belly and peeled herself upwards, into the afternoon. Which is not to say she was not delicate. She has always been delicate, with smooth hands and small features. Before you ask: yes, I know exactly what my daughter looks like. I also know what this passageway looks like. Also this door.

When Evan finally gets the door open, the passageway seems somehow different too. Closer, even, than he remembered. It feels as though the sides are almost brushing his shoulders. He just led this tour yesterday, and the tunnel was wider than his wingspan. Even is not a large man. He's been leading the same tour for months. Maybe the earth has shifted. Or maybe he has gained weight, or muscle. Muscle: now there's a thought. That must be it. Evan takes a deep breath and begins to talk. He walks backward and talks forward. Mirabella is riding on her father's shoulders. She makes a face at him, and pulls on a curl. The teenagers sneak, sliding their bodies against the walls, the way they'd like to slide them against each other. One girl brings a finger pistol to her lips and blows it out. The couples try to walk side by side, holding hands, but most can't manage it. One winds up leading the other. They all watch him for instructions, for confirmation with every step, as if they could get lost in this narrow passage, in this string-lit cave. He watches the people watch him. He watches them nod along.

f. Boat in the first water, which conveys one person under the arch, g.

The blind woman walks deftly across the rocks and lies down in the boat. Evan can't understand it. How could she have known it was there? Seriously, she makes his skin crawl. But when he stands over her, looking down at the way she's nestled herself into the boat, the way she's folded her hands over her chest like a corpse, he feels a little flutter of something that isn't at all skin-crawly. She's beautiful, and not just in the way that all women with big sunglasses on are somehow beautiful—the blind woman has something else, some kind of softness that makes Evan want to put his hand on her white neck.

“Why does she get to go first?” says Mirabella. She has picked up one of the rocks and has it raised in her little fist, as if about to start a revolution.

“Hurry up," says the blind woman. It is the first thing she has said to Evan. Her voice is a bell. Her voice is a bell attached to something deep underground.

Evan pushes the boat into the water. “She was first in line,” he says, as the boat drifts under the archway. The archway looks strange today, more defined, a slightly different shape. He can see every jut of rock. He peels the rock from Mirabella's wormy fingers.

I wanted to be apart from them, even for a moment. I went first to make them feel safe. They don't know this place like I do. After all, I have invented it for them.

Evan remembers seeing a girl in a wheelchair once, and being surprised that she was beautiful. She was: she had soft blonde hair, pulled back with a little blue headband, and big eyes, pink lips, the regular assortment of things. The regular assortment of things that make regular girls beautiful, when they are beautiful. She sat there, in her black industrial wheelchair, as though waiting for a bus; one thin leg draped daintily over the other. Waiting for a bus, or for him. On a park bench, say. In the summer. That was good to think about, until he saw her feet, which were huge and purple and full of blood, like two fat skinned rabbits stuffed into little black shoes. The girl sipped demurely from a box of coconut water. She was so dignified, he remembers, and he wanted desperately to fuck her. She reached down to massage her left foot; did it deflate a little under her palm? He couldn't tell; he was noticing the way her calves were as thin as her arms. He wondered: did everything work down there? He knew that was a cliché thing to wonder, but he had never been turned on by a cripple before, and he was horrified at himself, and excited as much by the horror as he was by the girl.

The world fears the wounded. Men are squeamish. Women, wary. One cut exposed, one sore opened on your pale cheek, and children run from you. There are no degrees of disorder. You can't be half a monster. My milked eyes remind you: your body will be a corpse. Yes, your own body, which you hold so dear. Yes, the body of my daughter, too. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

“Is it my turn?” says Mirabella. “Is it my turn my turn my turn yet?”

h. Great Cavern

“Move in folks,” Evan says. “I know it's a small room.” There are chuckles. There are always chuckles at this juncture. The people are so boring with their chuckles, their nods. The blind woman is silent. It has taken forever to get all of these people through water. It has taken longer than usual. It is not just the size of the group. The water is much wider. The water is much longer. It took Evan himself several extra minutes, while everyone else waited for him on the other side. Evan can't understand how his everyday path has become so unhitched. Everything is an approximation of itself today.

i. Steps cut in the sand to descend to the second water, k.

Steps cut in the sand; why not? Normal sand would shift away, refuse this shape, but this particular sand has been hard-packed for some time—centuries, let's say—and so it can be cut, sculpted, adorned. They say that horses can't walk down stairs. It's a myth, of course. They just don't want to. They say that in old houses, a single uneven riser would be slotted in on purpose, to trip burglars. It's a myth, of course. Stairs are simply hard to make, even if you know how.

The management has been making improvements down here, Evan sees. They're always making improvements; natural caves aren't nearly as natural as you'd think. Sometimes the tour groups have accidents and destroy things. Sometimes the management gets a tip that everyone loves a cave with a secret alcove, and so they cut a secret alcove into the wall and claim it's always been there. They used to scrape up a lot of stuck-on gum gobs and then they'd have to patch the greasy old gum spots. Why does gum leave marks like that? It must be something in the mouth, Evan thinks. There's a special team they call in, expert geologists, or artists, or dentists, Evan doesn't know, to make sure that the fake parts, the fillings and widenings, look real. Just in case someone who knows about caves ever takes the tour, which Evan doubts they ever would. If you know about caves, there are better ones to tour. Yes, these stairs are just the newest improvement, easily explainable. This used to be just a slope with a wooden plank, and now there are steps. They've worked quickly before. Maybe not this quickly, but quickly. Easily explainable. Yes.

l. Entrance to the passage leading to the “chancel,” m.

“Here is the entry to the chancel,” Evan says. “Called that because—”

“Where?” interrupts a father.

“Right here.”

“There's no entry there.”

There is no entry there, there is no entry there, there is no entry there.

There is no entry there.

n. Third cavern, 400 yards from the entrance.

When they emerge into the third cavern, the deepest and darkest room, Evan looks around in shock. He has never been in this room before. The shape is right, or close to right, but it is green, all over green, and glowing with a weird phosphorescence. Evan's hands are cold.

“Wow,” says Mirabella.

“Wow,” says one of the teenagers.

“This wasn't in the brochure,” say the women.

“Where are the stalactites?” say the men.

There are no stalactites, or stalagmites. This is where they should be. Stalactites hold tight to the ceiling. Stalagmites rise mightily from the floor. These people have paid for both. But there is nothing here except the greenness.

Evan finds himself in front of the blind woman. “It's all right,” she says. Evan takes her hand. It is so small and white, and not at all damaged. “It's beautiful,” she says. “Isn't it beautiful?”

“Yes,” Evan says. He wants to weep. He has never before wept on a tour. He wants the blind woman to hold him more tightly; he leans toward her.

“In this room,” the blind woman says, “there were many burials, and many births. There will be many more.”

Evan puts his hands on the blind woman's bony shoulders and then, like a child, climbs up into her arms. He is small, so small that he could climb right back behind my ribs if he had the right tools. I rock him. After all, she is just an infant, and we are alone, so there is no shame in weeping. We are alone, and at home, and a fire burns in the brazier. Outside, there are stars, but they cannot see us. I press her into my stomach, where she longs to return. I fold her up, and she quiets, pleased. The walls here are close and warm and painted green.

For more information about this piece, see this issue's legend.

Plan of the Peak Cavern

Emily Temple