I lead her past the Cathedral and into the side passagethat leads down into the belly of the earth. That familiar excitement rushes through me as the air around us cools and becomes humid, and the damp cave smell envelops us. It feels like we’re stepping into a snow globe, nestled in a private, sheltered world of our own as a flurry of dust motes floats around us in the shine of the headlights.
She follows me closely, never hesitating. I can see the admiration in her gaze for some of the stunts I pull, and I can feel it reflected in her. As I hoped, Sierra takes to caving, crawling down steep, rocky slopes, ducking past knife-edged stalactites, shimmying up chimney routes, and belaying down a wall without hesitation. Her laughter echoes faintly as she trips and slides in the thick mud that coats the way.
I do my best to keep my grin hidden as I gesture behind us, pitch-black except for the pinpoints of light from our headlamps. “We’re headed to the next section now, A Hug from Nonna. You’ll see in a second why it’s called that. No one will squeeze you tighter than Nonna, right?”
I lead the way, squeezing through the narrow passage in front of us before dropping down to crawl on my belly. The cold mud sticks thickly to my clothing. It feels like dipping myself in a huge vat of cold peanut butter. I can’t help showing off as I squeeze through the narrowest part of a Hug from Nonna, where we usually don’t take visitors this deep in because it’s such a tight space. The rock scrapes along my helmet and back as I wriggle into the tiny opening at the end.
“Watch your head!” I call back. “This section isn’t long, then we’ll be able to stand again in the next passage.”
“Oh my god,” she laughs as she crawls after me. “This is crazy. People rag on climbers for living dangerously, but this is so much worse! It’s like selecting your own grave andhopping straight into it. How are you not terrified of getting stuck?”
There’s a loud rip. “Oh no! I just gave myself that fate,” she moans. “Logan! Wait, my pants are stuck.”
I turn around and slither back to her. The oversized pants have torn all the way down the back of one thigh, with a loose strip of material knotted around a jutting rock. She giggles helplessly as I try to untangle her.
“There are easier ways to strip me and tie me up,” she says. “You didn’t have to go to these lengths, Logan.”
“But would that be nearly as fun?” I ask. “I doubt it.”
Eventually, I tear it free and tuck the loose end into the rip so she doesn’t get snagged again.
“Want to keep going?” I ask.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but hell yes. Lead the way.”
We reach the top of a section called Slip ’N’ Slide. It’s a long, narrow, muddy chute that I dive headfirst into without hesitation. Most customers chicken out and go feet-first, but to my delight, Sierra follows my lead. She dives in after me, sliding down with a long scream until the chute gently bottoms out.
I help her up. Her whole front is caked in mud, and there’s a streak on her temple that I try, and fail, to wipe off, only smearing it around. She’s laughing, though, her eyes dancing with excitement. I knew she’d love it.
“What do you think?” I ask.
“What do I think? This is insane,” she says, panting. “How does anyone decide to explore a cave for the first time? You said you mapped this out yourself? You’re so brave!”
“Not by myself,” I say. “I hired professional cave cartographers to help me explore and map out the cave system.”
“And they’ve mapped the whole thing? No other hidden passageways?”
“Not that we could find.”
Sierra wipes mud off her jaw with the back of her arm and beams at me. Her smile is so blindingly beautiful to me that I have to look away.
“Um, so,” I say, trying to get my bearings. “This is usually the part of the tour where I educate people about rock formations.”
She gestures at me. “Go for it. This will be helpful for trivia night.”
I put on my best tour guide voice. “Now, who knows the difference between stalactites and stalagmites?”
“Stalactites grow down and stalagmites grow up?” Sierra guesses.
“Yep! And they continue to grow, sometimes until they merge and form a solid column. See, many people think of caves as dark, lifeless tombs,” I say, giving her a look.
She gives an innocent look back like,who me?
I laugh softly and continue. “But there’s a whole living world down here that humans rarely get to see. Water drips, air flows, creatures make their home in the dark. In a way, rock formations are alive too, transforming drip by drip, ever-changing over the course of millennia.”
“That’s a poetic way to look at it,” Sierra says, her lips curving up sweetly.
“Caves are poetry,” I agree. “My brothers and sister think I like spending all my time crawling around in cave muck—which who wouldn’t? It’s fun—but I also get the chance to see the earth through this rare lens. Humans have barely scratched the surface of what is possible incaves.”
