CHRYSALIS By Lisa Lepovetsky “They’ve been called ‘Chrysalis Caverns’ for the
past fifty years,” drawled the bored teenage guide—Pansy or Bambi—around a
mouthful of bubble gum. “They were given that name because entomologist—that
means insect specialist—Elmer Bowes, who first discovered the caves in eighteen
seventy-three, was searching for the chrysalis—the cocoon—of a luna moth. He never found the cocoon, but he spent the
next twenty-five years excavating these caves.” She stepped through the doorway of the little entry
booth, and we seven gladly followed her from the stuffiness inside into the
crisp sunshine of a late-autumn afternoon.
Her hips swayed just a little too much in the tight jeans, and while two
pairs of male eyes tried unsuccessfully to avoid watching her, Jeanie Dodd and
I pretended not to notice. And since
Jeanie actually bore a strong resemblance to the little piece of French pastry
leading us into Chrysalis Caverns, I suspected she wasn't pretending. Pansy/Bambi stood next to the “Enter at your own
risk” sign and continued in her sing-song voice: “Of course, we like to add
another dimension to the name.” I
wondered whether she even knew what the word ‘dimension’ meant. “We say that anyone who enters these caves
has a metamorphosis from the experience, just like the caterpillar changes into
the luna moth Elmer Bowes searched for—and like Elmer himself changed from an
entomologist to a spelunker, or cave explorer.”
She pointed to another hand-painted sign beneath the warning. It read: “Be prepared to be changed forever.” A nice sentiment, I thought, even if it was a bit of
an exaggeration. All she’d have to do
was put a little emotion into it, or just look at us instead of glancing at her
watch. We’d already been told we were
the last group of the day to go through the caves. I was really in no mood to be ‘changed
forever,’ after the weekend I’d just spent in the wilds of West Virginia with
Blake and his survivalist buddies. I
just wanted to get home and stand under a hot shower for an hour or so. “It’ll be fun, babe,” he’d said when I suggested
he’d have a better time without me there.
“It’s like a family thing this time.
You and the other wives can sit around and talk about shopping or hair
or kids or whatever, while we’re out practicing.” “Practicing” was Blake’s word for the tactical
maneuvers and war games he and the other weekend mountaineers played at once a
month. Usually it was just a guy thing,
and he came back exhausted and filthy, and smelling of cigars and beer and wood
smoke and who knows what else. I was
surprised that they’d even considered inviting women this time, and even more
surprised that any other wives had agreed to tag along. Jeanie and I were the only women who’d joined
them. I couldn't understand why any
other woman in her right mind—one without an ulterior motive—would want to
spend a weekend “with the boys.” Or why
those “boys” would want women along in the first place. Of course, I understood a lot more when I saw the
way Blake and Jeanie exchanged little private glances when they thought nobody
was watching. And when I noticed how
they both disappeared for five or ten minutes at fairly regular intervals
throughout the weekend. Blake’s never
been the most subtle guy around, and Jeanie wasn’t his first fling—though I was
determined it would be his last.
Jeanie’s husband Rob seemed oblivious to Blake’s attentions toward his
wife. He was more interested in drinking
beer and shooting at squirrels. And the
other two guys obviously couldn’t have cared less one way or the other. So I found myself pretty well ignored for most of
the weekend, which was fine with me.
Except for putting a dead snake in my sleeping bag—one of his famous
practical jokes—even Blake left me alone.
I like exploring the woods, and other than Blake’s interest in Jeanie, I
wouldn’t have paid any attention to the others at all. I’d just come along because of my curiosity
about why Blake was so insistent that I be there. I quickly realized it was so that Rob would
bring Jeanie. It had been Jeanie’s idea that we stop at the
caverns on the way home. She’d never
been inside them, and thought it would be a “hoot.” Nobody argued with her. I was anxious to
enjoy my hot shower and soft bed, and I really didn’t relish wandering around
in a bunch of little stone passageways.
But I didn’t want to be the lone dissenter in the group, and the four of
us were riding together, so I stayed quiet. We followed our perky little tour guide down a path
to the mouth of the cavern as she regaled us with oh-so-fascinating statistics
about the size and depth of the caves, and the composition of the stone. I stopped listening halfway down, and
concentrated on watching Jeanie and Blake.
As we headed toward the arched stone entrance and Pansy/Bambi cautioned
us to watch our step on the slick walkway, Blake put his hand against Jeanie’s
lower back to help her along. She turned
and smiled at him gratefully. Not a big
deal, I thought, but still I found myself grinding my teeth. Pansy/Bambi stopped and gestured with her long
flashlight at the opening. “When Elmer
Bowes discovered these caves, the opening was barely large enough for him to
crawl through on his hands and knees,” she said. “It’s been enlarged since then, to
accommodate visitors like yourselves.” I
tried to imagine crawling through a tiny passageway, not knowing whether you’d
have room to even turn around. My palms
grew sweaty just thinking about it. As we descended the rough-hewn stairs, the ceiling
lowered and the men had to duck their heads to continue. The walls narrowed until I could stretch out
my arms and touch them on both sides at once.
I could feel my claustrophobia kicking in, but I’d be damned if I’d let
perfect Jeanie know, so I fought my natural inclination to retreat. I wished I could take Blake’s hand, but he
was up by Jeanie, and I was at the rear, just after Rob. Then we rounded a bend and a large cavern
opened in front of us. I could breathe
again. “This is known as the Throne Room,” Pansy/Bambi
said, snapping a large pink bubble as she spoke. “You can see the stalactites from the ceiling
meet the stalagmites rising from the floor to form columns in front of the
large raised bed of stone on the far side of the room. You can imagine that the smaller stalagmites
scattered around could be kneeling supplicants.” “Supplicants”—another big word from the little
girl. I couldn’t imagine anything of the
kind, but I followed her into the room nonetheless. “Throne room,” Blake snickered. “That’s what I call the john at home.” Rob laughed and Jeanie giggled, but I just
rolled my eyes. Typical Blake – toilet
humor. I wondered whether he entertained
all his floozies this way, and whether they all found it as hilarious as Jeanie
seemed to. There was a time I found
Blake’s little jokes charming, but that time was long past. As we passed from the Throne Room into another
crooked passageway, the air grew cooler, and the constant sound of dripping
seemed to grow louder. Lights hung from
wires attached to the ceiling. The sun
no longer shone inside Chrysalis Caverns, and
I shivered, despite the flannel shirt I wore. “Please watch your step along here.” The little voice chirping from the front of
our group seemed hollow among the stones.
“And proceed single file. The
path gets pretty steep for a while.” I noticed
a flimsy rope guardrail on the left was all that kept us from plummeting into
darkness. I hugged the damp stone wall
on my right. I wasn’t afraid of heights,
but there was no sense taking chances. As Jeanie went ahead, Blake put his hands on her hips
and pretended to give her a shove.
“Bombs away,” he laughed. She
gave a little shriek and grabbed onto him. “Quit horsing around, Blake,” I said, anxious for
him to take his paws off Jeanie. “That
could be dangerous.” “Lighten up, Eve,” he sighed. “Don’t be such a killjoy.” Pansy/Bambi picked up a small rock and said. “I can give you an idea of how deep this
crevice is. Notice how long it takes for
this chunk of limestone to hit bottom.”
She held it over the edge of the precipice and dropped it. A few seconds later, we heard a crack as the
stone landed. “That’s a hundred feet down,” she said. “You can’t see very well in this light, but
up ahead, we’ll be able to see better what that looks like.” She walked on, and I moved up closer to
Blake. I tried to hold his hand, but he
shifted away toward Jeanie. Rob was
behind me, and apparently didn’t notice what was going on. Or didn’t care. It wasn’t long before the path opened up into a
large chamber where we stood on a table of rock that jutted into a nearly
vertical chasm. The narrow plateau was surrounded by another low rope
guardrail. “We call this room Echo Cavern,” Pansy/Bambi said,
and I could immediately tell why. The
tinny sound of her voice reverberated along the wet walls and seemed to come
from all around us. “If you approach the
edge, you’ll see just how deep the chasm is.” Blake and Rob stepped toward the rope fence to look
down, and Jeanie and I followed them at a slight distance. I moved ahead of
Jeanie so that I would be between her and Blake. When I reached out and gripped his elbow, he
tried to move away, but I held fast. I
knew if it were Jeanie holding him, he’d have no problem. She edged between Blake
and Rob, and I could feel Blake leaning toward her. At that moment, Pansy/Bambi spoke again. “Now I’ll
show you how dark it gets in Chrysalis Caverns. I’m going to turn off the
lights for a minute, so don’t move.” I watched her hand move toward a wall switch that I
hadn’t noticed before, and suddenly we were plunged into complete, suffocating
darkness. I felt Blake shift toward
Jeanie, and she giggled. I reacted without thinking. I shouted, “Stop fooling around, Blake.” And, still gripping his elbow, I shoved him
hard against the flimsy rope barrier. I
felt him teeter for a moment, as the cord seemed to decide whether or not to
keep him from falling. Small pebbles
ground under his shoes and pattered against the sides of the chasm. I pushed again. Then he was over the edge with a scream, just
as the lights came back on. His scream echoed around us in the sudden
brightness. In the couple of seconds it took him to hit bottom,
nobody said a word. I think it took them
a moment to realize what had happened. Then Jeanie shrieked and buried her face
in Rob’s shoulder, and Pansy/Bambi hurried over. “Nothing like this has ever happened,” she said, her
voice breaking. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” She looked at me
pleadingly. I was genuinely trembling, and forced some tears.
“We’ll have to go back and get some help to bring him up.” I panted as I tried
to catch my breath. I had to get out of
there; the walls were closing in on me. I started to run up the path along the
chasm and through the Throne Room. When
I reached the entryway, I leaned against the wall for a moment, trying to pull
myself together. I noticed my shaking
hand resting on the sign reading “Be prepared to be changed forever” and I
thought about Blake, at the bottom of Chrysalis Caverns. Yes, I thought, it was true; we were changed forever. At least, Blake was. Lisa
Lepovetsky
has been published frequently in anthologies and magazines, including EQMM.
She holds an MFA in writing from Penn State University. She writes and
hosts mystery theaters under the name “It’s A Mystery!” and has published
a novel, SHADOWS ON THE BAYOU. She also has a new
volume of dark poetry, Voices from Empty Rooms, available from Alban Lake
Publishing and Amazon. Her
short stories, “Point of Balance” appeared in omdb! in October,
2015, “A Real Gift” in March, 2015, and “Serenity,”
appeared in September, 2014. Copyright © 2017 Lisa Lepovetsky. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of the author is prohibited. OMDB! and OMDB! logos are trademarks of Over My Dead Body! |