In the Wake of a Dream MADISON BRADBURN
SHORT STORIES
She’d read somewhere, in an old national park brochure, that caves are alive. Like people, caves breathe. They have thoughts. They have dreams. They are whole bodies, existing with all that entails. To go into a cave was to go somewhere she wasn’t wanted. The earth made it abundantly clear. Humans were not meant to be underground, just as they weren’t meant to dive to the bottom of the ocean or to pull out the fish that live in trenches and liquify to jelly upon contact with the open air. That’s what got Catlynn into spelunking. She wanted to be somewhere she wasn’t wanted. She wanted the swell of pride that came from exploring the earth, from surviving when the cave wanted nothing to do with her. Hands tightening around the straps of her canvas bag, she took a deep breath of summer air. The world fell off not twenty feet from where she stood, the mountains giving way to a bowl valley filled with fog so thick you’d think you were looking out over a lake. It would be burned off by mid-morning, the June heat evaporating into the air only for the water to come crashing down in the daily afternoon rainstorm. The Appalachian Mountains were nearly 480 million years old making it one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. They existed before bones. It was something Catlynn could hardly wrap her head around. It was a place where many of the caves didn’t have fossils simply because nothing was around to die. The cave to her back made its presence known over her shoulders in a tingle that ran claws up the back of her neck, settling at the base of her skull. Ester’s Web. When she’d first begun spelunking, she’d hiked out to Ester. Inexperienced and ill equipped, Catlynn had dove into the cave not far from a small place called Panthertown that was known for its gorgeous hiking trails and the small, sleepy town at the trailhead. Most spelunkers went in teams of four or more, keeping their numbers even so everyone had a buddy, but Catlynn had never worked well in teams. Raised several miles up a rural holler she had what her mom called a sadistic streak, a lack of empathy and a stubborn independence. When she crawled back to the surface triumphant, she wanted the air in her lungs to be her own. The sweat pressing her bangs to her forehead, Catlynn wanted to earn that alone. She smiled, knowing that the grin would only be wider when she came clambering back later in the day, Ester’s Web finally defeated and set decidedly behind her. Ester had beaten Catlynn the first time, frightened her off with a squeeze so tight she’d sworn she’d turn thin as a worm pushing through. Not this time though. Catlynn was far more experienced now. This time, she had dozens of caves under her belt and equipment she knew better than she knew herself.
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