The Cheese Grater scrapes my bare arms and legs. I squeeze through the limestone crevice and my skin goose pimples. Sucking in a breath, I exhale steam. It's a muggy, hot September, but the caves are fridge cooled to, as Mags puts it, "beer temperature." Giggles echo ahead in the next chamber.

 

"It's the Cheese Grater, Sparkle Room, left turn Mud Room, Saddle Squeeze, left turn Living Room, right?" I twist my neck to look at her.

 

Mags smacks me on the butt. "Right turn Living Room. Don't worry. It took me forever to learn my way through the caves. My cousin told me a kid got lost in here in the eighties or something and they never found him." She laughs. "Probably just an urban legend."

 

"Uh, yeah." I don't say anything else. I want her to like me and I'm focusing on repeating the directions in my head. This is the first time Mags and her friends have invited me anywhere. I mean, yeah, I offered to raid my parents' dispensary for shrooms, but still Mags wouldn't invite just anyone to one of her epic girls-only cave parties. Everyone on the island knows about the caves. There are hundreds of them according to the ferry brochures. Way more according to Mags. Most of the openings are too small to squeeze through or they're gated off by eco-companies and the government for, you know, "our safety." But the Living Room hasn't been gated off yet. So far only Mags and her friends—and probably her cousin and all his friends—know about the Living Room, but the older boys don't count because they're away at college on the mainland. It's only a matter of time, Mags says before the Feds shut the party down. So she's making the most of it.

 

I'd brave pretty much anything, including cave spiders, to be in Mags's squad. A few scrapes and a minor case of claustrophobia are better than eating my lunch on the toilet again or streaming Yellowjackets with my parents on a Friday night. I need friends. Being new sucks. Mom couldn't shove me out the door fast enough when I told her I was hanging out tonight with some girls from school. She didn't even ask where I was going or what we were doing. 

 

Something tickles my neck. I shriek, causing Mags to crack up again. "Relax, you big baby. I'm right here. It's not like we're gonna leave you." My headlamp lights up condensation collecting on stalactites like diamonds. It's just water dripping from the roof onto my neck.

 

We're at the Saddle Squeeze. Mags offers to go first. Lying on her stomach, blonde ponytail spilling like a puddle on the rock, she throws one thigh up and over the slab and shimmies through. There's less than two feet of clearance. I do some elevator breathing and follow.

 

The opening widens into the largest cavern so far—the Living Room. Frankie and Willow are already spray painting "Dump Trump" in hot pink next to their initials. I pass around a pack of Lucid Gates mushrooms and warn them not to take more than half each. Frankie tees up a rotating playlist of Ella Langley's Be Her and Olivia Rodrigo's Drop Dead while we wait an hour for the shrooms to kick in. When they do, the water droplets on the cave roof pulse like stars and Mags sets off Roman candles, which look like the sparklers on the funfetti cake at my sixth birthday. I cried when I couldn't blow it out. I laugh at the memory and then start choking and all three girls cackle like hyenas, their eyes glowing yellow. They set off more fireworks, the colours swirling and exploding in time to the music.

 

Frankie and Willow want to explore more of the cave. Mags doesn't. She's vibing here. I stay with her because I'm getting a vibe that maybe Frankie and Willow have a thing and want to make out, but mostly I don't trust my legs to work right. Laying back on the blankets, I'm lulled to sleep by the staccato drip, drips and the murmur of Mag's voice talking about the universe, sexism, who has rizz and who doesn't.

 

It was giggling that woke me up, I'm sure of it. But I can't see anything. It takes me several seconds to realize my headlamp is out.

 

"Mags? Hey, Mags? Will? Frankie?!" My voice crescendos from a whisper to a high-pitched shout. "This isn't funny! Where are you guys?" My pleas echo back in a creepy copycat nightmare of noise, so I stop. Did they leave me? Was this just some nasty 1980s movie prank on the new girl? Fuck! How could I be so stupid?

 

More giggling. Or wait, is that crying? It sounds like a kid. Oh my God, I'm shivering. What do I do? Fingers spread wide, I reach out for anything that isn't rock and I'm rewarded with a blanket Mags must have left behind. I grip the rough wool in both fists and wrap it around my back. I have to get out of here. Crawling, I follow the giggling, blind. I try to remember. "Left turn, Living Room," I whisper so the walls don't scream back at me.

 

Everything is wet, sharp, and cold. The air is thick with petrichor. I can't breathe, but I keep moving. I fumble for the Saddle Squeeze and my face smacks against a wall. No, no, no, no, no. Where is the opening? I swallow a whimper and make myself still so I can hear the sound again. Something, anything to tell me I'm not alone. The giggle crying I'm following like a trail of breadcrumbs sharpens into drip, drip, dripping. It's condensation. There is no Willow, no Frankie, no Mags. There is no lost child. There is no one here but me. This time I don't hold back my scream.