CW: none.

They went to the island not to save the marriage—for the marriage hadn’t yet occurred—but to save the possibility of the marriage. It’d been a rough year, Carla knew. The details were banal. Stress at work and stress at home. The economy collapsing. The political system collapsing. The planet burning. Despite all this, when her fiancé, Anton, proposed a vacation, she balked.

“That’s the last thing we can afford,” Carla said.

“We can’t afford not to. Destressing is important. Especially with your—” Anton paused. “Your condition.”

By condition, Anton meant her panic attacks. Every so often, Carla would feel a painful sensation in her chest, as if some angry creature was being born there. This creature would unfurl its burning limbs. A leg through her gut, a hand sliding through the heart. Carla’s breath would get fast and hot. Then she would be hyperventilating on the floor. Usually, this panic creature only took control of her once or maybe twice a year. But the attacks had increased after her mother had died of cancer the prior year and had become almost routine as the wedding, with its endless tasks and infinite stressors, loomed.

“Okay,” Carla said. “Only let’s mind our budget.”

They decided on a small island in the middle of the ocean where neither had ever been. It was affordable in the offseason. Looking at the photos of white beaches and candy-blue waters, Carla felt the creature shrivel up in her chest and slumber. Yes. It’d be just the break they needed to make it to the wedding. As for the steps after that? They would have to figure out how to climb them as they came.

• • • •

Sheets of rain fell nearly sideways as they landed, and the wind threatened to push the plane off the runway. Anton cursed as they hailed a taxi, then stopped himself. “Positive attitude.” He smiled, face splattered. “Weather is supposed to improve tomorrow.”

In the cab, the driver looked them over. “A wedding. How grand. We’ll have to have you back for the honeymoon.”

“Maybe,” Carla said.

“You’ll come back. I foresee it. It’s the perfect island for the honeymoon.”

“The hard sell,” Anton said.

Both men laughed.

Carla was shocked at the blue of the ocean as they drove across the bridge. It was the color of soap or soda, even with the storm clouds.

“What’s that little guy on the dashboard?” Anton said.

“Oh. Nothing. A local myth.”

Carla hadn’t noticed it before but now leaned forward to study the odd figurine. The creature was short and hunchbacked with large, drooping eyes. Its mouth was a puckered hole. Red protrusions like gills fringed its thin neck.

“What’s it called?” Carla asked.

The taxi driver stretched out one finger. He spoke the name as he rubbed the creature’s scalp. Carla thought it sounded like “tugatwé” or perhaps “tog wart.”

“The tugwort?” Anton said.

The driver laughed, deep and rich. “Close enough. Yes. Tugwort.”

“What does a tugwort do?” Carla asked.

They drove through rows of palm trees, leaves hanging in the rain like wet fingers reaching for them.

“A local spirit. They say it lives way down in the caves.” The driver’s voice seemed very far away. “There are caves all around the island. Full of stalactites and stalagmites. Very beautiful. Very mysterious.”

Anton turned excitedly to Carla. “There’s one at our resort. We’ll have to visit.”

“They are strange places, those caves. They go deep, deep into the earth. No one knows how far. Don’t go too deep if you visit. That is my advice. Humans were not meant to stray far from the open air. The ones who go deep come out changed.”

Carla leaned forward to get a closer look at the tugwort. It had been carved crudely yet entranced her. It seemed as if its pupilless eyes were looking into hers. Suddenly she felt the creature inside her. In her chest with its arms unfurling to grip at her veins and nerves.

“Honey, baby,” Anton was saying. He stroked her arm.

She was gasping for air.

“Are you okay?”

“Aha!” the driver said. “We arrive.”

A cloud moved away from the sun, and they were bathed in light. The resort was just up the hill.

• • • •

At the doorway, they were accosted by an older man with a ruddy face. He wore a blue blazer with brass buttons, white shorts, loafers, and red socks that had been pulled up to his knees. The blazer had a strange crest embroidered on the left side. At first, Carla thought it depicted the tugwort surrounded in flames. When she looked closer, it transformed into a lion biting the neck of a stag.

“Welcome to your temporary paradise,” he said.

The man waved them inside and Carla watched him stride officiously to the next arriving taxi.

“What’s he supposed to be? Some kind of captain?” Carla asked.

“The manager, I guess.”

The resort was largely empty. Other than the staff, there were only a handful of older vacationers with stark white hair and hunched-over backs. They wore pastel cardigans and chinos.

Anton stroked her neck. “Perfect, right? It’s just us and some geezers. We can just read and relax.”

“It’s a little cold.”

“I’ll buy you a sweatshirt in the gift shop. Maybe they’ll have one with that tug rat thing.” He chuckled.

“Tugwort.”

“Yeah, that was it.”

While Anton went to the front desk, Carla logged into the Wi-Fi. Carla was a mathematics teacher at a mediocre college. The school had a trimester system with breaks at odd times, which is why they’d been able to book the resort at a discounted rate. Despite being on break, her inbox was still full of emails from various members of the administration assigning pointless tasks. She could feel the panic creature unfurling in her chest.

“Hey.” Anton appeared and covered her phone with his hand. “No working, remember. This is our holiday!”

“I just have to respond to the provost.”

Anton flopped in a chair and made a pouty face while Carla typed. Carla knew the face was meant to be playful, yet she hated it. Of course, there were many things he did that she loved, such as how he kissed her neck to wake her each morning. If Carla added up all the things that she liked about Anton and subtracted all the things she didn’t, what number would the equation produce? What number did a marriage need? A life? Sometimes at night she would try to devise the exact right equation, factoring in every possible variable. Always, she fell asleep before the calculation was complete.

• • • •

They barely saw anyone as they explored, except for a few stray cats. Anton led them down to the beach, where they walked around the empty pool that Carla noted was somehow less blue than the ocean. The pool bar was unmanned. All the chairs were stacked upside down on the tables and a tarp covered the bar itself.

“It’s not that bad!” Anton was holding his shoes and standing in the bright blue waters.

When Carla stepped into the gentle waves, the water was freezing. How was it that they couldn’t even agree on the temperature of water?

“I’m not swimming in that.”

“Okay.” Anton frowned, then clapped his hands and smiled. “Well. We said we’re going to just read and relax, right?”

On the way back up the hill, Anton snatched her wrist. “Look.” To the right, obscured by vine-draped trees, there was a fissure in the ground. It looked like an old wound in the hill. Cats lounged in the red mud that guarded the entrance. There was an unlit lamp beside it and a white sign with red letters: Honeymoon Cave.

• • • •

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Anton said, stripping down to his bathing suit.

“Something could bite you.”

“It’s completely devoid of life. Look.”

They were at the bottom of Honeymoon Cave, standing over the pond. The ground was brown rock, but the water made the sunken stalagmites look a greenish blue. The cave wall curved over the pond, dotted with stalactites that reached almost to the water, like teeth in the mouth of some deep-sea creature that lived a thousand miles from the light of the sun.

“I left my bathing suit in the room,” Carla said.

Anton kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll be quick.”

Carla couldn’t see the sunlight. A string of lightbulbs wrapped around a damp wooden railing was the only illumination. Yet something about the cave enchanted her. It felt timeless. Free from the worries of the world above. She could imagine how ancient people might have found these caves and considered them sacred. The hiding places of gods or demons.

Toweling off, Anton noticed there was a crude staircase leading further into the cave. “Let’s check it out.”

“Can we head back?”

“Just a sec.”

He skipped up the steps, around a corner, and out of Carla’s sight. She looked around the cave, marveling at the spikes jutting up or down. An uneasy feeling stirred in her. The cave seemed alive. She could almost swear the walls were pulsing. She had to get out.

Just then, she heard a yelp. “Carla!”

“What is it?” She put her hand to her throat.

“You have to see this.”

“Just come back.”

“The cave goes way back! But someone has nailed up boards to block the path.” Anton’s voice reverberated eerily off the cave walls. “I saw a little guy back there. He was all hunched over and slimy. Like that tugwort. Wait. There he is again. His eyes are so blue. He’s waving to me. Beckoning.”

“Shut up, Anton.”

He came back, laughing. “Oh, lighten up. We’re on vacation.”

• • • •

Her sleep was deep and jagged. Then, suddenly, she was awake. It was dark. The clock said four a.m. Anton slept beside her, snores reverberating out of his nostrils.

Something was scratching at the sliding doors to the porch. Carla shifted, slowly, clutching the sheets. She saw the outline of a small, hunched-over creature. The tugwort, she knew. It had found her already.

Panic began to spread inside her. But she looked again and realized it was just one of the cats. It was facing away, looking at the moonlit ocean, its tail sliding back and forth across the screen door.

Carla looked at her phone. She had a reply from the provost and a dozen new messages about the wedding. The caterer’s payment was late, the DJ wanted their song list, and the baker was following up for a third time about the decoration options. Carla got up to shoo the cat away or at least close the curtain. Yet as she got out of bed, she heard a hiss and a tortured yowl. The cat had disappeared. She slid open the door and found nothing, not even a pool of blood.

• • • •

At the breakfast buffet, Anton discussed seating arrangements while digging into his waffles. Carla stabbed gummy eggs with her fork. The red-faced captain was walking through the meager crowd in his blazer. When he saw her, he winked.

“What if we just called it off,” Carla said. “Elope or just keep things how they are, no marriage? We can jettison all the stress.” She laughed a little.

Anton scowled. “Really? That’s what you’re going to say on our vacation?”

“It’s only a joke,” Carla said.

Anton stood up, holding his plate. “I’m going to go swim in the ocean. I didn’t fly to an island to never swim. Join me or don’t. Whatever.”

Later, she watched Anton shiver, waist deep in the water, while she tried to read her novel. The day was bright yet windy. There was a strange, distant noise that sounded like a cat screaming. Carla assumed it was the wind whistling through the jagged, porous rocks that dotted the island, although it sure seemed alive. The sound continued in waves. She draped her towel over her legs.

When she finished her book, Anton was gone. She couldn’t see him anywhere in the blue, undisturbed waters. She got up. When she spotted him, he was off near the Honeymoon Cave talking with the weird captain. Anton nodded as the captain patted his shoulder. She thought she saw Anton wipe a tear from his face. He noticed her. Anton jogged over as the captain hurried away.

“Who were you talking to?”

“Oh, just the manager,” he said. He shaded his eyes with his hands. “He gave me some good ideas for activities in the area.”

• • • •

“The story goes, three boys found this place when their soccer ball fell into a fissure,” the tour guide said. “One of the boys had a rope. They climbed down and swam for hours.”

They were deep in a tourist attraction near the resort called the Timeless Caves. These were vastly larger than Honeymoon Cave. The lake here could fit a fleet of boats, at least if the passengers ducked. Finger-like stalactites stretched almost to the water.

“Fun!” a small boy said. He was standing in front of Carla and Anton on the tour, holding his mother’s hand.

The guide squatted. “It was very scary. They had no light except for a single kerosene lamp. They couldn’t see anything beyond a few feet. At any moment a monster could have jumped out and feasted on them.”

“Did they find the ball?” Anton said.

“We don’t know. Although what we do know is, sadly, quite tragic. Only two of the boys made it out again.”

“Jesus,” the mother said, holding the boy against her thigh. “Where were the parents?”

“Many search parties came. Nothing was found. It was as if the last boy had vanished into the caves. For a long time, people said it was haunted and refused to visit. But here we are!”

The guide laughed and ushered them onto a rickety bridge.

At the end of the tour, Carla found herself alone with the guide while the rest of the group observed strange formations. “So how many different caves are there on the island?”

“A philosophical question.” The guide pointed his flashlight down into the depths. “Many caves are connected through tiny crevices too small for us to fit through. Perhaps the entire island is atop one vast labyrinth.”

There was a splash. Carla gasped and turned. The boy had dropped a lollipop in the water. His mother yanked his shirt. “It’s gone now, are you happy?”

Carla looked at the guide. “Whew, for a second I thought it was a tugwort.”

The guide’s face went blank. “You shouldn’t know that word. It is not a word you say, not down here.”

“What word? Tugwort?”

The guide blew his whistle. Everyone turned to face him. “Now, we return to the air.”

• • • •

It was the third day, or was it the fourth? Timed had blurred. Carla was reading on the beach again. Anton had wandered off somewhere again. The weather hadn’t improved. She looked at the bright blue waters and imagined her anxieties being pulled out of her, rolled into a ball, and stuffed down into one of the caves.

A rain drop fell on Carla’s novel. A second hit her cheek. Somehow, a storm had rolled in when she hadn’t been paying attention.

Anton still wasn’t back, and Carla grabbed his shoes and shirt, rolling them up with her book in the towel, and ran. The clouds opened themselves. Carla was sprinting back to the room, shouting Anton’s name. She ducked under the awning of one of the buildings, soaked and shivering.

In the distance, Anton emerged from the lips of the Honeymoon Cave on his hands and knees. He stood up, failing to notice her, and sprinted up the hill.

• • • •

Still soaking in the room, Carla tried to ask Anton what he’d been doing in the cave, but he was too angry to respond to her. The rain was still pouring outside.

“Am I not a supporting partner? Have I not pulled my weight?” he shouted over the thunder.

“You are, Anton. And you’ve probably done more work than me for the wedding.”

He sat down on the bed and hid his face in his hands. “Then tell me what you want.” His voice was cold. “If you want to call off the wedding, I’ll eat the deposit. Just tell me what you want.”

How could Carla know what she wanted though? How could anyone know what they wanted when the consequences of any choice were incalculable. It was impossible to envision what her life would be like in five or fifteen or fifty years if she married Anton or if she broke up with him. If she quit her job at the school she hated or if she stayed. If she had children or never did. She was never given enough time to decide. Even thinking about it right then, in their small room, made her begin to hyperventilate.

“I want you,” she offered.

Anton was silent for a bit.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Maybe you should do some thinking, too.” He looked up now. In the dark, his eyes were two deep and watery caves.

• • • •

The sun set beautifully—a burning orange orb being swallowed by the bright blue sea—and then it was dark.

Carla spun the engagement ring on her finger and strolled around the dark resort. The winds whistled rudely through the rocks.

She’d always been cocooned by her anxieties, like a fly caught in a spider’s web. When she misbehaved as a child, her mother would snatch her wrist and pull her close. “You’re going to die sad and alone if you keep this up!”

Her mother had withered away to almost nothing by the end of the illness. She was so skeletal, hunched over her favorite chair, glowering at Carla with red eyes. But her tenderness had returned in the end. The last time Carla saw her alive, her mother had waved her over and had placed Carla’s thick hand between her thin ones. “Promise me you’ll do whatever makes you happy. Figure out what that is. Life is too short to make mistakes. I didn’t realize that until too late.”

“Sure, Mama,” Carla had said. “Of course. I love you.”

And that was that. Her mother passed a week later.

Carla’s phone vibrated. She hoped it would be Anton texting her a declaration of love or at least something that would calm her. Instead, it was an email from the caterer saying they’d double-booked and had to cancel. Carla cursed. She wanted to cancel the whole thing right there and yet that would involve even more headaches. Lost deposits. Emails and apologies and endless questions from friends and family.

The panic creature unfurled in her chest. Everything felt red. She bent over and then collapsed. She reached out and grabbed a handful of grass with each hand and squeezed.

• • • •

A purring sound. A rough lick against her cheek. Carla opened her eyes. There was a black cat with white spots nuzzling her. The world returned.

At first, Carla thought it was evening, but when she looked up, storm clouds were slathered across the sky. She caught her breath.

The cat was sitting upright before her like a statue.

“Hello, little one. Were you sent to help me?”

The cat’s eyes were bluish in this light. It reached out a paw and tapped her foot. The cat turned its head toward the cave. It ran a few steps, then looked back at her. The wind swirled around them. The cat’s tail waved back and forth hypnotically.

“You want me to follow?”

The cat sprinted up the hill.

A loud crack reverberated across the sky.

It poured.

• • • •

Carla was deep in the bowels of a cave. She couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there or if she was awake or asleep. A small fire illuminated the chamber. All was quiet around her.

The cave looked not unlike the ones she’d visited so far on the island, except the walls seemed to be made of flesh. She held herself steady on one of the stalagmites. The spike pulsed warmly in her hand.

Despite all this, the panic creature was slumbering. She felt calm. At peace.

The tugwort was there.

It was a slimy, grey being with pupilless eyes far larger than hers. The tugwort regarded her without moving. Even the red gills on its neck were at rest. The eyes were a pure, enchanting blue.

When it spoke, it did not open its puckered mouth.

It asked her what she wanted.

I don’t know, she thought. How am I supposed to know?

The tugwort ran a thin finger over its scalp. It waited. It was comfortable waiting down here where time didn’t matter.

Carla had never heard quiet like this before. Even the fire was silent.

I don’t want to hurt Anton. But I don’t know if I can keep living this life. I feel like I just fell into it before I even had time to realize. Is this how it will always be? Choices speeding by without you even knowing if you’ve made the correct ones?

The tugwort nodded. Wordlessly, it said that it understood. The great unfairness of life was that you were never able to know what choice was right. Any decision could lead to happiness or pain, joy or sorrow, life or death. Her mother had been right to warn her. There was no mathematical model that could solve this.

She remembered being a small child and hiding in the arms of her mother. A safe hollow where the rest of the world couldn’t find her.

It doesn’t have to be this way, the tugwort offered. There was an option, a path, out of the labyrinth. Others had followed it before. Special ones.

“What option?”

The tugwort moved toward her now on all fours, slowly and catlike. It said that it could take her place. She could be free of the endless decisions. It would make that sacrifice for her. Carla could be left in peace and contentment, the kind she felt now in this safe cave. There was no rush down here in the deep.

“How?”

The tugwort crawled closer, watching her with large blue eyes.

All that was required was some of her. A liquid. A mere taste of her essence.

Carla felt something open inside her. She reached down to her sex. When she pulled her hand away, it was sticky and reddish-brown. She held her hand out, as much in shock as in offering.

The tugwort’s tongue unfurled.

• • • •

Carla awoke, alone, on the damp floor. There was only a memory of something slithering into the dark recesses of her mind. Carla propped herself up. She could see the last light of day filtering into the cave. She wondered if the rainstorm was done.

Then she realized the light was radiating from below, not above. There were sounds, too. Murmurs reverberating off the walls.

She crawled toward the faint light, moving carefully between the stalagmites, drawn forward as if a cord were tied between her belly and the deep insides.

Soon, she came upon them.

• • • •

Anton stood before the fire. He was wearing a black suit with a white tropical flower on the lapel. Across from him stood Carla, or at least a being that looked almost exactly like Carla. It was hard to tell with her face hidden by the veil. The red-faced captain presided over the whole affair.

She looked at her thinning, greying hands. The light of the fire hurt her large eyes. She moved behind one of the slick and cool rocks.

The captain read from a large book. She couldn’t quite hear his words, but she could see Anton wept joyful tears.

She wept too. There was nothing for her to do now. No decisions to make. There would be time, endless crevices of time, without them. The captain closed his book. As she watched Anton take Carla’s hands in his, she slunk further back into the peaceful and perpetual dark.