Magnolia's Code

Magnolia Caverns

“And you’re sure no one has, has ever gotten a sample of the rock in the caverns?” Tim questioned the old historian in front of him, a pencil and notepad in his hand. “Not even one by the, by the cave entrance?”

    DeVuo City’s only historian, an old, white-haired man named Mr. Downing, scratched his head and then shook it. “Not that I know of. And believe me, I know everything.”

    Tim sighed quietly, leaning back in his chair in disappointment. “I just can’t believe nobody’s, nobody’s even tried to explore them. There must be treasures u-u-untold in those, those caves.”

    “Eh?” Mr. Downing raised a bushy white eyebrow. “Oh no, Mr. Rayland, lots of people have tried exploring the caverns. They just don’t get very far.”

    “What do you mean?” Tim asked, his interest peaked. He had come to the old man at the DeVuo City Museum to try and get some information about the history of Magnolia Caverns, which were the caves that he had come to the town to explore; now it looked like he was finally going to get the legend attached to the mysterious caverns. The townspeople had been hinting at it all week as he went about unpacking his apartment, but none of them would actually tell him about it.

    Mr. Downing leaned forward across his desk and looked left and right as though about to divulge a dirty secret. “Well, they’re always young men like you. Full of confidence. They never believe the town when we tell them what I’m about to tell you. Are you listening, son?” He added sharply, as though Tim wasn’t hanging onto his every word.

“They go in real shallow at first, real cautious-like. It takes them all a few days to explore the first cave, because they’re wary about what’s in there, whether they say it or not.” The old man paused dramatically. “But then, when there’s nothing menacing in there, they begin to get a little more risky. Every time, it never fails. They start venturing deeper and deeper into those caves until one day, they don’t come out for a lunch break. And that’s when we, the townspeople, know it’s happened.” Mr. Downing slammed his fist on his desk, simultaneously making the papers on his desk and Tim jump.

“The next day, they all come back out of the cave, squinting in the bright sunlight, lost and obviously confused. Some of them don’t say a word to anyone after that; they just pack up their things and leave town as fast as if they had a snake on their heels. But the others… well, let’s just say that they aren’t right in the head anymore. Most of them rant and rave about the craziest things I ever heard of.”

“What do they, what do they say?” Tim asked, practically on the edge of his seat. He knew he should be focusing on archaeology, but he couldn’t help himself; Mr. Downing just had a way with storytelling, he supposed. And the story itself was pretty creepy.

Mr. Downing waved him away. “No need to say anything about that, Dr. Rayland. It’s just crazy ranting, as I said. But once it happens to you, I’ve got twenty dollars on you not saying a word of what you saw to anyone. You don’t very well seem like the raving type.”

“No sir, I guess I’m not,” Tim replied quietly, mind still far away in the story. “Is all that true?” He had a hard time believing that anything this old man said was due to some supernatural cause and not pure coincidence. But that was, after all, part of why he was here: to prove that all the stories and myths of the Magnolia Caverns were due to some sort of scientific phenomenon. It wasn’t magic. It couldn’t be.

“True?” the old man asked indignantly, puffing out his shrunken chest. “I’d stake my life on it. I’ve seen it all happen, and so has everyone else in this city.”

Tim looked around at Mr. Downing’s office, which doubled as a storage area for all the bits and pieces of history that were either broken or not important enough to go on display in the museum. All together, it made for quite an interesting collection. Among other things, Tim was pretty sure he could see a taxidermy tiger head among the clutter, which made him wonder how it had gotten into a city history museum. “Well, thank you very much for, for the warning, sir.”

It was certainly disheartening,  but Tim still couldn’t pass up this opportunity. He had to explore those caverns. It was why he came to DeVuo City in the first place.

Mr. Downing shrugged. “You seem like a smart man, Mr. Rayland. I’d hate to see that mind in ruins.”

Tim wasn’t sure whether to thank him or not as he noted the certainty with which the old man said it. “Is there, is there anything more you can tell me about the caves?” he asked, picking up his pad and pencil again. “Anything that might help?”

Mr. Downing shook his head. “I’ve told you all I know. And I know everything, remember.” He winked at Tim.

“Okay, that’s alright.” Tim started to close his little notebook but then stopped as a thought occurred to him. “One more thing, Mr. Downing. Do you know, know who initially found the Magnolia Caverns?”

The old man’s eyes lit up, and Tim sensed another story in the telling. “Why yes, I do.” He stopped for a moment and looked at Tim, who was poised in his chair as though about to leave. “You might want to sit down again, Dr. Rayland.”

Tim hastily sat back as Mr. Downing dove into his new story. “Well, there aren’t a lot of people who know this, actually, but before DeVuo City was founded, a wealthy archaeologist, rather like yourself, decided to go exploring those caves out there. He brought an entire team of researchers with him, and they set up shop around the site. His name was Dr. Thomas Magnolia, and he was a very ambitious man. In a matter of weeks, he had completely explored the first two cave systems, and was working on a third. By then, his little troupe of researchers had begun to attract several onlookers from the nearby towns, and people joked that Dr. Magnolia was becoming obsessed with the cave.

“One day, he disappeared. He had gone into the caverns early in the morning, to the very back of the third cavern system on his daily check up, as his researchers attested. But he never came back out. So they raised the alarm, and had a search crew in by the afternoon; they scoured the first three cave systems thoroughly, but found no trace of him. They even ventured into the fourth cave system, but they couldn’t go farther than that because it became unscalable.

“The weeks after that, the researchers collapsed their tents and packed away their things. The documented work that they had done was never found by later archaeologists who tried to track it down; it had disappeared with Dr. Magnolia. The only thing that remained of him was his name, which lives on in the caverns.”

Mr. Downing leaned back and folded his arms, waiting for Tim’s reaction. Tim had nothing for him. “I…”

The old man laughed. “I can see I’ve spooked you enough. Maybe that’ll keep you out of those old caves for a few days, keep that mind alive. Go on, it’s nearly my lunch break.”

Tim stood up and shook hands with Mr. Downing, even more spooked than the old man even knew. He didn’t even know why; there was just something about the way Mr. Downing told the tales that had him on edge. He hoped none of them were true; it was more than his work was worth to lose his mind to a system of caves. But… it was also too good to pass up. He had to at least try and figure out the secret of Magnolia Caverns, or else he couldn’t call himself a real archaeologist. Also, he wouldn’t get the college credits, but that was beside the point.

He just hoped he didn’t lose his head trying to do so.