“You know the salt mines around New Iberia and Avery Island?”
She gives a shrugging nod. “I’ve heard of them.”
“Know anyone who has worked in them?”
“No.”
I smirk. “Well, now you do.”
Her eyes get big. “You’ve worked in a salt mine?”
“Like father, like son.”
“What’s it like?”
My smile ranges free. “Beautiful.”
If she looked surprised before, she’s completely gobsmacked now.“Beautiful?”
I nod, still smiling.
She frowns in disbelief. “It’s not dark and icky and… scary?”
“Definitely not icky,” I say, chuckling. My shrug is half-hearted. “Sometimes dark... I was never scared down there.” I try not to stress the pronoun, but it comes out that way regardless.
She doesn’t miss it.“Youwere never scared?”
I raise a brow. I’m not sure I want to go there, but she’s asking. “You really want to hear this?”
Stella leans back in her chair. “My first client isn’t until ten today.”
My first class isn’t until ten either. I just have to go over my notes. Professor Downs is known and feared for his reading quizzes, and it’s been a minute since he gave us one.
“The first time my dad took me down into the Avery Island salt mine, I was seven. Bear was nine,” I say, grinning at the memory. “We weren’t technically supposed to be there, of course, but it was the weekend during the summer, and Dad was a shift foreman, so nobody was going to tell him anything. He outfitted us with hard hats, headlamps, and reflective vests, and down we went.”
Stella’s eyes warm with her smile. Is she picturing seven-year-old me dressed as a miner? I cinch down on my own smile.
“And down there in that salt dome? It was another world. Like being able to run wild on the moon.” I can taste the salt on my lips at the memory. “Bear was spooked. He stuck to Dad like duct tape, but I wanted to follow every tunnel. Run my hand over every pillar.”
She shakes her head, her brows drawing down just a little. “Is it like a cave?”
“Sort of. It’s dark and cool like a cave, but it’s also a lot more orderly.”
“Orderly?” Her surprise is back.
“Man-made tunnels and atriums. Roads, even.” I lick my lips, wanting her to understand. “Some natural caves have huge rooms that could hold whole tribes of people—like the Cherokee in the Lost Sea Caverns. Open. Airy. Smoothed out floors that make for comfortable and safe living.”
She blinks at me. “You’ve just described every cave inScooby Doo.They aren’t all like that?”
“No,” I say, chuckling. “A lot of them are small or difficult to traverse because of rocks, tiny crawl spaces, stalagmites, waterfalls, underground lakes, sinkholes, you name it. Awe-inspiring, but definitely not orderly.”
She studies me for so long, I just have to ask. “How many caves have you been in?”
She huffs. “None.”
Now I’m the one who’s surprised. “None?”
Her prim brow arches. “I guess I’m not the spelunking type.”
