Chapter 5 Job Interview #3
“Well, I’m really not well-versed on animal life, but I think it’s a moth.”
He looked at Valentina for confirmation. Her face was blank.
“Go on, Mr. Green. Describe. Anything at all.”
He licked his lips, again feeling Valentina’s attention as a weight of vague cost and consequence.
“Uh. It has six legs. I think that means it’s an insect.
Or bug? I’ve never understood if those were different things.
Um. Each of its wings are in two parts. So, it’s like it has four wings in total.
There’s dust or something creating a haze over its body.
I guess that’s the trash smell I’m getting. ”
He leaned in closer.
“The haze seems to be rotating, like a little galaxy. So, that’s…weird.”
“Good. Very good. What else.”
“It doesn’t make sense, but a lot of it looks man-made. Burlap and twine. This gray part here looks a lot like old newspaper, but none of the writing is real. Just squiggles. And maybe I’m missing it, but I don’t see any mouth. That can’t be right, can it? It has to eat.”
“The adult form of most large moth species does not have mouthparts. Luna moths and atlas moths, to name two examples. That feature is quite common. Anything else?”
Green hesitated.
“I feel like I’m about to be told I’m being childish again, but…there’s something about looking at this thing that feels…I don’t know…unclean? It’s sort of beautiful, but the longer I look at it, the more I need a shower.”
Valentina tilted her head.
“Go on. Speak on that,” she said.
Green took off Dancer’s hat and dabbed the sweat from his forehead with it.
“It’s hard to describe. It just kind of feels like seeing it is begging to catch pinkeye or a cold sore. It feels like the idea of rot? Or maybe contamination? I’m sorry. I don’t even know why I said that.”
More scolding. Incoming.
There it was again. That treacherous delight like a loose floorboard creeping onto Valentina’s face. She shook her head, but it wasn’t a negative gesture.
“Mr. Green,” she said. “You are a cryptonaturalist.”
He felt gooseflesh creeping up his forearms.
“I…really don’t know what that means.”
Her expression flattened again.
“Crypto. Prefix meaning hidden. Do I need to define naturalist for you? Cryptonaturalist. One who studies hidden nature.”
Green walked away and faced the wall.
He wanted guidance. He found it like a kid who wanted a cigarette and was forced to smoke a whole pack as punishment.
Valentina gave him time.
He forced slow breaths, then returned to the conversation.
“So far, it’s more like cryptonature is studying me. Also, it doesn’t seem to be hiding very well. I wish it would.”
Valentina sniffed.
“I have told you already that in your first night here you discovered a new cryptid, a thing reasonably rare even among established cryptonaturalists, and you spotted a creature that has only been observed six times prior. These things are profoundly hidden. Though, apparently, not to you. Which is the crux of my assertion that you are a cryptonaturalist.”
“Okay, but how? Why? What is it about me? I’m starting to feel a little…cursed.”
His new life was coming too fast, speeding toward him as dark and implacable as bus tires.
Would it have mattered if he hadn’t gone to meet it halfway, if he hadn’t driven into the mountains?
Perhaps some contrivance would have landed the wolf on his condo doorstep.
Perhaps Valentina would have sat down next to him on the subway.
The acorn suddenly seemed to have the weight of inevitability on its side.
“Ah. A more complicated question,” she said. “Though, I would not say you are cursed.”
Valentina tapped the tabletop.
“This moth. This is a rag moth. A monumentally dangerous creature. Obscenely dangerous.”
Green took a step away from the table.
“This one is quite dead, which is the only way we safely study them. They have a defense which is like concentrated entropy mixed with localized time dilatation. I suppose that is the sense of rot you perceived. In short, they cause instant, severe decay when startled.”
“Are they common? For cryptids, I mean.”
“No. Not common. But not in the same class of rarity as the glass fawn.”
“How did you find it?”
Valentina opened a manila folder on the table and slid a newspaper clipping toward Green. The headline read “Ancient Mummy Found in New Jersey Storage Facility.”
“That’s from another specimen found last year. An unfortunate soul opened their rented storage unit and surprised a rag moth sheltering within.”
“That’s awful.”
She nodded.
“With rag moths we look for reports of uncommonly old remains found in incongruously modern settings, then we wait a few weeks and go looking for a dead moth. Like most large moths, they have fairly short lifespans.”
Green looked at the creature on the table, imagining it as someone’s last sight before an inexplicable death.
“Is there some way to warn people about these things? Or, I don’t know, keep them away from humans?”
“We are looking for ways to mitigate their damage, but they aren’t conventionally linked to time-space. They are not objectively here. What we sometimes call a subjectomorph. So, their patterns are hard to predict with conventional thinking, but we have strayed from my point.”
Green stared at the newspaper clipping and wondered how Valentina would have interpreted his unusual remains if the wolf creature had killed him. He thought of the man loading fishing gear into his truck. He wondered how much of her field was linked to bizarre deaths.
“You said Dancer sent you to me, yes?”
Valentina glanced at the hat wadded in Green’s fist.
“Oh, yes.”
“Then I do not need to tell you that she isn’t exactly a conventional sort of person, and yet, were she to walk in that door and begin speaking with us, she likely would not mention the enormous moth corpse spread across my table. When you entered, I assumed you wouldn’t see it.”
“But how could that be? That moth is hard to miss.”
“Because she simply wouldn’t see it, Mr. Green.”
He shot a glance at the massive deadly insect remains.
“Okay, but how? Seriously. It’s right there?”
Valentina swept her hand in a flourish reminiscent of a stage magician.
“Exactly,” she said. “This is why I say you are a cryptonaturalist. It is a vocation, certainly, but it is also an attribute. These creatures are not hiding behind trees or lurking in fogbanks. Such creatures rarely bother with conventional stealth. They are hiding behind mindsets, behind ways of thinking. And yet…”
Valentina tapped the edge of the newspaper article.
“Not knowing about such organisms is not the same as being outside their sphere of influence. Much in the way the people who think of themselves as distinct and separate from nature remain utterly dependent on nature for their form, function, and day-to-day survival.”
Green paced and gently pinched the bridge of his nose. It felt spongy and swollen.
“I’m having a hard time buying this for the same reason I don’t buy conspiracy theories.
People just don’t keep secrets. Especially not interesting or dangerous secrets.
Why isn’t all of this stuff very public knowledge?
Even if I couldn’t show somebody this moth, I could take pictures of it.
I could, I don’t know, make a plastic mold of it or something. ”
“There are publicly operating cryptonaturalists and cryptozoologists. They share public theories about cryptids. Yetis. Sasquatch. The Loch Ness Monster. Mothman. The squonk. Some real. Some less so. In your estimation, are these public experts generally well-respected and valued members of mainstream culture?”
He stopped pacing.
“No, they are not.”
“And yet, would you say, given your experiences already, that those of us with the aptitude for perceiving such nature should endeavor to make a serious study of the subject in order to better understand our world and, in some cases, mitigate harm?”
Green thought of the man who opened his storage garage in New Jersey and made headlines as mummified remains. He thought of the dried blood speckling his own steering wheel.
“I mean, yeah. Of course. Real is real even without widespread acceptance.”
“There you have it, Mr. Green.”
Green’s fingers slid into his pocket to find the acorn.
“I don’t know what to say.”
Another frightening smirk.
“Then, let us start here. I am offering you an apprenticeship. A job, of sorts. A time-honored, symbiotic professional arrangement. I could use the help. You could use the training and experience.”
Green’s first impulse was to buy time to think about it, dodge any immediate answer or commitment. He could think it over in a hotel room with hot showers and a little card listing nearby pizza delivery options.
Yet…if he did that…he knew he wouldn’t come back. And, from there, a series of convenient compromises would lead him by the hand back into the sort of life he had just risked so much to escape.
He prepared to feel the acorn’s influence.
Instead, he saw the face of his old friend, Mr. Reynard. He saw the photos of his loves and adventures sitting on his bedside table. The old man winked at him.
You deserve better.
He reached for bravery he felt sure he didn’t possess. It answered anyway.
“Could I stay here? For now? As part of the arrangement?”
“I was planning to suggest the same thing.”
“Do we…I don’t know…discuss payment?”
Valentina chuckled softly.
“Of course. We discuss it insomuch as you understand that I will not be paying you in currency. Honestly, Mr. Green, do you suppose American capitalism values our work with creatures that largely cannot be perceived and thus are rarely exploited?”
“I guess not. When would I start?”
“Now.”
His mouth felt very dry.
“Okay. I’m in.”
Valentina clicked her tongue and spoke to herself.
“Remarkable. I have not had a proper apprentice since the Rodriguez brothers. How very interesting.”
He shifted his weight uncomfortably, feeling like a bug in a jar.
“Then, here are my basic terms,” she said. “Subject to change and mutual consent.”
Valentina laced her fingers together over her stomach, as though she were participating in an old-fashioned spelling bee.
“For the present, you will live here, though this arrangement may change after we get your campsite in working condition. You will work for me approximately eight hours a day doing whatever tasks I deem appropriate. I will make a good faith effort to ensure your safety and sanity in whatever work I assign. You will dedicate at least two hours each evening to supplemental readings and conversations on the subject of cryptonature. This will increase your utility and autonomy as a cryptonaturalist. I have no earthly idea what you would do with a weekend given your circumstances and location, but you may use Saturday and Sunday for unspecified leisure if you don’t bother me overmuch or impede my work. ”
“Alright. That all sounds fair.”
He wanted to hug her. He was also certain that, of the two other bodies in the cabin, it would be more appropriate to hug the moth.
“Excellent. You will begin work tonight.”
The words begin work invited a brand-new anxiety to the party.
“That soon? What will I be doing tonight?”
“Simple observation. An old custom. You’ll be holding a wake.”