Chapter 9 The Hole in Nothing
“Gather what you need for a hike, Mr. Green,” Valentina called from the steps of her trailer while Green pumped water into his jug.
The pump handle was so cold he worried his skin would stick. Silver frost rimmed the clover at the pump’s base, the morning sun still too low to sweep away the night’s lingering chill.
“How far?”
He realized his question didn’t matter much the moment he asked it. It wasn’t as though he knew what he should pack for either a short hike or a long hike.
“I expect it will occupy most of our day. Pack a lunch.”
He thought of the small pile of gear next to his cot in the cabin.
“Do I need to bring bear spray?”
“There are no grizzlies here. Black bears are glorified raccoons. I’m deterrent enough.”
He smiled and went to get his things.
Green’s sleep had been terrible. Even after the calming respite of Valentina’s cheese on toast, he woke countless times to stand and listen by the cabin door, then chided himself back to resting. What did he expect to hear?
The horned wolf had let them run from Kinkaid Cabins.
Why didn’t it kill us?
Because it didn’t want to?
Yet?
He turned the question over in his hands again and again through the night, a second acorn weighing on his thoughts.
Either it didn’t want to, echoing the conscious choice it made on the night Green heard its thoughts. Or it simply couldn’t because of some contrivance of Valentina’s, some “deterrent.”
He hoped it was the latter.
He did not like the idea that he was alive because of that monster’s whim and forbearance. It felt better to believe that he was part of an active and effective resistance to the creature’s designs.
The lingering scent of toasting bread and melting cheese looked over Green’s shoulder while he packed.
He imagined the ghost of a woman in a mint green jacket sitting on the edge of his cot, watching him paw through his supplies.
The ghost of a man holding a fishing rod stood by saying, “If you stick to the roads, you can’t get too lost around here. ”
Green had not stuck to the roads.
He shouldered his gear and turned back to the door.
An old song ran through his rattled mind.
You can never be strong. You can only be free.
“Easy for you to say.”
He went out.
Valentina was waiting for him.
She wore her customary canvas pack and carried a knobby walking stick.
“Nice stick,” Green said.
“Thank you. It’s blackthorn. A gift from an Irish colleague. Blackthorn has some particular benefits in our line of work.”
“Mysterious. I like it.”
“Not mysterious, just not relevant today. It is my task to plan your educational meals to be nutritious, so I don’t give you random bites of empty calories until you are full to bursting without absorbing the proper informational nutrients in their proper order.”
“Has anybody ever told you you’ve got a real talent for metaphor?”
“Oh, hush, Mr. Green. It’s a three-mile hike to reach our destination. I don’t suppose you have ever walked six miles in a day.”
“Hey now, I lived in the city. My car spent most of its time in the parking garage. I walked everywhere. I’m game. Where are we going?”
He tried to sound nonchalant, but the idea of being miles from camp without a car or any nearby shelter rang an alarm bell in his head.
The wolf comes at night. Maybe…but the sun was still up when it chased us at Kinkaid.
“We need data. We are in an anomalous situation that, based on the proximity of the recent deaths, seems to be tied to this area specifically. So, we are checking in on another recent place-bound oddity of this region.”
“And what’s that?”
“It will be easier to explain once we arrive.”
They started off from Valentina’s camp, heading toward Dancer’s office.
The sun was still a misty yellow ball hovering close to the eastern horizon and dew sparkled on the weedy margins of Moss Man’s Row.
They passed Green’s campsite and, peering down the path from the little parking spot, he wondered if he would ever manage to spend a full night there.
A robin on a low branch above the lane puffed up its feathers against the cold and sang bright notes into the morning haze.
Even with Green’s terror hangover, it felt good to be out and walking through the woods on such a morning.
They reached the moss man. The big stump was shaggy with growth and spotted with lichens.
Huge bracket fungi, like tawny dinner plates embedded in the rotting wood, shadowed glimmering crescents of frost from the wan sunlight.
Green surprised himself by nodding a greeting to the citadel of vibrant decay.
“Now that you’ve recovered,” Valentina said, “you will kindly get that vehicle away from my home when we return.”
“I can do that, but I wouldn’t say I’ve recovered. I can’t get that wolf out of my mind. Or the face of that dead woman.”
Valentina glanced at her apprentice, but didn’t slow.
“Only natural. Fear and sadness accompany tragedy.”
“I’m getting very tired of being afraid. I don’t suppose Blobert has a cousin I could meet.”
She reached out and trailed her fingertips along the papery skin of a yellow birch as they passed. Green noticed she often touched the landscape while she walked.
“I’m afraid not. And dulling fear is a remedy that is sometimes worse than the disease. But fear is part of the reason we are on the move today.”
“What do you mean?”
They turned from the gravel and continued on a narrow footpath trailing down the slope south of Candle-Fly. The leaves felt slick and soft underfoot.
“Fear has two fangs. The first is a pervasive sense of helplessness. The second is the enormity of the unknown. Today, we aim to armor ourselves against both. We are not helpless. We are not hiding in our shelters. We are actively seeking information to improve our position. The unknown does not root us where we stand. We are rejecting both helplessness and the premise of unknowability.”
Her words didn’t untie all of the knots in Green’s chest, but they loosened a few. He absolutely had the impulse to hide, to do nothing, so moving forward was a kind of victory.
The sun climbed as they walked, the sky brightening to an autumn blue of faded cornflowers.
The mountain woods were alive with the motion of falling leaves and the wind carried the earthy scent of plant matter returning to the soil.
Green drank deeply of the mountains. He drank instinctually and felt a thirst he couldn’t name quietly subsiding.
For a moment, he set aside all thoughts of phantom deer and maddening acorns. He was simply a man on a walk in a beautiful place.
“ ‘The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness.’ John Muir said that.”
“He did,” Valentina said. “He also said, ‘Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.’ That is likely the more appropriate quotation for today’s work.”
That comment pulled Green out of his idyllic musings. He didn’t like the idea of mysterious doorways. Doorways let things in.
“Muir was a compelling writer,” Valentina continued. “Of course, he also held many reprehensible beliefs and worked to erase indigenous histories. Yet he could turn an evocative phrase and he helped some Americans feel a new kind of connection with nature.”
Green stared at the back of Valentina’s head as she walked. He had spent a decade cultivating the skill of office talk, cheerful conversation about nothing. Valentina was a very different sort of animal. He quickened his pace to keep up with her.
“Hey, Teacher, the scope of your knowledge is borderline ridiculous.”
Valentina sniffed.
“I travel widely. I read widely. I work to maintain active curiosity and humility in the face of new information. I don’t let my vanity insist that I cannot be improved upon. It is not a comfortable worldview, but it is worthwhile. It keeps me young.”
“Are you going to explain that two pines quote or am I still waiting for mealtime?”
“Patience. As I said, better to see it first.”
He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t think of a persuasive way to argue.
A squirrel with one bulging cheek pouch ran into the path.
It turned toward the walkers and opened its mouth in a too-wide yawn.
The bulge, a bright blue eye, rolled into the open mouth and studied the pair.
A red slash appeared in the white fur of the squirrel’s belly, a second mouth that let out a chattering cry before the creature scurried off into the underbrush.
“Was that a…”
“Cyclops squirrel,” Valentina said. “Quite common in this area.”
A lump of something unpleasant pressed on Green’s tongue. He spat, but there was nothing there.
“Ugh. Why does my mouth taste like ashes?”
“It’s a defense mechanism against predators. Suppresses appetite. Effective, wouldn’t you say? Don’t look directly at the eye next time.”
Green kept spitting in the leaves, which accomplished nothing.
The wind changed and there was new warmth in it, morning giving way to noonday.
A low-level burn in his ankles and calves told him that walking mountain paths was not the same as navigating sidewalks and subway station stairs.
These were not paths built for humans, yet humans were built for them.
It was a subtle distinction that manifested as a dull ache in unfamiliar muscles.