He reached his thoughts toward Catskill and found him awake and eating something bent like a question mark, stitched into the stone of a cave wall. The mountain guardian was excavating his prey with stone-crushing thrusts of his horned muzzle.
Green winced.
“He’s…eating breakfast, but Catskill will be available to help when we need him. The fawn is not on the mountain yet.”
Valentina’s frozen sigh hung in the air like a ghost.
“I won’t tell you not to trust that creature, in fact I would suspect it may be incapable of breaking its explicit oaths, perhaps even of uttering falsehoods, but you should avoid the mistake of prescribing human thoughts and motivations to it. It is not your pal. It is not your pet nor your assistant.”
“I think he can help us. How could that be a bad thing?”
“Still ‘he,’ is it? Fine. He, then. I am simply trying to warn you of a common pitfall related to inexperience with cryptids. Many hidden life-forms possess uncanny intelligence and the ability to communicate with humans. It can be rather intoxicating. It leads some young cryptonaturalists to fall into what is sometimes called the ‘imaginary friend fallacy.’ A whimsical name for a too-often lethal misunderstanding of cryptonature. Catskill is not human. In fact, he is more than just not human. He is also not mortal in the conventional sense. In my experience, removing a mundane life-cycle creates an entirely different mental framework for actions and priorities.”
You would know.
“Didn’t you recently tell me that immortality isn’t a thing in nature?”
“I’m not suggesting he’s eternal. I’m suggesting his kind of mortality is so entirely different from ours that his moral and epistemological frameworks are beyond our capacity to grasp.”
“Okay, I can acknowledge whatever that’s supposed to mean, but right now I appreciate there being someone else on the team who can get closer than a hundred yards to the glass fawn without…”
Dying
“…being injured.”
“Listen to your word choice. ‘Someone.’ Be mindful. That’s all I’m asking.”
“Understood, but my point stands. If the fawn comes for us while you’re willing shut the hole, we’re going to need Catskill’s help.”
Plus, if I was wrong about this acorn in my pocket, I might not survive another encounter long enough to say, “I told you so.”
“About that. I prepared the poultice and have concluded my supplemental research on rifts in time-space. I am as prepared as I can be to make another attempt to will the hole shut. As Clara said, proximity may be a factor. I need to get closer…without inadvertently going through.”
Valentina’s shivering intensified while she spoke.
“Did you learn anything about ending the fawn’s effect on you? Short of kicking it out of our universe, I mean.”
“I’m afraid not. It is difficult to know how the fawn continues to exert a hold on me. I could try to momentarily leave this dimension through a number of means, but that carries its own raft of potentially deadly consequences. Too risky when I cannot guarantee the result.”
“Yikes. Okay.”
“I would try simple geographical distance, but I am in no condition for a crawler ride.”
“You mentioned them before. Do I get to know what they are yet?”
Valentina waved a hand like Green was asking a tediously simple question.
“They are subterranean creatures that can bend space and will barter passage with humans they trust. It is an efficient, if unpleasant, way to travel the world and there is a crawler tunnel node below this very camp. It is a large part of the reason I chose to base myself in this location.”
Green thought of the tiny locked shed with the orange door he hadn’t been given access to and pictured a ladder leading down and down into the dark.
“What if I went with you? Could I help?”
“Absolutely not. Do not break my rules again, Mr. Green. Crawlers aren’t a Greyhound bus. You acclimate them to your presence and intent slowly to earn their trust. A surprised crawler is vicious and unpredictable. In fact, when they recognized my scent and not yours, I fear they would assume you were the payment I offered for passage. As I said, concerning your associate Catskill, do not make human assumptions in dealings with cryptids.”
She couldn’t understand. Catskill was not a business partner. Catskill was family. He was not making assumptions. There was no need to assume. He and Catskill had lived each other’s lives. What deeper understanding was there?
“I know your stance on cars, but what about a more traditional mode of transportation? We could walk to my Prius this minute and be six hundred miles away by morning.”
