I don’t know what to make of it.
I just know, this morning, speaking aloud to another human being in the presence of those miraculous lizards, I felt wholly myself in a way I am still struggling to define.
Perhaps this journal will help me in that task.
Mr. Herkimer tells me I have a talent for pseudozoology and cryptonature. He tells me that this talent is a blessing. I hope, one day, that I will feel the same.
Still, my fear whispers to me and I cannot help but worry he is gathering evidence against me, though if he wished me harm he certainly wouldn’t need a contrivance as elaborate as this. I know that doesn’t make sense, but fear sprouted in the soil of experience isn’t easy to uproot.
Hopefully, these writings will be a future treasure to me and I do not hear these words read back to me as part of some court proceedings.
In the margin, Valentina had written:V. Blackwood Journal 488, PG56.
Green was eager to dive into Valentina’s journals, but he couldn’t quite pull himself away from Clara. She was floundering and he knew the feeling. He wanted to see her find her feet and get up onto dry land before he had to go spend an uncertain night in the dark woods. He read on.
She did indeed find her footing, absorbing all Robert Herkimer had to teach and voraciously adding to the global body of cryptonaturalist knowledge with her own meticulous observations. He began skipping ahead, skimming entries. There were portions Green understood well enough, like Clara’s detailed descriptions of one prairiemonitor’s surprisingly friendly interactions with white-tailed deer. And there were sections he didn’t understand at all, like Clara’s many frustrations with using linear language to describe nonlinear insect behaviors.
As the journals progressed, they became more inscrutable, but this was itself a lesson. Green watched Clara transition from bewildered, to enthralled, to immersed. It could be done. It was an uplifting thought.
He was preparing to check on Valentina’s preparations when an unexpected development occurred in the text. Clara discovered that Robert Herkimer was what she called a “poacher.”
She had been investigating the sharply declining population of her beloved prairie monitors and her findings pointed back to her own teacher. She confronted him and he made no secret of it.
Not only was he unrepentant, he scolded Clara for harboring childish views about nature.
“We are predators, Clara. What about our place in the natural order? And what of us specifically, those of us who can naturally perceive this deeper level of God’s world? Do we spit in the eye of providence or do we gratefully accept the precious harvest made available to us chosen few?”
Robert was selling trophies to oligarchs and princes, fashionable mystics among the super-rich, and wealthy cults with endless avarice for hoarding precious oddities. He peddled the idea that only the most spiritually sensitive or magically gifted buyer could even perceive this preserved claw or that necklace strung with cryptid molars. A single prairie monitor, butchered and preserved, would fetch a small fortune on markets too secret for names.
“We must do something to fund you sitting in a tree all day watching zebra ants, mustn’t we? There won’t be muchtime for scientific inquiry if you choose to tutor or farm for your living.”
He felt Valentina standing next to him and looked up.
“Poor Clara,” Green said.
Valentina looked down at the page.
“Ah, that entry. A pivotal shift and not just for Clara.”
“How do you mean?”
Valentina paused to collect her memories.
“Mr. Green, you are joining a professional organization and a community of experts and enthusiasts. The cryptonaturalists. Our branch of study has had many names, many factions, and has never before known the cohesiveness it knows now. The world has become a more connected, more communicative place.
“Clara rightly perceived a failure of imagination and morality on the part of her teacher, but Robert Herkimer’s practices were not terribly rare among cryptonaturalists of earlier times. Lucrative expeditions to hunt a yeti or travel writers selling curios to decorate the parlors of the wealthy. Very common.”
Valentina glanced up at a nearby shelf holding a jar of water vapor that occasionally coalesced into a jagged tooth.
“Clara brought the issue to a head in the mainstream of cryptonaturalist society. She astutely pointed out that we cannot possibly know the complex ecological impact of removing even a single cryptid from the world, creatures with populations often numbering in single digits, but with outsized roles to play in natural cycles well beyond our understanding.
“Robert Herkimer attempted to blacklist Clara from cryptonaturalist circles, but he failed. The fair-minded among us could see the obvious sense in her position. Clara found new mentors and new homes that were eager to host her talents, but she would not let the issue of poaching rest.”
Green nodded, recalling his earlier question about killing the wolf.
“Eventually…later than you might hope…the global community of cryptonaturalists outlawed poaching and ostracized any members who practiced it. Well, openly practiced it.”
“How’d that go?”
