She grimaced as she mentioned the log. Green recalled her wearing it on a strap over her shoulder while they investigated the area where the college kids had died. She had called it one of her contingency plans.
“The log again? What does that thing do, anyway?”
“It’s full of a potent cryptofungus called Lethe’s doorstep. A gift from the network administrator, produced by their cousin. If I crack it open, spores will spread over several square miles rendering everything, and I do mean everything, unconscious. For reasons we do not fully understand, the effect tends to have a much shorter duration for humans than most cryptids. It is a reset of consciousness that favors our physiology.”
“Tends to? Most?”
“It isn’t a pleasant contingency, but it has saved me in the past. The discomfort upon waking from the spores is poetically distasteful.”
“I don’t think I want to know what that means.”
“Good. I don’t want to describe it.”
Valentina retrieved a chocolate brown tarp from her pack and spread it on the ground. The distant whinny of a horse seemed to mark the exact moment dusk surrendered fully to night.
She handed him a small radio.
“What’s this for?”
“We’re going to do periodic patrols, each going a different direction and meeting back here.”
“But isn’t this the best vantage point?”
“It is, unless the fawn comes from the woods behind the house or approaches from beyond the barn. We have too many blind spots.”
“Alright. Fine. So, if we split up, what is my protection from the wolf—and the fawn?”
“Your wits. Your focus. And, I would add, the unique protection of the events of the last few weeks of your life.”
“Seriously? You want me to wander these woods that have claimed, what, six human lives, completely unarmed?”
Valentina gave him a flat look.
“Yes, I do, Mr. Green. Again, you didn’t have to accompany me this evening.”
“That seems awfully reckless.”
“What is it you think we do?”
“Study nature. Not sure why that means we need to make overly risky decisions with our lives.”
“We study a very particular kind of nature.”
“Yeah. I know. The kind I’m not allowed to call monsters.”
Valentina narrowed her eyes. In the dark, she looked more than ever like a storybook witch.
“I have calmly extracted myself from the jaws of a shark made from ice and water vapor. I have studied snakes that call lightning and forests that punish trespassers. I have bargained with insects that fold distance like paper and I have a name in the private language of the Corvid Court. None of these things were monsters, no more than an African elephant or a Portuguese man o’ war. Center yourself, Mr. Green. Caution is not the keystone virtue of your new profession. Curiosity is.”
“Uh-huh, but can I take the flare gun?”
Valentina sighed and offered the gun.
“Fine. You check the woods behind that house, preferably without terrifying its residents. I will explore the other side of the fields. Radio if you spot anything. We meet back here within the hour.”
She slung the spore-log over her shoulder.
“Stealth, for a human, is about looking where your feet are going. Do not overcomplicate it. Do not crack branches. Press the ground, do not stamp it. Do not drag your feet. Move them up and down. Stay on the balls of your feet when you can. When you cannot, step on the outside edges of each foot, then roll your weight inward as you press down. My old teacher used to say, ‘Snuff the flame of your body and kindle the fires of your senses.’ ”
