Animals We Are

by Valerie Brandy

  Thinking of Sue makes my heart hurt, but I can’t do anything but focus on the task at hand.

  Please let them be okay.

  Focus allows images to come, thoughts of Sue, Ken, and Logan safely at the resort, all three of them sharing a meal, telling rangers where to find me.

  “She went South at Tenaya Lake,” I picture Sue saying in her exact, scientific way, “Send a helicopter, and search dogs. Bring her a cheeseburger too.”

  My hands shake as they rummage through my pack, looking for anything to bandage my calf. The map, the compass, the letter, granola bars, my canteen— nothing helpful materializes, until I find two extra pairs of socks. I’d forgotten I’d packed them. They’re fraying at the edges and the toes are stained, but they tie perfectly in a knot, creating a bandage around my injury. When I put my jeans back on, the fact that they’re tighter than any other pair I own turns out to be a blessing in disguise— the pressure alleviates some pain.

  Stopping to clean the injury would’ve been smart, but the idea of pouring icy water over an open wound makes me want to pass out. Instead, I search for a walking stick, settling on a fallen branch that ends in a pitchfork-inspired split. It looks like a trident— when it’s flipped upside down, the forked end digs into the earth as I move.

  No one would believe it by looking at the visible damage, but my shin hurts so much more than my calf that I wonder if I’ve fractured the bone. Nothing but an x-ray will tell me, and there’s no clinic to visit out here in the wild.

  A quick consultation of the map, a glance at my compass, and the journey begins again. As I push my way through the forest, running on nothing but fumes and refusal to fail, the forest leans in like I’m something worth watching. Taft point is only hours away, and the wind carries the scent of answers on its wings, promising me this will be worth it.

  My staff hits the ground and I’m making good time even though my gait is uneven. As I walk, I picture myself as a curmudgeonly recluse with secret powers who’s leaving her cabin in the forest to save the planet from some unnamed forces of darkness. I’m like a cross between Gandalf and La Femme Nikita.

  I think again about that photo series of the girl leading her boyfriend around the world, and even though my version isn’t as pretty, or as photo-shopped, I can’t help but smile.

  This is so much more badass than that.

  ***

  Hours of hobbling later, and I’m standing on the edge of a precipice at Taft Point, which overlooks the entirety of Yosemite backcountry.

  My arms stretch out to the side— fingers open wide— taking in the boundless beauty in front of me. Sometimes big things have a way of making a person feel small, but I’m so high up that size is just a concept. All things are small, even the largest ones. Under the shadow of the mountain, the valley carves into the earth like a thumbprint, leaving pine trees and rock formations as forensic evidence. A river weaves through the trees; a single thread holding together the fabric of the forest. A pair of red-tailed hawks spirals in the air, the sun glinting off the edges of their wings. It must affect them, seeing the world from on high, making them wiser than us.

  I try to guess how far it is to the bottom of the valley, but I settle for “thousands”— thousands of what, I’m not sure. Feet? Meters? Years? I’m staring into the eye of the Great Everything, and in her irises I see certainty, and trees painted like matchsticks in a box, and the glint of sunlight off the edge of a miniature lake. Her pupils are the wide open sun, and she tells me to find the light that always was and will always be. She promises it’s in this moment, and I want to catch it like a butterfly, but it only lands on me when I stay still.

  The sun dips below the mountains, bouncing pinks and purples off a sky coated in clouds, and in this place— this infinite, cascading, achingly indescribable piece of nature— I’m not sure how a person doesn’t believe in God. I understand the mechanisms, but crediting the means with the result seems like blaming the paintbrush for the painting. I’m an astronaut seeing the Earth from outer space for the first time, and it’s as if I’ve learned to speak a new language. What used to be gibberish, is now poetry, made clear. The words are different, but the message is consistent: you are a part of the Great Everything, and the Great Everything is a part of you.

  This is what they call an overview.

  It grounds me in the core of myself, the center of my being. I won’t return home the same.

  I hope Mike likes his new girlfriend when he meets her.

  A step forward and the ground beneath my feet disappears, making me feel like I’m floating on thin air. A cold wind whips past my ears, and I swear I smell Mike on its edges. I’m close to him. I can detect his presence like a bloodhound following a trail.

  I move away from the ledge and start searching the mountain for Cassandra’s purported clue. I have no idea what I’m looking for, but it’s here. It has to be. Whatever it is, I need to find it before the sun sets and the light disappears, making my search all but impossible until morning.

  I stumble around for awhile, checking trees, bushes, and cracks in the rocks for any sign of another clue. At first, nothing— but then, the landscape changes into alien territory, and I know exactly where Cassandra has hidden the clue.

  The Fissures. Brock described the unusual geological feature on the first day of our tour, but his words didn’t do the Fissures justice.

  A flat piece of land extends in front of me, its surface wrinkled and broken like the top of an over-baked cake. Cracks in the Earth zig-zag into the distance, as if someone slammed a mallet into the ground. The crevices vary in size— some are as thin as my ring finger, others are wide enough to swallow me whole. Slivers of reliable Earth weave between the cracks, but one misstep could mean death.

  It’s a maze. The perfect place for Cassandra to hide a clue.

  I approach with caution, stopping at the first fissure and peering over the maze. I try to count the fissures, but stop when I get to fifty. They fall into three distinct types; the first is narrow, so thin as to be harmless. The second is enormous, big enough that I could tumble to my death if I slipped and fell inside. The third is combination of the first two— narrow in some spots and wide in others.

  Standing on my tippy-toes gives me a better view, and I can almost see the entirety of the labyrinth, crevices of varying size weaving over each other like tangled vines. It’s a game of eye-spy, and I’m looking for anything to designate the center of the maze, some flag telling me where I’m supposed to go. At first, nothing registers, but then I notice a familiar object poking out from a fissure deep in the center of the maze. It’s blue, and warm, and cost seventy-nine dollars; I know, because I bought it.

  It’s the sleeve of Mike’s windbreaker.

  For one terrible moment, I think he might be down there, dying or already dead. But the fear fades when I remember that Cassandra is a predator; a cat who likes to play with her food before she eats it. An ending this abrupt would hardly satiate her. She’ll want to watch the mouse run the maze before she eats its.

  The fissure I need to reach is smack-dab in the center of the jagged labyrinth, and reaching it will require me to find the least hazardous route. The crevices look like lightning bolts carved into the Earth. It’s as if someone has turned my brain inside out and spread it across the mountain, tangled and broken, neural pathways tripping over each other to try and make sense of the world.

  There’s no option but to step over the fissures. I pick the path of least resistance and pray I can make it there and back again before the sun dips below the horizon.

  Using my good leg and the walking stick, I step from space to space, holding my breath as I hop over each fissure. Some are deeper than others, but they generally go so far into the Earth as to fade into nothing but darkness. A few of the gaps are big enough that I could fall inside and never be heard from again. I take my time with those. It’s hard to gain perspective in the middle of the labyrinth, because the ground changes its elevation dep
ending on the location. When the higher elevations emerge, I seize the chance to track my progress, standing again on the edges of my feet, keeping my eye on Mike’s jacket.

  Finally, I reach the fissure in question and kneel down beside it, stretching out to touch Mike’s windbreaker. It emerges from the crevice like an artifact being stripped from a tomb. The jacket feels strange in my hands, a relic from a time and place I can’t go back to.

  I hold it close to me and sit with it for a minute, like it’s a life preserver in the middle of the ocean.

  The day I bought it was a Tuesday— I remember, because Mike’s birthday was just a week away. My gift to him was a replacement for his old college jacket, faded and unraveling, dying a little bit each day, but difficult to find a substitute for.

  Every kind of store was visited in the quest for a replacement. Trendy coat shops in the weaving streets of West Hollywood. The bland, sterile men’s section of every department store in the Westfield mall. Finally, I found it, at an unassuming outlet in the valley, owned by a proprietor with a mustache who followed customers around in case he could “answer any questions.”

  The jacket was a robin’s-egg blue, and nothing special at first glance, but then the store’s owner showed me how the hood detached, and the pockets were made for particular items; one for sunglasses, one for a water bottle, one with a leash for keys.

  There was something joyful about the way the jacket fully prepared its owner for any situation, and the spirit of it all reminded me of Mike, maybe because he leaps so willingly into everything life has to offer.

  When he unwrapped the packaging— newspapers tied with a rafia bow, because I’m not the best at gift-wrapping— Mike loved it immediately. He wore it every day for weeks, and his old college jacket fell by the wayside, retired to a box at the bottom of our closet.

  It was a gift with thought put into it, something I worried about and searched for, because I was trying to use an action to say everything I couldn’t with words. The fact that Mike liked it made me feel like I knew him, like maybe I was reading him right, and there was no hidden part of him hiding in shadows, lying in wait for the chance to bite me. He loved it so much he didn’t even want to take it to Yosemite, because he was worried about it getting ruined. A cog turns in my brain.

  He didn’t pack it.

  Mike didn’t bring this jacket with him. Cassandra was in our house. There’s no other explanation.

  Something flips in my stomach, and suddenly I’m angry. Angry at Mike, for leaving the jacket at home. Angry at Cassandra, for violating us. Angry at myself, for suggesting this trip in the first place.

  I turn the jacket over in my hands and pull at the fabric, wanting to rip it to shreds. It represents a life I can’t go back to; one that’s been stolen from me. The longer I’m surrounded by the wilderness, the more it consumes me, erasing the avatar of who I used to be, returning me to my most pristine, unaltered self. Being in the wild has made me a wild thing, and I wonder if the world at large will make room for my new temperament. I’m not the same woman I was when I started this trip, and I’d venture to guess that Mike feels different, too.

  A possibility enters my mind, as dark and foreboding as the bottom of a fissure. What if Mike and I somehow survive this, only to find that we don’t want to be together anymore?

  It’s a very human concern.

  I push it away, because I’m not a normal human anymore. I’m part of the Earth, and the Great Everything. My mind shuts down— driven to inactivity by loneliness— so I listen instead to my inner wolf, who focuses only on the present moment. She’s overcome by a howling, scratching desire to be reunited with her pack, and I know that even in the most animal parts of me, I recognize Mike as someone I’m meant to be with.

  A clapping, roaring sound echoes across the valley. At first I think it might have come from inside my chest, but then I realize it’s something external. I look up, and a flash of light streaks across the bloody sky. Droplets fall on my cheeks like tears, as if the Earth feels the same way I do.

  First comes thunder, then lightning, then: Rain.

  The water will turn the edges of the fissures into slippery blades, smooth in the moonlight, treacherous and deadly. My return trip through the labyrinth will require me to navigate a sea of gaping holes, always one step away from death. Leaving now— while there’s still enough light out to illuminate my path— is my only shot at making it out alive.

  The jacket shakes in my hands as I turn it upside down, searching for the next clue. Something falls out of a side pocket— the one meant for sunglasses— bouncing off the ground and almost tumbling into a fissure, where it would be lost forever. I manage to grab it before it disappears over the edge. It’s cold and familiar against my fingertips. My heart skips a beat.

  I’m holding Mike’s cell phone.

  It’s turned off— most likely to preserve the battery life— but when it’s turned it on, I’ll find Cassandra’s next clue, waiting.

  I’m about to power it up, but then the sun disappears behind the horizon, plunging the world into darkness, heavy and final, like a period at the end of a sentence.

  I’m suspended in the blackness— frozen in the absence of light. The beauty I experienced earlier is replaced by primal fear.

  Lightning burns across the sky, briefly illuminating the treacherous route back, carved with fissures that I won’t be able to see in the night. I’m surrounded, trapped in a death-labyrinth with no way out.

  The flash of light disappears.

  Darkness swallows me whole.

  14

  There are no stars tonight. There is no moon.

  All that exists is the darkness, and a gunmetal grey expanse of clouds that blankets the valley with caution. Every creature lies in wait. Birds confine themselves to their trees. Gophers hide in their holes. Where there once was movement, now, all beasts are still.

  Except for one.

  I scratch my way across the first fissure, holding my flashlight in my mouth, crawling on my hands and knees through the labyrinth. The rocks are soaked with water, and rain beats down upon the Earth in a relentless surge.

  The other animals watch me from their hiding spots, wondering why I don’t stay still, why I won’t wait out the storm.

  I want to tell them it’s because I’m afraid. My claws are new, and not as sharp as theirs. My ears are large, but freshly grown. If the rain overtakes me and I fall into a fissure, I may never climb my way out. My only hope is to escape the maze, to find my way back to the start.

  I progress on four legs, returning to my origins in more ways than one, traveling in the way I first learned to— as a child.

  I crawl sideways, and the process takes so long that being on four legs begins to feel normal, as if I was made to walk this way. Navigating my way around fissure after fissure, I work backwards, remembering my path to the maze’s center and reversing it.

  My movements are timed by the lightning. My eyes scan the fissures when it strikes, seizing the opportunity to make a mental map of the landscape. I’m not human anymore, but a beast, focused only on the present moment and nothing else, nothing abstract, just the tangible world and my place within it.

  I’m almost in the clear when it happens. My hand moves to make contact with solid ground, but finds nothing except open air. The sensation of falling fills my lungs, and for a terrible moment I think I’ve stumbled into the second kind of fissure— the kind that can swallow me whole— but then my downward motion stops. I’m not dead. At least, not yet.

  I’m positioned partially inside a gaping crevice, my upper body trapped in a vacuum that’s sucking me downward, a black hole attempting to swallow me. I try to pull my arm back, but the fissure is like quicksand. My shoulder won’t budge. Another bolt of lightning illuminates the Earth, revealing that I’m trapped in the third type of fissure; uneven and varied in size. It widens in certain areas, but the portion I’m stuck in is surprisingly narrow. In the rain, the fissure is an ani
mal trap— easy to slip into and hard to escape. My arm is buried up to the shoulder, and no amount of pulling sets it free. Thrashing upward makes no difference— my arm won’t budge. Chewing it off seems like the only option.

  I lean into the Great Everything, asking her to help me, and she whispers the word “move” in my ear.

  But I can’t move. I’m trapped, not just in this fissure, but in a way of being. I’ve walked through the world in a cage built by others, forgoing the most basic, primal pieces of myself to gain the approval of others. I don’t want to die before I’ve found the real me. I won’t be ready to go until I shake her hand and look her in the eyes. That day will come, but that day is not today.

  Move, the Great Everything says again.

  Another upward pull, but my arm won’t budge. A second bolt of lightning flashes across the sky, illuminating the length of the fissure, which cuts against the mountain in a jagged, uneven line.

  An uneven line.

  Suddenly, I know what the Great Everything wants me to do. My breathing slows. My heart rate lowers. I’m not afraid anymore, because the Great Everything wants to help me. My mind works in conjunction with my instincts, and suddenly I’m both beast and woman, all pieces of myself orchestrating the next steps, together.

  The Great Everything’s instructions are followed: I move. Not upward this time, but horizontally along the length of the fissure.