Page 5 of A Fae’s Guide to Tactical Botany

He’d gotten in the habit of occasionally scanning satellite photos of the region when he’d been working on his thesis, trying to link the spread of invasive plant species across the Southwest, and he’d never fallen out of it. It was soothing, looking at the snaking washes and creases of mountains, zooming in to see the vegetation, tracing the paths he could take when he went overlanding. Which he’d used to do several times a year.

When he’d been a student, it had been so easy—just take off for spring break, or summer, or sometimes winter. And when he’d first started teaching, had a steady paycheck that more than paid for his needs, he’d upgraded his gear. Bought the Jeep, top-of-the-line GPS and satellite phone, rooftop tent, portable toilet, solar panels, water tank…

And then five years ago, he’d stopped.

He grimaced and folded his map up again, tossing it on the driver’s seat with the other papers. Had he stopped overlanding because he’d started dating Sarah? Or had he started dating Sarah because he’d stopped overlanding? It didn’t matter now, of course, because by the time he got back, the movers would have done their thing, severed the connection for him, and all that would be left was unpacking the boxes he’d packed before he left town.

Sarah had been an adult about it all, calmly discussing which of them got the microwave (him), who got the carved wooden bed (her), how to divide their mutually acquired collection of DVDs and board games and knick-knacks. Serenely negotiating who would sleep where until he left on his trip—she’d offered to take the couch, since he was about to spend months sleeping on a camping mattress, and he’d agreed and spent the last few nights alone in the bed that was now hers. It was kind of her, and generous, and admirably mature.

He’d been mature about it, too. Calm, reasonable, even friendly. Which he was simultaneously proud of and freaked out by, because he hadn’t felt mature. He’d felt like he was falling, the ground giving out under his feet. Which had happened to him more than once out in the wilderness. He knew exactly how it felt.

Lying alone in the bed that had been theirs, packing box after box of things they’d once enjoyed together and now they would each enjoy half of alone, walking out the door of their apartment for the last time—Sarah’s apartment, he reminded himself. It was just Sarah’s now—had felt worse. Not just falling. Falling off a cliff into the Grand Canyon.

But he was a grown-ass adult, as he’d told Javier. He knew the best way to stop falling was to deploy a safety net. And his safety net was here, all packed away in and atop his lime-green Jeep.

Sarah’s car was gray, the matte mid-gray that had inexplicably grown in popularity when beige/gold had started to wane. She’d bought it new, too, ordered it in that color. She hadn’t settled for gray because that was the color she’d found at the used car lot. She’d wanted gray.

Why did I spend five years with a woman who drives a gray car?

The thought felt disloyal. But it wasn’t. There wasn’t anything to be disloyal to, now. It was just another sign that they hadn’t been right for each other from the start. She liked sleek gray sedans, and he liked scuffed green Jeeps. She liked cut roses in a vase, and he liked yucca plants, saguaro, cholla, getting his hands in the dirt. She liked her life the way it was, and he liked…

Well, this was something he liked. Standing in the high desert hills, the wind on his aloed cheeks and the hills gilded by the setting sun behind him and a puzzle in front of him, one he’d start solving tomorrow. It felt right, somehow. Comfortable.

This was where he belonged.

Chapter three

Discovery

Ethan’s phone alarm went off well before dawn, but he was already half awake. While he’d stayed up a bit after sunset, sucking down a protein shake and studying his maps and photos a bit more, the chill of the night and the exhaustion of the long overland drive had convinced him to turn in early, climbing the ladder he’d wedged securely in the sand up to the tent he’d unfurled from its square case. Though chill was perhaps an overstatement—the thermometer in his kit had said it was in the low fifties. Perfectly normal for this elevation at this time of year. But he’d already acclimated to the hotter temperatures back in town, and it would take him time to adjust. And it was good, the difference. Comforting. Like opening a door instead of closing it.

With a sigh, he grabbed his phone and silenced the alarm. There were zero bars of service—if he wanted to contact anyone, he’d have to break out the satellite phone. That was another good thing, that he couldn’t just call or text anyone on a whim. Not Sarah, not anyone connected to Sarah…

And hopefully he’d stop relating every decision to his ex over the next three months.

He dressed quickly by the dim glow of his LED light and descended the ladder to the desert floor. The landscape was blue in the ambient predawn light, and the cloudless sky in the east was starting to glow gold, the higher peaks in the distance already rimmed with sunrise. He went about his morning ablutions, perked some coffee on his Coleman stove, and dug into the Jeep to drag out the equipment he’d need for the morning’s explorations.

As he tied his hair back, Ethan considered his drone. He’d want some aerial photos and footage at some point, but… The whole point of fieldwork was being in the field. He’d already seen the satellite photos hinting at what he’d find, but he still wanted the rush of seeing it with his own eyes, discovering what the digital breadcrumbs had led him to. He’d deploy the drone later, when the initial thrill had faded and the hard work was underway. He locked it in the Jeep—not that there was likely anyone else within miles—and started to gear up.

When he’d first started going out in the field, in undergrad groups supervised by teaching assistants, he’d been frustrated by the entire process. They’d been advised to wear heavy jeans, sturdy hiking boots, and long-sleeved canvas jackets for protection, but it had quickly become clear that they would only protect so much when every cactus and bush and tree in the desert was covered in skewers tiny and large, some of them heavy and barbed, some of them hair-thin and soft-looking, all of them dangerous. Time and time again their group had needed to retrace their steps when confronted by conditions too dangerous to proceed.

“You’d need to be a knight in shining armor to get through that,” one of his classmates had joked after one of their retreats, ruefully plucking a cholla stem from the fabric of her jacket.

Ethan hadn’t laughed. He had gone home afterwards and dug into his closet, dragging out his old Army-surplus duffel bag from the back of his closet, dumping the contents onto his bed. He’d been single then, living in his first tiny off-campus apartment, and had just moved the majority of his possessions from his parents’ house across town. Why he’d brought this particular duffel bag, he didn’t know, but now it seemed serendipitous. And maybe what he was thinking was stupid, but it was worth a try.

The next time he’d gone out in the field wearing his kit, everyone had looked at him like he was crazy. But he hadn’t gotten stuck, and he’d managed to get to places nobody else could, just by virtue of being less stickable. Later, he’d added some additional pieces to his kit, converted it to work more specifically against hostile cacti instead of hostile swords…or rattan facsimiles thereof. He’d even helped a couple of his classmates to make suits of field-botany armor; he’d made his own, after all.

There were advantages to growing up in the Society for Creative Anachronism. Knowing how to make protective gear out of canvas and pickle-barrel plastic was just one of them.

From what he could see just looking at the hill across from him, he definitely needed to armor up. Just a few yards up the hill, there was a line of prickly pears so densely packed it was as if someone had deliberately planted them as a barrier. They were just tall enough he wouldn’t be able to step over them, and just close enough together he wouldn’t be able to fit between them safely. Possibly not even with his armor. But he was prepared for that, too.

Once he’d strapped his segmented armor over his jeans and hips—he preferred to keep his upper body free to move—and donned his gloves and hat, he slung his backpack over his shoulders and strode across the sandy wash and up the hill, a masonite panel in each hand. He’d had the panels trimmed down to match his height and the breadth of his shoulders, to cut down the weight, and attached leather straps to make them easy to carry. They were dusty from storage, like most of his gear, but the rivets were still secure.

It took a partial circuit of the ring of cacti to find what he was looking for—not so much a space as an opportunity, a point where the prickly pear paddles were arranged just so, in a way that they could be pushed aside without breaking.

He slid the two masonite panels into the almost-gap, carefully separated them until they formed a V a foot or so wide, and stepped between them.

Watching where he placed his feet, he eased forward. The paddles on either side of him shifted and opened, but did not break off, and a few shuffling steps later, he emerged on the other side, laughing. God, it felt good to be outsmarting the desert again!