As she walked, Adelaide occasionally reflected on the fact that she had once considered herself to be in shape.

She had realized that traveling through the Triangle was going to be physically taxing, and it wasn’t like she hadn’t prepared herself — she had gone to the gym semi-regularly and read a bunch of survival guides aimed at Triangle venturers. And she’d made sure to do a big backpacking trip with some friends, camped overnight all that stuff.

But, upon reflection, she had maybe skipped a few of those gym days, and the backpacking trip had been the kind of thing where some material percentage of their backpacks were filled with wine, and at no point had she been climbing over rocks that she was literally the first person ever to touch and that had accordingly never bothered to become anything even vaguely resembling a path.

And she hadn’t spent so much energy then on the wildlife, while she couldn’t look away here. They hadn’t seen any of the unicorn things yet, but there was such a variety on display that Adelaide could almost sometimes put that pending crisis out of her head. It would have been ideal to try to learn something about how the unicorns fit into this ecosystem, but, as Adelaide tried to convince herself, that was an inherently unrealistic goal: imagine walking around Yellowstone for a day and deducing the social structure of a wolf pack. And that was without the novel creatures that were around every bend.

An early and striking example were the butterflies with wings the size of her hands. The wings were nearly transparent, with only a band of green around each edge and a sparse lattice of blue veins supporting what looked almost like saran wrap. Adelaide imagined it to be camouflage to hide from predators, but it was more than that. Adelaide watched one gently flap a dozen feet above a pool of stagnant water before slowly descending. As it inched downwards, other insects failed to notice either its clear wings or its now-barely-perceptible flaps and collided with those wings. And then they stuck there, to be joined by many of their fellows. Once the butterfly had nearly reached the water, it flapped upwards and began to run its tongue along its wings, slurping up the flies without apparent difficulty.

Adelaide later saw why the butterfly had so carefully avoided the water. Ray had grudgingly consented to a short break beyond a small pond they’d found near a cliffside. Adelaide had been interested to observe what looked like lily pads, because they were flat and non-flowering. But, when she got close, she realized she was actually looking at another strange little predator. It was shaped like a long thin gecko, but it was laying upside down underneath the surface of the water, with six massive feet laying on the surface of the water, their surface area allowing the creature to float. Whenever anything landed on one of these pads, it would snap shut like a mousetrap. Any notion of cooling off with a swim quickly lost its appeal. Nor were the occasional streams they passed more appealing — there was a large eel that would flash back and forth from bank to bank. Adelaide wondered how anything living on land managed to get a drink in these waters.

Even as she marveled at these creatures, Adelaide knew she was dramatically underestimating the scale of the differences. For every flashy difference, there were likely a dozen vital points she was overlooking. The bugs she’d seen get eaten by butterflies and watertrappers were the perfect example: Adelaide thought of them as flies, but they were probably some unique indigenous species that had differences that would thrill an entomologist.

Adelaide tried to focus on the boundless marvels around her and not on how much her feet hurt, but Ray seemed to read something into her expression as he finally suggested they call it a night. And it did seem to be getting dark , so Adelaide didn’t even feel guilty as she accepted. She flopped on the ground before an arched eyebrow from Ray reminded her that she needed, yet again, to gather firewood. Luckily, the weird fern-trees were still here, and several had the same crude cuts she’d observed back at camp. Ray had the fire ready to go almost as soon as she returned.

“Thank you for doing that. I did a lot of practicing but — well, I’m glad to have it expertly handled.”

“It’s effortless with a lighter. You got the wood.”

“Yeah, but these trees have chunks taken out of them by something. Or not trees — I don’t know what they are, honestly.”

“Someone else having lunch, I’d imagine. Although…” Ray stood suddenly, and walked over to the nearest fern. “Is there a big fruit up there?”

“Up where?”

“On the top of the trunk.”

“Oh, maybe. It’s hard to see but - yes, I think so, in that flower right?”

“Yeah, exactly. I’m going to go get it.”

“Didn’t we pack dinner?”

“Never pass up an opportunity to forage. Especially when it’s fresh fruit the size of my head.”

“But we can’t eat some random fruit! What if it’s poisonous?”

“No one makes poisonous fruit — the whole point of fruit is for someone to eat it. And we can roast it anyway.”

“That seems like a pretty big assumption to bet our lives on!”

But he was already climbing, steadily and without obvious effort. When he reached the top, he cut off the fruits and began to throw them down to her. They did look great — they were purple and taut, sort of like giant grapes. Adelaide had just caught the last one when she spotted something running up the tree. “Ah! Ray! Something’s coming up at you!”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Ray, still holding himself against the trunk, managed to unsheathe his knife as he looked around. Only then did Adelaide process what she was looking at — it was the size of a large mouse, but with scales and long claws that it was using to climb. It had been scurrying quickly up the tree, but when it saw Ray and his knife, Adelaide could have sworn she saw it do an actual double take before turning around and scurrying into the body of the tree itself, using a small hole she hadn’t noticed. It all happened before Ray even saw the thing, and he was still looking for it, knife out, after it was gone.

Adelaide burst out laughing, and still hadn’t regained her composure when Ray returned. “Was that your idea of a joke? I thought you had more sense than that, Professor.”

Adelaide calmed herself. “No, there was something there — a little lizard guy. It just ran into the tree before you saw it.”

“So what were you laughing about?”

“It was just — he sort of spun around — and your face — I can’t explain it, I guess. Maybe I’m just tired.”

Ray smiled. “It happens. Anyway, I guess I’m glad it wasn’t some sort of flying spider or whatever. But I didn’t expect you to be the sort to be spooked by something that small. Don’t you have to like do experiments with rats all the time to be a scientist?”

“What? Do you think there’s just like a big thing called ‘science’ and the same people do rat experiments and molecular physics? Like are you imagining a hundred people in lab coats walking into a big white building with ‘Science Headquarters’ written on the door?”

When Ray declined to confirm her suspicions, she decided to fill the silence by saying, “Anyway, I never had to work with rats, I took as little biology as possible.”

“And then you decided to spend your professional life tromping around eating every weird plant and animal you could find?”

“I do appreciate the irony, but it’s not like there was another Triangle that led to, like, different kinds of Starbucks. And you’re the one who wanted to eat this weird fruit and probably poison us all.”

“I’m cooking it, aren’t I? It’ll be fine. So why did you become whatever non-rat-touching kind of scientist you are anyway?”

“I mean, it’s not like there was a dramatic revelation or anything. I was good at physics and I thought it was more interesting than the pure math classes. And the Triangle opened up, and I was living in a world with a real live scientific mystery, and I couldn’t avoid thinking about it.”

“So you didn’t grow up dreaming of being a physicist?”

“No, back then I — well, I didn’t have this in mind back then. Not that anyone had this in mind back then.”

“You’re certainly right about that.” Ray passed her a slice of the roasted fruit. It was weird to eat something so sweet off of a fire, but it was tasty enough and richer than she’d expected.

“But, actually, that makes me wonder: what did you do before all of this?”

“You did your research. I’ve been a Guide for a long time. Not always so successfully, but this is what I do.”

“Yeah, but you had to have had a job before the Triangle opened in the first place. Like what is the entry level job that leads to Guiding? Were you like a pirate or a mountain ranger or something?”

“Before the Triangle?” Ray looked up at the trees around them. “God, who remembers?”

***

It was still morning when they got close.

Adelaide had worried she wouldn’t be able to sleep — they were using a small tent, but she was still in unfamiliar territory, with all manner of strange lizards and the possibility of a unicorn trampling them in the night. But she must have underestimated her exhaustion, because as soon as Ray had sealed them off and settled down beside her, she had been out like a light.

But, as if to make up for it, the morning had been spent in increasing anxiety. She had this feeling that it was going to be a mess again, that there would be some horrible guardian like the Bird Mother. She knew that there was no reason to expect that. And she knew that it was totally understandable that she was worried anyway, because she’d experienced something terrifying. And knowing both of those things was still no help at all.

But it was quiet as they got within yards of the Node. Indeed, there were no animals in sight at all. Instead, there was a ring of the fern-tree things they had seen all over the island, growing in a circle. Adelaide and Ray had to sidle between the trees, with Adelaide’s backpack strap briefly getting caught. But when she freed it, there was only a pond of still water. As Adelaide approached, she had a premonition of looking at the surface and seeing a shark rising to eat her, or a ghost reaching an arm to pull her in. And yet she walked forward, feeling a sudden kinship with horror movie protagonists who opened a creaky door because they’d heard something thump behind it.

But she'd apparently seen too many horror movies, because there was nothing. It was just pure, clear water. She could see all the way to the bottom, which looked to be about a dozen yards down, and there wasn’t anything moving anywhere. She just saw her own reflection and the trees behind her.

And then the Detector binged, and the mission was complete. She looked up and caught Ray’s eye, and neither of them knew what to say. Looking back, she’d wonder what would have broken the spell if one of the little lizard-mice from the day before hadn’t scampered down to the water to drink.

“That the thing you saw yesterday?” Ray asked.

“Yeah, it was one of those.”

“Well, I suppose we leave him to it,” he responded, and they slipped back through the trees.

Adelaide looked back, and then at Ray. “Did that seem weird to you?”

“What do you mean? Did you see something?”

“No, I just — I don’t know, I felt like I was trespassing.”

“Don’t overthink it. Let’s hustle back. I think we can make better time in this direction, and I’d like to arrive before they start brawling.”

“Ugh, yeah, I’d almost forgotten. Let’s go.” Adelaide started walking, and then turned to look back over her shoulder one more time, just to check. But there was nothing but the wind rustling the ferns.