True Places(83)

“Looks just like I remember,” Iris said softly.

“Virginia least trillium.” She explained about endangered and threatened species. The trillium was endangered in North Carolina but not in Virginia, so the county-by-county listings Suzanne had hoped for were not available. She made notes about the flower’s habitat, then opened a tab for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Together they went through the list of Virginia’s threatened or endangered plants, more than a dozen. Iris pointed to a daisylike flower with drooping pink petals.

“I’ve seen that one. Mama used ones like it for keeping us healthy, especially in the winter. Echinacea, she called it, but she didn’t harvest this one. Too special, she said.”

“Smooth coneflower,” Suzanne said. “Federally endangered.” She clicked open the list of counties where the flower was known to exist and compared it to a county map. “It hasn’t been seen in any of the counties north of Route 60, the road we drove down yesterday, and only on the west side of Bedford and Amherst Counties.”

“So what does that mean?”

“Nothing for certain. The flower could be growing where it hasn’t been noticed.” Suzanne closed the laptop. “Let’s get that topo, hopefully narrow it down some more.”

“Then what?”

“Exploring.”



Iris sat in the car, holding a list of three places: two that had rivers and streams closely matching her sketch and one that was a partial match. Who knew how accurate her memory was, especially for distances? They’d left midmorning and now had almost arrived at the first one. The easiest, Suzanne had said last night, because it was the only one they could get to through public land—the Jefferson National Forest. The idea that one of these places held her home made Iris’s stomach churn. She’d never been so excited and so afraid at the same time.

Suzanne used her phone to find the way until she lost reception and asked Iris to guide her using the map. Suzanne had circled the closest access point. Road signs for Cave Mountain Lake appeared, and they turned onto a narrow dirt road running alongside a stream. Iris suspected the area they were looking for was too close to popular hiking trails to be the right place but didn’t say anything. She could be wrong. Disappearing was easy if no one was looking for you.

They parked in a tiny lot and gathered their stuff. Suzanne had insisted on buying all sorts of clothing and gear in Lexington—enough for a monthlong trip, the way Iris saw it. But her boots were comfortable and the backpack was a big improvement on the old one, which had belonged to her father. Suzanne and Iris didn’t plan to stay out overnight, but Suzanne wanted to be prepared. For this first stop, though, they left the sleeping bags, tarp, and stove in the car since their destination was only four or five miles away and they could follow a trail for most of it.

Suzanne hoisted her pack and clipped the belt. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

At first Iris led, but she kept having to wait for Suzanne and decided to let her set the pace. A half hour in, a young couple passed them going the other way, smiling and saying hello. Iris and Suzanne continued for another hour and a half, climbing steadily through a world of green. The trail wound around to the west, ringing a big mountain, then angled to its steeper north side. Here the trees were narrower, leaning close to strain toward the sky, today a featureless gray mat. There was not a breath of wind. Birds trilled out overhead—phoebes, wrens, a lone oriole—and squirrels skittered across the ground and gave chase up tree trunks. Spring was offering up its promise of bounty. Out of habit, Iris scanned the forest floor as she walked, searching among last year’s decaying leaves and the emerging ephemerals for mushrooms. It felt like morel time.

Suzanne stopped in the trail and consulted the map. “I think we turn left off the trail pretty soon.” She pointed into the woods. “One of your streams should be over there.”

Iris considered the terrain. “How far?”

“Maybe a half mile? Or a little farther?” Suzanne looked uneasily into the densely packed woods. “You want to go first?”

Iris slid past Suzanne and continued up the path until she found a gap in the undergrowth. She checked to make sure Suzanne was close behind and picked her way among the trees, holding aside branches for Suzanne. They were traversing the slope now, heading toward a notch between two distant hills, which made sense to Iris if they were trying to get to a stream. But she paid less attention to the geography and her memory of the map than she did to her innate expectation of what lay ahead. Landscapes, varied as they were, were logical and predictable: the types of trees, the plants blooming at her feet, the way the sunlight fell, the eddies in which dawn’s moisture might be trapped. Iris read all that and more. She wasn’t surprised when a patch of bluebells appeared, or when they walked past a deer yard, grasses folded flat beneath a pair of red cedars. She just nodded and moved on.

In a short while, Iris heard the stream she already knew was there. Suzanne would insist on seeing it, to be sure, so Iris led her for another ten minutes to its edge.

Suzanne looked at the stream, two steps across, burbling gently. She said, “Does this look familiar?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

Iris sighed. There was no way to explain. It’d be like getting a fish to teach you to swim. “I’m sure.”