Virginia Creeper

Mark and I were backpacking in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina in late spring. At two and a half weeks, this was the longest backpacking trip either of us had been on. The problem with long trips is that you have to start out carrying all of the food that you will need for the entire trip. Even though the majority of our food was freeze dried, our packs started out almost unbearably heavy. They were a bit lighter now, but still weighed around forty pounds each. Today was day 13, and it was going particularly slow. My imagination took over as I followed Mark along the eroded trail, comparing our progress up the mountain to that of vines climbing up the sides of trees. One of us could be virginia creeper, a vine with poisonous berries and five shiny, green leaflets. The other could be wild muscadine, a vine whose grapes have been used to make wines. Both the poisonous and the edible fruits would be carried toward the heavens as the vines climbed the trunk of a myrtle oak, moving at the unhurried pace of mitotic growth. Nature has such an inclusive way of embracing diversity; if you can survive out here you can stay out here, and you won‘t be judged by your race, ethnicity, medical records, or ice cream flavor preference. Mine is nutty coconut, by the way.

Mark spotted a puddle of water, fed by the trickle from a cracked rock, and said “this would be a good time to top off our water bottles.” I unbuckled my pack from around my waist, took one arm out of an arm strap, and slowly lowered my pack to the ground. The absence of weight on my back was a relief to my aching muscles. Mark, who had also taken off his pack, fished a water filter out of the top compartment. He handed the thermos sized water filter to me, saying “Your turn to pump, Richard.”

I dipped a tin cup in the water, then set it on the ground. One end of the filter, a piece of plastic tubing, went into the cup, and the other end attached to one of our water bottles. As I started pumping, Mark teased me about the adventure we’d had the night before.

“So have you seen any ghosts yet, Mister Medium?”

“Shut it, Mark! You know I don’t really believe in that stuff.”

“You certainly seemed to believe in it out at Shining Rock last night.”

In my humble opinion Shining Rock is the greatest, underrated wonder of the world. Huge sheets of white quartz cover the mountainside, reflecting light back to the heavens like a lighthouse of the universe. Even on a moonless night, the inky blackness of the wilderness can’t blot out the glow of Shining Rock. The white quartz would still reflect light from the bejeweled sky. We happened to be there during a full moon, and the scene was even more spectacular. Mark, however, wasn’t impressed by the ambiance. He had only been interested in testing the limits of my imagination.

The sun was beginning to set by the time we had reached our campsite near Shining Rock. I had been able to see it gleaming ahead of us as darkness began to fall. I wanted to visit Shining Rock, the highlight of the trip for me, immediately. Mark told me to go ahead, and that he would stay behind to set up camp. So I ventured toward the glowing spectacle on my own.
When I reached Shining Rock, I climbed the largest, white quarts sheet, and turned off my flashlight. The dim expanse of wilderness stretched on in all directions. The scene was peacefully hypnotic, and the presence of nature was very strong. I could smell the soil of the earth, and hear the gentle rustle of leaves as the wind caressed surrounding plant life. The sounds of the forest -- the rustling leaves, the hooting of a nearby owl, the chirping of a cricket hidden somewhere in the dark-- combined to form the voice of the forest. I could hear it murmuring gently as I stood upon the brilliant white quartz. I raised my arms to the sparkling sky above, and closed my eyes in reverie. Suddenly, the murmur of the world around me became full of clarity. Riiichaaaard, I could hear the world below calling my name, Riichaard. My heart rate increased as I tried to discern the nature of this ethereal voice. The moon shone brightly from her place in the sky, but she did nothing to illuminate the situation for me. Richard! The voice called again, with a hint of urgency in its tone. It was a wispy voice; it seemed as though the vary wind was trying to speak to me. Something rustled in the brush below. I couldn‘t see it, but I felt that whatever it was, it must be more dazzling than the stars, and far more terrible than the darkest spaces between them.

“What do you want?” I trembled, afraid of what I might hear in response. I wasn’t harangued by the spirit of the forest. Instead, someone broke out in hysterical laughter below me.

“Mark?” I questioned.

“You should see your face right now, Richard!” Mark gasped between bouts of laughter. “You look like you were expecting me to be a ghost!”

The event felt entirely less scary today, in broad daylight, but I had been furious with Mark for playing this trick on me that night. For his part, Mark had continued to tease me about my gullibility. I glared at him for bringing it up again, and he dropped the subject.

Once I finished pumping, we packed everything away, put on our packs, and headed out on the trail again. We had only been traveling for twenty minutes before a shrill cry broke the midday silence. It was an anguishing cry, as if someone had lost his hold on the world and had nothing left to do but spill his pain into the wilderness. “Does that sound like a person to you, Mark?” I asked him. “Well, it certainly wasn’t a coyote,” he responded, “It sounded like it came from not too far ahead of us either. If we hurry, maybe we can help out whoever it is.” We did hurry, and pretty soon we came to a lone backpacker. She was seated at the base of a water oak tree with her legs crossed, digging her fingers in the ground. Her pack leaned against the tree on the other side. She had dark hair and skin, and when she opened her forest green eyes, I realized I was looking at the most beautiful person I had ever seen. “Hi,” was all I could manage. Mark did a little better.

“I’m Mark, and this is my brother Richard. We heard a shout out here. You happen to know anything about that? I hope everything is okay.”

“I’m fine,” her voice was soft as she spoke, and we couldn’t seem to challenge the grace of her simplistic answer. So I changed the subject instead.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Virginia,” she responded with a smile, “and I’m pleased to meet you.”

“It’s good to meet you too,” said Mark, “You don’t find many souls brave enough to venture this far out into the wilderness alone. What are you doing out here?”

“My goal is to climb this mountain,” was her charming, although vague reply. There were many mountains in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and this one wasn’t particularly special.

“That’s actually our destination for the night too.” Mark said, “You’re welcome to join us for the journey there. According to our map, we should only have about three miles to go.”

“I guess we should get moving then.” Virginia said, and reached out a hand. Mark took it and helped her to her feet. I cursed myself for not being the closest one to her. I think I spent ten whole minutes wishing it had been my hand that had held those five, slender fingers. To be helpful, I picked up her pack. It was surprisingly light, although something heavy shifted at the bottom when I lifted it. I held it for her as she put it on. Then we set off on the trail with Mark in the lead, Virginia behind him, and me picking up the rear. I couldn’t see much of Virginia beyond the bulky, green pack that she wore, but I could make conversation.

“So, where are you from, Virginia?” I asked.

“Not too far from here, actually. You?”

“My brother and I are from Perry, Georgia. We‘ve been taking these trips every year since I was 20 and he was 18. It’s become a tradition.” My shoelace got caught in some brush, and I paused to yank it free. The trails out here were sometimes only around six inches wide with a tangle of knee high brush to either side. Soon we would reach a segment of the mountains that would be densely forested. The trails there would be wider because the canopy of the forest would block out the light needed by many smaller plants.

“This is our fifth year doing this.” I continued. “It was hard for me to get the vacation time, but it’s always worth it to get away from the world for awhile.” I realized I was rambling on, and brought the topic back to Virginia. “How long have you been doing this?”
“This is my first trip backpacking, but I’ve been climbing all my life.”

“Mark and I tried rock climbing once. It was fun. So, you’ve always been an outdoors person?”

“You could say that.”

We continued to make small talk, but as hard as I might try, I didn’t really learn much about Virginia. Her replies were always short, and to the point. I was afraid she was wary about trusting us, so I tried to be as friendly as I could to set her at ease. Mark was always ahead of us, making sure we were going the right way. We had entered the forest by now, and the thick litter of leaves and twigs covered all of the ground, including our trail. It would be easy to get lost if we weren’t careful.

Although we were headed for the top of the mountain, it is sometimes necessary to travel down in order to get to a piece of land that is easier to navigate going up. It was on one of these segments that Virginia had her accident. The litter of the forest floor was thick, and dampness made the leaves particularly slippery. She took one step that was just too large, and her front foot slid even further ahead of her when it came down on the slick leaves. She overcompensated in leaning backward to correct herself, and before I could catch her, she was falling and letting out a shrill cry like the one Mark and I had heard earlier. Although this part of the mountain wasn’t too terribly steep, she still should have slid a few feet before the force of friction stopped her, but she didn‘t slide at all. As soon as her body touched the ground, she was still. It was as if the will of her fingers, dug into the soft ground, were strong enough to hold her in place. They suddenly weren’t fingers, but the supporting roots of plant life, reaching deep into the soil like anchors of the earth. By the time Mark turned around and caught up to us, she was wiping her hands on her clothes, still laying on the ground. “Are you okay?” Mark said, “Let me help you.” And at that moment I realized two things. The first was that Mark was just as infatuated with Virginia as I had been, and the second was that there was something terribly off about this lone traveler in the wilderness. Virginia took off her pack to stand up, handing it to me. I again noticed the lightness of the pack. As Mark helped Virginia up, and she began checking herself for scrapes, I shifted the pack to one side. Sure enough, something heavy shifted inside as it had done when I held the pack earlier. Someone this far out on the trail should have had more equipment bulk wise, and nothing compact that was so heavy. “You okay?“ Mark asked. “I’m alright, I just got unbalanced for a moment.” Virginia replied. I took this as my opportunity to investigate, and said. “That’s probably because you don’t have things positioned tightly in your pack.” And as I said this I unzipped the bottom compartment. I barely had time to catch a glimpse of a smooth, round, gray rock about half the size of a man’s head before Virginia was at my side, her hand covering the bit of the compartment I’d managed to zip open.

“Thanks Richard, but I have things packed just the way I want them.” Mark, who had been standing behind Virginia at an angle that kept him oblivious to the contents of her pack, said,

“Well, if you’re okay to continue, we’re probably twenty minutes from the top.” Virginia’s demeanor completely changed, and she smiled sweetly before turning around to look at Mark. “Then lets be on our way.”

I didn’t try to make small talk with Virginia after this, but I watched her closely as we traveled.
When we got to the top, she was still as cheery and bright as the sunshine that was blocked out by the trees in this part of the forested mountain. Mark and I were sure to scope out the area for “widow makers,” a term backpackers use to describe dead trees that were at risk of toppling over on you in the night, making your wife a widow; not that either of us were married. As we began setting up our tent, I was surprised to see Virginia a few feet away, doing the same. I couldn’t believe her pack had a tent in it at all with how light it was. I took this as an opportunity to talk to Mark, and got right to the point. I leaned close to him and whispered, “Something’s not right with Virginia.”

“What are you talking about, Richard?”

“Please keep it down, Mark. Things are definitely off though. You didn’t see what she keeps in her pack. That thing is way too light to contain all of the equipment she needs out here, and her bottom compartment has some sort of rock in it.”

“So, maybe she’s into geology.”

“It’s not just that though. When she fell on that slope, she didn’t slide.”

“What does that mean?”

“Something happened, it’s just - it’s hard to explain. It wasn’t right though. I could swear her fingers, they-” I was about to tell him how they had turned to roots, but Mark interrupted me.

“Come on Richard! Why are you so fixated on this? Just let it go.”

“I’m not imagining things, Mark. Something really happened, something I can’t explain. At least look in her pack. I didn’t imagine that rock.” I stopped talking as Virginia walked up to us.

“Perfect timing,” Mark smiled at her, “we were just talking about you. My brother is pretty intrigued by some rock he says you keep in your pack,” I tried to interrupt him, but he continued “No Richard, it’s okay. We might as well look at it so you can see everything is cool. I told my brother you’re probably researching geology out here. Is it okay if we look at this rock?”
To my surprise, Virginia said “I’ll get it right out,” and she did. It was gray and looked like any other stone you would find out here, except that it was unnaturally smooth, and perfectly round.

“It’s a geode,” Virginia explained, “It’s a lot lighter than it looks. The inside is hollow, hopefully with some type of crystals formed on the inside.” She handed the rock to me, and it was much lighter than I expected. I gave it back to her, and she put it back in her pack.

“See Richard?” said Mark when she was gone, “Virginia’s fine.”

“Do you really think someone would carry around a geode out here, especially if they don’t know
what’s inside? And her pack is still too light to have all the supplies she would need.”

“Just drop it, Richard,” Mark sounded like he was annoyed, “help me with dinner.”
We had one of our freeze dried meals, beef stroganoff. The packet it came in turned into a container that fit perfectly over the mini stove. We used most of the water that we hadn’t drank on the trail to rehydrate our food. After dinner, Mark said to me, “According to the map, there should be a small stream about ten minutes down this trial.” Mark pointed in the direction. “Why don’t you go get us some fresh water.”

I left with the filter and our water bottles, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Virginia and the geode. I was convinced that she was evil, the incarnation of something unwholesome. Perhaps her last name was Creeper. Virginia Creeper. Just like the poisonous berry yielding plant, I knew she carried some hidden poison. I convinced myself that it was contained in the geode. I had to know what was inside. The question lingered in my mind; the need to have it answered growing stronger by the minute. My perpetual regurgitation of that question strengthened the neuron connections that formed it until I imagined them reaching the edges of my brain, pressing against the inside of my skull. I felt that either my will would break or my mind. I think that to some extent both of those things happened when I made the decision to open the geode to the world. I was going to prove that Virginia wasn’t who she said she was.

I found the stream and filled our water bottles without any problem. The water was as icy as a corpse, and I shivered as I carried everything back to the campsite. I took my time walking back to form a plan. I noted the hard rocks at the bottom of a huge gorge several feet out from the trail. I could use that. By the time I got back to camp, it was time to get ready for bed. Before it got too dark, we hoisted all three of our packs into the air with a rope thrown over a sturdy tree branch, so that bears could not reach them. We went to bed, and I waited for what must have been hours for everyone to fall asleep. There wasn’t any risk of dozing off for me. My mind raced with images of Virginia Creeper morphing back and forth from human to vine. When I crept slowly out of the tent, it was late at night, but my mind was darker than the deepest night could ever be. I held my flashlight between my teeth as I untangled the knot of rope holding our packs in place, but when I got it loose, the rope slipped in my fingers, and the packs came crashing down. I sprung to Virginia’s pack, and in the next moment, three zippers unzipped in the night. I unzipped the bottom compartment, and Virginia and Mark each unzipped the door of their tent.
I took off along the trail to the stream with my flashlight in one hand, and the geode in the other. I didn’t stop to see if they were following me. My heart was beating wildly by the time I reached the gorge, accelerated by exertion as well as fear. Stopping at the edge of the gorge, I flung the geode into it with all my power. As the geode collided with the rock below, one reality shattered into existence and an infinite number of possibilities died. Even in the darkness, I could see the sparkling shards of crystal scattered among and around the pieces of its formerly encasing rock, like blood spilt from a body. And it was I that had murdered it. I knew in an instant, in that instant when the eruption of sound and matter exploded below me, that I had made a mistake. The crystal core of the geode glowed unnaturally bright in the gorge below. The white quartz crystal glowed, reflecting the small amount of light that infiltrated the canopy of the forest. For a moment I hung over the edge, entranced by the image.

“Get back from there!” Mark shouted, as he raced towards me. I turned, and could see that Virginia was right next to him. I stepped towards them, already feeling the guilt at what I had done, and thought about how I would explain my actions. I remembered Shining Rock, and how gullible I had been when Mark had played his trick. This time it hadn’t been Mark, but the sublime nature of the wilderness that had gotten into my head. As much as I was the victimizer of the geode, I had been a victim of the fantastic force of nature. I promised myself that I would never again lose myself to the power of the wilderness, and tried to make amends for destroying Virginia’s geode.