Chapter 1
Los Angeles: Present Day
Something felt off in the back of Angelina’s mind and she couldn’t place what it was. She had an odd notion, like someone was secretly or casually watching her from afar. Scanning the scattered brush and chaparral on the mountain trail around her, she saw nothing and was sure she was alone, so dismissed the idea and carried on.
She arrived a minute later at the large oak tree and stopped to catch her breath. Brushing her long bangs behind her ears and shielding her eyes from the sun, she looked out at the expanse of the Los Angeles basin. The city appeared grey and lifeless, contrasted with the clear blue sky above. From where she stood, to the left she could see the Griffith Observatory and in the far distance, the downtown skyscrapers — rising like a grove of trees on a plain. On the mountainside to the right was the Hollywood sign and in the distance ahead she could make out a glittering sliver on the horizon that was the Pacific Ocean. A permanent haze covered the city that some would say was only smog, though Angelina remembered coming to this spot as a little girl when there was real smog and you would be lucky to see anything at all. She had grown to love the place, as her home since birth, sixteen and a half years ago.
She wore red Nike pants and a matching low-neck tank top that allowed her golden brown skin to soak in as much sun as possible without violating an indecency law. The gold studs in her ears were accentuated with a gilded and glass-plated acorn on a necklace that sparkled as it lay above her open chest.
On this day Angelina Russell had climbed a deserted trail that wound between Mount Hollywood and Mount Lee, up into Griffith Park. The oak tree was one she had visited many times before with her father when he was still alive. As memories returned, like they did at this place, a contraction rose in her throat. Her eyes began to tear and her vision blurred. She raised her chin and took a deep breath. Rubbing the gilded acorn between her fingers, she forced herself to smile and think of a memorable time she had spent with him, like her mother had told her to do. He had been gone for almost a year and she was beginning to accept this.
Wiping away a tear that had run down her cheek, she began to walk besides the oak’s canopy, letting her hand run freely through the green leaves that rustled in the slow breeze coming up through the foothills. The feeling sent a nice tingling sensation through her arm and body.
Summer break had ended and along with it the frequent trips to the beach, late night movies, wandering through the Melrose shops and flirting with boys who had no other purpose in life than to surf and chase chicks. She had tried to get serious with some who made overtures for a relationship, but turned them down or called it off each time for reasons even she couldn’t understand, but never regretted. School had resumed two weeks ago and she was now enjoying the last day of a long and somewhat boring Labor Day weekend.
It was a scorching hot day and she was looking forward to the shade of the tree, sitting on top of an expanse of level ground halfway up the mountainside. She bent down under some leaves and entered the oak’s canopy. The temperature difference in the shade was instantly noticeable and refreshing. She propped herself up by a large bough that stretched approximately forty feet out from the main trunk at waist level before it reached the ground and from there projected itself up again, spreading out into the vast canopy of branches and leaves. The tree, like a stooped old man, had several boughs nearing the ground like this.
Balancing her backpack upon a bough next to her, she zipped it open and got out a Gatorade and sandwich she had brought for the hike. As she bit into the sandwich, her body relaxed and she felt the cathartic relief after tears had flowed.
Why her father liked this spot, she never fully understood and he couldn’t explain it to her. He had several times before told her the story where he had proposed to her mother at this spot, reminiscing about the details of how he had gone up to the tree the day before and spent hours collecting up rocks from around the area and laid them out on the ground, spelling “Paula, will you marry me?” When she arrived with him the next day and saw the rocks carefully placed, it took her a moment to figure out which direction to read them from and when she did, she jumped into his arms shouting, “yes, yes, YES!”
In the way he told it, to his surprise the rock that marked the question mark’s dot had been replaced by a beautifully oak-carved heart with ornate flourishing hand-carved across it. They took it back and hung it above their bed, where it remains to this day. Jeremy insisted that he hadn’t placed the oak heart there and Paula and Angelina never stopped kidding him about it whenever the story was retold. They never believed him and each time he attempted to convince them otherwise it resulted in the three of them in howls of laughter.
He would insist there was something more; something mystical and alluring about the tree that he didn’t know and the supposed oak heart mystery was his evidence. It was, Jeremy had learned from the California Oak Foundation and Department of Forestry, a California White Oak and one of the oldest trees in the whole city. Clearly it was one of the biggest. Its canopy, which encircled it from side to side like a great dome, reached near 80 feet high and from side to side it was over 150 feet. Boughs branched out in all directions from a main trunk that was so thick, with all three holding hands they could barely reach all the way around.
Angelina was startled from her memories by the sudden eerie feeling again that she was in fact being watched — like someone was sharing the same space as her. She looked around and through the greenery along the edges of the canopy, where it could possibly conceal someone approaching. She didn’t see anything unusual.
She walked forward and looked at the main trunk, trying to catch anyone spying on her from around it. Why was she jumpy? She hadn’t heard or seen anything. It was a sense she had.
Something moved near where she had been sitting. A large owl with tufts on its head had come up from the other side of the bough and had its head in her backpack! She froze, staring at it. The animal so close scared her, but she knew from interaction with other wild animals in the park that they were always more afraid of you.
“Hey!” she shouted loudly and stamped her foot to try to scare it off. The owl’s head came up with a jerk and between its bill was her pink Nano iPod, the headphones dangling down into the backpack.
It took one look at her with its huge golden eyes and spread its large wings. With hardly a sound, the bird flew up to a higher bough, as Angelina leapt and was able to grab the dangling ear buds, which promptly disconnected and came falling back down.
She stood and watched as the owl looked down at her, appearing to have no fear. The bird was over two feet tall with large talons and a beautiful mix of brown, copper and white plumage. The owl jumped to a bough higher in the tree and looked down at her again, the iPod still clutched in its beak. It skittered along approximately twenty feet up and Angelina lost sight of it.
Damn! she thought. She had gotten that iPod for her birthday and hours had been spent loading it up with music. She thought about how stupid she would sound when she explained to her mom that an owl stole her iPod — as lame as the old cliché that the dog ate the homework. Most likely the owl will realize it’s not food, she thought, and drop it somewhere.
She walked along under the bough where it had gone and waited, looking from both sides for the bird. It wasn’t there. Strange. It couldn’t have disappeared. She would have seen it if it had flown off. She searched the ground all around under the tree in case she had missed the iPod dropping.
She picked up a rock and threw it, yelling. It bounced sharply off a bough. Nothing moved.
She walked out to the canopy’s edge where branches from the bough came down to her shoulder height and took a hold of one. Looking back, she tried to shake the tree. Branches around her moved, but it was as effective as trying to shake a house by swinging its door.
I am not going to let some bird steal my iPod!she thought in frustration. She walked back to the main trunk and started to climb the tree.
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Her love for the outdoors, years in the school soccer and swim team and the frequent hiking up the mountainside had deeply tanned her already dark skin and put her body in excellent shape, making climbing a tree no trouble at all. She had climbed oak trees before as a more rambunctious and tomboyish girl and knew they were easy to climb. Many low hanging branches and strong boughs gave easy stepping points for legs and gripping points for hands. She had to watch the rough bark though, which could scratch her exposed skin. She got up as high as the bough she had last seen the owl perched on and looked out along it. She swung herself onto it and peered through the branches and leaves for any sign of the bird or her iPod.
She felt the trunk and the bough beneath her moving. Things were losing focus and she became dizzy. I must be about to faint, she thought and realized she could badly injure herself falling from this height.
She brought her arms down and prepared to straddle the bough with her legs to prevent herself from falling out. She found that she couldn’t get her legs around it. The tree had enlarged to where the bough was now as large as a city street! She felt tiny, like she was the size of a beetle, with space around her for cars to easily pass along.
Nothing moved and her fear of fainting left. She stood up and looked about her. She could see her backpack below, though it appeared farther down than she remembered climbing. She looked out and saw the city haze like she remembered it. Behind her the main trunk appeared to be the width of a large house.
Before she could make up her mind whether the tree had grown or she had shrunk, someone was approaching her. It was a man in his mid thirties with a wide grin and eyes sparkling with excitement. He was dressed in horse riding gear and wearing a cowboy hat so roughed up and dirty, it looked like it had served as a pillow and a dustpan. His clothes were disheveled and his face was leathery and unshaven.
“Angelina?” he asked in a French accent, nodding his head.
She nodded dumbly. This can’t be happening.
“Oh, wonderful. We haven’t had another women here in, gawd…seems several decades now.” He paused as he tried to think about how long it had actually been. He looked at her. “You aren’t dead are you?” he asked, hopefully shaking his head.
Everything was surreal. She made some head motion, unsure what she was answering and unsure what question he had asked her. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.
“Pardon my bad manners. My name is André Baguet, but you can call me Andy, like everyone here does.” He extended a hand, which Angelina unconsciously shook. She was able to notice that he had rough construction worker-type hands.
“I suppose you are looking for this,” he said sheepishly and pulled her Nano iPod from his pocket and handed it to her. “Sorry. It’s just that I can’t go out and buy one myself, you know.”
It was then that Angelina noticed the owl sitting on a branch beside him and looking at her intently with its head cocked to one side. André noticed her attention on the bird. “This is Virginia, a Great Horned Owl. She’s rather friendly, you know.” He reached up and scratched the bird behind the ear tufts, which the owl seemed to enjoy. “Would you like to pet her?”
Angelina showed no indication that she had heard him.
“I feel bad about all this. Here, this is for your troubles,” he said as he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a gold coin.
When he reached out to give it to her, he saw her eyes were rolling up into her head and her legs were collapsing under her.
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When Angelina awoke it was late afternoon. She had been sleeping at the base of the tree with her head propped on her backpack, against the thick roots. She sat up and looked around. She was alone. Things seemed normal.
The whole incident climbing the tree after her iPod came back and things didn’t feel normal. A scared and sick feeling rose within her, worrying that she had gone crazy and delusory and was no more aware of her insanity than an insane person. She tried to tell herself that she couldn’t possibly be aware of being insane and be insane at the same time. Or could she? She fought back a wave of anxiety and tried to think about the events that she last remembered happening before she must have fallen asleep.
She felt into her backpack and her iPod was there, as well as her half drunk Gatorade and half eaten sandwich. She took a bite of the sandwich and gulped down the rest of her drink, which made her feel a little better. I must have fallen asleep under the tree and dreamt the whole thing up, she thought, trying to calm herself. Crazy. Felt so real and so unreal at the same time.
She looked at her cell phone. Two missed calls from her mother. She listened to one of the messages. It was the usual worried-mother-checking-in-on-daughter call. She texted she was coming home and would see her in half an hour.
She swung her backpack over her shoulder and walked out from the tree’s canopy, heading back down the mountainside to retrace the trail to their house.