Chapter 5
DAVID
The next morning, Eric and I woke to the smell of breakfast cooking. We quickly changed and left our tent. The pancakes and bacon smelled delicious, but we were both hesitant to go over to Mom. She seemed calm and was going about business as usual, but looking more closely, I could tell she was sad. My guilt from last night renewed, I carefully took a seat beside her. Eric, probably not wanting me to get mad at him again, followed my lead. We ate in awkward silence, since none of us seemed to know how to start.
When breakfast was done and everything was clean and put away, Mom surprised us by saying, “Okay, are we ready to meet this Boden?”
Eric and I both froze and tried to figure out if she was serious. Eric was the first to respond with, “Uh, are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. Let’s find him and see that trail he talked about,” she said. I thought I heard her mutter “I’m not a lunatic” under her breath and realized she was probably doing this just to prove to us that she could do it without another freak out.
That was enough for Eric though, who immediately took off in the direction of the river. I watched Mom sigh and start after him. We followed him slowly and when we got to the river, we found him waiting for us to catch up. He was tapping his foot, but I think it was more out of excitement to get there than impatience. Still, I gave him a look to say ‘stop before you ruin this for all of us.’ Mom had agreed to go and I didn’t want to ruin it by rushing her. He seemed to get the point and walked slower as we crossed the river and started down the bank.
We spotted some footprints about a half mile down and figured this was where Boden had been fishing the day before. We turned toward the trees and headed straight in, hoping it was a straight shot from the river to his camp.
This side of the river was pretty much the same as our side, only there were fewer camping sites. We didn’t come across any other people or see any sign of them. It was quieter here, definitely more peaceful as Boden had said. A few minutes later we found what we assumed was his camp, but it was deserted. The only thing indicating someone had been there were holes in the ground from the tent stakes and ashes still warm in a fire pit.
“Looks like we just missed him,” I said. I yelled his name but didn’t get a response. Mom was turning in a slow circle, taking in our surroundings. She had started to act nervous again but hadn’t gone full blown paranoid yet. I could tell she was walking a thin line though, so I was about to suggest we head back and see if he comes back tomorrow.
But, of course, Eric chose that moment to exclaim, “Hey, I found the trail!” Sighing, I went over to him and Mom followed. “He was right. It was a little hard to see from the camp, but here it’s obvious.”
Mom turned in a circle again. Seeing her hesitation, I tried to say as gently as possible, “What do you think, Mom? Do you want to keep going?”
“I don’t kn — ”
“Let’s go, it’s perfectly clear,” Eric interrupted. I turned back to Mom, who still didn’t appear decided. I opened my mouth to ask again, but before I could get it out, Eric took off on the trail fast enough that we had to jog to catch up to him.
“Wait, Eric,” I called, exasperated.
“Come on, the path isn’t hard to see,” he said, barely turning his head. “Maybe we’ll catch up to Boden.” I watched Mom force her expression to relax before we went after him. She was trying to be okay with this, and hopefully her mood would become genuinely pleasant before long. Once she’s past the fear, she really enjoys hiking, and I could tell she would like this one as long as her anxiety was kept at bay.
The path was clear as Eric had said, and brightly lit, since the trees on either side were far enough apart that they didn’t create a canopy. I could hear several birds singing and I enjoyed the soundtrack as I ambled along. There were several clusters of wildflowers on the sides, and I saw Mom stop at many of them to take pictures of the colorful blooms. I thought this was probably where she got a lot of her inspiration for her frosting blossoms. A few times, she would lift them up for a better angle and I could swear that when she touched them they got even brighter. One was such a dazzling orange that even I stopped to examine it.
“How do you do that?” I asked her, as I leaned over the flower.
“Do what?” she said, turning to me.
“Make them brighter.”
“I didn’t do anything to it. Maybe when I let go of it, it settled at a different angle so the sun is making it seem brighter.”
The other flowers near the one she had touched were nice but looked just a little wilted. This one, though, was perfect. It was healthy, standing tall, and didn’t seem the least bit parched. “I don’t think so. It’s healthier than the others. How’d you do it?”
She huffed and tapped her foot impatiently. “I didn’t do anything. How could I have made it healthier, anyway? It must have been that way before and you just didn’t notice.” She walked away before I could respond. She had a point, but I still could’ve sworn the flower had changed. I decided to drop it in favor of what I hoped would be a safer topic.
“So are these flowers where you get your inspiration from?” I asked as I caught up to her. “There was a yellow one a ways back that I thought I recognized from your cupcakes last week.”
“Sure. I’ve always loved flowers, their rich colors, their delicacy. They’re a staple for decorations, of course, but recreating a specific one adds a certain uniqueness. That’s why I take pictures of the best ones.”
“The cake you did the other day definitely had that feel. It was impressive. You must have a huge stash of pictures to work from.” I hadn’t meant anything serious by that comment, but Mom’s expression flickered into a frown for a moment. Wanting to make it better, I said, “And the fairy was beautiful too. She looked so lifelike that I think I dreamed about her that night.” This too had the opposite effect from what I’d intended. Mom’s eyes widened for a moment like she was scared. She quickly hid it, but I was getting more and more weirded out by her odd reactions.
Eric had been out of sight for a while, so I wanted to get to the bottom of it now, while we were alone. “Mom, why are you so much more anxious than usual? It’s never lasted this long before and it seems connected to the most random stuff. What’s going on with you?”
“It’s nothing.” I bent over so I was at eye level with her and got in her face a bit. She couldn’t escape. I stared, eyebrows raised. When it sunk in that I wasn’t giving up so easily this time she said, “I know you and your brother think I’m nuts but I’m just worried about you.”
“Yeah, but there’s normal worried-about-your-kids, then there’s you. Whole other level,” I countered. What do you think is going to happen?”
“You could get lost. Something could hurt you.”
“Mom, we’ve been doing this long enough that we do know the basics of finding our way. And as far as something hurting us, you’ve really got to get a handle on this mountain lion thing. It’s not like they’re overrunning the place.”
She sighed, unsure of what to say. We continued for a few minutes in silence, around a bend with a cluster of gorgeous orange and red flowers that reminded me of the sun. She didn’t stop to take pictures, though. She didn’t seem to notice them at all, since she was still stuck in her head. I didn’t stop her because I wanted to her to figure it out and answer me. Finally she responded, “I just didn’t want you two to get hurt. Where I come from it’s dangerous to wander too far.”
“We have common sense. We always keep track the time and where we are. And we don’t take candy from strangers in windowless vans,” I joked, lightly jabbing her with my elbow. This earned me a brief smile.
“I know that. It’s just that sometimes that isn’t enough,” she said, back to being serious.
“Where are you from exactly? England isn’t that different from the States. What makes your town so scary?”
She looked at me oddly and I couldn’t figure out wh
at it meant. Did she think it was weird that I still had to ask where she was from after all these years? It’s not like she ever told us specifics. I didn’t know the name of the town, what part of the country it was in, nothing. I didn’t know if she realized how close-mouthed she’d been, so I said, “You know you can tell me about this, right? I want to know about these things, but you don’t seem to trust me, your son.”
I think it finally struck her and she looked away guiltily. “I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel that way. I trust you, but…I don’t like thinking about it long enough to talk about it…. It was a small town set in a meadow, surrounded by woods. This place actually reminds me of it a bit. I used to play out in the fields, and in the woods when I could get that far. The flowers there are still my favorites and there’s none like them anywhere else.”
I smiled as she reminisced. I tried to picture the place she was describing, imagined it covered with a rainbow of flowers like the ones on her cake and surrounded by old, knotted trees. This was the most I’d ever heard her speak of her mysterious home so I grabbed on. “It sounds amazing. It’d be great to grow up in such a picturesque place.”
“Yes, it was beautiful. It was the people that were the problem. They were very…different from the people here.”
“How so?”
She took a minute to mull it over. “It’s hard to describe. They had very different beliefs, I suppose. And you couldn’t trust them. I had to leave.”
We went around another bend and I realized the path had curved a lot in the time we’d been talking. Mom seemed to realize it too and started to pay more attention. “When did we last see Eric?” she asked.
“I don’t know, a long way back,” I answered. I called out his name. I didn’t hear a response, so we started jogging. “Crap, I hope we didn’t lose him.”
We both started yelling for him and a couple minutes later we finally heard, “Yeah, I’m up here!” It seemed to come from my right so I pulled to a stop, a little confused by the direction. I peered through the trees and glimpsed him standing among them. “The trail sort of does a 180 over there,” he pointed in the direction Mom and I had been headed. “Then it goes in here. Finally some shade,” he said happily, oblivious to our momentary panic.
“Stay there, we’ll come through,” Mom said.
“Okay. But hurry up, you slowpokes.”
We crashed through the foliage to meet him and went on together. The path had gotten narrower and a little dark, but it was still clear enough. We wandered for a while longer, not seeing anything interesting. There was a huge fallen tree that was being propped up by a still-living tree, and we walked under the arch they created. I thought it was kind of cool, like a forest-y Stonehenge, but no one else seemed to notice, so I didn’t mention it.
We stopped to eat and rest a mile or so later. Mom and Eric made some idle chatter, and she showed him some her flower pictures. It seemed our conversation about her home was over for now but I was happy to have gotten that far.
We continued on, and after about half an hour, we started seeing fog. It was strange. I didn’t think anything could cause fog here in midday during summer. It got weirder a few minutes later when it grew so thick we could only see a few yards in front of us. Mom stopped right in front of me, and her conversation with Eric came to an abrupt end as well. He paused to look back at her. She tilted her head to the side like she was listening to something. In the quiet, I realized I didn’t hear anything, not a single bird call or squirrel rustling about. That didn’t feel right.
“Are you coming?” he asked.
This spurred her into action. Her gaze moved wildly all around. “No. No, we have to go back. We have to go back now.”
Eric sighed at me, exasperated, thinking I had calmed her down while he was ahead of us. I thought I had too, so I was just as confused. I tried to put my hands on her shoulders to stop her. I got her to stay put, but I couldn’t get her to focus on me or the things I was saying in an attempt to calm her down. “Mom, look at me. It’s ok. Everyone’s fine. Let’s just relax for a second.”
“No. No, we need to go. We need to get out of this place. We need to — where’s Eric?” She froze. I looked around and sure enough Eric was gone. “Where is Eric?!” she yelled at me.
“Crap, he probably kept going and the fog — ”
She bolted after him. I ran after them both and vowed to beat the shit out of Eric when we found him. He could be so stupid sometimes. Following the sound of her panicked yells, I sprinted through the fog. When it suddenly became clear, I nearly tripped over my own feet in surprise. The fog behind me seemed like it was being held back by an invisible wall. Turning forward again, I looked out over a vast field.
The field was wet and muddy. Even though there were no trees covering us anymore, it was still dark. I had to look up at the sky to figure out why. It was night. How could it be night? We hadn’t been gone that long. When I last looked up, we were eating lunch and I could see the sun shining high in the sky through the trees. But the sky was black now, and the moon was out. I looked ahead again and saw a dense, dark forest on the other side of the field. The trees looked nothing like the ones in Yosemite. Instead of the usual straight, tall, green pines, these were all crooked, knotted, and almost appeared black in color.
Eric was running across the field toward this forest that looked as if it would eat him. Mom was catching up, yelling for him to stop. I ran on, slipping and sliding through the mud, only managing to catch up when Eric finally slowed down near the trees. He kept going toward it, as if fascinated by it instead of feeling the danger Mom and I clearly did.
“Eric, you come back here this instant!” Mom whisper-shouted. She stopped right at the trees, too terrified to go any further.
“Eric, come back. This place is — ” I was going to say ‘weird’ but I was cut off by a familiar voice.
“Guys, you made it! So glad you found the trail,” he said as he came into view. His green eyes seemed to glow in the dim light. They sent a different message than his jovial smile and cheery words. I heard Mom choke off a screech.
“Boden, hey! I thought I saw you back there. Glad we could catch up,” Eric said, still oblivious. What’s wrong with him?
All of a sudden, four more men appeared from the trees. They had weapons strapped all over their bodies and two carried chains. Their eyes glowed as well, one of them with blue and three red, like demons. They formed a half circle surrounding us and Eric finally seemed to understand that something was very wrong.
“Uh, Boden?” His voice shook.
“Oh, there was no need to worry about catching up. Once I met up with my friends here, we decided we’d wait up for you.”
They closed in on us.