Ian dropped his voice to a whisper also and closed the door. “You doan think it wants us to go down there, do ya?” The image of twisting underground tunnels and dank passageways had haunted his sleep all night.
Connor shrugged again and cast his friend a worried glance. Best to change the subject. Any more of this and they were both likely to chicken out. “Got in trouble last night?” he asked.
“Nah, not much. Dad just tole me I better have my butt home tonight when the streetlights come on. You?”
“Same.” Connor paused, biting his lip. He tried to look away but Ian stepped closer and touched his friend on the shoulder.
“You think it'll be back.” It was not a question.
Connor nodded.
“Okay. So we go, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Where you gonna put that thing?” Ian said, pointing.
Connor looked down curiously as if he'd already forgotten. “Oh yeah. Mom'll really think we're up to no good if we leave with this in the middle of the day,” he said, holding out the flashlight.
“Here,” Ian said, pulling his shirt tail out and grabbing hold of the barrel. In a wink the flashlight disappeared to the small of his back. “Ta da!” he exclaimed, turning around with his arms outspread.
“Yeah, good. Can't see a thing.” Connor grinned. “Okay, let's go. Mom!” he yelled as they both pushed through the doorway. “GOING OUT!” and they raced down the hall, beating it to the front door as Mrs. Williams threw safety tips at their backs.
They decided on the most covert trail they knew. This was, after all, serious business. Spy business, like James Bond. Because believe it or not they'd spent a long time the day before listening to a gigantic crow tell them an amazing story. And according to this same bird, their help was needed. So, both proud and fearful, they made their way through the thick brush at the end of the street around the corner. It could only be the Buffalo Wallow Trail this time, just in case they were tailed.
It got its name because tale had it real buffalo had created the wonderful, slick and grassless hollow near where the concrete steps sat inexplicably abandoned on the hill. Everyone agreed it surely looked big enough for buffalo to have made and the eerie steps completed the curiosity. No one knew how they'd come to rest atop the slight rise. There was not a house in sight (construction on this side of the neighborhood had halted over fifteen years before because, supposedly, of a conflict with a dead man's will) and not even the oldest kid had a clue as to their purpose. They were simply ancient, maybe even as old as the crone who lived at the end of Tassel Street. The only time she put her porch light on was Halloween (though no one ever visited there), and some believed the steps were part of an altar she used for witchcraft.
“Ahh, I'm caught!” Ian grunted. Connor, standing bent-backed amid a solid cluster of brambles saw his friend's shirt was pulled up to his chin. A large thorn bush had “hat-racked” him as he attempted to push through. It took the better part of five minutes to free the boy at the expense of a torn shirt collar and a shoulder scrape. “Mom's gonna kill me,” he said as the two rested at the high side of the Wallow. Connor nodded solemnly as he studied his own filthy clothing. The trail had lived up to its name. It seemed all the rain of the week before had drained here, just below the silky surface that appeared so incredibly solid until you put one foot down. Like someone had gone over it with a polishing rag. A lock-step advance plunged them through the glimmering surface with a loud, froggy burp and they spent another fifteen minutes fighting through the knee-deep mud until they finally clamored and fought their way to the other side and drier land.
“Maybe the Wallow was a bad idea,” Ian said, scraping the gumbo mud off his boots with a stick.
“Yeah, you're right, but the worst part's over. Let's just get to the tree house.”
They trudged past the concrete steps that led nowhere, not even faintly chilled by the ghost stories now as they were too busy fighting off the horde of flies called on by the meaty-smelling mud. Ian voiced the thought both boys felt. “That bird better be there,” he said menacingly as they sweated along.
The tree house, approached from the direction of the Buffalo Wallow Trail, looked to be no more than a scattering of lumber stuffed into the upper reaches of the blasted pine. The sun had just passed its zenith and threw long shadows across the grass as its daily slide began. Thankfully, the wind had also picked up, slowing the assault of the mosquitoes. The temperature had also dropped several degrees, and here was another stroke of luck: no one else was around. The place was all theirs.
They came into the clearing where the crow had told its tale and kicked around in the dust for a moment, checking the ground for fresh prints. As luck would have it, there were none other in the dust except their own and even a couple large scrawled scratches that could only have been made by the crow. That, at least, proved they weren't crazy.
Didn't it?
Connor kicked the old, rusty Folger's can they'd used as a nail jar during the tree house job. It spilled out a little brown water as the boys milled about. They looked at each other and shrugged. The crow had said 'today' but not when 'today.' And yesterday had been much later.
So they went on to other things. Connor stood at the pond's edge, flinging stones they'd collected from the roadway while Ian swung lazily back and forth on the huge, ship-rope Connor's father had gotten for some forgotten purpose long ago and they'd spirited out last month.
They were so involved that they didn't even notice the crow until the sound of its ponderous weight settled suddenly into the middle branches of the closest pine tree. Connor forgot about the stone he held in his hand, and Ian let go the rope and dropped to the ground. Neither said anything as they gathered near the fallen branch they'd used as a bench the day before.
The crow whistled high and rusty, as if surprised they'd returned at all. Then it dropped down, settled in the dust at their feet, the faintest hint of its strange twisted grin showing in the creases around its eyes. “You came back!” the great bird exclaimed. “There was a question!”
Ian looked to Connor and Connor looked back, nodded. In this way the spokesman was chosen. “Yeah, we came back,” Connor said. He kicked a pine cone by his foot. “But we don't know why. We're just kids,” he admitted.
The crow clucked deep in its throat. “No matter, boys. The fact is, you came.”
The bird took a sharp breath and puffed itself out. Both boys watched as it went through its ritual, preening its feathers, examining its underbelly. But there seemed an underlying nervousness now. It fretted with its feathers while the boys looked on silently. Several minutes slid by before the silence was broken, this time by a simple question.
“So you will help?” the bird said.
“What is it you want us to do?” Connor replied.
The crow sighed long and deep. “As I told you, the tree is dying. And with it, so are we. The mouse is already very weak. With every leaf that falls from the oak I feel the end getting ever closer. Now, we don't even dare venture inside...”
“Why?” Ian broke in.
The bird looked away, not meeting their eyes. “The cat is back.” it paused. “It has grown very crafty.”
Connor was tired of the game. “What do you want us to do?” he demanded.
The crow chortled, dropping its crippled claw into view. The time had come to speak plainly. “I need you to come with me to the Church. You have to save the tree.”
Their sudden laughter blew apart the black pall that hung so thick in the air. “That's It!” Ian howled. “All this because you want us to save a tree!?”
“Not just any tree, boy. Our tree.”
Ian shook his head. “C'mon, we're just kids. Like he said,” pointing. “Wadda we know about trees?”
“Perhaps nothing, perhaps everything. That is not for me to know. But you were the ones in the vision,” it said.
“You saw us?” Connor asked incredulously.
“I did.”
/>
“And in this vision, what did we do?”
“That was not clear.”
“So...?” Ian began, not knowing where to go with the remark. Then, “We have to be home before the streetlights come on tonight. We'll be in serious trouble if not.”
“I know,” the bird chirruped. “I'll use the time knot as best I can. There is nothing else I can guarantee. Just know you are our last, best hope.”
A quiet moment passed. Somewhere on the other side of the pond a bullfrog issued a throaty challenge. A tiny breeze tickled through the spine of the broken pine. “Well...let's do it,” Ian said at last. “If we're the ones, then we're the ones. Where is this place?”
“I'll show you,” the crow replied, already fanning its wings.
Chapter 22: Reaching the Church
It didn't really take them very long to get there, most likely because most of the distance traveled was inside another of the crow's mysterious time knots. They'd not even been aware of it until reaching the highway which separated the neighborhood from the forest on the other side. That was when Connor had glanced down at his motionless watch. He was still shaking his wrist slightly when Ian touched him on the shoulder. Connor looked up and found his friend pointing down the road. A solid line of cars were motionless before them as if they'd all found a place and sudden reason to park and sit for a while. A cement mixer third in line had a fixed pole of smoke standing rigid from both pipes. There was no sound, no motion in the nearby trees.
The crow was nowhere in sight.
They crossed the highway and made straight for the four-wheeler trail just to the side of the hollow stump. Bending down to examine it, they soon found the arrow the crow had promised them would be there. It pointed to the other path. This one thinner and harder to see. It must have been beaten down by the likes of raccoons, rabbits and other small animals, but if you hunched over and kept moving it was nowhere near as tough as the Buffalo Wallow.
The eerie silence followed them along the trail. They passed by a cluster of squirrels, no more than two feet away and the animals didn't even twitch a nose. The boys simply looked to one another and everything they thought flowed between them. What they'd long known as the Glance now raged within them.
The old, deserted ghost of a town was a stranger sort of business. If the crow had not warned them of its existence, they'd have moved through without a clue. The lost town had sunk into the dense surroundings, melted under the slow crunch of Time. Only here and there were what must have been the broken, rotten, and long discarded remnants of the precious town the woman had built. Now the Fat Man's evil held sway.
The long-lost wagon-rutted lane that had obviously arrowed through town had disappeared, but if one looked closely its course could still be seen. A solid line of gnarled pecan trees marched away on what must have been both sides of the old logging road. There were many gaps and a burst of undergrowth and vines choked large swaths of the ragged clearing, but the old lane was there. You could just see it. The houses, sheds, and shops had also long since fallen in and been reclaimed by the forest, but the musty humps and matted clusters of brush lent clues as to where the more significant of these buildings had been. The stillness and silence inside the time knot made the boys nervous. They felt as if they were passing through a graveyard, and would not have been the least surprised to see ancient, moaning shapes flitting about among the shadowed curtain of trees that seemed to beckon them closer to some ghastly secret.
They came across the second boulder a short time later. It poked a broken, moss-covered side from a moldy hillock set close into a nest of young willow trees. Stained black from the weather. They approached cautiously, neither taking the lead as they crept forward.
The bird was still nowhere to be found. A nagging urge passed between them to turn back but the Glance forced them on. Momentarily, in that no-time, they came to the stone and saw what was etched upon it: the familiar arrow unmistakably pointing off to the deeper parts of the forest.
They peered through the depths surrounding the great columns of trees, already dark, the sun refused passage down here at the forest floor. Ribbons of cold tension began threading through them. Ian reached over and ran his finger through a clump of thick moss eating into another, smaller boulder and it came away filthy black. He wiped the smear along his pant leg. “What are we doin here?” he whispered to no one in particular.
They followed the direction of the arrow.
The going was soon much tougher. They had no compass and the only way to determine a hopefully straight line was to mark a tree in the distance and head toward it. This proved easier said than done. Uprooted and broken trees, thorn bushes, and snakelike vines blocked them at every step. By the time they reached the next marker, luckily, they were both sweating terribly. “Man,” Connor said, pulling up alongside a tree. “This is ridiculous. We were just flat lucky to find that thing,” he said, pointing at the marker stone.
“No kidding,” Ian replied, picking a thorn from the heel of his right hand. And as he began looking up, still fidgeting with the thorn and fixing to say something else, his mouth fell into a gaping O and his eyes followed suit. He seemed to be staring at something just over Connor's right shoulder. Without thinking, Connor ducked and jumped away from the tree he'd just been leaning against. He pulled up alongside Ian and turned to look back.
Pinned to the tree before them was a fox squirrel, frozen there like a trophy on the wall. It was a big one, so old its fur had reached a perfect match point with the bark. Its eyes appeared glassy and distant but that was not what had stopped Ian in his tracks. From out the corner of the squirrel's mouth hung what looked to be most of a large, dead lizard.
“Will you look at that!?” Ian yelled. Connor grabbed his friend's shoulder as the boy tried to move ahead. There was just something wrong with this.... Ian turned to his friend, wide-eyed. “Have you ever?” he began.
“No. Never. I thought they only ate acorns and, I don't know...grass?”
They studied the tableau again. A squirrel eating a lizard! What was all that? And with this new wonder came also something darker. An accompanying hint of danger. Connor looked at him and Ian shook his head.
“Kinda late to turn back now.” Ian scratched his head and peered back into the afternoon's fragmented light. They'd left no obvious markers behind them, not a single one. Very quietly, so as to avoid panic, Connor turned back the other direction, shivered, and said, “You remember which tree it was we were heading for?”
Ian faced that direction, scanning the area. He ducked his head and squinted with one hand shading his brow. “Yeah...doan worry. It's that one over there,” he said, pointing. “The one that branches off right above that big hole in the side. You see it?”
“Oh yeah, there it is. For a moment there...guess the squirrel threw me.” He paused. “Man, you ever seen anything like that?”
“You'd know if I had.”
They were quiet for a moment afterward, still chancing a look at the squirrel though neither really wanted to. “You can feel it, can't you?” Connor said.
“Yeah. We're lost. We didn't mark any trees coming in.”
“Uh huh...hope we find that Church,” Connor finished, putting both their fear to words.
After marking six more trees in the distance, and still finding nothing even vaguely resembling a clearing in which an old Church would sit, the opportunity for panic broadened its horizons. From their torn and dirty clothing they already knew a lot of explaining would be in order. They just hoped, now, to get that chance.
It was then they began to wonder if the giant bird had tricked them. After all, what did they really know? They pushed closer together, fighting and kicking their way through and over the underbrush and fallen trees. At last the forest began to thin a bit. A moment later they broke through a twisted copse of trees into another clearing. They pulled up like a shot.
The Church rotted before them like an old ship slowly sinking below green, grassy
waves. The once beautiful landscaping was now nothing more than shadow and thorn, there was no plan left. Shrubs grew wild and thick about the Church's massive base and just to the left of a mas of thick honeysuckle, the boys could see the rusted, iron fence surrounding the lonely cemetery.
What was left of the buckling, crumbling walls was coated from top to bottom with the same thick, black moss as had covered the path-finding stones earlier. The once sturdy wooden doors were now completely rotten; the entranceway had, in fact, collapsed upon itself, forming a gap-toothed arch that yawned away into the darkness. There was no stained-glass left, no ornamentation whatsoever. But it was not the work of man that held the boys. It was the tree.
It had taken over, you see. It had sunk its roots deeply into the damp loam beneath the rotten floorboards and set out to conquer. And to what effect! No longer was the Church guardian of the clearing. Over the long years, Time had set things on their ears. While the Church had grown slumped and lost, the tree had grown monstrous. Huge, knotted limbs twisted and curled out of every crack and hole torn in the masonry's crumbling hide. The entire roof which had once domed above the sanctuary floor had given way and in its place was a crown of thick, green leaves blowing and rippling like a huge bubble squeezing up through the broken rafters. A mass of limbs stretched skyward, while others served as a balance of sorts, setting chunks of floor as platforms around the elbows of shield-like bark. But the crow had not lied because there were many thin patches in what was visible of the massive tree's foliage. Some sections were in fact limp and strangled-looking. Regardless, the sickened tree still gave the very real impression of holding what was left of the derelict Church upright. All, that is, except the pastor's quarters where the crow had first gotten inside. Of that structure there was little left to speak of. Bits of foundation showed through here and there, but the walls and roof had long since wasted away. The huge, crumpled skeleton of a long dead tree lay trapped in a web of thorn and thistle. Large mounds of protruding vines and mulberry bushes grew upon the mass that had become of both the building and the tree.
The boys stared in the half-light of wonder and fear.