The Four Cornered Forest

continued...

Honey, you ok? Dad asks.

Mom shakes her head yes, but it's like she’s seen a ghost, so white.

Edsel has been digging under a stump, oblivious to the wind gusts around us, and is holding up the loot. He found the cache. A leather necklace with a vial. Mom sees it and sits down and says she must be winded from the climb, but she climbs all the time. The look I had a minute ago, the ghost, I had it and now Mom has it. Something she has seen. What has she seen?

When Dad and Edsel are not paying attention, I ask her, Did you see anything, Mom?

Like what? Her eyes shoot at me with a guarded concern I’ve never seen before?

The thing I saw. I saw something. But I am not sure. Never mind.

You can tell me Gretel. You can tell me anything.

And I know I can, but I can’t.

Never mind. It was probably just a bear.

Her eyes are looking deep into mine. She has a secret she is trying to share too.

Are you sure that is what you saw?

Yeah, it had to have been.

But Dad is paying attention again.

What, the bear?

He is clueless.

I am pretty sure Edsel has done the job of scaring him off, he says.

Yeah, pretty sure. My eyes are down.

I want to keep it, Edsel says proudly.

He wants to keep everything.

Hoarder, I say. You can’t keep it.

You’re not my parents.

Mom, he has to leave it, right?

Gretel is right. The note says leave it.

It also says Find the next clue at Red Lakes. Can we go to Red Lakes?!

There is a pause. I see dad look at Mom with a crystal of worry in his glance.

Honey, are you alright? Dad asks Mom quietly, but I still hear it.

And it’s true, she is looking more pale by the minute.

You look like you are going to puke, Edsel says.

But I am worried. I’ve never seen Mom look so pale. She looks suddenly weak and frail. I’ve never seen her like this before.

Oh, I’ll be ok. I just need a little water. Maybe a nap when we get home.

So can we go to Red Lakes, or what? Edsel persists.

Obviously we aren’t going today. Mom is sick.

You never know. Maybe she’s feeling better.

But she isn’t. And we aren’t going. Not today.

Late that night I woke up to the wind. Something is blowing in. The air smells mossy. The movement of the wind stems from deep in the dark amber sky clouds.

We sleep in the loft, Edsel and I, and he was fast asleep on his side, how I don’t know, branches going wild outside our window, and yet, on the one branch closest to the window by my bed, there it was, the owl, glowing in moonlight, clouds behind the backdrop of torrid branches, so peaceful and staring right at me.