Without caution, we entered the forest on the same trail Glooscap and I had taken earlier that morning, the fog having dissipated. I reflexively glanced at my heels, thinking that mangy, one-eyed dog might be lopping behind me. But it wasn’t there.
I didn’t look back for a final view of the village. I’d had a hard time looking back in the rear view ever since my Uncle Hanker and I had left Whispering Cedars on that long, gravel driveway leading to Highway 101. The tires of his Lincoln kicked up a dust plume that billowed and stretched for miles, twisting and swirling out over the fields. I’d wondered then if that was what my mother had seen in those final moments in Oklahoma, right before that F5 tornado engulfed her friend’s truck, right before she saw nothing at all. Leaving Whispering Cedars that day, tears streaked down my cheeks––the last time I cried––down into the corners of my mouth, tears I hid from my uncle by looking back at a place that had started to feel like home. That day, an emptiness had opened up inside of me and converged with that other emptiness, from losing my mother and father. It was like the world I thought I knew was simply a naive illusion, like the world I’d believed in for my entire life had been a lie. Like it was a deception I myself had unwittingly helped to create and foster with all of my hope and belief in those people that I thought I could trust, those promises that had been made and broken over and over and over.
The village’s lively sounds began to fade as we headed north on a trail to a destination none of us knew existed yesterday. Once in a while, Glooscap sped up seemingly unconsciously, as if he was itching to move faster. But then he caught himself, paused to look back, and waited for the others.
Eventually, we crossed Cootamain on a log bridge that could’ve been the one from the night before, if we’d been traveling south instead of north. We hiked up a winding forest trail that ran alongside another river, narrow and swiftly moving, which Glooscap told us fed into Cootamain.
A few hours or so after the bridge, I heard labored breaths beside me. “We used to hike in Northern California every spring break with our parents,” said Anna. “This kinda reminds me of it.”
“Never been,” I said “But I’ve seen pictures of the redwoods.”
“That was before Dad took a new job at the bank,” said Tabby, who’d joined us. “Before he started traveling all the time for work.”
“That’s why we’re staying with our uncle––Mom and Dad had to fly over to Greece for the bank Dad works for,” said Anna. “He’s way up there on the totem pole.”
“Oh, come on,” said Tabby, sighing. “Mom didn’t have to go. She doesn’t like leaving San Francisco. She doesn’t like leaving us. It’s because she thinks Dad’s humping that bimbo, Francine. That’s why she wouldn’t let him go by himself.”
“So not true,” said Anna testily. “Mom’s just tired of hearing Dad complain about how lonely he is when he travels.”
“He says he’s lonely so she won’t think he’s having an affair,” said Tabby.
“You guys see that?” said Simon. He pointed off to our left where the forest was thicker. All I could see were tree trunks and other flora.
“What are you talking about?” said Colby.
Everyone stopped dead on the trail.
“Animals,” said Simon. “Coming this way.”
A trickle of animals emerged from the forest, a few deer, a black bear and her cubs, followed by six or seven wolves. All seemingly oblivious of one another, oblivious of us. Then the entire forest erupted in a maelstrom. Snapping branches, crashes in the undergrowth, thudding sounds, and then a menagerie of animals burst from the trees. They stampeded toward us as if they were being chased by something, something menacing, something ferocious and deadly that terrified them to the core. Two large, tanned cats that resembled cougars shot past the other animals, past us, chased by a herd of deer, then raccoons and porcupines and possums, and other small animals I’d never seen before. And even birds. Hundreds of birds blasted from the canopy. Enough animals to fill Noah’s Ark, it seemed. Only as far as I could tell, it wasn’t a flood they were fleeing.