... beautiful, beautiful magnificent desolation ...
—ALDRIN
It is five in the morning when he pounds on her door. It takes a few moments for her to answer. She is half asleep when she lets him in, slightly annoyed with his intrusion. He senses her displeasure yet needs her help one last time before she decides she will leave him completely.
“What’s wrong?” she mutters. It has a sharp edge.
“Where haven’t we been?” he says quietly, trying not to anger her further.
“Huh?”
“We’ve been all over the countryside, but there must be somewhere you haven’t remembered.”
“What time is it?” She moves to the couch, lies down, pulls a cushion over her head. He removes it softly.
“Just for a minute, indulge me, please. Last night I was thinking ...”
“I thought we’d decided to stop. I’m tired. I’ve got that appointment today.”
“I know, but just think. Where is a place where no one would go? Somewhere that no one at all would visit.”
“There’s no place like that,” she says flatly, “except way into the Everglades.”
“Too far south. Are you sure there’s nothing like that around here?”
“Cypress swamps. But we can’t go in. They’re environmentally sensitive. Protected. I think there’s one down near Naples: Corkscrew Swamp, where there’s a boardwalk.”
“Cypress swamp, but not one with a boardwalk; are there any others?”
“Sure. You’ve seen some on the map. Near here, but I told you we can’t go there. And they’re not safe. Park rangers might arrange a tour but that will take time to set up. I doubt they’d allow it anyway, Ross. They’re dangerous places.”
“Just try for me.”
“I’ll do it later today. Now please, let me go back to bed.”
“We’ll need hip waders.”
“Huh?”
“These swamps, they’re water, aren’t they? And trees? I’ll go back to the hotel to pack.”
“Pack?”
“Waders.”
“Ross, I’ve got that meeting with the outfitters in Bonita Springs. I can’t miss it. Let’s go tomorrow.”
“I have a feeling, Ange.”
“That hasn’t worked so far,” she says gruffly.
“This is different. I’ll be back in an hour.”
“We can’t go in there!” she insists, but he is gone. “Crazy old man,” she mutters.
But Ross doesn’t feel at all crazy. He’d had a dream during the night. For the first time in a long time, it was not the dreaded nightmare but something beautiful and so very clear from his past, something which, even recalling it now, has given him the sense he will surely succeed. The dream was about his son.
Little Robbie lies in his bed, his eyes wide and fearful for this night is very important to him. This night his father will turn off the nightlight. My hand goes to the switch.
“No daddy!” he cries.
“It’s alright, son. We’ll be right next door.”
“Dark! No dark!”
He is sobbing. Emily goes to him. She embraces him and he holds her, desperately looking over her shoulder at me. I am the villain. I am the one at the light switch.
“What’s really wrong, Robbie?” Emily says. She pats his back then massages it, her hands moving in circles.
“Monsters, mommy! Monsters!”
“There aren’t any monsters,” I say. But he won’t listen to me.
“You lie down.” Emily soothes him into whimpers. “I’ll stay with you and daddy will turn off the light.”
“No!”
“For heaven’s sake,” I mutter impatiently.
“Robbie,” Emily whispers, “close your eyes.”
“Don’t want to.”
“It’s okay. I’m here. Now just close your eyes.”
“‘Kay.”
She waits a moment, holding him, her arms warm and comforting, embracing him.
“What do you see?”
“Nothing.”
“But what’s it like?”
“Dark.”
“That’s right. It’s dark. And no monsters, are there?”
“Nope.” He opens his eyes. He is smiling.
“So when you close your eyes it’s dark and there aren’t any monsters. It’s just like closing your eyes. Now you close your eyes again and we’ll play a game.”
“‘Kay.”
When his eyes are closed she places her palm over them.
“What you doing, mommy?”
“I’m playing a game. Now keep your eyes closed.”
“‘Kay.”
She signals me to turn out the light. She leaves her hand over his eyes. I glimpse their silhouettes in the moonlight seeping through the window. Slowly she takes her hand away.
“Eyes still closed?”
“Yup.”
He has an angelic voice.
“That’s good. I’m right here beside you. I’ll stay as long as you want.”
“‘Kay.”
She sits quietly for a minute or two.
“Mommy?”
“What is it?”
“I got my eyes open,” he says, giggling.
“And?”
“Dark.”
“But no monsters?”
“No monsters, mommy.”
She stays with him until he falls asleep. She does this each night for a couple of weeks. One night she is out playing bridge. Robbie is in bed. I come in to say goodnight. The phone rings. I leave to answer. As I reach the door he calls to me.
“Daddy?”
“I’ve got to get the phone.”
“You forgot to turn off the light.”
There are no monsters in the dark. There is only the dark and what you make of it. There are only the monsters you make.
Angela complains about missing her meeting. He tells her they will have plenty of time. It is still early morning. They have followed the map toward a bald cypress swamp, unnamed, mostly blank space on the chart. He drives purposefully. Something is happening. He can feel it. He slows the car and studies the roadside. Even before he sees it he feels it.
“I don’t believe it,” he murmurs.
“What?” Angela mutters.
He stops the car. It is there: a half-overgrown lane with trees on each side, curling in, reaching in, to make a tunnel of branches and leaves. It is more than familiar.
“What are you doing?” Angela exclaims as he turns the car into the lane. “That’s all swamp in there.”
“That’s where this leads?”
“Funny. This lane isn’t marked on the map. That’s peculiar ...”
“This is it, Emily. This is it.”
“What? What did you say?”
“I know this is it.”
The trees are mammoth, smothered in moss hanging over the lane like old, bearded sentinels. Their bark is grey and cracked. Their branches reach down to scrape the car. Angela is silent now, overcome by the strangeness, and Ross must concentrate on driving for the lane is rutted and narrow and he glimpses dark water on either side. And even before they come to its end he knows the end will be there. The trees tangle together. They form an apparently unbroken wall, but he knows that is not the case. He gets out of the car and steps into the heavy, shade-dappled heat. The ground is soft and giving. He searches the snarl of trees for an opening. Barely perceptible, it is there.
“Don’t go in there, Ross,” Angela tells him.
“I have to.”
“I told you it’s protected. You can’t trespass.”
“This is the place. I know it!”
“Ross, please. Don’t go in there. You’ll be alone.”
“Why don’t you drive to your meeting? Pick me up later.”
“It isn’t safe. I can’t just leave you.”
“I started this on my own; I’ll be okay.”
“You’re sure?” Her priority has hold of her.
This is where we part.
“I’m sure.”
“I’ll be back by four. Just be careful,” she says. “Do you have your compass?”
He is not listening. He is moving in the midst of his dream.
It is not the same, exactly. It is not forbidding. But it is a tunnel, a mossy pathway covered in verdure. For a minute or two he explores down its trail then realizes he is not prepared. He looks down at his shoes, hiking boots, not wing tips. That was the monster. He decides to go back for the hip waders.
“Emily!” he calls back down the passage.
The response is the car ignition. He hears its engine race, then recede. She is leaving. She has her appointment. Perhaps she intends to report him. He has no choice now. As though he had ever had. He turns down the path again, moving cautiously, waiting for faces, for laughter. They do not come. More monsters. Instead, a snake slithers across the trail. It is long and black and in no hurry. He waits for it to slide through the bushes and down into the brackish water. The passage is green and shadowy umber and the further he travels the warmer it gets. And then his path, his dream path, his vision, surprises him.
It ends.
It opens into a grassy meadow with pines and clumps of saw grass, sedge and spartina. Ross hears chirps from songbirds. He glimpses a blackbird flitting low through palmetto clumps. A red shouldered hawk wafts aggressively in the air far above him. Then a sudden breeze through the pines sounds like sea waves as the pines rustle in the wind. The ground beneath him is soft and springy, grey sandy loam covered in grass. There is no obvious track but he continues straight on, guessing the way. The ground slowly changes to become a wet prairie. At his feet are wildflower swatches, chicory mostly, their little blue flowers dotting the turf. A grey heron on its stilt legs meanders through a wet meadow.
He arrives at the edge of the cypress. It is starkly delineated. First bare, white trees standing in water and behind them the darker shade of the swamp canopied from the sun by the trees which tower beyond. He wades in. He is not at all afraid. He moves through dwarf cypress and sifting green ferns which look, but are not, impenetrable. Butterflies, golden and red and black, flutter playfully. The wading is hard. He must push his way through the undergrowth and air plants to clear a passage. The cypress trunks are the only things solid enough for handholds. And he must watch the roots, the cypress roots with their knees sticking up just above the water. There are more below, he can feel them rough on his boots. He might wedge a foot and get stuck.
He is wet to the waist now. In here beneath the trees there is little sun. The water is surprisingly cool. It is not what he would have expected. Black, yes, but it is not stagnant. There must be a current which keeps it fresh. He attempts to discern that mysterious current but is defeated by the stillness. After a while he chooses a direction and moves on.
Often he comes across subtle rises. He shares the high ground with raccoons and squirrels who have made their homes here on the dry. These are the places he rests a while. He is never alone. Frogs croak and tiny salamanders scamper from branch to branch. They comfort him. He knows there are far more dangerous denizens but tries not to think of them. Instead he concentrates on his slogging walk, sinking sometimes frighteningly in the muck, but mostly able to pick his way from root to root as they interlace below the surface. Around him bloom delicate orchids. Rope-like strangler figs curl up the trunks of the trees and the trees are becoming much larger now, thick and high and festooned with moss.
The water is deeper, nearly to his chest. Here the cypress are huge, ancient trees a hundred feet high surrounded by dark water choked with ferns. It feels like a temple of the primordial, its silence punctuated by the distant hollow drum of a woodpecker echoing through the pillars of trees. A white heron perches on a log. Priest of the temple.
What did I say to her? Called her Emily? What in God’s name am I doing? I will die here in this deranged search! How could I have let it come to this? I’ll go back. Maybe it isn’t too late. She’ll surely return to pick me up. If I am still in here when it gets dark, I am lost. I will turn and turn and never come out. Ten thirty in the morning. Okay. Settle down, Ross. You came in. You can leave by the same way. As long as there’s sun you can follow it, and you have your compass.
He comes into more shallow water, rising to another hammock. The water is almost clear in this patch of sunlight. It sparkles around him. He glances down to be sure of his footing.
What’s this? Something in the water? Looks like ... not possible. What is this? It’s stuck. No, it’s coming.
He holds it aloft for the sun to catch.
A rusted, broken off bit of blade.
A sword hilt. Silver inlay, tarnished black in a greened bronze basket hilt.
He has been here.