There was a magic stream in the forest that could transport people to another world, and Sam liked to visit this stream as often as he could. Time did not flow properly in this other world, so Sam had to be careful about managing his hours there. Because of school, he could not go on weekdays, and Saturday was usually off because his mother insisted he go to temple. Once, before he fully understood the nature of the magic stream, he skipped school to play in the other world and emerged after some hours to discover that he had lost an entire day of real time. His parents were terribly upset about this, and he lost many of his freedoms.
Sam finally stopped visiting the stream when the giant insect from the other world destroyed Boston. It was a calamity far beyond the scope of Sam’s play, and he became very afraid of forests forever afterward. He learned on that day that magic streams are not always a source of good things. This is the story of that calamitous adventure.
The day started like many others. It was Sunday, and Sam told his mother he was going to hang out with Andrew down the street. For good measure, he informed her that they would be taking their bikes to the dairy for some ice cream and minigolf. She liked when Sam spent time with friends (especially those as well-mannered as Andrew), so she warned him to mind traffic and handed him ten dollars to spend as he liked. Sam, however, did not turn left toward Andrew’s Cul-de-sac, but right toward the newer developments.
Beyond the plastic houses with their freshly unfurled sod and their orange realtor signs was an old forest of oaks and maples. In truth, most of the forest was not that old. Lines of stacked stones told of pastures and fields that once checkered that landscape, but they were over a century overgrown now. Where ancient cows once grazed, foxes and squirrels and drinking teens now eked out a claustrophobic existence in the face of an encroaching suburb. The trees do not mind so much. They did not think so sourly of cutting as you might imagine. To them, new real estate means fresh sunshine for the acorns, and the trees know in their hearts that they will outlast the shingled boxes. Sam arrived at a bend in the road surrounded by one such unfurnished box and walked his bicycle into the backyard.
A little trail overgrown with ferns and saplings extended from one corner of the yard deep into the woods. Sharp raspberry tangles used to block the path, but Sam had long ago disposed of these with a pair of his father’s clippers. The trail itself was knotted with old roots and pocked with boulders. It was a twisting path, and Sam often had to look down as he walked to prevent tripping. The dirt was speckled with broken glass, dented cans, and brass and green colored bottle caps. There rested in one clearing the remains of a brick chimney and a cut up tire. A little circle of stones indicated a campfire, and sometimes half-full cans and bottles tempted the curiosity of Sam and his friends. Beyond this, the wood grew thicker and wetter. Puny asters crept forth from the carpet of brown leaves, and salamanders slid from log hollow to log hollow. The sky grew dim behind a canopy crown where squirrels build soggy nests and woodpeckers flashed their crimson crests.
On this Sunday, the sky danced between threats of drizzle and shine that promised a rainbow to the lucky. The air was growing colder by the week, but only the upstart leaves had begun to turn. At intervals, a light rain would speckle the earth, but the deep canopy protected Sam from drenching. At length, Sam reached the clearing and made note of some rusty folding chairs that had not been there before. He pressed beyond the clearing, and eventually he saw the stream. It flowed tepidly for lack of nourishment, and Sam appreciated the drizzle for its life-giving aid. Otherwise, there was nothing particularly out of the ordinary about this spot of the forest. Leveraging his foot against a jutting maple root, Sam leapt across the water.
The other world does not make its presence known immediately to wanderers. Its trees look much the same as our trees, and it even has squirrels and birds. Black squirrels, however, are the common variety there, and strange birds that did not fly so much as flutter or glide, like turkeys, wabbled between strands of brush. Sam called out, and all of the animal life of the new wood called at once back to him. It was a joyous song. The rain seemed to dim. The sun to pierce the canopy better here, and all was bathed in a brilliant glow like a perpetual sunset. Sam walked further and knocked on the bark of a pine, and the tree responded by oozing a delicious sap which attracted small birds and chipmunks. The creatures were unafraid of Sam’s presence. Sam scooped some of this honey into a jar and continued on toward a meadow.
Free of the tree-cover, the most brilliant features of this world become clear. The meadow grass, a shimmering goldenrod, stood twice as tall as Sam’s head, but no icky things like ticks of spiders seemed to inhabit it. The sky above was simply brilliant. A crystal blue framed the orbit of many moons that loomed so close that their craters and mountains could be counted with the naked eye. Layers of impossibly thin altocumulus flowed like distant waves across the expanse, and a thousand different kinds of birds, and unknown darker shapes still, constantly circled the sky, ascending and descending from the silhouettes of distant treetops.
TO BE CONTINUED