The next few days went by in a blur. I worked on papers, scouted through the library for books, and for one evening, even went out with a couple co-workers who lived in the nearby city. It was nice to get out of Cobalt Springs, even if it was only for an evening of drinks and chatting. Getting the opportunity to wear things that usually lived and died in my closet, was always exciting. A short black dress and some strappy heelsheals never hurt anyone. I sighed as I looked over at my closet, the dress hanging there as I recalled our night. I dressed in more casual, comfortable clothing before heading out of the house, back towards the cabin to feed the birds, cat, and water the plants. An easy, uncomplicated way to start my week when I didn't have to commit most of my life to a job I was beginning to despise.
I set off, humming to myself as I zoned out for the task ahead, letting my feet guide me. I'd always enjoyed running, but hadn't been able to find the drive to do so lately. I pushed myself into a jog, welcoming the sensation of my heartbeat thrumming against my temples. I ran until the lilac bush that bloomed beside Ms.Wicks home came fully into view. Walking up the steps, I saw both the cat's bowl empty and bird feeders barren. The key caught in the lock, jamming the door. After some heavy convincing, the hinges creaked. Upon entering, I went right to the bag of feed. A, as I reached down I noticed something dark out of the corner of my eye;. I whipped my head towards it. Nothing.
Returning to the porch, I noticed I had left the door open and from behind me, I heard a crash and then a clattering from inside. Before I can rush to look, a small, dark tabby whizzes through the door onto the porch, taking a sharp right before sprinting straight by me.
Ears back, the cat stopped feet away before looking up at my hands, carrying the kibble bag. It let out a soft meow, and then began to gently weave between my legs, fluttering its tail against my knees. I felt my heart rate return to normal as I bent down to rub the cat under its chin. Its eyes were dark and void- like. Before returning the scoop to the bag, I walked over towards the bedroom, remembering the carpet I had somewhat soiled. I stopped dead at the threshold. Agape before me was the trap door, fully open, carpet rolled to the side. The black handle that had once been attached to the wood was now three feet away, strewn across the floor. I stared at it, now wondering if the right idea would be to turn around and bolt out of the house. I steadied myself, carefully listening for any other sounds. There was nothing. Nothing else in the room had changed.
I went back into the kitchen and grabbed a small rock that was sitting on the counter, holding down a stack of papers. I stared at the opening from the doorway, handles trembling slightly. I tossed the rock into the opening, with my otherother hand braced against the doorframe. The rock thudded into the ground with a deepwith deep thwack.
The fall had not been long, so I crept over, peering down the dark hole. Ladder rungs lined the wall leading into the darkness. Glancing around the room, there was nothing nearby to remedy that problem, so I walked back into the main room. A small glass lantern that looked to be from the 17th century sat in the corner of the room, a small box of matches sitting beside it.
Talk about convenient.
Lantern now in hand, emitting a soft glow, I stared down the ladder once again. My knees groaned as I knelt down, putting an arm into the darkness with the lantern, struggling to get my head low enough to see into the chamber below. As my eyes adjusted, I took in the room before me. It was quite small and only had one wall of interest. I backed down the ladder, dust rising up as my feet hit the dirt floor. The wall adjacent to the ladder had plain wooden pillars in each corner.
Against the back wall, between the two pillars, stood a podium. I stepped closer, holding up the light to get a better view. On the centre of the podium, was a carving. The wood felt splintered beneath my fingers as I traced the outline of a large oak tree. Within the centre of the entire podium and tree was an intricate glyph carved deeply into the wood. I stared at the tree for a moment. The glyph in the centre of the tree looked familiar. I studied it for a while, trying to conjure the memory, but nothing was coming to mind. The swaying lines were so smooth, it would have required an exceptionally skilled hand to do that sort of work. There were small flowers carved around the base of the tree. I ran my fingers along them, each one expertly placed.
Suddenly, the memory clicked into place. I gasped at the recognition, hand dropping to my side. It was the enormous oak tree on the eastern side of the large pond that sits on the outskirts of Cobalt Ffalls, where I grew up fishing with my father,. The one that Maya and I currently frequented. The insignia struck me like lightning. I don't know how I didn't recognize it. I stepped back, stumbling over my own feet. Hastily, I turned around and shot up the ladder, lantern clunking alongside mealongside beside me. Once I was back in the bedroom, I shut the trap door, replaced the rug, and fled the house. This felt like some sort of invitation, some sort of call. Considering last week was the first time in years I had missed going to that pond, I decided to go straight there, even with the clouds beginning to loom overhead.
My feet ached. My thighs burned. My calves felt tight. I had forgotten the distance it took to get to the pond, especially from the other side of town. This was my sign to get back into running, considering this used to be my warm-up. The clouds still cast a gloomy light over the forest, but even as the raindrops began to beat against my face, I carried onwards. I felt this tugging sensation in my chest. This emotion I almost couldn't describe. This drawling pull that slowly led me towards the tree. My sneakers began to mash into the dirt that churned into mud, chunks beginning to stick to my heels and, making the terrain a bit more difficult. I pushed forwards, through the aches in my legs and burn in my lungs. I remembered how I used to run, I would run and run, feeling that elation in my veins. The runner's high, my mum always told me; . It is what drives you to keep going, this beautiful feeling that makes the long ache worth it. I felt my knees begin to touch while I walked, chafing beginning between my thighs as my loose jean shorts became wet and sculpted to my body. It was an unpleasant feeling to say the least, but at least I wore no white.
My hair plastered itself against my forehead with sweat and rain as I finally reached the long entryway to the pond. It looked like a hallway created by cherry blossom trees, scattered with beautiful light pinks that blossomed and fell overhead. Even in the later months of the year, it always amazed me how well our plants seemed to hold their flowers. The wind rustled the branches, loosening some of the petals overhead as I stalked towards the pond. The water was oddly calm given the rain and wind. The giant oak tree stood like a pillar just south of the pond. I stood and stared for a moment before walking over to it, the memories of my father and I flooding back to me. My heart clenched.
I walked around the oak, running my fingers along the old bark as I felt for the carvings that had been there since I was a child. There were initials carved into the tree in different places, where numerous people had commemorated their love to someone else. It gave the tree an eternal life, to be imbued with such energy. The flowers surrounding the tree base were tightly packed underneath the glyph, which was just above my eye level. The glyph itself was a maze of winding lines. I tried to make sense of it, but the longer I stared, the less I could see. I touched the glyph, tracing the outlines in a hope that it would suddenly make sense. It didn't. The wind behind me picked up, thrashing the leaves throughout the meadow, while the clouds cast darker shadows over the water. I pried my finger into the wood, desperately gripping at the edges of the glyph. The tree groaned in protest, but I latched my fingers tighter and pulled.
My wet fingers began to slip as the wood started to give. I repositioned my hands before prying again with all my strength, when finally the wood gave way and half of the glyph snapped off into the wet mud before me. I stared at the tree, there were words beneath where the wooden cover had been, now snapped in two. They were so deeply etched into the tree that they looked black. A centipede scurried into the deep crevasses, startled by the sudden light. I felt myself second guessing placing my fingers against the wood at the thought of bugs crawling all over my hands, but I gripped the wood again before taking a deep breath and prying the remainsremained of the glyph off of the tree. And wWith that final draw, the piece underneath the glyph came into full view.
A verse sat before me, deeply etched into the wood-
On shores where pebbles gleam,
A path awaits the pure of soul.
Though paradise, it's not a dream—
And love must pay its silent toll.
I read and re-read the words multiple times, wanting to ensure that I had them right. To the right of the stanza, a small compass was whittled into the wood, with an arrow pointing towards a capital N. The only sounds were the raindrops hitting the water while the leaves were swept up by the wind. I inhaled deeply, the smell of wet grass surrounding me.
It doesn't hurt to investigate.
I repeated the words back to myself, giving the sentence rhythm.
On shores where pebbles gleam,
There was a rocky beach about an hour and a half walk from here.
A path awaits the pure of soul.
I had no idea what this could mean.
Though paradise, it's not a dream—
I have no idea what place it was referring to.
And love must pay its silent toll.
I also had no idea what this meant.
So, with a stellar grasp of only 25% of the entire verse, I made my grand march to the beach- still soaked,, still uncomfortable, and now blessed with a vague sense of poetic direction.
–
When I arrived at the beach, the rain had subsided, leaving the wet, slick rocks as the only reminder to watch my step. This beach was not one that many people frequented. It had large, jagged rocks that lined where the land met the sea. The water was always freezing, and it was never clear enough to see what lay beneath the surface. The smell of salt penetrated my nostrils as I stared down the shoreline,. Uunsure of what to look for, since there were no serious clues other than the poem itself. I began walking along the rocks, hopefully headed north, watching each step carefully to ensure I didn't fall.
My feet were soaked, my shorts were still damp, and my shirt now clung to my body due to the wind pressing against the wet fabric. Luckily, even as summer came to a close, the weather was still quite warm when the sun showed itself, even against the windy waters. I continued walking along the rocks, towards a peak that looked like the perfect place to sit and take in the view that I had seen so many times growing up. As I meandered along the shoreline, I got down onto my hands and knees to cross a couple of the larger gaps, the wind pushing against me fiercely. As I neared the edge, I could see about six feet below me was a small patch of rocks level with the sea, and beached upon the rocks was a small row boat. Considering my odds, I carefully clambered down the slippery rocks, my feet just barely holding onto the stleep boulders.
The boat was wooden and rickety, and oddly enough, was completely dry. I inched closer, careful not to get my feet too close to the water. There was a single cross-bar running through the centre of the boat, just wide enough to sit. And carved with the same deep, black markings as the stanza, was the same compass that had been cut into the oak tree.
Huh.
This must be it. A dry boat appears on a pebbled beach after a downpour, conveniently after I'd found Ms.Wicks home broken into, yet there was no other evidence of anything, and then I am led to a treasured location from my childhood?
This has to be it. This must be a message for me. And given that there was a single row boat laid out before an open sea, I had a feeling what I would do next would shock even the most seasoned idiot with a flair for poor decision-making.
Row of all things? I don't love that idea. I grasped the nose of the boat and hauled it up further on land before stepping into it, I sat down in the seat and grasped for the oar that lay at the bottom. Letting my fingers slide up the shaft, I clenched my hand around the grip. I stared off into the water as I rolled the oar in my hands, fingers catching on thea splintered wood. Looking down, I dropped the oar from my hands as words began to slowly form. The shallow etchings ended with a single, short phrase.
There can be no land beneath foot.
I sat in the boat, staring out at the sea before me. I can't believe I was actually doing this, I thought to myself. What the hell was I doing? Growing up, I had always craved adventure and prestige. I'd always imagined myself in adventure books, experiencing a fictive life. I craved the sort of excitement that I was never able to achieve in the mundane. It almost felt dissociative, but here I was staring out at the water, oar in hand, and I decided-
To hell with it
So I stepped out of the boat, removed my shoes and pushed the boat knee-deep into the water. The vessel rocked as I carefully climbed in, tugging my socks and shoes back over my wet feet. The entirety of the shoe was still wet, but at least it wasn't soaked through. I began to paddle out towards… nothing in particular. Just as straight as I could possibly keep the boat, which proved harder than anticipated. The oar scraped against the boat while the water lapped softlysofty at its sides. I kept gazing back to shore, seeing it get farther and farther away until thereit was almost nothing along the horizon.
The waves began to pick up slightly, but I pressed on, deepening the stroke of my paddle. As the current raged on ahead, I began to have second thoughts. The waves looked far too large for my boat and the skyand sky was darkening at a pace I had never before seen. I pressed on for another few minutes until I saw a wave I knew I couldn't make it through, pounding its way towards me. It was too close to attempt a beeline for shore. I straightened out the boat, keeping the nose directly perpendicular to the wave. As it neared, a clap of thunder rumbled overhead. I flinched at the sound/it's echo loudness of it over the open water. Storms had always hit particularly hard around our town, which was always explained away as having something to do with the sea current and the tidesto us as being due to the sea current.
Long before my family moved into Cobalt Springs, there had been a fire that wiped out 30% of the town's buildings, killing three people who had not been able to escape their homes. There was still a small memorial placed in their honour, a bench made from the wood used for one of the homesteads. It had all three of their names engraved on a silver plate, one of them only six years old at the time. The thunder overhead has not yet ceased, and I decided that perhaps coming out here was a fool's mission. The waves continued to grow, and the rain began to bleat against my face, to the point of stunting my vision. My bravery had run out. How could I be so stupid? I had to turn around. Now. I frantically paddled along one side of the boat, slowly turning towards the shore. At least, what I thought was the shore, for when I looked back, a fog had crept over the water and blurred the land that was once there. My heartbeat thrummed in my throat. I twisted my head at an unnatural angle to see behind me, while trying to avoid getting more rain in my eyes. I felt panic begin to take over, I couldn't see which way was home. If I paddled the wrong direction, I could just end up even further out at sea.
A wave hurtled towards me, parallel with my boat. As I tried to swing the nose forward, a crack of lightning lit up the sky. It was so loud my ears rang, before the wave crashed against me, flipping the boat sideways, sending me along with it. My body went frigid as I sprawled my hands out under the water. My head spun as I lashed against the sea, trying to pull myself up for air, but my lungs tightened as the current kept me under. I felt myself weakening, fighting to hold my breath. I unconsciously opened my mouth, attempting to suck in a breath, even though my brain fought against it. The water entered my mouth as I tried to wretch, the salt piercing my lungs. My limbs slowed, the noise in my head dulleddulling, as the bleariness from the water became intense darkness.