Secret Places and Hidden Things

Chapter Four

William sat listening to the trees in the wind. It was a cool day, and while rainclouds lingered on the horizon, they didn't come any closer. It was one of those long stretches where time didn't pass and the sun never shifted directions. That happened often now without Jack around—there was nothing to cause any change. Perhaps William just wanted to keep the stability the diner had given him, even though it, too, had disappeared. The dappled light from the trees played softly over his half-closed eyes, a quiet birdsong ushering him in and out of sleep.

He dreamed lightly, mixing reality with streams of thought. The fox came and went, piling mushrooms at his feet. For some reason the fox seemed to think William would keep them safe—or perhaps the fox just liked to check in on him.

Occasionally, a distant, echoing rumble of thunder would remind him that the rains never truly left. There was always a bit of thunder in this forest, always a bit of rain in one direction or another. Never enough to make him flee inside. Just enough to send him under a nearby tree for shelter.

Perhaps it was the rain, or the sheer number of trees, but his lungs always felt free here. There was something clean and new about this place. When he inhaled deeply through his nose, the smell was almost nothing. Just a wholesome fullness moving smoothly into his lungs. At the edges he could sense a layer of spice coming from the earth. The sent of leaf mould and wet wood bursting with mushrooms.

If there was anything unusual it was the mushrooms. There was no dirt on the ground. As far as he could dig the earth was flaky—powdered remains of wood and leaf slowly transitioning into a black compost so rich and springy he could wring it out like a sponge and get nothing on his hands. He could walk barefoot anywhere, since the trees did not seem to drop their branches much, and the occasional rocky outcroppings were smooth and polished from the rain. All of this combined to create a chaos of mushrooms like he never would have imagined. Every tree had strange curling mushrooms at their base, or flat stepped mushrooms growing out their side, or leathery black fungus bubbling underneath the branches. Where the rocks popped out of the forest floor, bright clusters of flowers would gather in rings, and the mushrooms would hide in their shadows, poking round little heads out from under the leaves. Where the pine trees grew, clusters of bright red mushrooms could be found, glowing faintly when the dark came (which it did with an irregularity that implied there was no real day or night). The maple trees seemed to repel all mushrooms but large, flat, blueish ones, and you could map the extent of their roots by the blue surrounding them. Oaks welcomed all mushrooms. They were the oldest trees, their twisted masses shading out large swaths of forest so nothing green could grow in their shadow. The mushrooms in these shady meadows, studded with the tangled masses of ebullient tree roots, were like dull rainbows outlining the elegant curves of each stump and log. There were often pathways winding through these old thickets, whether from animals or some other natural phenomena, William couldn't tell.

It was unusual to see any animals at all in the woods. Once he saw a squirrel, but other than that it was only birds—and the fox, of course. The birds were widely spread, and while birdsong was fairly constant, it was often a lonely sound, echoing from some distant grove with no response, starting and stopping abruptly as if the birds had materialized in instants. In fact, it wasn't uncommon for the forest to change around him. He never saw it happen directly, but there were some places that only appeared once, no matter how hard he tried to find them again.

The one constant was the cabin he'd found. It was never very far away. He might have been walking for hours, exploring new groves, and when he would turn around, it was always a short walk back. It was almost like the cabin was following him through the woods. He didn't mind, though. It was nice to get home quickly if he felt the need.

And he'd started to think of the forest as home. In the days since Jack had been taken by the train, he'd been less lost than he might have imagined himself. He often thought back to the time before his wandering and realized Jack had changed him. He was happier than he'd been. He was content and never felt lonely, even in this place where he couldn't be more alone if he'd tried.