TIE CLUMPED DOWN the front steps of the cabin into afternoon sun the color of tangerines, warm on her shoulders. She walked through the small clearing that served the cabin as front yard and parking area and made for an open mouth of trail at the other side. She stopped at the trail head, a line of espresso dirt and roots tracing through undergrowth and snaking between sentinel trees. Tie turned and looked at the cabin, thinking that small dwellings often seemed to have faces. For a moment, she studied the empty window eyes and front door mouth. The cabin screamed, an inhuman, tortured shriek. Tie jumped and whipped back around.
She plunged into gloom and shifting orange rays. Secret air painted her sinuses emerald, the humidity moving up behind her eyes, cooling her mind. She moved without thinking, taking quick steps. Her sneakers thudded over the path, and soon she couldn’t hear the cabin or its horrible song. After what could have been twenty minutes or an hour of slanting greens and rushing, peripheral depth, Tie stopped. The trail ran into the biggest tree she had ever seen. Tie was a city kid, sure, but damn. It would take three of her to hug that thing all the way around. She wasn’t exactly an authority on the matter but this had to be an oak. Other than one of them Giant Redwoods from California, only an oak tree could get this big. Least, she thought so anyway.
Tie took a cast to her face that would’ve put a department store detective on edge. She looked over her shoulder and saw nothing but the dark line of the path and multiphasic forest, slipping in and out of shadow, whispering on the wind. She was alone. No one would see her.
She stepped up on a huge foot of root and splayed her hands against the rough bark. Tie wrapped her arms as far around the trunk as she could and gave a gentle squeeze. She looked up along the pillar of wood into the canopy, a vast array of branches spreading like elegant crystal. The world was big and old and made mostly of good things. Sometimes, most times, they just weren’t as easy to find as the bad. They weren’t as noisy, but they were there. You just had to walk down the right path.
Tie closed her eyes and hugged the oak, resting her cheek against its hide. She imagined she could feel its warmth and wisdom. God, she must be like a gnat to an ancient thing like this. What would her heart feel like to a being whose pulse was measured in year-long thunder beats? She remembered an old TV science show she used to love as a kid, 321 Contact! Once, they’d hooked up an ultrasound microphone to a tiny brown bat. It’s pulse had been a single, steady hum. She hoped the tree could feel her heart.
Tie breathed in the good, ancient scent of the oak and sighed, “Hello, old man.”
A lazy fly droned past her ear.
“Hello, bitch.”
Tie stopped breathing and turned around.
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Sins of the Fathers Page 61