During a brief period of rest, Samuel reached into his jean pocket, and fished out the familiar marble, swinging on the thin chain. It dangled in his grasp, and he tossed it over to where I sat.
It bounced there on the forest floor, the sound of it echoing through my mind like a dreaded song, and it twinkled in the dull light lightly coating the air.
“There’s your necklace. I found it right away, Sea. Thanks.”
I gazed at it wearily in the mucky leaves in front of me, lying dormant, unaware of the burdening meaning it possessed. I carefully looked to Charlie, fearful and stiff.
Charlie’s eyebrows furrowed together as he pieced it together. My heart dropped a notch, and I gritted my teeth. I couldn’t understand what would make Samuel do that just then.
I looked to him, trying to get him to clear it over, but the hint when unknown.
“What was that for?” Charlie asked, intrigued and not at all hiding the growing suspicion in his voice. “That’s yours?” he demanded me, his eyes fixated tightly on mine in anger.
I didn’t say anything.
“You wanted him to find us? How…how could you?”
I drew in a breath, horrified of what might happen. I looked up to him with wide eyes, trying to explain.
He wouldn’t hear it. He closed his betrayed eyes, and blocked everything out.
The old man collapsed onto the hard forest floor after a good period of stillness. He crashed down on his knees and exhaled an exaggerated sounding sigh.
I snatched the necklace from the dusty dirt and shoved it in my pocket.
Samuel and I exchanged glances, and then walked up ahead to observe the old man on the ground.
About five meters in front of us lay a wide stream babbling with life. The ribbon of water it contained rushed by in a cool, calm manner, creating a relaxing musical sound. I glanced at the rushing water, and then turned back to Charlie.
“Mr Anderson? Are you alright?” I asked awkwardly.
By the look on Samuel’s face, he just wanted to ditch the guy and find wherever we were going on his own. A part of me wouldn’t mind proceeding with that type of thing, but another part of me knew that we had to remain realistic.
Charlie looked up at me, his eyes droopy and weak. His mouth carefully parted and breathed the words, “Please. I'm quite old and frail. Drag me to the stream, and let me drink.”
I looked up at Samuel, whom was also staring at Charlie, and he wore a queer expression when he caught my gaze.
“No way. You’re fine, I can smell a liar half a million miles away,” he scoffed.
Charlie glared at him, hardening his eyes into deep pits of rocky ice. They reminded me of planets, wandering the lonesome universe in their frigid grief. Then, he looked up to me, transforming them in a flash, and into brilliant sparkling eyes of hope, pleading me as he asked, “please?”
Fixated on the situation, I observed his mangled body lying on the ground. He didn’t appear to be in pain; his face wasn’t scrunched up in agony, nor did he walk with a limp before he collapsed. No, the man was quite alright, and not hurt in the least bit. In that sense, I would agree with Samuel. In a different context however, I didn’t.
There was a reason why the man was acting with such an approach. It didn’t all come to me, and I wasn’t quite sure of anything Charlie was trying, but I had a suspicion that he was almost testing us.
“Samuel, just help him over to the stream,” I said quietly.
He resisted for a few moments, but finally relented. Samuel helped the man struggle to his feet, both swinging their arms over each other’s shoulders, and they awkwardly shuffled to the edge in a tangle of limbs. Finally, they made it, the strain was released, and Samuel dropped Charlie onto the ground. Charlie looked up at him and nodded seriously, before flopping down into the water like a fat old fish.
“Is he trying to kill himself?” Samuel mumbled so that only I could hear.
We stared in shock as the man sat in the middle of the stream, graciously pooling his hands into the cool looking water, and lapping it up into his mouth.
“He’ll be fine. We should probably talk. I have no idea what’s going on right now,” I muttered back, and turned around to the trees. I heard Samuel call out an excuse for us to privately obtain our conversation, and break into a slow jog to catch up to me.
“I'm so sorry. I didn’t realise that he’d get all mad,” Samuel explained out of breath.
I nodded and sighed. “Yeah. It’s okay. He probably won’t trust me now though…”
Samuel’s gaze lowered in shame. “I'm sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. Hey, are you okay?”
“I’ve seen better days to be honest. But look, we have to get to this place, his house. That’s where he’s leading us to, right?” Samuel suddenly looked up at me.
I shrugged. “That’s what I assume.”
“Well, we have to get there quickly, before it’s too dark.”
I looked up to the sky, to find it grey and hazy once again. The air was much cooler, providing a chilly breeze that tickled my hair. I could hear the sound of the late wind tousling the dead rusty leaves on the ground, and it created a soft sweet background noise to listen to.
“I haven’t even realized how late it’s gotten. We’ve been walking pretty far. We must be almost there, he’s hesitating.”
Samuel nodded. “Yeah,” he said, and straightened the collar of his plaid shirt. He fiddled with it a while longer, until I motioned his to sit down against a wide, old looking tree. I felt as though it were all just a game, and that Samuel and I were merely strategizing the best tactics to claim the tiny victory. I so desperately wished it were so.
We sat on the ground and leaned our backs up against it, taking a moment to think in the calming earthy air of the dying forest.
“Lincoln is your uncle then, if what’s on the tree isn’t a faked thing. He’s your mother’s brother.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t think it’s a fake though. Charlie said that my mom loved him. And, you know, he was at the funeral and all.”
He looked away, shaking his head uncontrollably. “Sea, whatever this man is trying to prove to Jarrod, its breaking my heart.” Samuel looked away at the ground, as if staring into the pit of the earth, questioning every question that was not to be questioned. He stared longingly, and hopefully, waiting the moment when something beautiful and graceful will rise from the ashes, and break into the sky. He waited for a glorified, perfected figurine to take form from that grey dust perhaps, and for it to break into an extravagant dance.
That moment was still to be awaited for.
“Jarrod was a good man. Hard around the edges, but still a real softy on the inside, although he’d never admit it, you know. I don’t know what he did!”
I glanced at Samuel, whom was still entranced with the earth, and I wondered when he became so down and deep. Perhaps he always was, but hid it into the shadows of the past, where I couldn’t notice it.
“Charlie said that he did something…he ruined something… then you came, and he wouldn’t tell me the rest. It had to do with my mom, whom he probably met through Lincoln, since he was her brother.”
He nodded, and stared into the ground with him, lost in the moment. So that we could be away from the unbeknownst life we stumbled upon, just for a little while.
“Samuel, have you always been in the justice work kind of thing? How did you get into all of this? I mean, if you hadn’t, then you never would have met my father, and you never would have discovered the mystery behind his disappearance, or come to help me,” I prodded. I only wanted to change the subject, but I immediately felt silly for asking such a question. I sunk lower, and wished to take it back.
He chuckled, bringing life back into his face. “I had a wife. Maybe a decade ago, in my early twenties. We worked together at a school, helping the kids, stuff like that. We divorced after a few blissful years. Considering the circumstances. I don’t know how I landed here after all of that, but I'm glad I did. I'm glad that I can help you, Sea,” he muttered softly at the end.
I was surprised to hear the bluntly put story. I couldn’t imagine seeing Samuel anywhere else but working on a case, while mentally somewhere else at the same time. I looked up at him again, the life in his face, gone.
“Do- do you think that it will be like that with my dad?”
His gaze broke from the ground, and he peered into my face with concerned, surprised eyes.
“Like what?”
I shrugged, again, feeling childish for revealing my inner thoughts so easily and broadly. “Like, if he still is alive… and if we do really meet…that the circumstances won't be quite right,” I explained sheepishly. I looked away.
He shook his head. “No. I don’t know what he did to Charlie that pried him away from you, and then from me, but I think he did it to keep the mess away from us. The circumstances are perfect for a reunion.”
He finished, took another look across the ground, and staggered up on his feet. “It’s time we get to that point. Let’s check on old Chucky, shall we?”
I nodded, and jumped up, brushing the dirt off my jeans, and skipping into a jog back over to the stream.
“Listen,” Samuel said as we jogged. “I have a feeling that we’re almost there. I’ll get in the house, look around, and call for backup. My phone can get pretty good service, I'm fairly certain that this is in my area too. If not, I’ll use the home phone. Have you seen any telephone wires?”
I shook my head.
“Well, there must be one. He has to have one. Anyways, I need you to wait for them to get there while I check out the house. You can fill in the details and such.”
“Charlie won’t let us do that, you know. He’ll have full control over the situation,” I warned.
“Yeah, trust me. I have my ways.”
I didn’t exactly like the sound of that, but I decided not to object. “That reminds me,” I added, my voice shaky from jogging, “I noticed that it’s easier if Charlie thinks he’s in charge. You know, the way his mind functions, and how he…how he sees the world…Don’t be so hard on him. Please, it’ll help.”
I panted and tried to keep up the pace with Samuel. He didn’t know his own speed, and was jogging almost the speed of my sprint. Jagged breaths of air seeped in and out of my lungs.
“Right, I’ll keep that in mind,” he assured, but didn’t sound too keen on it.
We reached the stream, and heard the familiar pattering rushing sounds of water flowing down the icy line of the river. Slowing to a walk, we surveyed the area, searching for the old man.
I peered into the stream, and saw the autumn water lick the ground and the jutted rocks as it swirled by. Leaves, small pebbles and tiny forms of life occupied the water, interacting within the little ecosystem, but no old man sat there. Charlie was no longer lapping up the water like a dog, grateful to quench his sudden thirst.
He was gone.
Then I realized just how sudden his exhaustion and thirst really was.
I gasped, my eyelids pried open in horror, and I quickly turned to watch Samuel’s face for reconciliation in the ocean of bewilderment.
The detective wasn’t as surprised as I felt, and quickly jumped into action. Something switched inside of him, and he leaped over the stream, beginning his sprint into the forest. “Come, on,” he called without looking back.
Urgently, I hurried over to the side of the stream, and hesitated before leaping as far as I could, stretching out my legs to the limit. Just as I landed, my first foot sank into a patch of squishy mud. I quickly recovered, and I was off again, hurrying to catch up, all with a now squishy wet sneaker.
Dead brown trees flashed by in a whirl, blending the forest into a colossal array of dull spinning colours as I ran. There was a light turbulence to the forest, but at the same time, the situation became broken and choppy to my perspective, and snippets of time were simply lost.
“Samuel! Do…you…see him?” I shouted over the heavy footfalls pounding on the hard ground.
I watched him turn his head each way over and over again, cautiously scanning the forest for any sign of the old man Charlie. Suddenly we were in the midst of a heavy cluster of mossy boulders, which appeared to have taken form from the air itself. The rest of the forest coloured itself in a we went along, slower and more deliberate.
Eventually, we stopped running to catch our breath. As we panted, we watched for the trees to emit any sort of flicker, or anything that could reveal the whereabouts of Charlie. Soon, we realized that we had no choice but to give up.
“We have to find his house some other way,” Samuel muttered.
“But how are we going to do it?”
He looked at me and shrugged. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“Um, Samuel, we kind of are, at that bridge.”
“Right. Um, let’s just walk around and see if we see it. Let me know if something catches your eye.”
“Okay then,” I agreed, and then we presumed the curious, hopeless trek. He had no idea, and I feared that my own grip on the situation was slipping away as fast as the light dimmed.
The sun leaked through the murky, dim clouds, and projected a mysterious, low haze. It slowly sunk lower into the horizon, wherever it was in the forest of dying leaves, and cast a golden mist that hovered in the air like a priceless, sparkling tapestry.
I looked around at the scene, and marvelled at the gleaming atmosphere, turning around to gaze at the precious air strung between the wretched lines of lifeless plants and swirling murkiness. Everything was dull and brown, dimming my vision, except for the magnificence of the sparkling hues, which brought colour to my mind. There were bright angelic, or perhaps brilliant sprites hovering all over the place, chirping and glittering all over the morbid grey.
Samuel appeared oblivious to the evening light show the sun put on for us before it should sink back into hiding. Instead, he kept his gaze sharp and alert for anything to guide us.
With each right step, I cringed with the awful squishy feeling my foot gave once it hit the ground. I could feel that mud circulate in my shoe, and was difficult to ignore to freezing squishiness between my toes. I did my best however, and peered out into the shadows to block my mind from my petty thoughts.
There was almost nothing. I could literally peer off into the distance, and see nothing but stretches of towering trees. It almost appeared as though this was how the world was; nothing but an entire planet of trees growing to the ends of the earth, covered by the golden sunlight casting down through the branches.
I wondered if Charlie actually grown up in this forest, in the little house surrounded by nothing but solitude. Perhaps that’s why he was so elusively unknown and so prone to mysteriously strange ways.
Samuel looked behind me, his face surrounded by a curtain of fuzzy blond hair. This surprised me, and I nearly mistaken him for some 90s punk kid. I supposed that this was only how his hair looked like without the aide of gel, and showering. I decided not to comment on it.
He gave me a smile when our eyes met, and I could tell that the same restlessness I felt was triggering within him too. Although he’d never admit it.
The gold was gone.
Just like Robert Frost, I realised nothing gold can stay. It cannot be kept in a jar, and put on a shelf for safe keeping. It was simply a warm visitor, only staying for an evening meal before heading off again into the storm to search for better company.
That moment, I realised that absolutely no trance of the striking goldness lingered in the air. Instead, a thick black char was left over from the mystical moment. It coated the scene like a coating of burnt crust, making me feel cold and sick.
Night was arriving, and soon, in the autumn world. I didn’t want to admit the fear I held in my soul, that we’d be lost in the forest for the entire night, looking for a house that held no existence at all. Perhaps this was Charlie’s plan after all, to eliminate out snooping behaviour all together.
I almost had him. I had him under my grasp, with the illusion of me siding with his awful ways. I ignored my lurking bitterness, realising that it wouldn’t get me anywhere.
“Samuel? Samuel? What if…what if we don’t find it?” I asked quietly, trying not to ooze out any of the concern I felt.
He looked down at me, solemnly. “No. We’ll find it. Don’t worry. Any minuet now, and thankfully, since we haven’t talked to your grandmother in a while.”
I really wished he hadn’t said that. The wound in my heart widened, and gushed concern for that kind woman all over the forest floor.
I fell silent, and worried that the night would conceal us in its heavy, suffocating blanket, where horrid creatures of the dark would seek us out. I shivered, and cursed my untamed imagination. Night did that to me.
Sighing quietly to myself, I gazed out, but barely looked. My eyelids grew heavy, and I could almost feel the guilt Samuel felt. He probably felt that he was a fool to let me trail behind him, and I really wished he wouldn’t think such thoughts. However, they were simply emitted off of him, as if I were a mind reader, just randomly picking up these thoughts with ease.
A small light faintly shone, in the corner of my eye. It was barely visible.
I turned my head to the left, scarcely seeing the light slice the faint darkness in half.
Looking to notify Samuel, I realized that he already spotted the promising sight, before I had.
“Samuel, is that it?”
He looked at me and grinned, his smile lighting up the area, and again reminding me of the Cheshire cat. “I believe so,” he said in a sing-songy voice. “Come, on.”
He broke out into a slow jog, running to the edge of the world, to the promising light. I followed, dodging trees and roots on the ground along the way. This was difficult to do, as the small light left over from the day grew fainter by the minuet. I felt like a creature of the night, skillfully trashing through the thicket, until, of course I tripped over a root.
After recovering from my fall, I had caught up to Samuel, and continued on our way to the light. As I grew closer, more of the house was visible, and it could be seen that it was quite large. I stared at it in wonder as my feet pounded on the ground. I pounded harder, trying to speed things along.
Eventually, we got close enough to come across a nice even dirt path. We stopped running, letting the aching in our lungs subside, before stepping onto the pathway. Because the light was then so close, I could scan far ahead, to exactly where the path ended, right at the front steps of the house.
The porch light was on, and that was the bright light that led us through the darkening forest.
He was waiting for us.
An eerie shiver ran down my back, and my body trembled.
Samuel eyed the scene uncertainly, hesitating for a moment before presuming on. An icy breeze delicately ushered through us, swirling about our fingertips as we walked.
He cleared his throat and kept his gaze fixated forwards. “So, Sea. I want you to just wait over there by those trees in the front,” he said pointing to a cluster of pines just ahead of us, in front of the house. “I’ll take a look inside once we get there.”
I nodded in the chilliness of the night, and felt a knot tighten in my stomach. A nervous energy awakened, I couldn’t seem to stop the constant quavering.
We trudged along; I blankly watched the dirt path pass beneath my feet in a long trail of hardened dust. I could feel the light up ahead grow brighter and more vibrantly by the moment; it splashed a bright, brilliant hue across my face.
Soon, we were so close that we were fully exposed to the porch light, standing, bathing in it with uncertainty. We were small little critters compared the immense house before us, lightened and looming like a giant.
It was simply a log cabin, but it was notably expanded in many places. One could pick out where areas were added onto the building, as if Charlie just kept creating new parts to the house as he went along. It was the biggest house I ever saw, and stretched across the ground like a twirling snake.
I heard Samuel let out a quick sigh, and carry on his way.
A buzzing noise entered my ears. Curiously, I looked around to find no source to the strange sound. It hummed like a car, but there were no cars anywhere near us.
“Samuel,” I whispered.
He turned around and faced me with a concerned expression.
“Do you hear that?”
He listened, and gazed out into the forest. I turned to do the same. All the trees seemed to blend together in a kaleidoscope of jumbled black and darkness, with twisted, swirling branches. I peered closer, and in the distance, a small headlight split up the darkness.
“The heck?” I heard Samuel mumble as the light got closer.
It was a motorcycle, heading right for us through the trees and nightlife.
It sped to the edge of the forest, right next to us. I no longer felt as though I were gripping onto reality. Instead, I was riding a mysterious and frustrating day in the midst of a dream.
“Is that Lincoln?” Samuel asked in sheer puzzlement beside me.
The only thought I was able to produce in the bizarreness was of how I wished that we had a motorcycle. Almost a whole day of walking could be minimized into a nice quick ride.
That's the only thing that I could think; the only thought that was normal enough to submerge.