Ghosts
The chill wakes you up before your alarm. The aggressive buzz of your phone vibrating is balanced out by the canned sound of a rainwater shower meant to ease you back to consciousness in the black dark of a November morning. The cabin is still, the air is cold. There is no rat race drag in your heels this morning, but a bit more bounce. Whispered greetings echo through the small space and slowly you emerge into the stark bright snap of kitchen overheads. The coffee maker gurgles a good morning while it drips coffee strong enough to knock the rest of the cobwebs from your sleep-tired skull. The creak of a woodstove door, paper crinkles, a match strikes.
The minute hand drags itself around the kitchen clock, coffee sloshes into a mug. You take slow conspiratory sips waiting to see if it mingles jovially with the buttered toast you had for breakfast. Afterward, you layer up just as slowly as the coffee was sipped lest skin freezing sweat cling to you for the day. Boots are grabbed from their communal spots around the woodstove, supplies are packed, lunches made.
Outside waves lap endlessly against the shore. Beyond, a great lake watches with ancient eyes. The darkness of the horizon is painted with a streak of light blue, morning dawns. Asphalt leads to gravel, gravel to dirt, a sharp turn from civilization and you’re plunged backward in time, past fallen cedar fences and stone cairn foundations. In silent wilderness the man-made vehicle shudders to a halt, music is snapped off in the middle of a song left to worm in your ear all day. Black dark has turned grey-blue, you walk from here.
At the trailhead you nod a wordless goodbye to your party; the silent bode of good luck mutually shared. You step into the forest. A path of pine needles muffles your steps that slowly, deliberately, carry you through the chill. Maple leaves and errant branches threaten to disclose your presence, and are avoided with the clumsy grace of a human who’s forgotten he's a mammal.
When your heel collides with a pine branch the ensuing snap sounds off like a rifle shot. You freeze. Seconds slide through time and your eyes scan the gloaming for any sign of movement, your ears tuned to the telltale flurry of crashing through the woods, your eyes search for a flag flying. Your heart stammers and calms. You resume your clumsy slide through the morning to the treetop habitat where you sit sentry.
Every creak from the ladder makes you wince as if slapped. When you reach the top you sit more out of relief than exhaustion. To the east, the light blue streak has golden light added to it peeking through a wall of furrowed clouds. Across your lap, the metal sits cold, an icy bite through three layers.
The shadows move, morning comes. You listen to the wind speak its ancient language to the trees. The forest answers back in the soundless gravity that ebbs and flows with the hours that pass. Every snap brings you to attention, every crunch of leaves dampens your palms and dries your mouth. Breath slowly. Your eyes beg the forest to give up its secret. A red squirrel laughs at you while it bounds to its next cache, you sink into your chair relief waltzes with disappointment, bluejays call.
The day wears on. You drowse in lukewarm lunchtime light, you awaken. The cycle repeats. The red squirrel fools you twice more, a partridge explodes in flight. The sun moves in a lazy crescent across the sky until the tree bark changes shade. The forest stills once more. You hold out wading into the dying light. The far distance rattles with gunfire, though in victory or defeat you’ll never know. Slowly, with time tensed muscles, you climb back through the wild casting one last glance at the mystery that confounds.
When they come they don’t announce themselves with the bouncing crash of squirrel paws or the swooping dive bomb of the jay. They materialise from the shades of grey, wisdom worn antlers grazing branches outstretched like beggars' hands straining to grasp the cloak of royalty. They move with ethereal grace threading through hardwoods spectrally silent on the cloven hoof. You contemplate their very existence heading back to dwell in the embrace of woodfire heat, the comfort of camaraderie. Ever wary, ever silent, they stalk their forest home and haunt the season.
Like ghosts.
