ROWAN-10
It wasn’t long before I began to be aware of what, amidst the beauty and grandeur of the great outdoors, was its most insistent feature: bugs. The odors, of dirt and plant and flower, and the sounds of leaf and creature and, soon enough, water, were, of course, ever-present, but after awhile, one—I, at least—didn’t notice them. They faded into the background, they became the air, the ether, through which we moved. The bugs, on the other hand, wouldn’t let me not notice them: Assemblages of gnats flew in chaotic eddies around my head; mosquitoes buzzed in my ears and bit my neck and arms mercilessly; sweat bees swooped in and stung whatever spots the mosquitoes didn’t bite; tiny greenflies landed on my arms, tickling my skin before darting away; black broad-winged beetles hovered about threateningly; ferocious-looking dragonflies bounced up and down at the edge of the forest; and a bevy of other flies, beetles, bees, spiders, ants, and moths flew, jumped, crawled, or hovered in every nook and cranny of the woods. They were everywhere; and this sheer proliferation of them, along with their constant harrying, made it begin to seem like they were even in the few places that they weren’t, such as my pants and shirt. I kept thinking I felt one crawling on my leg or torso, only to find when reaching to brush it away that it was a drop of sweat, or nothing, just my imagination.
Three things kept me from going batty swatting at them and scratching wildly at any and every part of my body. One, Romulus, who was completely naked, and presumably quite knowledgeable about the woods, was unconcerned about them. They pestered him with every bit the relentless glee that they did me, but only a time or two did I see him so much as brush one away. I reasoned, thus, that as bothersome as they might be, they weren’t dangerous. Ultimately, they wouldn’t hurt you, or Romulus would be more vigilant in making sure they didn’t bite him. Two, my head was throbbing, and the more I exerted myself, the more it throbbed, which at the same time as dividing my discomfort (the head pain at times diverting my attention from the bugs, and vice versa), acted as a sobering deterrent to any extraneous movements such as swatting and scratching. And three, my attention was further diverted by the mind-bogglingly diverse array of flora that comprised my new surroundings.
It was a typical forest, I suppose. Walking through it, now, very little would catch my eye, unless I gave purposeful attention to things. But I’d never walked the ground of any forest, ever, and every thing I saw was new to me—and possessed of a complex intricacy that was bewildering: A single tree, taking into consideration the trunk, the branches, the bark, the knots, the leaves, the animal nests, and so on, offered more to the eye than did the entirety of the house in which I’d always dwelt. And that was just one tree! The forest was filled with hundreds of them, along with shrubs, ferns, briars, bushes, broadleaf undergrowth plants, vines, wildflowers, fallen branches and logs, and runs of ivy and weeds.
I was also worried about the Fatheads, which in theory could have helped distract me from the ministrations of the bugs, but which actually worked to accentuate the nuisance of their presence. That was when I learned that while pain can distract from pain, worry, like impatience, always accentuates it. We’d heard the Fatheads—I assumed it was them—arriving at the house even before we entered the forest, so it seemed to me that by now, they had to have discovered our absence and were probably in pursuit of us. The shirt I was wearing was somewhat bright, with horizontal stripes of red and green inviting notice from anywhere remotely nearby, and Romulus, observing it not long after we’d entered the forest, told me to take it off. Seeing my bare torso, he said, “No,” and instead had me turn it inside-out. The green, as he noted, was a bit more prominent than the red on the inside, and while not a green that matched any of the flora of the forest, it did camouflage me more effectively than the red. My pants were brown and my shoes gray, so neither of them was likely to attract notice; but I was afraid that my shirt, despite being inside-out, would betray our location.
As we made our way deeper and deeper (I thought) into the forest, Romulus kept stopping, every fifty paces or so, and when he did, he would stand, as still as one of the entitic old trees around us, and listen for a few seconds, then peer all directions into the depths of the wood, and lastly, sniff the air. I thought he was probing for any indication of pursuit. That turned out not to be the case—he knew he would hear any humans blundering through the woods after us from a great distance away—rather, he was seeking some sign of his people.
Several times we came to great patches of briar and thorn, or thickets of brush or shrubbery which I thought would cost us valuable escape time to navigate around, but Romulus, expertly guiding us, would somehow find a passage through them, sidling, for example, through a clump of ferns or broadleafs that I had assumed was briar or nettle, or else would instruct me to climb upon his back, and then with a strength that I didn’t think of then as being particularly amazing but is more impressive to me now, would climb into the low branches of trees, and move from one tree to another over the brush, supporting both our weights.
At some point, I got the spatial sense that the land to the right of us was quite a bit lower than the land to the left of us, and for that matter than the land upon which we walked. Concurrent with this apprehension, I realized that a breeze, cool with a subtle wetness to it that was quite effective in cooling me off, was washing over me in fits and starts, and had been for some time, accompanied by an earthy aroma (all the smells out in the forest were earthy, but this one seemed more earthy, somehow). It wasn’t a hot day (Spring came early that year, the vegetation ahead of schedule by fifteen or twenty days, the earliest I can remember, in fact, but it was still only mid-spring, and though warm certainly not summer-level hot), but my nervousness and exertion made it seem warmer than it was, and this occasional breeze was quite welcome.
When, fifteen or twenty paces after sensing that the ground to our right was lower than the ground to our left, that lower ground actually came into view, I realized with a little jump in the heart that it was alight. At the very first, I thought it was on fire, then quickly realized, no, it was just shining, and then, before I could actually begin to wonder how the ground could be shining, I realized than it wasn’t ground at all, but water (which explained the preponderance of the dragonflies that I’d been seeing); I was looking down upon a river, shining because it was reflecting sunlight.
Even in my current state of great anxiety, it was a breathtaking sight. I couldn’t see anything clearly—the brightness dazzled my eyes—but a pace or two from us, and from the track Romulus had been leading us on, the ground came to a crumbly, cliff-like edge, and from there sloped down to the river. The slope itself was much sparser of vegetation than the forest; a few trees curved towards us amid clustered sprigs of broadleaf plants, and patches of long grass or weeds bearing blooming white flowers which grew less prevalent nearer the river, where smooth stones and red clay predominated. Across the river the woods wasn’t as crowded as it was on our side; there, trees—tall oaks, big-leafed tamboloyas, and white-barked birches—seemed to grow alone, in a dazzle of misty light, massive, tall as the sun, without the torrent of underbrush that Romulus and I had been picking our way through all day. I wondered whether it could be the same river Dr. Mulgar and I had gazed down upon that first time I’d gone outside, which now seemed a long long time ago.
Suddenly, I was tired, and I mean absolutely dogged, to the point of not being able to lift up my knees to take another step. I’m sure the onset of fatigue wasn’t actually sudden, rather that the focus of my awareness had slipped away from the wonder and misery of my passage through this strange new land just long enough to recognize that I had become tired, or else that I had gotten so tired that my muscles had re-directed my focus to them and away from my surroundings.
Either way, my muscles just didn’t want to go on; and though Romulus, ever observant of me, slowed his pace to compensate, I kept falling behind, as, urge myself forward as I would, I kept slowing and slowing and slowing, my legs more and more refusing to bend to my mind’s directive to keep moving forward. Often, to get myself to take another step, I had to grab a fold of my pants in each hand and, pulling, help my legs forward that way. Finally, despite the urgency—in my mind at least—to keep going, we had no choice but to sit down upon a fallen log and rest for a few minutes. This rejuvenated me enough to make it another forty or fifty paces, but after that, I again began lagging.
I wasn’t accustomed to such sustained exercise, I was drained from the days’ events, and I was definitely hungry and dehydrated (we picked our way downslope to the river, once, carefully, and sucked down a few handfuls of water, but other than that I hadn’t eaten or drunk since early that morning). When I couldn’t go any farther, Romulus carried me for awhile, but at length, he espied a bush covered in large leaves growing at the edge of the forest, right at crest of the river slope, and directed me to hide under it.
Carrying me to the river side of the bush, where it was easier to crawl under the branches, which like those of a spruce tree, extended almost to the ground, he pointed under it, and said, “They won’t see you there.” When I didn’t respond (which wasn’t because I was contesting his point, but because I sensed that he was going to leave me here, alone, and I was terrified by the thought), he assured me, “I will find my…” He sought a word in my language, and added, “my friends, and we will come.” Pulling the lowest branches up away from the ground, he directed me to crawl in, which I did, and was immediately engulfed in dimness and an odor part minty, part sour (I didn’t recognize it as “minty” or “sour” then, of course, just as the smell of that bush). I heard Romulus go down the river slope, then back up, then into the forest and back, and then the bottom of the bush came up, admitting light, and he said, “I can’t see you from any direction. Don’t make any sounds, and don’t come out until I return.” Then he was gone.
So, here I was: Lying flat on the ground, cheek to soil, alone in the shadowy dark minty miasma of this bush, petrified, willing myself to stay motionless because every movement I made seemed a crash of sound that must surely betray my location to anybody looking for me, and holding my breath as often and as long as possible because my respiration seemed a trumpet of invitation, announcing, “Here I am, here I am!” A rock pushed against my spine, a twig jabbed my ribs, bugs seemed to be crawling all over me, but I didn’t move; I was afraid to. I strained my eyes to see into the forest, but the only things I could make out were the dim outlines of the leaves and branches of my bush. I would have to depend upon my ears to tell me if anyone was coming, and here, not moving, not making a sound, breathing as little as possible, I heard the forest, clearer and louder than before, the thousand scuffles and scrapes and twitters and rustles and buzzes and snaps and splooshes, even the rippling of the water below me, a veritable symphony of sound—yet quiet; anybody would say it was a quiet place.
I listened, thus, motionless, each second seeming an eternity, until, beginning in an unperceived moment, newly among the sounds discernible in this deep silent symphony arose voices. To my relief, they weren’t the harsh deep barks of any of the Fatheads, and yet to my consternation Romulus’ quiet walnut voice wasn’t among them, either. Straining my ears, I perceived that there were two voices, only, and they weren’t actually coming from the forest, but from the river, blending in with and obscured somewhat by the lapping of the water against the shore.
One of them, though higher in pitch, reminded me in some fashion of the Fatheads’ voices, blunt and harsh, but also tinged with a shadow of the sophisticated restraint inherent in the deliveries of Dr. Mulgar and Dr. Bowusuvi; yet as different from either of them as metal from dirt, imbued (though without a particular richness of timbre) with a pure richness of something, of intent perhaps, clear as oil, full of wonder, inquisitiveness, and freedom. The other, though also higher in pitch, brought to mind Dr. Mulgar’s and Dr. Bowusuvi’s sophisticated containment, their control of the raw material of their voices, yet had in it a shadow of the bluntness of the Fatheads, and like the other was completely different from either the Fatheads’ or the doctors’, a whisper of fire rolling through it, but otherwise water-like, river-like—not rippling, literally, like the river, but somehow reflecting the voice of the river (I had the definite sense that if the river had a human voice, this would be it).
As I listened, these voices drew nearer to me, nearer, nearer, slowly, like a gentle rain sweeping across a plain, until at length I could make out, above the ripples and gurgles of the water, the words they were saying.
“What’s that stuff called, over there?” the one I perceived as blunt and wondering asked.
The one I perceived as the river voice replied, “It’s a species of sage, I think. Calib—Jay’s father—used to call it roseweed, or rosegrass. I’m not sure why.”
“Maybe because of the red?”
There was silence between them for a few seconds, the river rippled, the forest sang its continual song, and then the blunt wondering voice asked, “What about that?”
“That’s silvertail. It’s blooming early. That’s sweetbay there—you probably know that.”
Again there was silence between them for a few seconds, a few more seconds, and yet a few more. I thought they must have passed beyond the range of my hearing, which disappointed me, for I found that I wanted to keep listening to them, their presences, as well as being interesting, somehow also deepening, in their facelessness, the insulation of my hiding place. But then I heard the river voice say, with a touch of excitement, a touch of encouragement, “Hey, you got one!”
The other voice lamented, “Ahh!” The river voice encouraged, “Oh well, we’ve got enough,” and I discerned what I thought was laughter. Then they fell silent again, and when I heard them next, they were definitely getting farther away.
“Look, a heron.”
“Yeah!”
As these two voices began to fade into the background of the many other sounds around me, other voices arose, well, not so much arose, as the river voices had, but intruded, cut into, blasted into, the murmuring silence of the forest. I didn’t recognize the voices specifically as those of the Fatheads, but I knew it was them, or others like them—not Romulus’ people, but pursuers.
I strained my ears, trying to determine what direction they were coming from, and how far away they were; but my senses just weren’t keen enough. All I could ascertain for sure was that however far away they were, they were getting closer: The voices were increasing in volume—in almost direct proportion to the diminishment of those of the river duo, I noted inanely, in the way that people in highly stressful situations mark things as their brains ascend into a sort of hyper mode in which random and often seemingly non-sensical observations and calculations, which probably always are going on below the surface, are unleashed.
The closer these voices drew to me, the more terrified I grew; and the more terrified I grew, the more I became convinced that although this mint bush seemed to hide me from any possible observance, the proprietors of these voices would find me. My heart raced like a kitten’s; I tried to make myself smaller, I held by breath. The voices came yet closer; the river voices faded yet farther away. I was sure they saw me, or at least knew I was near. Unable to hold my breath any longer, I had to let out some air, which came out in what seemed a zephyr-blast of wind, which I was sure they had to have heard. I knew I had to run, and yet I was paralyzed. I couldn’t move! My muscles wouldn’t obey my brain; it was as if there was a disconnect between my cerebral cortex and my body, my body just a lump of flesh now, unconnected to my frantic brain. And the voices grew yet closer, the river voices so far away now that they could barely be discerned at all over the lapping of water and sighing of wind. I demanded, I ordered, my arms and legs and body to wriggle, to climb, out from under the bush, and to get up and run; but they wouldn’t: I was paralyzed, and the hard voices were coming closer. I felt a scream arise within me, and I suppressed it, but it wouldn’t allow itself to be suppressed, it rose again, and I suppressed it again, but it rose yet again, and to force it back, I screamed at it, inside my head, inside my gut, I screamed at that scream; and then my brain was flooded with darkness and scorching light, a river of blood and fire rushed through me, I felt a tremendous fluttering of giant wings; and I was on the slope, sprinting towards the river.
The sun flashed, orange-yellow, in and off the river, surrounded and banded by sparkles of white, making it seem as if I were running into light, dancing light that dazzled my darkness-adjusted eyes. Maybe I glimpsed two figures upon a raft downriver, maybe that’s an impression of retrospect; maybe I screamed something, maybe I didn’t. I careened downhill. I had the sensation of light and uncontrollable motion, speed that was too much for my body to sustain and that was about to convert my run into a tumble; and then I entered the light—and was in darkness.