In the process, I’m going to merge this newsletter, Everlands, into my other newsletter called Stephen’s People. You won’t notice any changes other than the email address it comes from will be slightly different. The newsletter will still be titled Everlands, and will continue to arrive as it always has.

You were wonderful readers of my recent novel of the future, and I appreciate your eyes on my sentences. Every writer craves attention and connection and I feel that I have received both from you. Thank you. Let’s enjoy this change to Everlands together.

Feel free to comment, below, or send me an email at stephen@stephenpwilliams.com

Yours,

Stephen

I’m not there yet. As you know, I serialized my novel, The Lost City of Desire, in this newsletter, using AI, mostly, to illustrate it. That was a fulfilling exercise, though I’m not sure how well the serialized form works. At the moment, I’m working on something else, a one man show I’m writing about a journey I took and the family that influenced it. I’ve written act one (part one? section one? — the word “act” seems too tradition bound). I’m recording 90 second scenes and posting them to TikTok. While most people know TikTok as a vapid space full of dancing and makeup tutorials, it’s actually a rich environment for storytelling and thinking. At least that’s how I see it.

Below, you’ll find the first five “episodes” of my new experiment. I’m learning as I go, and there’s certainly a cringe factor for me as I watch these. I’ve never been much of an actor, as is obvious. But I know that sincerity goes a long way, so I’m working on conveying that. And I plan to take some improv classes in the coming months. It’s a process, and not worth being embarrassed about.

I will post others here as the weeks go on. But for the full effect, download TikTok and follow me. Or look on the web at TikTok: Stephenspeople. Thank you for being here.

Excerpts from An American Family, by Stephen P. Williams

Scene 1

@stephenspeopleA story for all of us #writersoftiktok #writing #aging #sun #family

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@stephenspeopleTrue story. #aging #cult #writersoftiktok #storytelling #story #stories #60plus #family #familycult #nonfiction #narrative

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@stephenspeopleTrue story about a crazy family #aging #cult #familycult #writersoftiktok #storytelling #story #stories #creativenonfiction

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@stephenspeopleTrue story. #agnespelton #covid #2020 #whitneymuseum #art #storytelling #writersoftiktok #writer #story #storytellers

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@stephenspeopleTrue story #agnespelton #whitneymuseum #virus #2020 #metropolitanmusem #lockdown #aging #storytelling #writer #writers #nonfiction #creativenonfiction #writersoftiktok

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Scene 6 (incorrectly labeled part 5 on the video)

@stephenspeopleTrue story of an unusual family. #highline #whitneymuseum #virus #2020 #writersoftiktok #writers #story #aging #audiononfiction #book

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I knew when I was nine years old that I wanted to be a writer. I remember the realization like this: I was in the backseat of my grandmother Grace’s little white Dodge on the way from Lawrence, Kansas to Kansas City, when suddenly we were enveloped by a pack of Hell’s Angels filling both eastbound lanes. There were beards and curls and clumps of hair clapping in the wind and the jean jackets and leather vests were greasy beneath the colors reading “Hell’s Angels” above a skull with angel’s wings. I felt right at home with these guys. I wanted that freedom. That hair. I wanted to be driving down the highway scaring the shit out people with no care in the world. That’s how I saw it as they sped ahead of us, my grandmother shaking her head. Not long after, I saw a copy of Hunter Thompson’s book, Hell’s Angels, on our coffee table, and looking through that I knew I wanted to be a writer more than I wanted to be an Angel. I wanted to observe, not be.

Ever since, I’ve been observing. I’ve been a writer my entire life, but all that means is that I’ve been looking, searching, uncovering, finding, imagining, with the lucky skill of being able to put it all into words. Now, 57 years later, when I think about writing I picture a machine in my brain going click click click, ordering my thoughts, my wishes, my life. I don’t know that I could continue living without constantly structuring my reality into sentences. I even rewrite other people’s sentences as I read, to see how they would sound. I am thrilled by good sentences written by others. And I’m not that bothered by bad ones.

Now that I know how to write well, I dislike perfection. I revise my writing over and over, building and shaping it until it takes the right form. But I’m very careful not to overdo it. Too much revision kills the page.

That’s the best advice I can offer any writer who might want some advice (most don’t): There is a point where revising something sucks the life out of it. I have learned this the hard way. And often, the revisions come at the behest of others — editors, agents, publishers, collaborators. So I try to trust my gut, always, rather than the ideas of others. Arrogant, for sure. But also correct. LOL.

I first made money from writing when I was 12 years old, and sold a poetry chapbook I’d written with my friend, Mark (now named Josh), in a Lawrence, Kansas headshop named Strawberry Fields. The place smelled like patchouli and fruit candy and was run by a group of long-haired 20-somethings who loved the idea of 6th grade poets doing their thing. We sold about 60 copies at 50 cents a piece, with no upfront costs. I wish that I’d never tried to sell my writing again. Selling writing is a soul-damaging activity.

Now, 53 years later, I have sold hundreds of thousands of words at prices ranging from $.25 to $10 per word. For most of that money, I have compromised my creative self. Generally, when I haven’t compromised by trying to meet the needs of the market, or an editor, my words haven’t sold. And since I’ve made my living as a writer for over four decades, I’ve compromised a lot. I’ve written many words that I didn’t want to write.

I cough when I’m tense or anxious. I’m coughing as I write this.

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After college, I was accepted into the master’s writing programs at two universities. The two heads of the creative writing department at the University of Mississippi South Station, Hattiesburg, were fantastic fiction writers who shared the last name Barthelme. I admired them. They tried very hard to recruit me into their program, based on the fiction I sent them. At the same time, Stanford University offered me a slot in their journalism program, based on nonfiction writing I sent them.

I faced the choice of going for a Masters of Fine Arts or a Master’s in Communication . At the urging of people who said Stanford was more prestigious, I went there. That led to a wonderful career in journalism, with trips all over the world, but it also led me into a relationship with words that was constantly defined by commerce. I continued to write fiction, though no one wanted to publish it. And I have always wondered what my life would be like today if I’d gone to the University of Mississippi and focused on fiction writing instead of journalism.

At the moment, I am still making my living as a writer. I ghost write, mostly. I feel fortunate that I’ve been able to do this work. Yet, my hope for the future is to never again have to make money as a writer. I want to avoid the compromises that necessarily come with that. As I think of the future, I imagine working only on projects that are creatively driven. Projects that I believe in. Projects that have nothing to do with money, and everything to do with expression of a vision. I believe I will find great fulfillment as a writer in the coming years, following this ideal. But I’ll probably also be broke.

[Read chapters 1-47 here. This is the final chapter. A new project will follow.]

It was a hot morning and I felt uncomfortable walking in my boots. I worried that we might not have enough food, and whether my clothes were clean enough, and even if my aunt and uncle back in New York were getting enough to eat without me there to help them out. It was an endless loop.  And then it stopped when I realized that really, I was worried about my mother and father. What If they’d abandoned me on purpose. What if they were dead?

I had trouble imagining what they were doing in The West. I thought the whole point was that my mom went there to rescue my dad, and got trapped. And now the hermit was saying that the border was more or less wide open. Would she know that? Couldn’t she have come home for me?  How could a mother just leave her daughter and never come back?

Carmen took my arm and pulled me to a stop on the trail.

“Are you ok?” she said.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, shaking my arm free. “Why?”

“Because you’re talking to yourself. I’ve never seen you do that.”

“Nah, I’m fine, really.”

We continued along the trail and my mind spun with thoughts about my mother and my father.

“Why on earth am I doing this?” I said to no one.

“What?”

It was Carmen. Damn, I thought. I really am talking to myself. I ignored her, kept walking.

“Sarah, seriously. What is going on?” 

I stopped and looked at the ground.  Carmen stood a little away from me, I could see her feet. 

“I don’t know why I am doing this,” I said. “It’s like I’ve come all this way and I don’t know why or how I got here. It’s crazy. All my reasons have fallen apart.”

Carmen  inhaled sharply, rubbed her boot on the ground like she was a horse. I laughed silently at that image of her. Look, this horse can count!

“I know why I’m here,” Carmen said. “I know exactly. I need to be myself. I need to get out of that rut of a life I was in and you gave me the chance. And I know why you’re here, Sarah. It doesn’t matter what the truth is about your mom and dad. It doesn’t matter what they’ve done or who they are right now. What matters is that you see it for yourself. That you know, for sure, what your story is – whatever it is.”

I felt  her loyalty to me, and the bond we’d formed on this ridiculous journey like a shawl around my shoulders. I thought about how I’d always felt like I didn’t know something. There was always a missing piece in my life, and maybe the truth was that there was never anything there to lose. Nothing was missing at all. “So you’re still ready to do it?”

“Hell yes,” said Carmen. “Fight those thoughts. Beat them down! Stomp their asses!”

We walked on. And on. And on. I must have been afraid of everything because the walk seemed to go forever. Once in a while I heard a sound in the underbrush off the trail and I knew that it must be Little Calico. Or was it the cat Carmen had told us about. Why did Carmen attract these protectors? Why did they hang out in the background?

It was late afternoon when Carmen held her hand out for us to slow down.

“What is it?” I said.

“Shhhh,” she said.

We all stopped moving and followed Carmen’s gaze across the valley.

This was where the wall was supposed to be. There was nothing but a vast pasture,

“Fuck,” I whispered.

 Carmen caught a glimpse of an old apple orchard up the hill and we hiked up through brambles and weeds to the rows of twisted apple trees, the bark gnarled like an old man’s forehead. The branches were filled with young, shiny fruit, largely unblemished, and we picked what we thought we could eat – all our pockets, our hands, my hat – and sat on the ground and ate what we wouldn’t be able to carry.  We were lucky to find the orchard but still I felt hungry. I wanted meat. I craved bread, of all things. I ached to be filled up.

We walked all that afternoon. A couple of times we had to skirt through the woods to dodge people on the path, but overall the walk was simple and trouble-free. At one point we came to an archway crafted of finely sanded wooden beams and steel bolts. These words had been burned into it:

Outsiders: turn back now. You are not welcome here.

We looked around for any sign of guards, or police, or soldiers, but there was no one, nothing. I saw a group of five bees flitting between flowers in the pasture next to us, and an old grey barn in the distance. So many black eyed Susans between us and that barn, bees on every one.

We walked easily through this border crossing that I’d worried about since leaving New York. 

“It is a myth,” I said. “Every last bit of it.”

The hermit had packed us some food. Carmen took out two slices of bread and honey.

“Thank God for the bees, “ she said.

###The End ###

[Read chapters 1-47 here. This is the final chapter. A new project will follow.]

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Thank you for reading my novel, which I completed just before the pandemic kicked in, in March, 2020. I remember doing the final edit while I was recovering from my first case of covid. I love this book. I have written five other novels in the last 40 years, each one quite different in terms of subject and genre. But this is the second I’ve set in a post apocalyptic New York. After publishing this novel, I think I’m finally over my preoccupation with this setting.

This has been an interesting publishing experience both for the loyal, yet small audience I’ve attracted, and for the quiet haters. A number of people who’ve read my work over the years don’t like this novel. It’s not serious enough, or literary enough, or it’s “genre” or it’s dumb. As a writer, I don’t really understand these judgements. But publishing it this way has shown me that that there are a number of people who like this book, and followed and read it carefully (there’s tons of data within this platform, Substack, that writers can use to drive themselves crazy trying to figure out who their audience is). The chapters had consistently high opening rates. This committed audience has been so gratifying. Your commitment. Thank you.

Going forward, I will be publishing posts about the writers life, and what it’s like to be a ghostwriter. And soon I will began posting another, very different, project. I will also be adding videos, another passion of mine. Honk if you like the future!

Love and gratitude to all of you,

Stephen

[Read chapters 1-46 here. Only one chapter remains. A new project will follow.]

We continued up the high ridge, keeping our eyes out for drones.

I thought of the praying mantis that landed on my windowsill back in New York. It had seemed like a miniaturized drone, a super-sophisticated little thing. The kind of device my uncle was always so worried about – he assumed the Westerners had it all figured out, the best scientists. He assumed that they were just better than us in all ways. Everybody did. We all thought they must be more advanced, richer, more powerful. It was how the narrative had been set. But now, in this wilderness, where the innovations were even more basic than those in New York, I knew the praying mantis had just been a bug. Just a praying mantis. A beautiful, complex creation of God.

“Or whoever,” said Carmen.

“Well, something more complex than what we humans could put together,” I said.

“I’m not so sure these Westerners are all that brilliant,” said Carmen.

“We shall see,” I said.

I suspected she was right.

[Read chapters 1-46 here. Only four chapters remain. A new project will follow.]

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[Read chapters 1-44 here. Only four chapters remain. A new project will follow.]

I looked over to see Carmen still asleep. My body ached from passing the night on the cold ground. I found red coals that I used to bring the flames back to life.  I wanted nothing more than to be warm. We thought we had a long trip ahead of us, and no matter what, we wanted to reach the hermit before nightfall. From what Carmen had heard, it would be dangerous to travel this trail after dark. We were getting very close to the wall.

I made black tea with a sachet from La Gloriosa’s stash. Oh man, the caffeine felt good. I sweetened mine with the last of our sugar, and sat on a log and watched the sky come alive with faint color and the flitting of the birds. Carmen stirred and the two of  us were silent together, almost as if we didn’t want to wake Joe, but the cacophony of bird sounds reached its crescendo just as I finished my tea. I felt warm and ready for whatever was going to come.

We packed the potatoes from the night before and set off on the trail. Passing the pit I stopped and spit into it for good luck – nothing like that was ever going to happen to me again. The spit hit the wall and slid down, and off we went. Carmen led the way, keeping her eyes open for anyone approaching us on the trail. Things had changed, definitely, and it felt good not to be in charge, as I’d been before. It felt good to work as a team, even a team of two.

After an hour or so in the mountains the trail dropped down to an old farming valley, with broad fields undulating between hillocks and windbreaks of walnut and oak trees. According to Terence, this was near where we’d find the hermit who could give us final advice on getting through the wall.

“Look at this,” Carmen said, pointing out a fresh rut from some sort of wagon wheel. “There are people around here.”

Looking all around, I didn’t see anyone, but I could feel them, could feel eyes on us. It’s just a sense I had.

Turns out it wasn’t so exotic, this “feeling.”  All of a sudden there was a grandmotherly looking woman sitting on a wooden chair in the middle of the trail, blowing her warm breath on a bee that seemed to be having trouble in the cool air. The old woman wore  blue coveralls. Her hair was white and piled high and she’d pushed a pair of dark sunglasses up on her forehead.  We approached.

“Y’all looking for the wall?” she said, sending the newly warmed and energized bee happily on its way.

I said yes, and Carmen nodded. The lady looked about 80 years old, but healthy. It was weird. You hardly ever saw old people. Let alone doing this weird thing with bees. Another one landed over her outstretched palm.

“All y’all?”

I looked around. It was just the two of us.

“Yes,” I said.

“Hmm,” she said, twisting her head real quick to the right and then back.

“Hmm,” she said once more.

“Is there anything we can do for you?” I asked.

Her eyes got wide, and it looked like she was going to laugh, but she didn’t.

“For me?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think so. Who sent you here, anyway?”

“We’re crossing over to see my mother,” I said. “I haven’t seen her since I was a child.”

“That’s a tear jerker,” she said.

This hurt my feelings, but I kept myself in check.

“You’re just gonna walk right through the wall and into the West and there you have it?” the woman said. “Mom and love and apple pie?”

“We should go,” Carmen said. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

“You’ve got a lot of cover to ground.

Carmen bristled, and I thought she  might say something rude to the old woman. I nodded, and we started off. The lady stepped out of the way.

“Just one thing,” she said as we passed.

I stopped and Carmen tensed up near me.

“You’re coming from the city?”

“Yup,” I said.

“And who sent you? I know a bunch of kids like you didn’t come up this way without somebody telling you what was what.”

“Terence advised me,” I said.

“You don’t say,” she said. “He refer you to anyone?

“The hermit.”

“Terence and I go way back,” she said.

“Really? What’s your name? Terence practically raised me.”

“I don’t really have a name any more. I don’t really have much of anything any more. But I do have a good memory of Terence. He was my lover long ago.”

First La Gloriosa, and now this hermit. Terence got around. My eyes must have gone wide this time, because Carmen  looked at me funny, as if to say, “What?”

“Do you know where the hermit’s supposed to be?” Carmen asked.

“Yea,” I said. “That’s who we’re looking for.” 

“Well yes I do,” she said.

“Can you tell us?”

“Well, you’ve found her,” the lady said. “She’s me.”

Damn, I thought. I had pictured a kindly old man smoking a pipe on the front porch of a board and batten cabin. He’d offer us fresh strawberries from his secret patch and draw a map for us on birch bark as we ate oatmeal seasoned with fresh cream and maple syrup. No way did I expect this old lady, who seemed mean as a cur, really, and for no reason at all. But kind of funny, too.

“Terence said you could give us some advice about getting through the wall. And what to expect on the other side.”

“Come along,” she ordered us, and started straight down the hillside into a grove of trees.

Carmen and I looked at each other, and shrugged. What else was there to do?

She walked purposefully and quickly through the grove of trees and out into a swampy field where we had to step across the water from clump of grass to clump of grass and of course within a few minutes Carmen and I were soaked to the socks – the hermit remained dry.

“You’ll need to do better than that,” she said, giving our feet a once over. “Easiest way in the world to get hypothermia is to have wet feet.”

Soon we were climbing a narrow trail up through a pine forest. It was hot and steep work but within an hour she veered off into a rocky hillside and we followed her around a boulder to a simple stone house. It was a nearly perfect house, with square walls and overhanging eaves, a brightly painted red door and windows.

“Home sweet home,” she said.

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

“I wouldn't go that far.”

“Well, I already did.”

“Come on in,” she said.

We took our shoes off on the porch and I followed Carmen into the hermit’s living room.

Light poured in through large windows. There on a bench near the fireplace was Little Calico.  Holy shit, I couldn't believe it. She was grinning like crazy and so was I.

“She told me you all were coming,” said the hermit. “I’ve known this little darling for years.”

Carmen went right over and gave her a hug.

“I'm not surprised,” she said.

Little Calico grabbed her hand and held onto it.

Soon the hermit, who seemed actually to kind of like having people around, was serving us mint tea and honey from a ceramic, bear-shaped pot. It was Winnie the Poo. I recognized him from the Libray. In raised letters the pot said, “HUNNY.”

“You might not know it, but you’ve got a lot of friends,” she said. “’We all want you to succeed in finding your mother – and your father, of course.”

Little Calico nodded vigorously at this last bit, about my dad.

Something seemed fishy, like they weren’t telling the truth about something. 

“Is there something I should know about my dad?”

The hermit and Calico went quiet.

“What’s going on here?” I  said.

Calico looked at the hermit. The hermit looked at the floor.

“C’mon, fess up,” said Carmen.

Just the thought of my parents hit such a nerve that I felt I might burst into tears.

The hermit looked up at me, cleared her throat, and then spoke:

“Your parents were great friends to us – to Calico’s people and to my own. They always looked out for the little guy.”

Calico quickly wrote something and held it up:

“And gals,” it said.

“But they’re not around any more,” the old woman said.

“They headed west years ago. Nobody’s heard from them since.”

I started crying. I hated that. I did not want to cry and that shame turned me scarlet and I had to step out onto the porch. Carmen followed and tried to comfort me, but I wouldn’t have any of it. How was I supposed to know what to think? I wasn’t. That was the point.

[Read chapters 1-44 here. Only three chapters remain. A new project will follow.]

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[Read chapters 1-43 here. Only four chapters remaining. A new project will follow.]

When we returned to our fire, we realized Little Calico had disappeared without a word.

“Who knows, she might be right behind that brush over there, listening and watching,” said Carmen. 

“I wanted to thank her,” I said. 

I noticed a piece of paper on a flat rock nearby, addressed to Carmen. I gave it to her and she read the exquisite handwriting out loud:

“Carmen, you’ll be safe. And maybe I’ll be watching. Here’s what you do. You walk up the high trail for one full day until you reach the village of Dedodder.  Watch for drones along this section of the trail, as you are very, very close to the border. I know everyone talks about the wall, but I’ll let you in on a secret: don’t worry about it. It will not be a problem, seriously. Up ahead you’ll find the hermit. You and Sarah should listen to what the hermit says.”

 She folded the paper and put it in her pocket.  

“Ahh,” she said.

She remembered that Terence, too, had mentioned a hermit.

“Tell me again, who the hell is Calico?” I asked.

“She’s from a very peculiar group of people I met a few nights ago. They all originally came from the other side. They sent her to follow me and protect me.”

“From what?”

“I’m not sure,” Carmen said. “Maybe just my own inexperience and stupidity.”

I laughed.

“I hope she can save us then,” I said.

“She’s pretty clever. I didn’t even know she was following me – right alongside, but back in the woods — until I needed her. I tell you, I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit since you guys went off.”

I felt downcast.

“I know you had no choice but to leave,” Carmen said.

“Christ.”.

“I know you would have come back for me.”

“What happened to you? How’d you escape?”

“That’s a long story,” Carmen said. “That’s a nighttime story. But I’ll tell you, I didn’t “get” away. I didn’t escape. I just walked away. They pretty quickly came around to the idea that they had nothing they could hold over me -- I was undefeatable.”

I was impressed.

“I’ll tell you later,” she said. “Let’s build up the fire,” Carmen said. “I’ve got some sweet potatoes and some smoked trout that Little Calico left behind.”

“Damn I’m hungry.”

“Do you still have the device?” Carmen asked.

“Yup.”

“I think it’s going to help us a lot.”

Carmen stuck the potatoes in the coals to cook while we ate the trout. I lay down on the warm earth near the fire and fell fast asleep as the potatoes cooked. Carmen poked at the fire, feeling her loss.

[Read chapters 1-43 here. Only four chapters remaining. A new project will follow.]

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[Read chapters 1-42 here. Only five chapters remaining. A new project will follow.]

Little Calico stayed far back from the edge of the hole, separate, as was her want. Carmen held the top of the ladder and leaned way over as I climbed up.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I came upon the hole and there he was. He was alive, but  I couldn’t get him out.”

I just looked up at Carmen with an expression of wonder. I couldn't imagine what was next.

“Look at you,” Carmen said, helping me off the ladder to the ground.

“Oh my God, thank you,” I said, stepping away from the edge.

Carmen climbed down the ladder to be with him.

Kneeling next to Joe, she stroked his hair and face.

“Hey brother,” she said.

She lifted his dead weight onto her right shoulder and, groaning, climbed the ladder. Halfway up he started to slide from her grip and I reached down to steady her. Together we brought him the rest of the way to the surface. It was horrible, and terrifying, and also a beautiful thing to do together.

Carmen looked around.

 She looked again.

“Where’s Little Calico?”

“She was here a minute ago,” I said. 

Carmen did a slow 360, scanning the woods and the trail, no sign of her.

“You don’t know with her. It’s hard to say where she is, or if she’s around, sometimes. Very mysterious kid. And she doesn’t talk, at least not very often.”

“She can’t?”

“No, she can talk. She just doesn’t. None of them do.”

Suddenly Carmen looked towards Joe, lying on the ground, and burst into deep sobs. I felt helpless to comfort her. It wouldn’t be right to try to ease that pain right now.

At sunrise Little Calico appeared on the trail. She summoned them with a wave of her hand. They left Joe and followed her into the woods. After about 10 minutes Little Calico pointed to a spot where a column of light came down on a moss-covered pile of boulders and downed limbs. Little Calico led the way into a small cave, with a dry floor, just high enough to stand. Sunlight fell through the gaps in the boulders and moss grew over some of the wall. We understood that this was for Joe.

“It’s my fault, because I dragged us here,” I said.

Carmen put her arm around me.

“This is a good spot for Joe,” she said. “And I’m glad we have each other.”

We carried Joe, heavy and so apart -- so not there in that body, it was the strangest feeling -- into the chamber. Little Calico had gathered pine boughs that we draped across his body. Because it was just his body now. It was not Joe.

I looked up at the light through the cracks and said, “God, protect him as he moves to wherever he is going.”

Carmen held her face in her hands. We stayed in that cool place for a while longer, unsure what the ritual should be and happy -- strangely -- to witness to Joe’s passing.

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[Read chapters 1-42 here. Only five chapters remaining. A new project will follow.]

[Read chapters 1-41 here. Only four chapters remaining. A new project will follow.]

I couldn't stop crying and choked on my words as I pointed up to Carmen’s face silhouetted in the opening above.

“Carmen?” I said.

“What’s wrong with Joe.”

I couldn’t answer.

“Is he ok?”

“Carmen, Joe died yesterday.”

Her eyes grew large, and she looked perplexed, unable to grab that next thought.

“What? That can’t be…”

“I’m so sorry, Carmen…”

She began to panic.

“How the hell am I going to get you two out of there?” she said. Listen, just stay there while I figure this out.”

Carmen moved back from the edge of the hole so I couldn't see her.

The hole was damp and the air felt musty now, sickly. It seemed deeper and darker now, impossible to escape.

“Hello?”

I looked up, and Carmen wasn’t there. Did I really just hear her?

“Who’s that?”

It was Carmen’s voice, but I couldn’t see her. She wasn't talking to us – there was someone else up top.

“Oh it’s you,” she said. “Thank God. Come have a look at this.”

I leaned towards Joe for protection, but recoiled from his cold skin.

Suddenly Carmen’s face was above us again, and then another face popped out, a young, blond, innocent looking face. She smiled broadly, a huge smile that came all the way into our hole and warmed me, for a moment.

“This is my friend,” Carmen said. “She’s going to help us.”

“Carmen, how did you get here?”

“I’ve been walking. I’ve just been following where I thought I should be. Some people have helped me along the way. I don’t know. I’m here. We’re going to get you out of there. Are you ok?”

I nodded.

The girl, who seemed unable to say a word, and Carmen, pulled back from the rim of the hole.

“We’re gonna get out of here,” I whispered to the corpse. 

I don’t know how much time passed, but it could have been an hour when I heard footsteps above. In a moment I again saw Carmen’s face.

“You ok?” she asked.

“I'm thirsty,” I said.

“Hang in there,” she said. “I don’t have any water, but we’re making a ladder. Give us another half an hour – we have almost all the materials.

“Who is that woman?” I asked.

“I don’t know her name. She lives in a tree. All her people live in trees, in this amazing… She says she’s here to protect me. I call her Little Calico.”

“Just get us out of here.”

“She’s getting the branches to make a ladder right now. I’ve got to go help her.”

“Come back!” I said. “Be sure to come back.”

I closed my  eyes and lay back on the ground. I hadn’t had anything to drink in almost 24 hours. I felt hideously deformed – it was the strangest sensation. My body felt bent out of shape. And as soon as Carmen left my energy dropped. I had nothing left to offer. I lay  down on the floor next to Joe and closed my eyes.

In my dream I was on an island in the middle of the Hudson river, crouching in an evergreen forest. Dozens of drones flew back and forth in the sky above me, lighting up Shonda’s device each time, as if they could talk to it. I wanted to wear the sky, it was so deep blue. I couldn't let them see me. But as long as I stayed hidden, I knew,  I would never see anything new myself. I realized that meant I would never see my mother, and my heart sank. I could never find her if I didn’t expose myself.  I sobbed in my sleep, wanting her, knowing that I would never find her. It was the most painful dream.

“Sarah!”

What? Who was that?

“Sarah!”

I opened my eyes to the dank light. Carmen was back, along with the girl.

“Hey, you ok?” she said. Her voice sounded like it was coming from behind a thick curtain, and her face looked distant, far away. I didn’t answer. I knew I should, but at the same time it seemed ridiculous to answer. Of course I’m ok. I’m alive, aren’t I?

“We’ve got to put this ladder down there before someone comes along,” Carmen said. “Move over to the side, this thing is heavy as hell.”

“If you are going through hell, keep going,” I said. 

“What? I like that,” said Carmen..

“Winston Churchill,” I said.

“Who on earth is Winston Churchill?” Little Calico said.

“A leader.”

“What kind of leader?”

“A powerful one,” I said.

In truth, I had little idea who he was. Terence had taught me that quote.

“Move,” Carmen said. ”Muevete.”

I gently pushed Joe’s body against the wall, and stood and leaned as tightly into the wall as I could. Looking up into the daylight I saw the ladder poking over the edge of the hole. It was a beautiful thing, birch limbs held tight to each other with some kind of long thick grass woven into x’s at each joint. It looked sturdy and heavy – I flattened against the wall so it wouldn’t crash down on top of me.

“Be careful,” I shouted.

Carmen poked her head over the side, looked down.

“Nothing to worry about,” she said.

The weight of the ladder started pulling it downwards, with Carmen and her friend grunting as they struggled to control it from the top. I reached up to grab the bottom and ease it down. 

“I’ve got it!” I shouted.

“Let it down easy,” Carmen said. The ladder came down and was resting on the floor. It was so tall that the top of it poked out of the hole.

I stood there looking at Joe, almost afraid to move. It was weird. His eyes had receded into his sockets under closed eyelids, his cheeks were hollow. 

I moved my head to nudge him a little.

“What are you doing?” Carmen called down. “Come on.”

“What about Joe?”

“You first, then I’ll come down and carry my brother.”

She looked as though she were about to cry.

I stepped onto the ladder, which felt even more rickety than it looked, and I climbed step by step to the surface. Oh my God. The air on high was so clean.

[Read chapters 1-41 here. Only four chapters remaining. A new project will follow.]

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[Read chapters 1-40 here. Only five chapters remaining.]

Carmen  sparked some puffballs into flames and set that tiny ember onto some wood shavings. Once the shavings glowed, she shook them onto the twigs and her fire burst forth, warm and enticing. She set several apples she’d found earlier in the day on stones in the coals to bake. Raw, they were too sour, and she hoped the flames would caramelize the skins to sweeten her dinner. 

Her bed was a mound of leaves on which she’d set pine boughs, far enough from the fire not to burn, she hoped, but close enough that she’d stay warm. She lay down for a bit to rest while the apples cooked. Her eyes closed, she realized just how exhausted she was from the day’s hike. The heat of the fire felt so good on her legs. She started to drift. And then she heard a crack. She opened her eyes: the fire, the sticks burning. It wasn’t that. She felt a presence.

There on the other side of the fire in the flickering shadows was a girl she’d seen back at the tree houses. Freckled skin, strawberry blond hair, wearing a long old-fashioned dress of the type Calico Mom wore.

Carmen sat up, tense. The young woman smiled, hugging her knees into her chest.

“What are you doing here?” Carmen said.

She felt in the dirt behind her for a rock, anything she could throw. She found a stick. I’ll stab her, she thought. Right in the throat. She could feel the stick going into the soft part, the gurgle that followed. No one’s going to hurt me.

The girl was silent. Just smiled.

This unnerved Carmen even more, and she clutched the stick tightly.

“I know you can talk. I know all of you can talk.”

The girl just shook her head no and pulled out a pad of paper and a pencil and wrote a few words. In a moment, she tore out the sheet and handed it to Carmen:

“They sent me here to help you. I’ve been following you. We were worried you’d get in trouble out here.”

“I don’t need any help,” Carmen said.

The girl looked at her quietly, which Carmen interpreted as pity. Carmen didn't like that, but she began to calm down.

“Are you sure?” the girl wrote.

“I’m fine,” Carmen said. “What’s your name?”

The girl didn’t answer, just gave her a goofy, happy look.

“Ok, I’m going to call you, hmmm. I’m going to call you Little Calico.”

The girl beamed.

“That’s right, little Calico. Thank you for helping me.”

The girl wrote some words and handed them to Carmen.

“You might not know the dangers. I’ve been around them all my life, so I can spot them. We are very close to the wall.”

“What do you know about the wall?”

That smile again, the wide eyes that in their stillness projected arrogance: I know. I am wise. I don’t need to brag about it.

“We are all from over there,” she wrote. “I’ve been there several times. And I know that these are the lands where you have to be the most careful. And there are lands where you are safe. You need to eat.”

The girl opened her small backpack, reached in and pulled out a dead rabbit, sunken in death, not yet cleaned.

Holy hell, Carmen thought, I am so frigging hungry.

“Slingshot,” Little Calico wrote.

She picked a nearby flat rock and went about eviscerating the rabbit. As she did that, Carmen built up the fire, excited about the meat to come. This Little Calico wasn’t so bad.  Together they roasted pieces of rabbit on green sticks. It was hard to wait until they were cooked to eat them, and at one point Carmen bit into a barely cooked piece of heart even as the girl shook her finger no!

Phew, it was gross.

“Parasites,” the girl wrote on her paper. She wasn’t smiling.

Carmen finished cooking the piece.

“Ok, thank you,” Carmen said when they’d finished the rabbit.

She immediately got tired in that heavy way the body gets when it’s finally been satisfied, so she built up the fire again and lay down in the dirt, a stone as her pillow. The girl sat on a boulder, scribbling furiously in her notebook, possessed by a thought.

Just before sunrise the birds started in. The sky was still inky blue and they were crowing and whistling and caw cawing and singing like this was the first day of the universe. Carmen sat up and stretched and looked around. For a moment she thought maybe she’d imagined the whole thing but then she saw the rabbit bones in the ashes and she knew it was real.

The girl appeared from the trees. It felt so good to be taken care of, even if only for an evening,” Carmen called to her.

Carmen hadn’t realized how much she’d been on her own in the last days, how much she’d been left to her own devices. She didn’t mind that, but she also didn’t mind the kind thoughts and the rabbit.

“My pleasure,” said the girl, her voice a little rusty.

Then she folded a paper and put it on the ground, held in place by a small rock. Carmen picked it up and read the letter.  

“My Dear Carmen,

I want to tell you how I know what I know.

My heart came from the other side.

I am born of the Hard Fork. My family lived there when I came to be. We were dispatched from there when I was a child, because we refused to believe. (They are crazy people. They demand submission. They are going to hurt you if you say anything different.)

The crossing is not difficult – unless you get caught by the wrong person. Then you’ll either submit and convert or you’ll suffer. But if you make it inside, you’ll probably do all right..

I will be by your side, in spirit and in flesh.

This is what we do, the tree people. We protect and nurture. It is our God-given duty. So be safe. Be with us. Don’t be surprised by anything. Everything will happen. You can’t control the flow of time.

Lil’ Calico 

Just then, boom, boom, boom, gunshots nearby.  Carmen hid behind a tree. It seemed like the sound came from near the trail. She peaked around. No one was near, except Lil’ Calico, also behind a tree. She hid for a long time, waiting for movement. While she waited, she chewed a stick and rubbed it against her gums to clean her teeth and then chewed a couple of pine needles to get rid of the night taste in her mouth. Always do something, was her motto. After minutes had passed, she started carefully down the trail again. She felt energized and alert, and remembered the Lil’ Calicos’s words: “these are the lands where you have to be careful.”

She stepped back onto the trail and proceeded cautiously.

And there ahead was a large hole, obviously man made, a trap. 

She slowed and checked her breathing so as not to make a sound, crouched down and moved up to the edge of the pit. She leaned over and saw there at the bottom her brother and Sarah, curled up like wild children in the dirt. Sarah held the gun. Carmen looked quickly around, 360 degrees, to see if anyone was watching. She saw no one.

“Joe,” she called in a loud whisper. “Joe!” she called louder.

She saw Sarah open her eyes.

“Wake up,” Carmen called. “It’s me.”

“Carmen?” Sarah said? “Oh my God, oh my God.” She started crying, sobbing, as though everything broken had suddenly been revealed.

[Read chapters 1-40 here. Only five chapters remaining.]

[Read chapters 1-39 here. Only six chapters remaining.]

The dawn cast desperate sunlight into the hole. I knew – I didn’t “feel,” I knew – I was going to die here. There was no other option. Joe’s soul pulled me deeper into oblivion. I couldn’t bear to be trapped with his dead body. The days would pass and I would starve, and while I was  starving I would actually die from lack of water. It might rain and slake my thirst but eventually there would be no rain and that was going to kill me, and it wasn’t going to take too long.

Now that Joe was gone, my feelings about him were so clear. Good, I thought, to die alongside your first love.  We would die and be buried, here in this hole.

Not so fast. I tried to shake myself out of my death thoughts.

I dug my fingers into Joe’s back pocket for the knife he always kept there, and I stabbed at the hard packed dirt to make footholds. The dirt was unyielding. I carved out an inch or two of dirt before the blade suddenly collapsed back onto the pocket, nearly slicing my hand.  The walls had been smoothed so carefully, clearly to keep whatever fell in the hole from finding a way out of the hole.

“What if a bear walks up and falls in – can you imagine?” I’d said to Joe before he died.

“You’ll punch it for us,” I said.

“I bet you will,” I said.

“Seriously --- I’ll fucking kill it.”

I was so desperate to solve this problem, though it didn’t seem seem likely to happen.

I sat on the floor with my feet stretched to the other side. His body lay across from me with his feet nearly touching my side of the wall. The hole was starting to feel pretty small.

“You look miserable,” I said.

Death doesn’t become anybody.

I’m gonna try again. I’m gonna horizontal it up this sucker,” I said, to no one, to a dead kid.

I put two hands on the wall about shoulder height, raised my left leg behind me nearly as high, and jumped up to get my right foot up there too. It worked! I was suspended a few feet off the floor.

I lifted my  left hand away from the wall and slapped it back a few inches higher. Did the same with my  right hand – I was doing it!

Then I fell. Landed right on my hip, my foot kicking Joe in his dead face.

“Motherfucker…..” I shouted in pain.

“Dammit!” I said.

I curled in the fetal position on the cold floor.

I put our blanket over me and curled up as tight as I could. Joe didn't need it. 

”I think we need a miracle,” I said. “I'm going to pray for that.” 

And I did. I closed my eyes and said this prayer:

Dear God, please guide Joe to the place he needs to be. I have no idea where that is. Or what that is. Please show me the path that I should follow. If this is what you want, please rescue us from this hole. Thank you, Friend.

It wasn’t a specific prayer from any book. Just a way of prayer I’d learned over the years.  I’d heard so many times that prayer was the best, last recourse. Also the best first recourse, although most people don’t think of it until they are in a seriously bad situation. Clearly, that’s where we were right now. So I prayed.

You know, nothing happened.

I saw no light. Certainly no lightning bolts. But still it felt like the right thing to do. I can’t explain it. I just kept praying, saying the same thing over and over. And after a while this sensation came into my chest. My heart felt a little bumpy, like it was filling with something and little bubbles were coming up on the surface. It was a good feeling, I’ll tell you.  I thought of my mother. I saw this face I remembered from when I was a kid. I was sure it was her. A big wide grin on her face pushing her cheeks out, a cartoon chipmunk storing acorns for the winter, her chipmunk eyes sparkling and full of life. I knew I was going to see her again. I just knew it. I was going to get out of here. It was clear to me. I felt satisfied. I held onto Joe and kept praying, hoping that some of the feeling would fill him, bring him back to life, or at least help him on his journey. I heard a distinct buzzing in my ears, like bees and cicadas and frogs and dragonflies, a cacophony of buzzing sounds. We just stayed like that for a long time. At one point I smelled fire, roasting meat. I was that hungry.

In the morning, I heard voices -- indistinct, couldn’t be. Too distant. But definitely two women talking. I shouted, but no answer. I was hearing things. No, there they were.

I took the pistol from my bag -- what else was I gonna do with it? -- and pointed at the sky with both hands on the handle and pulled the trigger so it fired, kicking back, oh my God, the butt of the gun nearly hit my face, the concussion of sound in my ears. Somebody’s gonna hear that I thought.

I felt a rush of power. It was good. I fired again, and again, and the fourth time the pistol just clicked -- no more bullets. The powerful feeling drained instantly away.

[Read chapters 1-39 here. Only six chapters remaining.]

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[Read chapters 1-37 here]

Growing up, Carmen never went hiking, not once. She rarely left her family’s upstate farm. The rest of the world outside her family’s fields, and the swim pond, all the world across the cracked asphalt river road, none of that drew her when she was young. She never explored. She just stayed put. Then, all of a sudden, she realized she was turning into her mom, who was known in their area as a troubled recluse. So she pleaded with her father to take her with him on his next trip to the city to barter grain for goods.

On that trip, when she was 14, she saw how liberating it could be to travel somewhere else. Just sailing down the Hudson under the big broken bridges was a mind-opening experience – thinking about how anyone could have designed those bridges, let alone build them, had her mind racing. Her father made her stay  pretty close to the boat on that first trip and often when men came to trade with him, he made her go down below and out of sight. One time she peeked through a crack in the cabin hatch as two brutal looking men stepped on to the boat and came right towards her father, right up close. Her heart pounded knowing he wouldn’t put up with that. They were demanding wheat for free, said they would protect him if he gave it, but his face went cold in a way she’d never seen and he reached back for a club and hit the first guy right across the temple. He fell back onto the deck and her father ordered them both off the boat. That night they ate quietly, grilled sturgeon and pilaf, and he never said a word about what happened. When she told Joe he accused her of exaggerating.

“You’ve got a lot of him in you, you know,” she said. He ghosted her the rest of the afternoon. He hated being compared to his father. He’d vowed long before to never be like him.

Still, that trip to the city cemented her desire to visit again, and again.  This most recent voyage down the river was only her third trip, and the first she’d taken without the old man. Now look where that had gotten her.

Yeah, look at me, she thought. Climbing yet another hill on a mossy path.  I’m never going back to the way things were.

An image of her mother creaking back and forth on a metal glider sofa on the front porch appeared in front of Carmen and just stayed there, taunting her as she walked up the hill. The image wanted her to feel guilty for leaving her mother. But she wasn’t going to do that. In fact, she was glad to be away. She’d never thought she would be glad to leave her family, but the truth was unavoidable: she was happy. Even Joe got on her nerves often enough. She was good alone.

At that thought the trees shimmered in the wind, a great quick blowing that had her in the center of things, the nexus of the world.

Carmen caught herself: she had to find Joe and Sarah. Mind couldn’t wander. She  hoped they were right up this trail somewhere. That was the best she could do – hope.

Because I don't have a frigging clue where I am beyond that, she said to herself.

The mossy trail opened onto a ridge with views of distant rolling mountains covered with trees, and a valley with a small river running down below.  She was on the high trail Calico Mom had spoken of. It was getting steep and it was starting to kick her ass, but she kept her steady pace. Not too fast, but definitely not slow.

You’d think I’d be more scared from having to deal with Shonda, and those dudes by the river --  even Calico Mom was a bit scary, in her pale way, Carmen said to herself.

She’d seen Calico Mom start talking to herself when she thought no one was looking.

That wasn’t cool. Especially because Calico Mom had as her life’s mission keeping other people from talking.

Look at me. I’m laughing at myself.

Too self-conscious.

Snap out of it.

You were always too distracted.

Helloooooo! she said out loud.

Then there was a crashing sound and she stopped, cocked her head, and listened, every muscle tense, her whole body suddenly firing on fear. She looked up along the cliff face to catch a two-foot wide boulder bouncing down from ledge to tree to ledge and, finally, out into the free air where it fell until it disappeared into the abyss.

Carmen quickly left the trail and went about 30 yards back into the thick holly and pine trees to hide from whoever had knocked that boulder off the trail. She crouched behind a fallen log and cocked her head: no sounds. She could see about 50 yards down the trail, and then it disappeared into the foliage. She thought she caught a glimpse of pink.

What if it was Joe and Sarah?

She struggled to remember what they had been wearing. She couldn’t. Joe always wore whatever was at hand, but she didn't remember him wearing anything red on this trip. She didn’t know Sarah well enough to  say what she would wear. And anyway, it had been a few days.

Dammit! She said out loud, swatting at her legs and belly. Jesus!

Something was biting her and she rolled away from the log.

Ants! Jesus. Oh my God. She brushed the mulch off her knees and there were 10 or 12 red spots there from where the ants had pincered her. One had gotten into her belly button and she dug her fingernail in there to stop the bite from itching. She scurried away, low to the ground to keep out of sight, suddenly so vulnerable. And then there were footsteps, thuds, on the path. She lifted her head for a look and there they were, passing on the trail. A big group, maybe 15 men and women, ragged looking, marching in formation. Peasants. That came to her mind. A word she’d never used. They looked terrified, their clothes patched and dirty. She ducked so they wouldn't see her, but maybe too late, because they stopped.

“Watch your way there!” a man cried.

“Shhhhhhhh,” said a woman.

“Don’t shush me. And don’t block the way!”

“Shhh. I hear something.”

“Something coming out of your ass, maybe.”

“We should have left you on the other side,” she said.

Carmen froze in fear. These could be Hard Fork disciples from across the wall. They were either fleeing that world, or they were part of it, sent here for no good reason. She breathed deeply, preparing to run if she had to.  She didn’t trust them.

She lifted her head to watch them.

“There she is!” the woman cried. “I saw a girl.”

“Get her,” said the man.

Carmen jumped up and ran into a holly stand, the sharp leaves snapping at her face. She just kept going, running further and further from the crashing noises she heard behind her. They were slower. She felt like there was energy in her legs lifting her higher and farther and faster than she’d ever gone. She jumped over a fallen log and climbed up a rocky slope before pausing to look back.

One of the women was almost upon her, red face and hair flowing over her baggy shirt.

“Why are you spying?” the woman said. “We’re not over there anymore. You have no right.”

“What are you talking about?” Carmen said.

“Who are you?”

“I come from the Hudson River. Who are you.?”

“We are from back there.”

“The wall?”

“The West. We are heading east.”

“So you’re from the other side.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Are you headed to the city? To New York”

The woman just gave her a blank look. She didn’t know what that was.

A general mayhem rose down below, her people calling to her to hurry. 

“Don’t let the punks mess with you,” she called out to Carmen as she ran back down the hill. They were incapables, Carmen thought. That group tramped off up the trail. None of them looked very fit, or very happy.

Carmen sat for a moment, a little surprised. If that woman was from the other side, what was the other side like? She seemed like she was from the 20th century or something. Backwards. Unkempt. Frightened. Carmen climbed down the hill and looked up the trail in the direction the people had come. Nothing. No one. She proceeded along the trail, tense and alert for any noises. About a mile along, the trail split into a Y. The right finger of the Y was well traveled. The other trail rose sharply uphill to the left.

So this is the high trail Calico Mom spoke of, she thought. I wasn’t even close before. Calico Mom was right.

Carmen set off uphill on this trail feeling protected, guided and at peace after her scare. The disciples had disturbed her. There was a disconnected sense about them that made her feel awful. She wanted no part of it.

The woods were beautiful again, the trail mossy again. She walked on, certain of her mission. She was going to find Joe and, with him, Sarah.

[Read chapters 1-37 here]

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[Read chapters 1-37 here]

The trail went hidden on my third day out and I bushwhacked through the thick underbrush. I hated the grime that collected where my boots met my cuffed jeans. 

When we left Manhattan, I thought I would like the woods, but the heat and slapping branches and gnats and  mosquitos were so  difficult. In the morning I came across an abandoned wooden cabin that I thought would make a nice hideaway for that time in the future when I’d be able to just relax. Inside I found a short machete, a tin cup, and a battered copy of Playboy c. 1997. Weird. Later, I stopped in a clearing to eat some leftovers from La Gloriosa, and paged through the magazine.  Most of the comics made no sense, but the women were pretty, in this weird, plastic way.

I held the magazine open and a long photograph unfolded revealing a brown-skinned woman wearing only a leopard print scarf, reclining on a chaise lounge below desert rocks. Her body was shiny and taught, muscles rippling on her stomach, her boobs to the sky.

The magazine was like a guide to ancient history. The woman so unreal. The idea of this woman going in a room and posing nude for that magazine was impossible for me to picture. It was so strange, but the magazine itself made me feel almost as if I were doing something wrong – and I wasn’t doing anything but getting ready to walk off into the woods. I left the magazine behind in the clearing, for the wolves, and moved on.

I came to an opening in the trees and a view of the universe opened off a stone ridge in front of me. You could see forever. It had to be the canyon La Gloriosa talked about. The wall was close.

La Gloriosa had warned me that this was where I’d run into trouble. I scanned the horizon, saw only trees and cliff faces leading down to a river. And the trail I’d lost, thank God. I followed the trail back into the trees. The woods were very dark.

An image of my mother flashed across my mind. Wearing a blue sweater, jeans, brightly colored tennis shoes, she was walking happily along a city sidewalk as I looked up at her.

“I just saw my mom,” I said to myself. 

It was like I finally remembered what she looked like. There she was, smiling, her hair tucked behind her ears. Oh my God that made me feel so good.

 I continued on through the damp, spongy woods.  I felt so rich at that moment. I felt full. I felt there was nothing more I needed. As my eyes adjusted to the dark forest, the powdered surfaces and the mottled bark of the branches took shape. The path was thick with needles and leaves, stones in places. A stream flowed noisy and unseen through nearby rocks.

I turned to look at it, and as I stepped, my  right foot felt a hole, and I almost fell. I stepped back. It was huge. 

Bear trap!

I crawled forward and I looked into the pit and there was Joe, on his back looking up with vacant eyes. Was he dead? I looked around for help, but of course there was no one.

“Joe” I called out to him, and he stirred. 

“I’m coming down.”

“No,” he whispered, waving me away with a slight move of his hand. 

I reached for a handhold to lower myself down into the pit and suddenly slipped violently down the clay wall, scratching for a grip  but nothing held and I landed on my shoulder with a thump and a groan. Oh fuck! that hurt. For a moment I could see myself from above, crumpled in the dirt at the bottom of the pit. I lay still at the bottom, my cheek in the cool moss. I had to catch my breath.  Slowly I came back into myself. 

“Jesus Christ!” I cried.

I unfolded myself. Everything hurt.

I looked at Joe. He was crumpled and in bad shape. He had no idea what was happening.

“Damnit,” he said, holding his wrist. “I think I broke it.”

“Let me see.”

I didn’t think it was broken, but I could see he was in terrible pain. When I tried to soothe him he pushed me away and moaned deep and loud. I looked up at the moss and leaves dangling off the edge of the packed-dirt walls. It was at least 12 feet up to where the hole opened like an oculus to the deep green trees flecked with bits of blue sky. We were never getting out of here. 

I had to get him up into the sun. I stood and tried to figure out a way to climb the wall, but the dirt was packed so tightly, and the wall was so steep, that I couldn't even get a fingerhold. I felt defeated.  There was no point.

We sat on the ground for a long time, so overwhelmed that darkness seemed our fate.  I shut down for a bit, zoned out. I have no idea how much time passed but when I came to the world Joe was moving. Joe said everything was going to be ok, in a voice that reeked of defeat.

“Maybe you can stand on my shoulders,” he said.

He was joking, but I thought it might be a good idea.

He gave me a long look.

“You look so sad,” he said.

“How can you even see my face in these shadows?”

“I can see a little bit, but it’s more that I feel it.”

“I’m not sad, I’m pissed off,” I said. “I can’t believe this happened.”

“Why did you have to fall in?”

“I didn’t choose to fall in. Jesus. You’re the one who fell in first.”

“But you're the one who fell in stupid!”

He laughed at me.

“And you’re saying that you fell in smart?”

He smiled  at me. But he said, “I’m not gonna make it.”

“Of course you are. Here, let me hold you. Do you remember -- this is how we first met. I fell onto the roof of that truck. You saved me. My turn now.”

“Kiss me,” he said.

“What if somebody sees?”

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He laughed, and that made him cough, and that made him spit blood. I arranged him in my lap, my back against the wall, and stroked his face.

“I hope somebody sees us so they can get us the hell out of here.”

“That would be nice.”

 “I mean it,” he said, leaning forward. “I need to feel something good right now.”

I took his temples into my hands and leaned down and covered his whole face with kisses.

Everything smelled like clay. There were clumps of it in my hair.

“Dirty love,” I said.

I was hungry as hell.

“I’m fucking thirsty,” he said. “But we only have a little bit of water.”

“Save it,” I whispered.

“I wanted to live forever,” he said.

“You will,” I whispered back, his lips so close I felt his breath on my ear.

I could feel the dirt on my cheeks. He brushed my hair behind my ear and I could feel dirt coming off his hands and onto my ears. The sun was going down, and soon the hole was pitch black, except that when we looked straight up we could see through a gap in the trees to the stars. Somehow, being at the bottom of a hole, the circular opening caught a few points of stars and concentrated them, so the night sky looked thick with tiny white flowers.

We held each other through the night. I slept, for sure. In the morning light I stroked Joe’s face and it was clear that he was dead.

What if I had let myself love him? But I never had.

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[Read chapters 1-36 here]

Wherever she went now, Carmen felt accompanied by a guide, an unseen, trusted spirit. Except for moments – rare in the course of a day – when the guide was absent. Those were the dark moments, when she doubted herself. When she gave in to her fears. Unsettled, anxious for what the coming days would bring, at those times she felt alone in the world. But these moments were rare, thanks to her guide. She had received a gift from the meditators in New York. They had opened her to accepting the guide. She called her unseen guide “The Friend.”

She felt the presence of The Friend when she woke  early in the blue-black night to a brief storm of hemlock needles falling on her face and head. Something scurried high above – squirrel? bird? raccoon? An owl cried in the far distance, but otherwise the forest was still. Carmen returned to sleep. She woke again to the same pin prick of needles on her cheeks. Slept. Woke again. Then the sun lit the forest floor as though through a lace curtain. It was a dewy morning, with chipmunks skittering about nearby.

She had sleepy eyes and her shoulder still ached. She turned on her back and looked up into the canopy, massive hemlocks, definitely first growth, more than 500 years old. Something odd up there. Thick branches and rusted bark cracked like a dried stream bed in July. And there was, she was sure, a walkway along the branch, with wooden slats and a rope handrail. Holy shit! She scooted herself close to the tree trunk to hide, and brushed off the needles that had fallen on her through the night. With her eyes she followed the walkway from the tree trunk out to the first break in the branches and there she saw a little house.

“Damn,” she thought. “Trapped again.”

The sound of a guitar came from above, a man singing in a happy voice, soon joined by a woman.

Carmen listened closely, but realized there were no words. They sang, but it was just sound.

Carmen had heard that tune before, somewhere. Very pretty. Didn’t sound at all dangerous. She looked into the treetops and saw more walkways connecting little houses and decks. To get up to another level, or down, you had to either climb the tree or one of the rope ladders with wooden dowel steps that hung down from branches. She supposed they could easily be raised to stop intruders. She saw that rope bridges also joined one tree to the next. It was a village, 30 feet above the ground.

She hadn’t eaten since the afternoon before, and her stomach growled from hunger. The couple continued to sing, the song filling the air. This made Carmen feel safe. First, they couldn't hear her stomach, and second, if they were afraid of being found, they wouldn't sing so loudly. But she wasn’t about to risk being discovered. She could see the trail she’d been following the night before, and thought she’d take a run for it.

She stood, took a breath.

She saw herself running through the forest, leaping over downed trees, hopping across streams and bouncing over rocks, her step springy as moss, no one would catch her.

The music continued above her.

Now! she told herself. Now!

Something shuffled in the pine needles behind the tree. She looked around, then froze.

A friendly-faced man in overalls stood before her. He was silent, though she could hear him breathe. He removed his cap, politely, revealing a wavy blond mess.

“Hi,” Carmen said.

He smiled, just a normal smile.

“I didn’t mean to intrude on your place,” she said.

The music stopped. Carmen looked up into the trees where a young but motherly looking woman in a dress smiled broadly from the crook of a branch. A tall, grim-faced young man stared down from his perch not far away. A set of twin girls in pink flannels waved. There were maybe a dozen others scattered about the tree heights.  Not one made a sound.

The man in front of her smiled and motioned for her to follow him.

“I'm Carmen,” she said.

He didn’t reply, but even with his silence she felt safe. It just felt natural to follow him. She wasn’t sure why.

He led her to a cookfire behind a wall of mountain laurel. Pancakes of some sort cooked on the griddle. So that was what she’d smelled. She guessed they were corn. He put three on a plate, drizzled them with maple syrup and handed her a fork.

He moved his hands in a lifting motion.

“Eat?” she said.

He nodded.

He fixed himself a plate. They ate. As she swallowed the last bite of her third corncake she felt a slight panic at the thought that there might not be any more left. Caramelized and crispy on the outside, they were soft in the middle and sweet from the maple syrup, which had always been one of her favorite tastes. She’d wolfed these three down in just a couple of minutes. The man was still at the griddle, but maybe those were for the other people.

Then he set an enameled mug of tea down in front of her and admired her progress with the cakes.

He tapped her plate and motioned towards his mouth.

“Yes, I’m still hungry,” she said.

He went back to the griddle and she took a sip of the tea, which tasted of roots and spices, strangely satisfying.  He returned with three more corncakes, plus a boiled potato flecked with dill, salt and pepper.

She ate the potato, feeling more centered with each bite. It was room temperature, and she suspected it was left over from the night before.

 “God it feels good to be full,” she said.

He looked at her warmly. He had dark hair with silver streaks. He patted his stomach and moved his hands out like he had a big belly.

“You’re saying I’m fat?” she said.

He shook his head.

“I don’t want to be fat. Makes it too hard to walk fast.”

His warm look didn’t change.

Who is this old guy? Carmen wondered. Could there actually be guys as odd, yet likeable, as this guy? His absolute sincerity was remarkable.  She ate her cakes and felt really happy. Then she popped the last of the pancakes into her mouth in two bites and that was that. She was good.

He stood, wordless, and waited for her to stand too.

She knew he wasn’t deaf. And she wasn’t sure he was mute. But sure as hell she knew he wasn’t going to talk.

They walked to the other side of the tree where a rope ladder hung down from a high branch. The ladder was weighted at the bottom so it wouldn't sway too much, but still Carmen had a hard time getting up to the first level. She followed her new friend, if that’s what he was, along a plank walkway built on top of a fat, horizontal branch. She heard scurrying above, heard whispers, but she couldn't look for fear she’d fall off the walkway to the ground.

The woman in the calico dress stood at the end of the walkway next to another rope ladder. She had a gentle smile, blue eyes and flax colored hair. She held the rope which appeared to rise no more than ten feet to another branch.

When Sarah got onto the walkway the woman curtsied, something that Carmen had read about but never before seen. Carmen bowed silently in return.

Silence seemed very easy around this place. The wordlessness brought natural ease.

For instance, Carmen had no idea what this woman’s name was, or what relationship she had with the man, or why he’d brought her up here. If you looked at it one way, she had no idea about anything to do with this place.

But if you looked at it another way, she knew everything she needed to know. That is, she felt secure here. She felt comfortable. She felt this place was part of her purpose. This last feeling would have been the most difficult to explain – how could she possibly connect this treehouse village to any meaning in her life; she was only here by chance – but since no one here cared, it didn't matter that she had no words.

They seemed to understand her anyway.

What do I need right now? she asked herself. What would I be talking about if they could talk to me? She had no clue beyond her desire for safe passage to find Joe and Sarah. She wanted her brother near.

She sat at a table in a board-and-batten shack at the crook of a fat branch as the man, the calico mom, others, ate.

My odd situation, she thought.

Leaning back in a comfortable wooden chair in the wooden shack on the fat branch of a hemlock, Carmen felt the presence of The Friend. None of the tree house dwellers had spoken a word, but their generosity and good spirits were obvious. The Friend had led her here.

It was cool up in the branches, with a high mountain wetness to the air that might have been dew. Carmen drank the tea, having eaten plenty down below. Finally, the calico mom turned to her and tapped the table for Carmen to sit across from her, which Carmen did.

The calico mom pulled a deck of cards from her dress pocket and spread them on the table. She held one finger up.

Carmen suspected they were Tarot cards. 

Calico mom held up one finger, and Carmen turned over one card.The calico mom’s eyes opened wide and she leaned back, in a good way.

She held up three fingers and Carmen turned over three cards. The cards had fantastical drawings of maidens and princes, moons and clouds, on them and Carmen could only guess what they meant.

The calico mom tilted her head and averted her eyes as her strawberry hair fell across her face.

Carmen suddenly felt nervous.

The calico mom held up three fingers again. Carmen turned the cards over. One card looked like darkness. It frightened Carmen.

The calico mom leaned back in her chair, peaceful.

“What is it?”

She gathered the cards, put them in her pocket, and curtsied once again before walking off.

What the fuck? thought Carmen.

The man motioned for her to remain seated and walked away himself, leaving her alone at the table with a few of the others just staring at her.

“Hi,” she said, a little meanly, since she was trying to provoke them to talk. Or just move.

The man returned in a moment with a typewriter, an old, black Corona portable, which he set carefully on the table.

He typed for a moment on a piece of yellow paper. Click click, click, click click click, click click, click on the cream and black keys.

She liked the sound.

He turned the roller and released the paper – another great sound.

Suddenly Carmen realized that with all the silence she’d heard many great sounds this morning. The birds. The song. The creaking rope swing. The clanking of the porcelain covered dishware. The plop of pancakes being dropped onto a plate. And now this wonderful typewriter roller. He handed her the paper.

“The high trail will divert from the one you came in on. Take it. It’s faster, but tougher, but we think you can do it. Your brother needs your help.”

“What do you mean?” Carmen asked him.

He just shrugged. Then he typed.

“My sister just knows these things. She read it in the cards.”

Carmen said goodbye to everyone and followed the man across the underbrush further into the woods until they met the high trail, which looked much less traveled than the one she’d come in on.

The man looked around furtively, seeing if anyone was watching.

“If the trail fades, look for a sign – bent grass, worn rocks, like that,” he whispered to her in a scratchy, unused voice.

“You can talk?”

“Of course I can talk,” he said. “It’s just that my sister won’t let us when we’re at the trees.”

“Why?”

“Honestly, I have no idea”

He smiled, and Carmen chuckled.

“What?”

“All I know is that she knows things that other people don’t know, so we do what she says. All of us.”

Carmen loved this, of course.

“Thank you for the food, and the rest,” she said.

“Always for a traveler,” he said.

She kissed him on the cheek goodbye and he blushed bright red.

That made Carmen happy.

The trail rose steeply, but Carmen felt strong.

At several points during the day she thought she heard brush snapping in the woods off the trail, but she didn’t see anything. She thought it might be that cat, from Shonda’s compound, but there was no sign of it. She was pretty certain there was something there, but she had no feeling of danger, or worry, so she was able to let it go.

[Read chapters 1-36 here]

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[Read chapters 1-35 here]

Joe had no bounce, no flow, everything was a push, a struggle. He couldn’t shake the fear he’d felt being tied up. His thoughts kept the script, only worse. As he trudged along the trail suddenly a fantasy played out in his mind, the strips of leather dug deeper into his wrists and the “Indians” strung him by ropes so the weight of his body pulled his wrists apart and he felt the blood pouring out of the stumps.

Jesus, he thought, shivering. Stop it! Stop thinking. But he couldn’t control these intrusive thoughts. They were so real that they sent his heart racing, or he shivered, or cursed out loud. He was a failure.

I must have a fever, he thought, touched his head, damp, hot. How had he ended up like this? Infection. He just wanted to see his sister, to see Sarah. The thought of them comforted him, though at the same time he feared Sarah would also think he was a loser. Who wouldn’t? First of all, he’d let her go into Shonda’s camp alone. Then he’d been captured. He was hurt, he was weak, he was afraid.

By mid-morning he could see the trail winding up and around a rock face and then continuing past the far side of a sloping meadow below, so he  set out from the trail across the grassy space, certain it would save time and lead him to the trail below. 

Twenty feet in, the grasses got spongy and he didn’t think the squishing sound was good, but he kept going and after fifty yards his right leg went down into the muck, up nearly to his knee and he had to physically pull it out with his arms, but that threw him off balance and he fell on his side, soaked by the muck. What about snakes? The fetid smell overcame him. He struggled to stand, but found his way, and looking forward he thought he could see a dry area. Carefully, step by step, he planted himself on the thickest root clumps of grass. It was a swamp now, there was water everywhere. He looked back, too late, too far. He went forward, towards the other side of the trail.

Joe fell a few more times and the last time both his legs got stuck deep in the muck and his shoes came off as he pulled his legs out. He lay down on his stomach and reached into the mud for his shoes but they were gone, sucked deep into the earth, too deep to reach. He was fucked. The grasses sliced his feet as he jumped from clump to clump and by the time he reached dry land he was soaked with watery mud, the soles of his feet covered with thin, shallow wounds from the grass. A circle of pus expanded on his ankle -- something infected, he didn’t know. He stepped barefoot on the trail and kept on his way, sharp pebbles digging into his torn skin.

Those motherfuckers. Sarah -- Jesus, where was she. Carmen? I’m all alone, he thought. I’m all alone. He had to find them so he could chew them out, leave them behind. Let them know what it felt like.

Fuck this, he thought. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. He was hungry. He was angry. He was lonely. He was tired. But he knew he was close to the meeting spot. If he made it, he would see Sarah, her curious, friendly eyes, and Carmen, who would give him the biggest hugs, he knew. The trail led into a forest of lichen covered trees. He hoped to find a stream to catch some fish. He did find wineberries and some lady apples, and stuffed his mouth with the berries while sticking a few apples in his pocket.

Then he took a step onto a bunch of leaves. As soon as he stepped, he realized his mistake. The world gave out from under him and he was falling, then smashing, his body buckling. He was at the bottom of a deep pit looking up. A trap. Both his ankles immediately swelled and he looked down at his screaming feat and watched them swell, blue and black, in a matter of moments. Broken, for sure.

“Help me!” he screamed. “Help me”

He looked up at the circle of blue sky and the trees that defined the edge of the hole and screamed again. The hole was the size of an outhouse,  and the sides were smooth and hard, almost as if the mud had been turned into plaster. Without his ankles there was no way he was going to get out. 

For the first time in his life he felt he might be dying.

Where was hope?

It was not here. 

The sun set and the hole got chilly and then it got cold and his clothes were still damp and his ankles still screamed and eventually, somehow, he fell asleep. This is what the end felt like. Eyes closed, dreaming, pain throughout, this is what he knew.

[Read chapters 1-35 here]

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[Read chapters 1-34 here]

I walk, slow and steady up the trail and down, back up again.

I’m at home, completely, yet also in another world, energy flowing through the air and around the spike grasses and the trees surrounding me, the leaves and stones and butterflies all pulsing into me, through me, a connection I’ve longed for my entire life. I feel whole. Slow and steady. Slow and steady.

I’m certain where I’m going, though I do not know what I will find. As I walk I’m transported by the memory of the three of us sharing a picnic in the park on the bank of the Hudson. It’s as if I am there with them now, choosing which grape to pluck off the stem my mother is offering. My father lies on his side, looking up from his book to give me a smile. I feel our smiles go back and forth as the grape bursts between my teeth, sweet and then bitter as the seed splits. I spit it out and my mother catches the spit with her napkin.

“Oh , you've got to chew around the seeds, Sarah -- they’re meant for the earth, not your tongue.”

I cherish this vision of my mother and father, because my images of them both have faded into near nothingness. It’s been years now that they’ve been gone.

What if we had stayed on that lawn forever, together? 

The memory is so clear now. But it’s a new memory, has just bubbled up after all these years. My brain hides the good things from me.

“We can’t stay in the city,” my father says, looking over his shoulder to make sure I’m not listening.  

I’m preoccupied with my crackers and my stuffed elephant -- Kari, we called her, and she was the very best friend I could have. I can hear him fine, though I pretend not to.

“What are you suggesting?” my mother replies.

“That we go to the Hard Fork, and find our way over there.”

“Dangerous,” she says.

“Why?”

“You’ve heard the stories.”

They continue to talk about leaving the city, and I continue to eat and play.

“She’s too young,” my mother says. “We can’t risk it with her.”

“We’ll send for her.”

I shut my ears then, panicked. I can see what’s happening. Terrified.

“My sister will take care of her while we figure it out,” my father says.

“It’s gonna be a helluva lot easier without her,” my mother says.

My father nods. My mother looks over at me, smiles a phony smile.

I’ve never seen that smile. I’ve never seen her do anything dishonest.

I walk off the grass to the water’s edge and lean against the railing. I’m just tall enough to see over the lowest bar. Waves lap against the seawall, and the salty, rotten smell of ocean mixing with the river fills my head.

I was alone, every moment of every day.

.

According to the map, I’m on the correct trail. I feel it, too, in my heart. I walk a full day, seeing no one, getting hungry. In a green valley I stop in an abandoned shed, spread my coat on the ground and drift in an out of twilight sleep with my backpack as a pillow. The pistol is in there. I’m always aware of it. In the darkest part of the night I wake to a rustling sound. Nothing there, just my mind. I question whether my parents actually exist. Whether they would actually want to see me. The journey is not about them any longer.  A blessing.

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[Read chapters 1-34 here]

Carmen felt the cat moving alongside her for two days, concealed by the ferns and woodland underbrush, visible only for its cry, which she heard, she thought, only at her own moments of indecision -- which trail to follow, were these berries safe to eat. She had no information other than what her instincts told her – and maybe the sun, she thought, maybe I’m reading the sun, heading north and west that way. The third afternoon the trail split, one way a clean, soft path heading uphill between two boulders, and the other a rougher parallel transit of pebbles, boulders and fallen tree limbs. As she started on the easy path, the big cat cried low and then high, a chilling arc of sound that sent her back onto the cold, mossy split, where she started down the rougher trail. The cat went silent.

The spiritists from Radio City had  predicted this moment, hadn’t they? So strange. Soon the trail opened up. Pine needles crunched beneath her feet, sand and gravel, soft give and take. Despite the cushion the path felt solid, unwavering even as she made broad turns through the forest. This was it. The path forward. The invisible cat disappeared; there was no more need.

She hiked through the afternoon and as the sun fell towards the horizon she came to a wide stream with a clearing, a willow bending in the sun. She cut a stitch and attached a hook and line and, using a wriggly grub pulled from under a log she caught a fat trout. As the sun set she sparked a cook fire with her flint and magnesium, and roasted the fish on a green stick over the flames. It tasted of pitch and algae, and the roe was creamy, very comforting in her belly. That was enough to put her right to sleep, curled in her jacket, a warm river stone from the fire as her pillow.

She opened her eyes in the late darkness, stars filling 360 degrees of the sky with questions, so many that each cancelled out the next.

I am a question myself, she thought.

There are no answers to the questions I have.

In those stars are just more questions.

She laughed at herself. She stretched. The air cooled suddenly as the darkness shifted to the pre-dawn light. It made no sense – with light, cold – but it always happened. The world got cold before it warmed. Now the questions were gone. Just facts ahead, things to do. She rose, drank from the stream, filled her bottle, and started off.  Today or tomorrow or the next she would find them. She could feel Joe, a sense in her heart that was as sure as these river stones. Definitely soon.

The path turned grassy as the forest ran into flatlands, the sun high. She reached a broad river scattered with boulders and the only way across was to swim, holding her pack above the water. There was a beach over there, perfect for camping. She felt hungry, irritated, did not want to get wet. As she unlaced her shoes her eyes jerked her upright and she saw a group of canoes rounding the bend in the far distance. She ducked behind a boulder and peeked out at the approaching flotilla. It must have been a dozen canoes at least and as they paddled closer she could see the men wore headdresses of some sort, their bodies painted bright colors. No women. They were headed towards a makeshift camp on the far bank of the river.

In each canoe two men, one in front and one behind, except one large canoe with a third man, sitting on a box in the middle.  He had a high top knot and shaved sides and his cheeks were red and white stripes. Shirtless, he looked brutal.

Were they the same men who’d kidnapped her and given her to Shonda? The ones Joe escaped from? She scanned the camp for Joe, no sign of him. Thank God he wasn’t their captive any longer. They had the same look of Indians who weren’t really Indians, grown men who wanted to be something other than what they really were. Indians in costume only.

She was afraid.

As the flotilla came parallel to her boulder the canoes turned toward the beach on the other side of the river. She watched the men pull their canoes ashore and begin to gather wood.

Fuck, Carmen thought. Now I’m stuck.

If she moved, they’d see her. She didn’t want anything to do with these guys. She could peer around a section of the boulder without being seen – she thought. Since she couldn’t get up, not to pee, get water, forage greens for dinner, not even to stretch, she was going to watch. It was a pretty fascinating and frightening bunch.

The headman took a seat on a log, his legs stretched out far so his heels dug into the sand. Six of his followers walked in and out of the woods, and up along the riverbank, dragging large sticks of driftwood and piles of brush to the widest part of the sand for a massive bonfire. It soon was a tower of wood, ready for flame.

Along the riverbank some other guys collected mussels and crabs in a basket and every now and then pulled a line in with a fish. They’d string the fish through the gills and store them gasping under the swift water.

Those fish think they’re going to live, but with a string through their gills, Carmen said to herself. They have no idea the horrors ahead..

Before long two men she hadn’t seen came into the camp carrying a deer carcass on a pole between their shoulders. Blood dripped from the deer’s throat onto the lead guy’s back,  and after they set the carcass on a rock he dove into the river to clean his face and neck and clothing. The deer had been gutted, it’s liver and heart stuffed into its stomach and tied to a rib for the walk from the forest to the feast site. The two men set to skinning the deer, knives separating purple sinew from white fat, yellow fat from the skin. The hooves remained, like ankle boots. The sun got low.  They lit a cook fire quite far from the bonfire stack.

“I will leave in the night,” she said out loud.

The sound of her own voice startled her. She hushed herself.

They quartered the deer and set the venison sections on two spits over the smaller fire. They put potatoes and onions in the coals and wrapped fish and mussels in broad catalpa leaves and set them on stones near the edge. Carmen was hungry watching them.

After half an hour the men gathered on the grassy area and ate fish while the deer roast dripped fat onto the crisping potatoes.

I’m starving, Carmen said out loud. She thought she smelled rosemary. Still, she couldn’t move, for fear of being seen.

After an hour they sliced hunks of venison and passed them around, rivulets of blood and fat dripping into the fire, sparking the coals. A warrior brought a large jug from one of the canoes and they commenced drinking. Soon, their revelry built into a roar.

The light flickered across the river surface as far as Carmen’s boulder, which made her nervous. She saw that she’d waited too long, because the firelight would pick her out of her darkness when she tried to flee. But now was the time, she figured. Most of the men were dancing around the fire, though others sat on logs and boulders, some in drunken slumps. She must be fast.

Carmen watched the dancers, feeling their mood, and at the moment she felt they were most preoccupied with their revelry she got low to the ground and moved slowly upriver, keeping to the dark places as much as she could. But not enough. Suddenly, one of the sitting men stood up and pointed towards her. She froze. Another man stood. They stared. She narrowed her eyes so there would be no reflection. Everyone else ignored the men and in a moment they sat back down. Time. The moon gave just enough light for her to follow a trail that ran up along a low bluff, maybe 20 feet above the water, moving on all fours so as not to be seen. As she crossed a narrow gap on a makeshift bridge of fallen tree limbs one of the limps snapped and she let out a shout as she fell, and the break triggered a boulder which crashed into the river. Damn!

She came to her senses in the gully, her shoulder throbbing.  Fuck. Nothing else hurt too badly and she stood, wobbly, and started to climb back up to the trail, using just one hand. Her backpack pulled her sideways with each step up but she made it to the trail again and stood for a moment, listening in the moonlit darkness. Everything seemed strangely quiet. Across the river the flames were high, but no one was dancing. A group of men stood in front of the fire looking her way. And there, in the water, were three canoes coming swiftly towards her side of the river. She ran, stumbling along the rocky trail, running as quickly as she could.

“I hear him, over there,” someone shouted. “Halt. Halt. Halt.”

Carmen figured the current would keep them from paddling forward but nothing would stop them from landing and running after her. They  think I’m a man, she thought. That’s good. Maybe they won’t chase me as far as they would if they knew I was a woman.

She banged her shoulder against a tree limb and winced in pain but kept going. She had to pee – she still hadn’t peed – but kept going. She heard commotion on the shore but it sounded pretty far back. The bluff quieted, became more level with the river and the trail she’d been following veered into the woodland, so dark. Under the canopy there were mosquitoes and crickets and frogs and so much noise she wasn’t sure she’d hear anyone following behind, but likewise they wouldn’t hear her. At a mossy boulder she stopped to pee.

Ahh, my God, she said out loud.

She moved on, drank deeply from a stream, and continued. It’s always out and in, she thought. As soon as you pee you get thirsty and drink more. A ridiculous cycle.

She’d escaped.

The men would not get her.

I am invincible, she thought, massaging her shoulder and slowing to a fast walk. I am protected. 

The night turned inky black, the air heavy and hushed. Carmen came upon a hemlock grove with pine needles inches thick on the ground. She crawled in near the trunk of a big tree to hide and fell into a deep sleep.

[Read chapters 1-33 here]

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When my first wife and I moved into this building, in 1988, we noticed the intermittent flames of a group of crack addicts lighting up every night on the stoop directly across from us. The whole city was consumed by crack at the time, and the general sensation that violence was everywhere was backed up by the 1,900 murders committed that year. My wife felt uncomfortable watching them light up.

So I walked across the street one evening and asked the three addicts if they’d mind moving to another stoop.

“My wife gets nervous seeing the crack,” I said.

“No problem,” one of the men said.

“Yeah, I get it,” said the woman next to him.

We never saw them on that stoop again. The owners of that building were two men, a couple, who ran a chain of muffin shops. A few years later, one of the guys was murdered behind the counter of one of his stores. His partner moved out. The house sat pretty empty for a while, rented out now and then, but mostly just deteriorating. Then, in about 2016, a group of wealthy men bought it and started a three-year long luxury renovation. In the end, they had massive house with all the amenities, including a dog-washing station just inside the basement entrance.

A billionaire tech guy from out of town bought it for 22.5 million dollars so he and his girlfriend could have a pied-à-terre in the city. Once every blue moon the house would light up, revealing that the owners were in town to enjoy the opulent white interior, but the couple didn’t seem to use it much. And then, one day, the billionaire threw his girlfriend’s possessions out on the sidewalk. It was a pile of sweaters, workout gear and lots of junk. The garbage collectors wouldn’t pick it up, because it wasn’t in the proper bags. Word was that the couple broke up.

Then the house sat empty again, before going back on the market a few months ago for 25 million. (Remember, it has a dog-washing station, which is a rare feature in NYC apartments.) The other night I took my dog out for a walk. When I returned I saw the billionaire, dressed in nerdy kakis, dragging a big metal suitcase along the sidewalk towards a waiting Escalade. The door to the house was open, and a second later his girlfriend, or ex girlfriend (I guess they’d patched things up) ran down to the sidewalk and tried grabbing his suitcase so he wouldn’t leave. He resisted. They shouted at each other. She started slapping him in the face and punching his shoulders and chest. She really wailed on him, to the point where I thought about calling the cops, but didn’t, thanks to my ingrained reverse sexism.

He absorbed the blows but didn’t return them. They shouted. The chauffeur turned my way and shook his head as if to say, “What the fuck?” She grabbed the suitcase. He grabbed it back. She smacked him again, hard, repeatedly. Then they stopped. They dragged the suitcase up the stoop and into the house. Through the windows I could see them shouting. I went into my apartment and carried on with my own business. Half an hour later I noticed that the building was completely dark. They’d fled. No one has been in there since.

I often think about money. I imagine that never having to worry about it would be a blessed state. And it probably would be, to a point. I can also see how having a billion dollars to manage would be challenging, and stressful in many ways. After witnessing the billionaire across the street struggling with his relationship, I wonder if I’d like to be rich like that. I’m sure that money can buy love. But I don’t think it can keep it.

I’ve written this with the confidence of someone who knows what he is talking about. But in truth, I don’t know the billionaire at all. I listened to him on a podcast, and found him surprisingly dull. I met his girlfriend once, and she seemed nice enough, if a little out of touch with the common folk. So everything I’ve written about them, beyond the facts about the dog washing station and the price they paid for their home away from home, and the violent indiscretions I witnessed, is assumed. This is nonfiction, but it is also made up. It is real, but also fantasy. It is a verifiable (there are cameras recording everything that happens in front of that house), yet also unknowable.

As a reader, what do you think of that? If you’re a writer, would you publish something with such flimsy evidence?

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[This is a serialized novel, short chapter by short chapter. You can read the previous 32 chapters here. A new chapter will be delivered every week.]

A rap on the door and Carmen sat up in bed. A narrow rectangle of light came through the cracked window shade, a rainbow on her water glass

“Yes?” she called.

“It’s me,” a voice said.

Shonda?

“Just a minute.”

 Carmen pulled on her shirt and opened the door. Shonda stood there alone, no sycophants, no guards. Unusual. Carmen didn’t know what to say.

“You alone?” Shonda said.

Of course I’m alone. You know that I am – you have a spy in every corner. Jesus. What was she doing here?

“Come have breakfast with me. I want to talk.”

She had shiny lips and needy eyes. Her need was sexy. It made Carmen feel powerful.

A quick image of a bobcat on top of the woodpile, standing in the snow behind her home when she was a kid flashed through Carmen’s mind.

She was seven or eight years old, headed to the outhouse in the bright sun. The cat sat staring passively through yellow eyes, calm, unwavering. The cat could be her friend! She thought. She put her hand out and stepped forward and the cat stood on its powerful legs, its ears straight and sharp, and it let out a hissing growl, deep and childish at the same time, it’s fangs just visible. Carmen stood still, transfixed by the transformation. She watched the bobcat as it jumped down from the pile into the snow and padded silently into the evergreens.

“Everyone’s got to eat,” Shonda said. “C’mon. Join me for pancakes.”

Carmen said no thank you, and returned to her bed. Shonda stood silently in the door for a moment.

“Ok,” she said. “Another time, then.”

Carmen stayed under the covers. She felt good!

I'm alive.

I said no to Shonda.

The thought came to her: That bobcat didn’t kill me all those years ago.

Carmen pictured Sarah and Joe climbing through the forest headed towards the wall. She knew that they would return for her, but she had no idea how long that might be. She needed to go and find them. How would she get out of here? She was exhausted, a prisoner.

She slept into the early afternoon. She had just opened her eyes and stretched when the door flew open again and her keepers Melia and Brie came in.

“Get up, get up,” Brie said.

“Get dressed.”

“What’s going on?” Carmen said.

“There’s a cougar in the camp. A big cat.”

“Crying like a wounded baby,” said Melia. “Shonda sent us to make sure you were ok.” 

Carmen went to the window and looked out. She didn’t see the cat. She cocked her head and listened: a faint growl. A bobcat. How strange.

Have I willed this bobcat? she wondered.

“It’s a bobcat, not a mountain lion. And I’ll  deal with it,” she said.

“You can’t,” said Brie. “You’ll get hurt. Shonda will kill us.”

“I won’t,” Carmen said, walking out the door. Her guards were too scared to follow.

The compound was empty and silent. Everyone was hiding. Carmen felt that each of her slow steps came just to the ground and hovered in the grass, spongy yet secure. She stepped surely and quietly forward, eyes scanning the grounds. The camp suddenly looked very small and insignificant.

She heard the growling again, and tilted her head towards it. There was the bobcat, sprawled across a picnic table, batting a live mouse back and forth between its paws. It glanced at Carmen with quick indifference and went back to its gaze. Carmen remained still. She felt the presence of another – she couldn’t say who, or what, but she felt protected and she let that feeling rule.

She stood still and watched the cat. The bobcat played until the mouse was dead and then it raised its head and stared at Carmen with eyes that opened to endless depth. Carmen felt the bobcat’s pulses.

“Go,” she said. “You are frightening these people.”

The bobcat processed this, stood, and flicked it’s tail. Whatever. Then it jumped off the table, velvet paws on the ground, and glided into the woods.

Carmen felt eyes on her from all the cabin windows. She walked through the camp alone for the first time. No one challenged her. Bobcat woman. She scanned the forest for the cat, no sign. As the others began to accept that the cat was gone, doors opened and then women came out.

Melia and Brie appeared and told her she was brave. Then they ordered her back into her cabin.

“No,” Carmen said.

They looked at each other, not sure what to do.

“That’s not an answer,” Brie said. “That’s not allowed.”

Carmen didn’t reply. Just sat down at a picnic table by herself. Brie’s shoulders dropped and she stepped back a tiny bit. Carmen breathed deeply, took it easy for the first time in days.

What were they going to do to her, anyway?

She looked around, wooden cabins, packed earth paths here to there, someone’s underwear hanging on a line.

This place is a bore, she thought.

Beyond the perimeter of this little village there were boulders and poplars and evergreens and a stream flowing down to a meadow.

Melia and Brie backed up and then walked off, as if repelled by Carmen’s newfound sense of liberation.

Wow, she said to herself. I fucking did it!

Power radiated out from her core. She’d never felt pure power before.

She got up and walked through the camp, not saying anything. At the first cabin a woman who had ignored her for the previous days gave her soft eyes and a sweet smile. At another cabin a woman opened the door, bowed and said, “You are amazingly brave, let me tell you.”

Finally, she reached Shonda’s cabin. Shonda opened the door, still magnificent, and stepped outside. She held a small backpack.

“Take this,” she said. “There is food and water, and a good knife – be free.”

“I'm already free,” said Carmen.

She took the bag and walked up the path into the woods. She could feel the cat moving alongside her, hidden in the woods but very near.

[This is a serialized novel, short chapter by short chapter. You can read the previous 32 chapters here. A new chapter will be delivered every week.]

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