Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending (44 page)

“Your mutt keeps stealing our firewood.”

I grinned. “So it looks like the wolf lady has met her
match. Allow me to educate you.”

Michelle furrowed her eyebrows in mock anger as she motioned
towards the truck. “Please do.”

“You’re starting from the woodpile. You need to get
him focused on the truck.” I scooped up a double armful of the split and
seasoned firewood and tossed it in the truck. Max immediately jumped in the bed
and went for a large chunk of aspen. “Max, wait.” He froze, his nose scant
inches from the log. I slid over and grabbed the chunk he had keyed in on, and
then thumped him on the haunches with my free hand. “Max, get the stick . . .
get the stick!” I tossed the aspen back onto the woodpile and Max vaulted off
the truck and bounded over. A moment later the log had been deposited on the
tailgate.

“Good boy.” I scratched his ears and pointed at the
log pile again. “Go get a stick.” He trotted over and brought back another
large chunk, earning him another pat on the head. It earned me a glower from
Michelle.

My cheesy smile broke through her spurious look of
distaste, and she began to giggle. “OK, I’ll give you this one.” She crossed
her arms and tilted her nose slightly downward. “You said you were going to
take me somewhere?”

“Yep . . . are you ready?”

“Always.”

After several more scoops from the woodpile, we hopped
in the truck; all three of us in the front seat this time so Max wouldn’t have
to ride with the loose firewood as we bounced up the ridge line. True to form,
he took over as “shotgun,” which wedged Michelle between us. My eyes flicked
towards the rearview mirror. Three happy faces were smiling back.

Behind the cabin, as I’m sure I’ve already mentioned .
. . well, let me describe it again. The cabin sits in kind of a scallop shaped
depression, with the hourglass, or more accurately, sunglass shaped lake at the
lowest point. The front door of the cabin faces directly north, which is also
the direction toward the lake. When you leave the gravel and turn off onto the
dirt road, you’re heading basically west through the low rises and foothills
that are the beginnings of the Turtle Mountains, the majority of which are
across the border in Canada. Anyhow, you’ll drive west on the dirt road for
about a mile until it starts gradually curving north. That curve continues to,
well, curve, until you’re now heading east. In essence, you’ve done a long,
gradual, 180 degree turn. You don’t head east very long before you enter the
low valley where the cabin sits. Now, if you were to keep heading east past the
cabin, you’d start climbing a low ridgeline. Before you crested that ridge, you
would find the old logging road. I know I’ve mentioned that before, so you know
what I’m talking about. Anyhow, that’s where Emily and I left the Gator with
the flat tire. The logging road is as far east as I can go in my truck, four
wheel drive or not. If you got out and continue walking to the east, the
ridgeline will crest, and then drop away relatively quickly to the shores of
Ghost Echo Lake. Do you have it all pictured now? Good.

We drove up the rough skid trail until I came to a
spot where the pines thinned enough for me to pull over. “Be right back.”

“Emily’s camera?” Michelle asked.

“Yeah,” I said glancing up, “it doesn’t look like a
rain, but I’d rather get it right now just in case.”

She nodded. “I’ll wait here with Max.”

I was back in less than five minutes with the Emily’s
backpack and camera. The camera seemed undamaged, but I didn’t mess with it.

“Where to now?” Michelle asked curiously.

“The logging road. I’ve got to grab a few things from
the Gator.”

“And then what?”

“You mean ‘where.’”

“OK . . . and then ‘where?’”

I stowed the camera behind the seat and slid in. “I’m
going to take you to a very special place. We’ll have to walk a short bit, but
it’ll be worth it—at least I hope you’ll think so.”

“Do you take all of the girls to this ‘special
place?’” Her question was tinged with just enough sarcasm to make me unsure
exactly how seriously she meant it. I caught a nanosecond’s shift of her eyes
in the direction where I had put the camera. Emily’s camera.

I shook my head. “Just be patient for a little while
longer.”

“OK.”

I continued up the trail, electing to drive over a
small, freshly fallen birch tree rather than winch it out of the way. After
another quarter mile or so, we pushed out onto the old logging road. I could
still see the evidence of my northbound passage in the Gator, but it had broken
down before making it this far south. Turning left, I straddled the tracks of
the six wheeled utility vehicle, slowly following them for almost ten minutes
before pulling up next to the green ATV. I left my pickup running as I transferred
my backpack and other gear to the truck bed, and then I hopped back in and
shifted to the right side of the road, following it for another five minutes
before stopping.

The woods on the west side of the road were a mixture
of brambles, second growth pine, oak, and aspen, but the east side towards the
ridge was still virgin old growth forest. Tall oaks dominated the hillside,
spaced in between with green ash, American elm, and large clumps of quaking
aspen. A slight breeze, still unseasonably warm, drifted against my face as I
got out of the truck. Max’s tail was thumping hard, alternating between the
dashboard and Michelle’s upraised forearms as she tried to defend herself from
the hairy drumbeat. He knew where we were.

“OK-OK-OK, call your stinky lycanthrope already,” she
squealed.

“C’mere Max.” At my words he shot off the seat and
past the steering wheel, landing with a series of bounds before finally
standing on his back legs with his paws on my shoulders. I grabbed the thick
black fur at the side of his muscular neck and butted my cheek against his.

“Yes Max . . . you know where we are, don’t you?”

He immediately took off and crashed through a series
of tight circles, running full out with excitement. Several acrobatic leaps and
dodges were included in his routine, and he reminded me of a puppy that had
just discovered the outdoors for the first time. A huge, black, 110 pound
puppy.

Michelle appeared next to me, and we watched the
spectacle for another minute as Max looped us several more times before
bounding into the forest up the ridge.

I offered my hand again to Michelle. “Let’s go.”

She paused, glancing at the pickup for a moment, “What
about the firewood?”

“I’ll come back for it.”

She stepped forward and took my hand, “So where are
you taking me?”

I lifted her hand until it was midway between our
bodies at chest level. My eyes anchored to hers, and I said, “I’m going to give
you a ring.” Her stunned look was left unanswered as I moved up the hill,
guiding her by the hand behind me.

I followed an old game trail that edged toward the
rocky outcroppings at the ridge top. It only ran for about seventy yards before
the trail fizzled out against partially exposed, lichen covered boulders. A
series of low but sheer mossy surfaces stretched to the left and right. I
watched Michelle stare at the emerald barrier in front of her. She reached out a
hand and stroked the delicate clumps of green that cushioned the impenetrable
rock behind it.

“It’s beautiful . . . like a castle wall in a fairy
tale.”

My eyes were sparkling as I watched her . . . Michelle’s
red hair clashing with the verdant barrier magnified the effects of both in my
mind, and she looked at me and smiled. “What?”

“Aren’t you curious?” I asked.

Her smile brightened and her eyes lit up. “What?” She
repeated.

“Aren’t you curious where Max is?”

Her head swiveled to the left and right, searching the
wooded hillside before focusing again on me. “Where did he go?”

This time I didn’t offer. I just reached out and took
her willing hand. “Stay close, I wouldn’t want the dragon to get you.”

“Dragon, huh?”

“What else would you expect in a world of fairy tales
and castle walls?” I pulled her along the lush rock face for another sixty
feet, watching her eyes take in the almost magical qualities that seemed to
permeate the very air. When I stopped, she was still lost in amazement at the
beauty of the rock wall. I let her gaze for another minute, trying to contain
my own giddiness at what was yet to come.

Her hand brushed the moss gently again, “I’m just at a
loss for words, Eric. It’s stunning . . . primal . . . like I’ve stepped back
through time.” The faint trickle of water draining through several cracks in
the wall added a delicate symphony to the cool, earthy smell that surrounded
us. Michelle turned to face me, “How come you’ve never brought me here before?”

I looked down briefly before meeting her eyes. “I’ve
never brought anyone here.”

“No one?”

I shook my head.

“Not even your uncle?”

“I found this place when I was fourteen years old. At
the time, I was reading the
Lord of the Rings
series. The first time I
saw this, I half expected elves to jump out from behind the rocks.”

“Elves, not trolls?”

I shook my head again, “No . . . feel the air here . .
. this is as close to holy ground as nature can make. This is a
good
place.” My emphasis on the word good caught her in mid nod as she silently agreed
with me. “Anyhow, I told my uncle what I’d found, and he said something to me
like, ‘every man needs a private place that no one else knows about.’ . . . or
something like that.”

“I think I could fall asleep forever right here, just
listening to the sound of the water.”

“We’re not staying here.”

“Why not? Isn’t this . . .?”

I cut her off with a slight tilt of my neck towards
the wall. “You walked right past it. Take another look.” She turned to look
where I had indicated—a cleft in the granite barrier that was overhung with
tendrils of dripping moss and the remains of summer growth vines. Still
gripping my hand, she stepped towards it, ducking down slightly to peer into
the shadowy recess.

“Is this a cave?” The wonderment in her voice reminded
me of the first time that I had stepped through the mossy gap.

“It’s more of a . . . doorway.”

Without waiting for any additional explanation,
Michelle pushed aside the strands of brown and green, and then stepped through
the concealed gateway into my secret place. Still connected to her hand, I
followed.

The channel through the moss covered cleft veered to
the right for about eight feet before narrowing and reversing course to the
left. I let go of Michelle’s hand so she could scoot through the last little
bottleneck and out into the brilliant sunlight at the end of the passage.
Knowing what she’d find, I waited for a solid twenty seconds before I moved
out. I wanted it to have the same effect on her as it had on me so many years
ago. With a final deep breath I climbed out to join her.

She was standing in front of me, speechlessly staring
at the panorama that lay beyond. A spoon shaped depression was sunk into the
very top of the ridgeline here. The granite walls surrounding it formed an
irregular oval ring about 140 feet long and 80 feet wide at the far end. That
width gradually tapered as it climbed out of the “spoon” and crept upwards towards
the long “handle” near where we had entered. Midway down the handle was a long
chunk of exposed granite, flanked on either side by a pair of jagged boulders,
each of them about the size of a car. The combination of the three gave a
rather impressive caricature, at least to a fourteen year old, of the head of a
dragon. The bottom of the spoon was bursting with an ocean of vibrant azure—an
almost wall to wall carpet of blue prairie violets.