World Leapers Book I: The Forest - Chapter 1 - The Shed

The Forest Chapter 1 the Shed Terran looked back and squinted through the torrential downpour. Behind him, in the shelter of a small clump of tamarack trees, he could see his twin brother, river, crouching and nervously watching. Terran slowly turned back around. The dark entrance of the old wooden shed was just one step away, rain drizzling from the door frame. He looked at river again, then chewed his lower lip and turned to the black, shadowy hole that led into the shed. He stepped forward into darkness. Somewhere behind him, he heard river scream. Today was supposed to be much, much different. Just three hours earlier, Taran was curled up in bed, one foot lazily draped over the edge of the mattress, one bright blue eye barely open and his blonde locks tangled, twisted, and still reeking of chlorine from the previous day's trip to the swimming pool. Still half asleep, he watched his brother river hopping on one leg under the dim nightstand light, pulling on his clean white socks. Riv is so early. Terran struggled to form words as his brain slowly came to Life. It's almost 8, brother. Extreme Sports Summer Camp is at 9. Get dressed. Terran rolled over. The blackout curtains were still pulled tight over the window. For all he knew, it was 4am and it sure felt like it. Summoning every shred of his lazy morning strength, he extended one tiny index finger and pulled a corner of the curtains aside. No sun. It's dark. River stopped fumbling with his shoes and looked up. Huh? Terran rolled over and yanked violently on the curtains with one lazy arm, revealing grayish black clouds, a torrential downpour, and a dark, dreary day. River groaned, shoving aside his expectations of a summer day that was supposed to promise swimming, tennis, capture the flag, and everything else. That was the extreme magic of sports camp. Now it was just extremely wet. Camp was canceled. It was the rule of rain for a 10 year old boy. The presence of a summer storm arouses energy, creativity, dark daring. As river pulled on his hiking boots and fleeced hoodie, he spoke in hushed, choppy sentences. Terran. Mushrooms. Hunting. Come on. Terran sat up, rubbing his eyes. He knew where river was going. Many twins have a strange built in neural connection that allows them to actually read each other's minds and even develop secret, unknown languages that researchers call cryptophagia. Although the virtual wiring between river and Terran never really resulted in a new language, it did indeed allow them to anticipate each other's thoughts, feelings, and intentions with uncanny lightning speed. And even in his half asleep state, Terran instantly knew the plan river wants to go hunting for morel mushrooms in the rain. He's whispering so father and Mother don't hear, and he's going to be gone in five minutes whether or not I'm by his side. Five minutes later, two dark shadows emerged from the front door of their barn house and stepped out into the morning rain. Morel mushrooms have been called by many names. Some of the more colorful varieties are called dry land fish because when you slice them lengthwise their outline resembles the shape of a fish. And when breaded and cooked in olive oil, you could argue that they may even be better than fried fish. They're also called merkles or miracles, based on the story of how a mountain family was saved from starvation by eating the spongy mushrooms. In Kentucky, morels are called hickory chickens, and in West Virginia, molly moochers or muggins. River and Terran didn't care what they were called. All they knew was that when you scramble morels with eggs, add some sea salt and black pepper, sprinkle with olive oil and serve on toasted sourdough bread. You have a breakfast fit for a king. And even for a 10 year old pair of boys, to to hunt morels was not really rocket science. In the forests of the Pacific Northwest, and particularly in the boy's home state of Washington, the easily identifiable morels could be found in nearly any moist coniferous forest, often sprouting under great pines. The trick was to differentiate the false morels from the true morels by carefully studying the mushroom cap, which is often wrinkled or brainy in the reddish brown fake morels as opposed to the honeycomb net like appearance of a true yellowish brown morel. River and Terran also knew upon closer inspection, the false morels contain a tiny cotton ball like substance inside their stem, while true morels are hollow inside. The caps of the false morels could easily be twisted in comparison to the true morel. And finally, even though it had never happened to them, the ultimate sign that you'd discovered the wrong kind of morel is that your tasty breakfast would result in severe gastrointestinal upset, loss of muscular coordination and a wildly erratic heart rate. And so they hunted, but hunted wisely. Their adventures and wild foraging weren't limited to morels. For the past two years, ever since father and mother had moved the family out into the forest, river and Terran had grown to love learning the land, rushing back from hikes in the woods with dirty faces and pockets full of leaves, roots, stems, buds, flowers and mushrooms. Then they would dart down to the basement to pour through photos and father's field guides. Plant identification was a favorite pastime of theirs. What can you eat? What will kill you? What is medicinal in small quantities but toxic in large quantities? What can fix nosebleeds and cure constipation? What makes tea? What makes smoothies? What lends pop and flavor to a salad? And even more importantly, what goes well with scrambled eggs? What can draw poison from a bee sting? And what what can keep mosquitoes and ticks from playing on your skin? Nettles. Mint and yellow violet for salads, plantain for insect bites, yarrow for cuts and bruises, wild strawberry for a snack, pineapple weed for a tummy ache and dried mullein to help with sleep. Gooseberry and sarsaparilla root for flavoring soda water, houndstooth as a diuretic, pennycress for a fever organ, grape root and leatherleaf for the flu, tansy as an insect repellent and even flower. Thorny prickly spear thistle stalks for chewing like celery when you need a little water. And then of course there were the morels, a particular favorite. Even a drizzly summer morning couldn't stop a pre breakfast morel hunt. Taran grinned. Jackpot. He bent down to snatch a spongy morel while simultaneously eyeing two more just a couple feet away. His mouth was already watering as he shoved the tiny morsels of goodness into his black mesh plant. Gathering bags down the hill about a hundred feet he could see rivers, wet blonde hair bobbing up and down, his hoodie thrown back as he too embraced the rain and searched for breakfast. Terran's fingers brushed the loose dirt and debris. Aside from the base of the two other mushrooms, he'd always loved dirt, dust, mud, earth. Terra. They say there's something to a name and Taran was no exception. Despite Mother's ever impending wet washcloth, he'd always felt more natural and complete with dirt smudges on his face, black mud under his fingernails and clods of dirt in his hair. As his fingers sunk into the wet soil, he suddenly stopped. Something wasn't right there. There it was again. A monotone like chirp. Chicka chicka. Ti Ti Ti Ti Ti. Terran spun and looked up to the tree branches. Chickadee. It was definitely a bird. Most definitely a chickadee. Chestnut backed chickadees were a common sight in this forest and their sharp chickadee call was unmistakable. Whether maintaining contact with a chickadee mate, scolding a predator, or announcing a food source, it was a usual occurrence to hear a chickadee call over the sing song chorus of all the other birds. But not in the rain. Never in the rain. Instead, on a stormy morning like this, as the temperature plunges, the tiny bird seeks shelter and warmth, conserving their metabolism and avoiding unnecessary activities like grooming and singing. And yet, despite the storm, this tiny bird was twittering ferociously as it called down to the boys in loud scolding chirps. Taryn had already spotted the little chestnut colored bird with the tiny black and white head as it acrobatically danced from limb to twig, jumping, flitting and flying overhead through the blend of Douglas firs and ponderosa pines. Yet something was wrong. Out of the corner of his eye, Terran could see that river had heard the bird too, and had stopped in his tracks to straighten bolt upright. As soon as the chickadee call sounded over the loud hum of falling raindrops, Terran pointed up as his eyes met his brother's. River followed Terran's outstretched finger and nodded. He saw it too. As the chickadee began to dart away through the treetops, they both followed. They knew enough about normal animal activity to realize that some strange game was afoot. Every species of bird has an ancient language, and this bird seemed to be acting as some kind of a messenger, sounding off a greeting, a warning, some kind of signal. Terran strode softly through the underbrush, watching the bird overhead. At the same time, using his owl eyes, he could see river still farther down the hill, sneaking parallel to him. Owl eyes had come in handy for Terran when he needed a big field of vision. He liked to think about an owl perched on a tree branch above the ground, sitting motionless with its eyes in a fixed gaze and using a still head and wide peripheral vision to gather visual cues from the environment. For a human boy, this technique was simple to learn with practice. To learn how to use his own owl eyes, Taran would sit in a dedicated spot. He'd call it a sit spot and imagine he had eyes as big and powerful as an owl. Eyes that have actually outgrown their eye sockets and are nearly frozen in place. Eyes very much unlike a human eye that is constantly engaged in tunnel vision on a screen or on a page in a book. Then he'd look straight ahead and imagine that his eyeballs were stuck in his eye sockets, unable to move. He would pick a spot directly across from him that he could train his eyes on and hold that spot and in the center of his vision as a focal point. If his eyes wandered off, he'd Try to relax and bring them back to his focal point again, always returning to that one single spot. Eventually, while staring at that spot and without moving his eyeballs, he could see parts of the ground below and parts of the sky above between him and that spot. He'd practice seeing the ground, the sky and that spot all at the same time, using his peripheral vision. And then he'd practice building on this peripheral vision by adding to his awareness the focus farthest thing he could see to the left and the farthest thing he could see to the right, all still without moving his eyeballs. Once he'd practice his owl eyes enough, he could see five things all at once without barely any head or eye movement. His focal point, the ground, the sky, the extreme left and the extreme right. Terran knew that river was using his owl eyes too. And as their chickadee focal point led the brothers deeper into the trees and Taran recalled a story from their wilderness survival camp last summer. He couldn't quite remember the story in vivid detail, but he knew that involved two hikers walking up a winding road. The hikers didn't know it, but just around the bend, a logging truck was flying wildly down the road after losing its brakes. However, a bird was watching. And just before the truck came careening around the corner, one hiker heard this bird give a shrill, sharp cry. And the hiker instinctively dove from the road, but pulling her companion along with her. Novice hunters often experience a similar phenomenon if they traip too loudly or move too quickly through the underbrush. Often a deer, elk or bear doesn't notice the hunter coming, but the birds do. And the bird language quickly shifts to warn the other forest animals of impending danger. While Terran had never formally learned bird language, he knew of the general rule that the smaller brown birds that live near the ground tell you the most, whether they're signaling aggression, alarm begging, companionship or song. Called perching birds or passerines, these birds have the most reliable voices and include sparrows, wrens, blackbirds, and of course, chickadees. Woodpeckers, herons, ducks, hawks and eagles aren't as much good to gather information from. The chickadee was moving at a pretty fast pace and Terran half jog and half walk to keep up, his brother still trailing parallel to him just slightly down the sloping hill. After traversing nearly three football field lengths through the forest, Terran nervously glanced at River. The bird was still calling and moving, but was also fast approaching the outer boundaries of their family property. This boundary was not easy to miss. Signaled by strips of old rusted barbed wire, bands of red spray paint on several large pines, and a sudden thickening of the gooseberry and wild BlackBerry underbrush. And it was property that river and Terran had never stepped into for more than a few feet over the two years they had lived in their home in the forest. They'd always had plenty of acreage to explore. But this adjoining property was not theirs. It was not welcoming. It was not easy to hike. There was no sign of a residence, a driveway, lights, or any other sign of human life. It was not even clear who actually owned it. But by now the chickadee had quickly progressed nearly 40ft past the barbed wire and was still moving, stopping, calling and moving again. Terran heard panting and looked behind him. River was now there. What do we do now, Riv? River glanced nervously behind. The rain was falling harder. A chilly wind had picked up and was gliding through the trees. The ground was getting muddier by the minute. Let's follow. Terran nodded. Both boys instinctively dropped to their stomachs and elbows and crawled under the barbed wire military style. Getting face down in the mud and a frontside full of grime was easier than getting your hoodie ripped on a barb. Once past the barbed wire, they stood and began their brisk pace again. The bird was still well ahead of them and still moving fast. Terran moved in front, brushing aside low hanging branches. River trailed 10ft behind, knowing better than to follow so close as to get smacked in the face and chest as the thicket snapped back. After Terran passed through, both boys now moved quietly and quickly, occasionally glancing anxiously behind and half expecting to see some kind of ranger or police officer hot on their trespassing trail. With laser like precision, their feet touched the ground, toe first, then midfoot, then heel called fox walking. This silent style of movement allowed them to keep their owl eyes focused up while their feet worked to sense broken sticks, sharp rocks, logs in the path and other barriers. Now completely soaked from head to toe, his face, chest and pants covered in mud and small cuts on his face from charging through the branches and the sticks turn concentrated with ferocious intensity to move through the ever thickening forest and still catch sight of the small shadow of the chickadee darting from tree to tree. Toe, midfoot, heel, keep your eyes on the bird. Toe, midfoot, heel brush aside the thorns. Toe, midfoot, heel glance back to see if brother is still there. Silence. The bird had suddenly stopped. No call. No movement. Terran squinted through the trees. He pulled aside a clump of branches. He could hear river quietly panting behind him through the thick rain, he tried to focus in the direction he had last seen the black dot of the bird's movement. He couldn't see any sign of the bird, but there was something else. Some kind of dark, shadowy structure, too thick to be a tree and too symmetrical to be a clump of big bushes. It was some kind of a building. Terran moved forward again to a position where the trees no longer blocked so much of his view. Now he could see it more clearly. It was too small to be a home. Not a barn. A hunting blind, perhaps. An outhouse. Terran took a few steps forward. Behind him, river sharply whispered, terran, let's go. Terran stepped forward again. Home, Terran. Let's go. Terran shook his head and without looking back, took two more big, quiet steps forward. Now he could see the structure clearly, about 50ft away. It was an old wooden shed, and perched just above the door of the shed was the chickadee, sitting silent and staring right back at Terran with two beady black eyes.