leads Charley back up the sewer line access trail. Maybe, she thinks, heâs hoping she will be willing to do the whole power line hike again and stay out all morning. Itâs Saturday, Saritaâs day off, so she could. Today her father wonât wait till she gets back to go to the office. Heâs decided she can take care of herself for a few hours. But itâs only eight in the morning and already the sun is beating down on the trail so hard that she really wants to get off it and into the shade. Under the power lines there is no shade at all.
She looks to see where Coyote has gone. Heâs disappeared. Her choice is to turn back and take the lake trail, hoping heâll figure out where sheâs gone and come find her, or cut into the woods where there isnât a trail. Her leg isnât hurting too badly, and she feels up for adventure, so she decides to cut into the woods. On her left the ground slopes down toward Heron Pond and gets marshy. Once she pushes her way through the screen of honeysuckle and poison ivy and blackberries to get in under the trees, the walking will be bad. On her right the ground slopes up. The sun has encouraged pretty much the same tangle of undergrowth among the pine and sweet gum saplings on both sides, so whichever she chooses, the going wonât be easy at first. But at least to the right there wonât be mud.
She keeps walking, looking for a break in the undergrowth, until she sees, through a stand of tall pine saplings, what looks like a clearing of reddish sand. There seems to be nothing growing there, and she wonders if it could really be sand, here where all the soil is heavy Carolina clay. She remembers, then, a winter photo her mother took of a place where sand and water have frozen into a forest of tiny stalagmites. This must be that place. The blackberry brambles have petered out along the edges of the trail, leaving only honeysuckle and a wild rose, its wickedly barbed branches spraying out like a fountain. Amazing, Charley thinks, how many things in nature have thorns. Skirting the rosebush, she heads in toward the clearing, pushing pine boughs out of the way, ducking under or stepping over vines.
Whatever made this clearing, it is floored with coarse, sandy soil, lighter than the color of the clay. It slopes up to a wooded hill, covered with moss and pine needles. In the middle of the clearing there is a small pile of black dung, studded with seeds. Scat , her mother called these leavings of the woods animals. It is one way to track the animals. Charley has no idea what left itâraccoon or possum or maybe a fox.
She crosses the clearing and climbs the hill, holding onto the trunks of young pines and cedars to pull herself up. When she gets to the top, she recognizes it immediately. She has found the Pine Grove.
Pines and cedars grow so tall and so dense here that the shade is too deep for undergrowth. The lower branches of the trees have died and mostly broken away, leaving clear space for standing. She can look in any direction and see what seem to be corridors of tree trunksâsome straight, some curving down the slopes. The place where she is standing now, a rounded knoll, is an almost perfect circle, like a green-roofed room with a mossy floor where the fairy rings grow. There is no sign of mushrooms now. It is dim and still here, almost cool. Unlike the ground everywhere else in the woods, there are no leaves. A scattering of sharp-edged white stones peek out from the carpet of pine needles, moss, and lichens that covers the ground.
It feels as if she has stepped from the bright, hot summer of Eagle Lake into a different season, a different world. She finds herself breathing more deeply, taking in the sharp scent of pine sap and cedar. If she could feel her heartbeat, she thinks, it would be slowing down. This is a place she does not want to leave.
She lowers herself to the ground and leans against the trunk of a pine, her left leg
She looks to see where Coyote has gone. Heâs disappeared. Her choice is to turn back and take the lake trail, hoping heâll figure out where sheâs gone and come find her, or cut into the woods where there isnât a trail. Her leg isnât hurting too badly, and she feels up for adventure, so she decides to cut into the woods. On her left the ground slopes down toward Heron Pond and gets marshy. Once she pushes her way through the screen of honeysuckle and poison ivy and blackberries to get in under the trees, the walking will be bad. On her right the ground slopes up. The sun has encouraged pretty much the same tangle of undergrowth among the pine and sweet gum saplings on both sides, so whichever she chooses, the going wonât be easy at first. But at least to the right there wonât be mud.
She keeps walking, looking for a break in the undergrowth, until she sees, through a stand of tall pine saplings, what looks like a clearing of reddish sand. There seems to be nothing growing there, and she wonders if it could really be sand, here where all the soil is heavy Carolina clay. She remembers, then, a winter photo her mother took of a place where sand and water have frozen into a forest of tiny stalagmites. This must be that place. The blackberry brambles have petered out along the edges of the trail, leaving only honeysuckle and a wild rose, its wickedly barbed branches spraying out like a fountain. Amazing, Charley thinks, how many things in nature have thorns. Skirting the rosebush, she heads in toward the clearing, pushing pine boughs out of the way, ducking under or stepping over vines.
Whatever made this clearing, it is floored with coarse, sandy soil, lighter than the color of the clay. It slopes up to a wooded hill, covered with moss and pine needles. In the middle of the clearing there is a small pile of black dung, studded with seeds. Scat , her mother called these leavings of the woods animals. It is one way to track the animals. Charley has no idea what left itâraccoon or possum or maybe a fox.
She crosses the clearing and climbs the hill, holding onto the trunks of young pines and cedars to pull herself up. When she gets to the top, she recognizes it immediately. She has found the Pine Grove.
Pines and cedars grow so tall and so dense here that the shade is too deep for undergrowth. The lower branches of the trees have died and mostly broken away, leaving clear space for standing. She can look in any direction and see what seem to be corridors of tree trunksâsome straight, some curving down the slopes. The place where she is standing now, a rounded knoll, is an almost perfect circle, like a green-roofed room with a mossy floor where the fairy rings grow. There is no sign of mushrooms now. It is dim and still here, almost cool. Unlike the ground everywhere else in the woods, there are no leaves. A scattering of sharp-edged white stones peek out from the carpet of pine needles, moss, and lichens that covers the ground.
It feels as if she has stepped from the bright, hot summer of Eagle Lake into a different season, a different world. She finds herself breathing more deeply, taking in the sharp scent of pine sap and cedar. If she could feel her heartbeat, she thinks, it would be slowing down. This is a place she does not want to leave.
She lowers herself to the ground and leans against the trunk of a pine, her left leg
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