The Ancient One (5 page)

“Whew,” said Kate. “That’s no small feat. It’s hard enough for me to remember something for even a day or two, let alone a whole lifetime.”

“I used to be the same way,” Aunt Melanie replied. “Something happened, though, the first time I heard a Halami song. It stuck in my head, as if it had been there all along, and I couldn’t put it out of my mind.” Her face crinkled into a grin. “Maybe there’s some truth to the rumor I’ve got some Halami blood in me.”

Kate leaned over the hand-drawn map. The words
Lost Crater
were ringed by several small characters that she recognized as symbols from Halami rock carvings. A few names, like Kahona Falls, she also recognized. But others, like Circle of Stones, were completely new. Near the Hidden Forest, she spotted a question:
little people?
Then she noticed some strange words printed at the bottom of the page, but got only as far as
True of heart and straight of spear, Find the forest walled in fear
before Aunt Melanie lifted the map off the table.

“This is my biggest accomplishment,” said Aunt Melanie, her white hair aglow with firelight. She brought the map closer and examined it, as one studies the face of an old friend. “It’s taken me more than a decade to put it together, piece by piece, from talking with everyone I could find who knows something about the Halamis.”

“How did they vanish?” asked Kate. “I know you must have a theory.”

Lowering her map, Aunt Melanie pointed to a jagged mountain drawn north of Lost Crater. “Brimstone Peak,” she said with certainty. “It had something to do with Brimstone Peak.”

Kate turned a puzzled face toward her. “Meaning what?”

The elder sat back in the rocker and gazed into the fire for a moment. “There is a legend,” she said, “but it’s awfully vague and incomplete. No one, including me, knows quite what to make of it.”

“Tell me anyway.”

Aunt Melanie gathered her thoughts before speaking. “Well, it seems that Brimstone Peak—we don’t know the Halami name for it—was an evil place for the Halamis. They believed that a wicked being called Gashra lived deep inside it. He wanted to control all the lands around him, but apparently the Halamis resisted him. So out of anger and revenge, Gashra decided to destroy both them and their home. He made the mountain erupt and fill the valleys with lava, hoping to wipe them out completely.” She glanced again at the hand-drawn map. “Whether he succeeded or not, no one knows. And almost nobody takes the legend very seriously. But it’s interesting to note that the last eruption of Brimstone Peak was just about five hundred years ago.”

“The same time the Halamis disappeared,” said Kate. “Makes you wonder.”

“Oh yes,” added Aunt Melanie. “There’s one more piece to it, though it’s the vaguest part of all. Some versions of the legend say an important role was played by a mysterious tree spirit.”

“Tree spirit?”

“Don’t ask me what it means. Could be just a mistake that crept into the story after so many repetitions. Could be a tree that becomes a person somehow, or the reverse, or something even stranger. I have no idea.”

Placing her map back in the secret drawer, Aunt Melanie closed it tight, then faced Kate. “Lost Crater is like no other place on the planet, you see. It holds the Hidden Forest, that much we know. But it holds other things too. Strange things, stranger than you can imagine.” A log collapsed in the fireplace, sending up a shower of sparks. “The Ancient One lives there.”

“The what?”

“Never mind. My point is that it’s a place no one really understands. It ought to be left alone.”

“I wish we knew what the loggers are planning to do.”

“So do I, dear. So do I.”

“What can they do now, though?” wondered Kate. “Tomorrow’s Sunday, and then the injunction starts.”

She caught her breath, staring at Aunt Melanie, as the same thought flashed across both of their minds at once. “Sunday!” they exclaimed simultaneously.

“That’s it,” announced the elder. “That must be it. It’s just the sort of thing Billy would think of. He was always trying to skirt the rules back when I had him in school, and he’s still the same—except now he’s angrier. And hungrier too. Frank told me he and Sly existed on nothing but potatoes all last winter.” She shook her head slowly. “I’m sure he’s planning to go up there tomorrow, before the injunction, and cut down as many redwoods as he can. That way there can’t be any more talk about a park.”

“You think he’d really do that?”

Frowning, Aunt Melanie replied, “I’m sure.”

“But that’s terrible! If only—if only there were some way to hold them off, just for one more day.” Kate looked into her aunt’s eyes, but found no comfort there. “Who’s going to stop them?”

Aunt Melanie reached across the table and laid her small hand upon Kate’s. “We will.”

V:
T
HE
F
ORGOTTEN
T
RAIL

The earth shook with a deep, volcanic rumbling. Force enough to fling incandescent lava into the darkened sky like a pyrotechnic fountain. Masses of thick lava oozed from crevasses along the ridge of the cone-shaped summit, triggering avalanches of superheated stone and mud that roared down river drainages and glacial valleys with enough speed to obliterate whole swaths of forest. Hissing vents and fumaroles blasted columns of superheated steam high into the sky.

Kate was running from the eruption, dashing through the dense forest, her heart pounding. There was no chance of escape. Drenched from the heat of the inferno behind her, she couldn’t even avoid the oncoming lava by climbing a tree, since every tree in its path was instantly incinerated. Rivers of fire, bubbling violently, rushed steadily toward her from the seething summit.

Then the ground shook again. The sky flashed with a brilliant light. Kate screamed.

And she awoke. Aunt Melanie, who had stopped shaking her bed in order to turn on the overhead light, stood over her, wearing a dark blue nightgown.

“That was quite a dream you were having.”

Kate sat up in bed, wet with perspiration. She wiped her face with the edge of the sheet. “You mean—you mean there’s no . . . volcano? It was so real, I even felt the heat.”

Aunt Melanie laid a gentle hand on her forehead. “The only volcano still active around here is Brimstone Peak, and it hasn’t erupted for centuries. I’m the last person to take any dream lightly, mind you, but the only reality to this one is the temperature in here. How did this room get so hot?”

“I did it,” confessed Kate. “I was still cold from getting soaked yesterday so I turned on the space heater full blast before I went to bed.” She looked sheepishly at Aunt Melanie. “Guess I cooked my own goose, huh?”

“That you did,” replied the white-haired woman. “But you did us both a favor. It’s only two-fifteen, but since we’re both awake, we’re going to go now. The earlier we get started, the earlier we’ll get there. And we must get up there by dawn.”

Kate threw back the sheet. “You think they’ll be up there that early?”

Aunt Melanie shook her head. “No, they’ll take their new road. It’s very long and steep, so it should take them at least until mid-morning.”

“Then why do we need to get there so early?”

“Because, dear, we’re going by a different way. A better way.”

“I thought you said their new road was the only way into the crater.”

“It’s the only
road.
The way we’re going is—well, not a road.” Aunt Melanie brushed a moth off the shoulder of her nightgown, then turned to go. “Now hurry. I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

The next half hour saw the little cottage in a whirl of activity. Kate quickly braided her hair, threw cold water on her face, and pulled on her green Bulldogs Softball sweatshirt and jeans. Aunt Melanie set out food for Atha and prepared hot chocolate. “There are times when no spice tea can compare to this,” she said as she poured the steaming brown liquid into an old thermos and screwed tight the cover.

At last, they left the cottage. Though the rain had stopped, fog had settled so densely on the ground that Kate felt a fine mist on her face as she followed Aunt Melanie onto the porch. There was no light, only gradations of darkness, since there was no moon and the flashlight was not working. Even the neon green shoelaces weren’t visible now.

I hate walking at night,
she muttered. Although she didn’t like to admit it to anyone, including herself, she never felt very comfortable in the dark. Especially outdoors.

Kate stayed as close as she could behind Aunt Melanie, even though it meant slopping straight through a frigid puddle. Ahead she sensed the vague shape that she knew to be the Jeep but that in the gloom could just as easily have been a sleeping stegosaurus. Then, from some faraway place, she heard the distant
hooo-hooo
of an owl.

Aunt Melanie stopped suddenly, causing Kate to walk into her. They listened for a moment, hearing only the sound of their own breathing and the gentle rustling of evergreen branches in the pre-dawn breeze. Kate wondered whether the owl was sailing through the vaporous darkness in search of some small animal to eat, or was even now following their movements from some broken-topped tree.

At last, the call came again, closer this time.
Hooo-hooo, hooo-hooo.
The voice seemed to hover in the moist night air.

As if responding to the signal, Aunt Melanie began walking again. Soon she reached the Jeep, which she announced by tapping its fender with her walking stick. Pulling open the door, whose window consisted of a thin square of plastic wired to the frame, she wiped the puddle off the seat and climbed in. By the time Kate had clambered in the other side (without remembering first to wipe the seat, to her chagrin), the old Jeep was sputtering noisily.

“Hang on, now,” Aunt Melanie shouted above the roar as she turned on the headlights. “The road is lousy in any weather, but especially when it’s this muddy.” She patted the red metal dashboard affectionately, then released the clutch. Trusty lurched forward and off they drove into the night.

Soon after crossing the bridge over Jones River, Aunt Melanie turned onto a heavily rutted road ascending a steep hill. Before long the jostling beams of the headlights revealed forest all around them. Curls of mist wove around small trees, snags, and stumps on both sides of the dirt road. A rivulet running along the left side sometimes curled into the middle of the track, causing Aunt Melanie to swerve sharply to avoid losing a wheel in its channel.

The road was filled with rocks, roots, potholes, and ruts half as high as Trusty’s tires. As her stomach tightened from repeated bouncing on the rock-hard seat, Kate began to wonder what the two of them could possibly do to stop a whole team of loggers. She glanced toward Aunt Melanie, hoping she at least had some kind of plan.

At that moment, the Jeep slowed markedly and the driver shifted into low gear. Kate heard the sound of rushing water below as they drove onto a creaking wooden bridge, so flimsy it seemed to tilt sideways under their weight. Slowly, they crept across, bouncing over every crosspiece. Then, with a jolt, they reached solid ground again.

Aunt Melanie rammed the stick shift into a new gear with a grinding crunch and gunned the engine. Keeping her eyes on the potholes ahead, she reached into her sweater pocket and pulled out a peppermint. Handing it to Kate, she said, “Here, dear, eat this. It ought to help.”

It was nearly another hour of wrenching jolts, deep gullies, and sharp turns before Aunt Melanie pulled into a ditch on the right side of the road, shifted the stick into neutral, and yanked on the parking brake. She turned off the ignition and the lights and sat back in her seat with a sigh. “We made it.”

Kate, who had managed somehow to doze during the last part of the agonizing journey, woke up with a start. “Did we crash?”

“No, although I guess that would have put you out of your misery.” She patted Kate’s thigh. “The only good thing about this road is how rotten it is. Like most roads around here, it doesn’t get much traffic. Until they built that new road last week, this was the nearest you could drive to the crater.” With a sigh, she added, “There’s nothing like the combination of bad weather and bad roads to keep a beautiful place beautiful.”

Kate opened her door carefully, given the steep pitch of the Jeep. All four wheels were caked with mud, and Aunt Melanie’s daisy, more tired than ever, still hugged the antenna. Gingerly, Kate placed her wobbly feet on the ground. To her surprise, it was not muddy but covered with a layer of soft evergreen needles several inches thick. She could almost bounce on the padded surface, but her stomach told her to resist the urge. The sky seemed a touch lighter than when they had started out, but she still wished she had a flashlight.

As she slipped Aunt Melanie’s small blue day pack over her shoulders, she was struck by the rich smells surrounding her. She drank in the fragrant air like someone encountering her first rose garden, and her nose tingled with fresh, vibrant aromas.

“Wondrous air, isn’t it?” spoke the familiar voice by her side.

“I can’t believe how good it smells.”

“A friend of mine who plays the cello calls it ‘a symphony of scents.’ Isn’t that so?” Aunt Melanie pointed to the trees on her left with her walking stick. “Over there, if aromas were sounds, would be the violins, dancing brightly. On the other side we have the French horns.”

“And the trumpets?”

“Right,” she replied. “And sometimes we get jolted by some new spring flower that’s like crashing cymbals.” She grinned at Kate. “How about a quick cup of hot chocolate?”

Kate smiled, took the thermos and two cups from the day pack, and poured some in each. After taking her first swallow, she asked, “What did you mean last night about strange things happening up there in the crater?”

Aunt Melanie shifted her weight from one leg to the other. “It’s hard to explain, dear.”

“Can’t you give me an example? Just one?”

“Almost anything is possible in a place that’s been undisturbed for so long.”

“Like what?”

“Well, for starters, you could assume pretty safely there are plants and animals up there no one’s ever seen before.”