The Ancient One

by T.A. Barron

  “What’s all this got to do with the loggers?” pressed Kate, increasingly exasperated. “I still don’t get it.”

  “You will, dear. You see, everyone assumed the lake filled the crater completely. And who’d be foolish enough to try to scale those slippery walls to find out? For most people, it’s been just a blank spot on the map, not even worth a second thought. The kind of place Scotsmen call the Back of Beyond.”

  She pointed to the map. “See this big waterfall coming out of the crater? The mapmakers didn’t even bother to name it, even though it’s one of the biggest around. A few of us call it Kahona Falls, after the old Halami name, but for most people it doesn’t even exist.”

  Her finger traced the crater’s steep contours. “Nobody even takes a hike up there. There’s never been a road, not even a trail, that goes the whole way.” She smiled almost imperceptibly. “At least none that anyone knows about.”

  Aunt Melanie’s eyes, dark as the bark of rain-washed cedar, concentrated on the girl by her side. “It’s a forgotten place, Kate. Lost. Lost from time.” She sighed, running her left hand along the shaft of her stick. “Until now.”

  Kate leaned forward. “Why until now?”

  The earrings clinked gently as Aunt Melanie shook her head at the thought. “Just two weeks ago,” she began, “a Forest Service technician happened to be flying over this part of the forest, doing an aerial survey. On the spur of the moment, he decided to fly over the top of the crater, hoping to see the lake. Turned out, he was in luck. The fog in there was a lot thinner than usual, and he had a good view inside. What he saw was—well, amazing.”

  “What did he see?”

  Aunt Melanie’s eyes moved to the pie dish. “How about some huckleberry pie, before it gets cold?”

  “No thanks, I…” Kate’s words trailed off as she saw Aunt Melanie reaching for the dish. “Okay, sure. I can’t say no to that. So what did he see?”

  “These huckleberries I found right out back. Two kinds, in fact. One red, the other purple. Got to learn their names someday.” She slid a hefty slice over to Kate, allowing the corner of the map that had been held down by the plate to curl inward. As she took a heaping forkful from the pie dish for herself, the old woman’s face crinkled in a smile. “Still as tart as the day I picked them.”

  “Aunt Melanie! What did he see?”

  “Well,” began the white-haired woman, pointing at the map with her fork, “there was, in fact, a lake. But to his surprise, it filled only half of the crater. The rest of it was very dense, very old forest. A hidden forest. As he circled closer, he could see some true giants, the kind of trees that make foresters salivate, lots of them bigger than twenty-five feet around. Took pictures of everything, he did, or nobody would have believed him. There were Douglas firs, spruces, cedars, and—most precious of all—a large grove of ancient redwoods.”

  Suddenly Kate understood. “And the loggers want to cut them all down?”

  Aunt Melanie nodded gravely.

  “But I thought the crater’s impassable. You said yourself there’s no road up there.”

  “Only because there wasn’t any reason to build one. That’s all changed now. Just before you arrived, a few of them—led by your friend Billy—put a Jeep road up there. Not all the way to the top of the rim, but high enough to get inside if they blasted a hole through the rock.”

  Kate dropped her fork onto her pie plate. “They’re really going to blast their way in?”

  “They already did,” declared Aunt Melanie. “Yesterday.” She rose and moved around to the window. “The only thing left for me to do was get a lawyer in Portland to file for an injunction.”

  “A what?”

  “A court order, one that stops them from entering the crater or cutting anything in there until it’s determined whether to make the place into a park.”

  Kate nodded. “So that’s what was in the envelope.”

  “That’s right. Copies of the injunction filing. And we got it. The call came right after you left for the post office. It takes effect Monday morning, first thing.” The fire surged brightly as a pocket of resin exploded, shooting glowing embers into the air and over the hearth. Aunt Melanie kicked one back toward the fireplace and returned to her rocker. “I can’t believe they thought that stealing my mail would change anything.”

  “They must be pretty desperate.”

  “So desperate they might try anything,” said Aunt Melanie, tilting her head pensively. “The way Frank was so quick to agree with me out there, did you see? He wants me to think there’s no problem. He’s probably trying to protect me, the old fool. Afraid I’ll get hurt. But I can see right through him. They’re up to something, I’m sure of it.”

  “But what?”

  Aunt Melanie shook her head in frustration. “I wish I knew. All I know is this discovery is like manna from heaven for the loggers. Most of them are out of work. The last mill in town is ready to close. The trees from the crater would keep them employed for another year or so, delaying the inevitable at least a little while longer.”

  She glanced toward the fire. “It’s a natural human instinct, Kate, to try to keep your old way of life from changing. I really feel for them. They’re proud, independent people, the kind you can depend on. Even Billy. It’s hard not to like folks like that.”

  “Including Frank?”

  Caught off guard, Aunt Melanie blinked, her eyes moist. “Yes,” she said quietly, “including Frank.” She cleared her throat. “And to answer your next question, we were friends once. Special friends. He’s—we were—well, that was a long time ago.”

  “And the red-haired kid?” asked Kate. “He doesn’t seem so likable to me.”

  “Oh, Jody. He’s not so bad, really. He’s had a hard time since his parents died last year. Worst crash in years, out on Highway 26. Before that happened, he was one of my best students—smart, sensitive, curious—though you’d never know it now. Frank’s his grandfather, and agreed to take him in after the accident.”

  “Frank’s a brave man,” said Kate under her breath.

  Aunt Melanie pushed a hand through her untamed white curls. “That he is. He’s one rare human being. One of the few in this town willing to stand up and say that the old ways have to change, that there are no simple answers. Not everyone may agree with him, but they all respect him enough to listen.”

  She continued rocking, the repeated creaking of the chair punctuating the steady sound of rain drumming on the roof. “Everybody knows that those big trees are good for the air, the water, the soil—and even for fighting disease. But not many people know that the trees in the crater could be the oldest untouched forest in the world. And the northernmost stand of redwoods ever found.” Her eyes seemed to shine with a faraway light. “And something more.”

  “More?”

  “Yes,” continued Aunt Melanie, leaning forward in the chair. “The Hidden Forest—the whole crater, really—was well known to the Halamis five hundred years ago. It was their most sacred place of all. Since they left, it’s been totally undisturbed.”

  “Lost from time,” said Kate, remembering the phrase.

  “That’s right,” agreed her great-aunt. “There’s no map anywhere that tells what you might find up there.” Her face half lit by the dancing flames, she hesitated, then said in a voice so low it was barely audible: “Except one.”

  As Kate watched wide-eyed, Aunt Melanie reached across to the spruce table, pressed firmly on the center of one of the knots, then pulled out a small secret drawer. Within it lay a single square of white paper, tattered around the edges, labeled Lost Crater. Kate recognized the handwriting at once.

  “You made that?”

  Aunt Melanie made no answer. Slowly, carefully, she took the paper and laid it on top of the larger map. “Yes,” she said at last. “I made it.”

  “But how? I thought you said no one’s ever been up there.”

  The dark eyes gleamed. “Except the Halamis.”

  �
�But they disappeared centuries ago.”

  “That’s right. They left something behind, though. Songs and stories about their way of life, their beliefs, their prophecies. Whatever disaster wiped them out—no one knows for sure what it was—a few of them survived somehow. They blended in with some of the other native peoples who settled this area later. But still they managed to keep their wisdom alive. For hundreds of years, every child with some Halami blood has learned the sacred chants word for word, then passed them on faithfully to the next generation.”

  “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.”

  5

  the forgotten trail

  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 super-heated 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 Melani
e 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.