THE VISION IS A PLACE | ✓ {complete}

Chapter 21 : prey

    I'm walking barefoot over a carpet of wintergreen and partridge berries with a pair of wire cutters in my back pocket. Jai told me about a long fallen fence, somewhere between our property and Jameson's, that I could scavenge from to make the wire frame for a new row cover I'm trying to build.

I'm often hesitant to spend too much time on this side of the river. Jameson lives on this side in a simple cabin down near the edge of the swamp, where the ground is wet and long dead spruce trees stand in the still waters. I always expect to spot him, moving through the trees, stalking the woods with his rifle. That's all he does. He hunts and traps everyday, subsequently killing far more than what he can eat on his own. Addison goes over there to trade with him sometimes, but only as a pretext to check in on him at Kent's request. Heath won't do it anymore. Something happened once that creeped him out too much to go back.

Besides feeling like prey, this side of the river is still really beautiful. Highland forests merge with cedar groves, and ghost pipe shoot up through the low foliage, marking the rabbit trails and deer paths with their tiny faerie lanterns. The flowers are almost completely translucent. At night, when the forest is asleep, it's as if they keep stretching towards a light only they can feel. There's something beautiful about the way they don't feel of this earth, but need to attach themselves to the plants that do to stay alive. They don't need the sun because they have the trees to feed from instead.

I try to find peace in the sounds of the forest, but as I get closer and closer to Jameson's swamp, an uneasy feeling takes over.

I reach a section of mossy boulders and follow them around the side of the hill. I should be seeing the fence soon. They sky grows dramatically darker. I can hear the rhythm of a cargo train far off in the distance, bombing over wooden tracks. When it reaches the curve, a loud crescendo of screaming metal pierces the silence, like wind howling under a massive doorway. The sound hits me, making the hairs on the back of neck stand up.

I squint through the branches and see a small break in the trees. When I reach the clearing, I look up. It's mid morning, but the sky is darkening as if it were dusk; a storm is building. My bones buzz with an energy the frogs seem to share; they have begun to sing as loudly as they would on the warmest summer night. The swamp isn't far now.

I think I hear a twig snap at the edge of the clearing. I spin around, but see nothing. Everything past the clearing is too dark now in comparison to see. I'd have to walk back under the canopy to see into its depth.

I grip the wire cutters so tightly, my knuckles turn white.

You're alone...don't worry.

There have been reports of a mountain lion in Peregrine National Forest, but that's at least thirty miles from here. Plus, it's probably based on a faulty source. Most mentions of mountain lions in Vermont, especially in the low corner, are almost always a case of mis-identification. I don't know why I'm so jittery right now; Jameson is obviously not around and it's not like I've ever been scared of black bears or coyotes, but I just can't shake this feeling that I'm being watched.

I look a moment longer in the direction of the twig-snap, the way a deer stares into the darkness when they hear a sound, but I see nothing...until I pick up my feet to keep moving.

As soon as I turn back around, my body flushes with a paralyzing wave of enervation, and all my blood seems to rush away from my heart and into my limbs, although the opposite is probably what's actually happening. My fingertips just feel so heavy. I see the fence on the ground just up ahead, that I swear wasn't there before, but it's what's just past it that has made me freeze. I drop the wire cutters and my eyes widen. I want to move but it's like my body and everything around it is locked in slow motion. Even the wind seems to have slowed down, changing the way the leaves are moving; like everything is underwater. I can't look away. There's a magnetic pull, drawing me towards this faint, hovering, green light. I know I'm not moving, and neither is the light, but I feel like I'm getting closer to it.

It's just floating there, five—maybe six— feet off the ground; a ball of energy, the size of a small melon. The grey bark of a nearby aspen catches the glow and I can see now that it's maybe twenty feet away. There's a stillness to it, but it feels animate at the same time; like it's alive somehow.

As if the light isn't enough, a loud clap sounds from behind me, like a tree exploding from frozen sap on a frigid winter night, but I don't look away from the light—I can't.

I stare into it and tell myself it's not real, hoping that doing so will be enough to make it disappear, but it doesn't even flicker, and part of me doesn't even want it to leave yet. I'm curious about it. I want to know what it is. I search my mind frantically for an explanation. Perhaps there is an old green glass bottle catching the only sliver of sunlight to make it through the suddenly deep grey sky. Maybe my eye has something really small in it. Maybe Jameson has hung something from a tree... If it's ball lightning, shouldn't it be moving?

Another loud clap reverberates behind me, closer than the one before it. I jolt, and for the first time the light moves, jolting with me. I blink only once, and when my eyes open again, the light is only there for another split second before disappearing: lights out. Everything is dark and grey again.

Free from its hypnotic grip, I whip around to where I heard the loud claps. In the few seconds it takes for my eyes to readjust to the dark, I'm terrified. My imagination is already ten steps ahead of reality. I wish I knew where to look.

Please don't scare me. Please don't scare me.

My heart is beating out of my chest, my whole body shaking and unnerved.

Someone calls my name.

"No, no, no," I whisper.

I drop down to pick up the wire cutters as if somehow they'll be able to protect me.

Again, "Caaaasten!"

I kneel on the ground and wait for it to stop, feeling totally out of control.

I was fourteen the first time I saw something that I knew wasn't normal to see; something I knew wasn't real to other people. I was seventeen the last time I saw something like that.

I thought it was over...it was supposed to be over.