Chapter 1 - Goodbye, Frank
"The darkness is so profound, it seems to penetrate my eyes.-Thou shalt no see the way. Thou shalt no lose thyself in the forest"
The sun was peeking out behind the tall, green Douglas firs. No tree is as important as the Douglas fir in the Pacific Northwest. The dominant species of the region. From snow-covered mountain ranges to rocky coastlines, everything is covered in conifers. The town of Vegreven Peaks is located just in the middle of that remote woodland known as Washington State. Brushing with Canada in the north and with Oregon in the south, and, of course, with the Pacific Ocean (one of the largest and deepest of Earth's oceanic divisions), one could find the 18th largest state, and the 13th most populous one.
Founded in October 1805, by the Chinookan peoples, who reside along the Lower and Middle Columbia river, and located in the Cascade Mountains, in central Washington State, Vegreven Peaks was initially a Chinookan campsite, where the travelers used to stop in order to rest and taste the local steelhead trouts. More and more people arrived through the years, and it eventually become a scaled-down town. There aren't any roadside attractions or tourist traps, like the well-known Oregon Vortex, the Cabazon Dinosaurs or the Hole-in-the-Rock natural geological formation, so outsiders were rarely seen in this peaceful settlement surrounded by glorious wildness.
Vegreven Peaks runs itself to where the mountains soar and beckons residents to take to the hills. When it's warm, hiking and biking trails are plentiful. When the snow arrives, the mountains become a dangerous place, so people comes down from them to enjoy downtown's entertainment, dining and shopping. Amongst the mountains, the forest, the flatlands and the highlands, Blackwood Lake is positioned. This long narrow lake is one of the largest natural lakes in Washington. It sits in the slopes of the North Cascades National Park at an elevation of 340 m, acting as the natural border between the townships of Vegreven Peaks and Limingway Summit. The sun's reflection in the crystal clear waters of the lake in a warmth summer day was the most delightful thing Frank Pendleton had ever witnessed in his short life. He was born in Vegreven Peaks (in the very same place he would die 52 years later), in his grandfather's hunting lodge during a vicious snow storm.
Rosemary and Charles, also known as Mr. and Mrs. Pendleton, were enjoying a pleasant walk through the niveous woods that chilly November day when the storm arrived. It was so cold. It felt as if they were walking directly through the frozen core of Dante's Inferno, the place in which the worst sinners were punished for all eternity. Charles gave his old biker jacket to his wife, so she could protect not only herself but their little not-yet-born baby from the terrible penetrating cold. The snow fell furiously, and the mist arrived shortly after. They lost sense of orientation in less than 14 minutes, so they were totally lost in that icy-cold, nival abyss, and they didn't know what to do or which direction to follow, but the Pendletons knew that they didn't want to depart his life yet. After all, they were going to take care of his child, Franky. They wandered through the blizzard when the lodge appeared, like Jesus himself appeared 1953 years ago to save humanity from his own sins. Rose opened the door as fast as her frozen fingers could, to find out that the rusty cabin, or "The fox's hole" as his father and his colleagues used to call it back in the days, was in a surprisingly good form, considering that no one had opened the door in almost 20 years. They were finally safe. Rather she was safe. Charles didn't make it. They didn't even found one of his reliable rugged engineer boots. They buried an empty casket. Remains of nothing. But let's get back to the cabin. The moment she realized she was alone the tears started emanating from his reddened blue eyes . His beloved Charles wasn't there anymore to go to the Fruits and More store in Ventmoore Street to buy apples, he wasn't there for talking about how much he hated his neighbor John, but most importantly, he wasn't there to help little Franky become a man. Rose had been suffering from crampy abdominal and back pain the past days. That moment, the pain became stronger and closer over time. It was happening, right there, in the same place where his father drinked beer and played poker with his partners after placing a bullet inside a poor, helpless animal. The stuffed and dissected deer heads hanged on the walls as macabre trophies were looking with sum attention at the woman who was desperately screaming in the floor, sheltered from the unfriendly weather under Charlie's jacket, the only memory that remained. The labour and delivery had officially started ladies and gentleman, gather round and behold the miracle of life.
Totems are curious things. They are usually considered as spirit beings or sacred objects, but also as symbols of a tribe, a clan or a family. Some Native American tribe's tradition provides that each person is connected with nine different animals that will accompany him or her through life, acting almost as guides. This animals come in and out of our lives depending on the direction we are headed and the tasks that need to be completed along our journey. On the other hand, totem poles are monuments created by the First Nations of the Pacific Northwest region to commemorate this animals. They are normally created out of red cedar, a malleable wood relatively abundant in the Pacific Northwest region, and would be erected to be visible within a community. And a community as big and important as Vegreven Peaks itself, wouldn't be the same without its tall, mysterious totem poles prodding the blue skies of the great north and serving as rest to the majestic birds that inhabited within that cursed land.
