Hi from the Hollow

The Ledger - Chapter 2

The trees behind the Fowl house were tall and lumbering. Their evergreen branches spread in tight cones as they rose high in the afternoon sky. Their trunks were thick, rooted in healthy blankets of moss, twigs, and needles, which crunched underfoot as Jessie and Davy trudged uphill.

It was an ordinary afternoon, by every observation. Davy spotted a few birds and Pointed them out as they watched their new neighbours from their perches in the trees. Jessie took no time to find them perfect walking sticks, which she stripped of bark and errant bits. Hers was, of course, thicker and sturdier by far.

"If we come across a bear or something, I'm going to be the one to smack it, not you," she said, prodding Davy in the side, her thrust easily dodging her block.

The forest rose underfoot, climbing up a steady incline. They'd been hiking for an hour when the kids reached the mountain's first plateau.

A solitary shack sat lodged between two gnarled oaks. Davy noticed it first, how it squatted behind a low hanging branch, partially concealed and unobtrusive. Its wooden boards with stripped and bare.

Jessie ran up and peeked inside. There was a bare mattress with springs poking up through it. A cabinet sat in one corner, two of its shelves missing. A makeshift table had been made in the centre of the shack using two cinder blocks and a square piece of metal sheeting. Shrugging, Davy and Jessie walked on.

The forest went on off in the distance. They dashed through trees and followed what trails the local animals had beaten out, without any real direction. About a half-hour, after they had found the abandoned shack, Jessie stopped her brother.

"Hey, did you notice that?"

"What?" David looked around. He spotted a bird flapping away from a branch of a tall and spindly spruce but saw nothing out of the ordinary. "What's up?"

"Us. We just went up." Jessie concentrated and swallowed, popping her other ear. "We've been going uphill since the shack."

"Really? Huh. I guess we'll have an easier time going back."

Jessie sniffed. The air was colder, carrying the rich scent of earth, trees and old stone. "There are probably mountains up ahead."

"Makes sense. The map dad showed us had Springhollow bordered by mountains on most sides." David crooked his head. Somewhere far to his left, a bird cawed out. "If that's where we are."

Lessie started walking again, laughing. "That again? We're here, bro. Nowhere else. It's not like Dad drove us himself. Mom was navigating--you know how she is with maps." David smiled and followed his sister.

The sun was high above them. As he wiped his brow, he was glad that he and his sister were walking under shade. He could feel the sun's heat through the foliage high above and worried about sunstroke. David worried about a lot of small things.

~

The ground rose in steady increments as David and Jessie walked. The trees became thicker, and the canopy above their heads denser. It was another forty minutes before they came to the abrupt mountainside, as though the rough stone had only recently sprouted from the ground like a flower.

"Hey, check out the pile over there." Davy pointed to his left. The rock wall had crumbled into a pile of moss-covered boulders. "Think we can get up that way?"

Jessie's sharp eyes darted up the rocks to the flat wall above. Deep cracks were spidering along the grey stone, and her eyes followed the grooves up and up. "Hmmm. We could, but then where? We'd have to climb up the Lightning bolt route there."

Davy followed his sister's hand, identifying her way up. He'd learned long ago not to argue with her when it came to certain subjects, climbing and other physical activities being the focus. His areas of expertise rarely involved so much sweating, but Jessie seemed to revel in those challenges. She knew how to glance and act, while he was much more of a planner.