Descending Star

TRIANGLE

Ben leaned back on a folding chair, glowered at the darkening morning sky, and absently observed that a tarp would prevent the scattered maps from turning to mush on the picnic table, once it started to rain. He couldn't motivate himself to act. The brittle papyrus wasn't worth saving.

Zoey reclined on a faded yellow Adirondack chair, with her feet up on the picnic table. She propped her heels on the stacked maps to prevent splinters. She too looked up at the charcoal nether regions of the clouds and said, "This place is truly decrepit."

"Yeah," Ben agreed.

She remarked, "When I was fully immersed in a hundred happy labors, I neglected to notice how much I loathe it here."

Ben sighed, martyred, but he couldn't argue with her. If it weren't for his grand mission, paying back to Charlie the final vestiges of his lost childhood, he would have emigrated east with Renée and Phil, as Zoey had begged him to do.

As to their sightseeing plans, he had found a few local landmarks. The roads had changed in the decades since the maps had been printed, so he had added dotted lines here and there with a marker, using his phone for a reference.

Ben's suggestions were in the middle of nowhere, even for this place: secret spots deep in the woods, on seldom-used or non-existent trails. The routes would require full day excursions. They had already agreed that today would be for planning, lounging and idle procrastination. The actual hike would take place tomorrow.

One proposal offered the prospect of some rock climbing, an eight hundred foot cliff tucked away on a high isolated slope, at the head of a small vale. Ben promised that the place had a natural waterfall, which he admitted might have dried out at this time of year, deep in the dog days of summer. The challenge was the eight mile hike in and out, from where they would park, on a presumed trail that appeared on not a single one of the scattered maps. Ben jotted a meandering candycrumb lane, complete with purely hypothetical switchbacks, on a few maps with a blue marker.

At least the existence of that lost Shangrila could be inferred from the historical evidence, since Ben had described a small vernal pool, at the foot of the rock wall, which actually appeared on a spindled, decades-old topo map.

Ben described his alternate suggestion as a small flowered forest glade, oddly circular in shape, a naturally occurring sundial. He had no clear idea of its location, but he insisted that the place existed and that he had even stood there. He found a map, walked his fingers west from the dead end of a dotted line indicating an unmaintained fire road, and scrawled a yellow highlighter over a block representing the approximate location of the place.

"It's just there," he pronounced, capping the highlighter. "I'm sure we could reach it in a day."

"You say there's no trail, though."

"It's a well-kept secret."

"I'll say."

Zoey studied his artwork, used her thumb and forefinger as a ruler, did a little bit of mental math, and softly informed him, "You've highlighted a hundred twenty square miles."

He squinted at his scrawls, pale, and muttered, "Yes, well it's sort of in the middle."

Fat, heavy waterdrops started to splash here and there on the scattered paper. Neither he nor she felt inclined to gather it up.

A drop struck Zoey's nose. She scowled reproachfully at the sky, but she didn't move. She dared the clouds to bring it on, which they sportingly proceeded to do.

Zoey shrewdly wondered how he could possibly know about these places hidden away on tenuous fairy trails, and she didn't have to ask him if they held sentimental significance. Ben had been distracted, preoccupied, ever since her arrival, and now he offered to take her to his recent romantic haunts. She didn't have to ask for confirmation. Her one question, she addressed to herself: how should she respond?