The first time I saw it I was playing hide and seek with my older brother and some of his friends when I was eight years old. We were on a camping trip, and our parents were drinking around a fire, singing and smoking, when we ran off. The sun was setting, turning the sky pink, and the trees black.
I followed, panting, trying to keep up, while my brother and his friends bolted ahead. We jumped over narrow streams choked with weeds, kicked mushrooms the size of my head, and dodged low-hanging branches. The farther we got from the campground, the scarier the woods seemed to me.
The older boys didn't notice how the trees were getting gnarled and bent, all leafless and knotted. As the sun sunk lower, and the light vanished, some of the branches curled like fingers beckoning us deeper into the woods, farther from our parents.
Animal sounds began to disappear, the wind quieted. Our feet crunched over broken rock.
I was sweaty and shaking by the time my brother and his friends stopped and suggested a game of hide and seek. I didn't want to play but I didn't want them to call me a baby, either.
My brother was seeker.
He leaned against a tree, its branches reaching around him, hugging him, going for the kill. He started to count.
The other boys scattered into the darkness, leaving me dancing on the spot, too afraid to move. It was only when my brother peeked up and told me not to chicken out, that I hurried away, looking for a place to hide close by.
I thought I followed one of his friends, but when I stopped to look for him, I found no one.
Though it was dark, the moon was bright enough to see by, even if it did make the trees look alive. There was a boulder up ahead. That was where I was going to hide. I walked around it, planning to crouch there until I saw my brother, and then I could run out to him and hopefully hide with him next time.
But when I got to the other side of the boulder something caught my attention. It was far off, through the trees, barely visible through the fog clinging to the trunks. It looked like a castle.
I was tempted to call out to call my brother so he could see the castle, too, but I kept quiet. My courage bloomed, and I thought that would be a great place to hide. I hadn't gone far, so they were bound to find it as well, and I would be there, waiting to jump out and scare them. To get back at them for all the times they scared me.
My brother's voice, calling out numbers, faded as I moved closer to the castle. The trees with knobby branches grew thicker, making it hard to walk. I had to climb over large roots and under the ones that had come out of the ground. At the bottom of a little hill, the tree line stopped.
I jogged halfway up and stared at the castle. But it wasn't a castle; at least, not a whole one. It was only a tower, with broken, dark windows, a crumbling, caved-in roof, and another gnarled tree beside it.
It wasn't the grand castle I had thought, but it was spooky, which was what I needed it to be. I looked around for anything alive that might try to eat me, but all I saw was that the tower sat on a jagged cliff. I couldn't see the water but I could hear it gurgling below. It smelled like swamp.
The tower was round and made of stone. On the side facing the cliff edge and the creepy tree, there was a door. It was dark and splintered around the edges but looked heavy and solid.
How great would it be when one of my brother's stupid friends came looking for me, opened this door, and I was there to jump out, screaming. He would probably wet himself.
I reached for the door handle and pushed. It didn't budge. I took it in both hands and pulled and pushed. I threw my shoulder into the door and grunted in pain. Rubbing my shoulder, tears in my eyes, I kicked the door.
It creaked inward.
Cold air and the smell of dirt floated out toward me. I shivered and stepped inside.
It was not as cool as it looked from the outside. It was a round, empty room, with no ceiling, and a pile of rubble on the floor, probably what used to be the roof. I took another step, and then screamed as something large bolted from the shadows. The animal screeched and ran past, knocking me over. I fell back and hit my head.
Creaking slowly, the door closed.
When my vision cleared, I checked for blood, but I was okay. My heart beat in my throat but at least it was beating.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat and tasted dust and dirt. As great as it would be for one of those idiots open the door before I scared them, I thought I would rather have it be open to begin with.
Standing, I pulled on the door. Nothing happened. I pulled harder, with both hands and tried kicking it again. Still, nothing happened. The door was jammed, stuck, locked, whatever, but it wasn't opening.
Panic made my voice shaky but I screamed as loud as I could, jumping up and down hoping my cries would carry out the broken windows or the roof. My own voice echoed back at me, absorbed by the walls.
I banged on the door, kicked it, slammed against it, and even tried to climb the walls, which only earned me scratched and bloody fingers.
I screamed myself hoarse that day, crying until my head hurt.
That was thirty-five years ago. I had never been so scared in my entire life. It's become a ritual to make the trek through the woods with the curling branches, and find the broken tower. I come every year on the same day and laugh at how far the tower was from the campground. It was no wonder my parents couldn't hear me screaming.
Coming to the middle of the hill, I pause, like I always do, and stare up at the tower. Had the walls crumbled just a few feet lower, I could have climbed out.
Walking noiselessly over the rocky, blackened ground, I go around the tower and through the door.
With the weak sun lighting the round room I see it and shudder. If I had been taller, maybe I could have climbed out that window, or if the roots of the tree outside had only risen like the ones in the woods and lifted the foundation of the tower, I could have crawled out.
With its empty sockets, it doesn't look real.
I don't remember feeling any pain, besides hunger perhaps. I do remember when my voice gave out, when my muscles seized up, and when I finally, with the third sunrise I saw while in the tower, laid down against the wall and closed my eyes.
Every time I come back here I wish I could go back in time and just hide behind the boulder, or let my brother call me a baby and stay with him while he counted, or stay at the campground with the adults. Wishing didn't work while I was trapped inside the tower and it won't work now.
The best I can hope for is that one year I will come back and I won't find it huddled against the cold stone walls, draped in rotting cloth in the dirt. I can hope that someone will find the tower and the little boy inside.
Until that day comes, the broken tower is my tomb.
