The Compass

What the he...?

Andy looked around, bewildered. He didn’t recognize anything. That wouldn’t be nearly as disconcerting if he hadn’t known exactly where he was two minutes before. He’d hunted, hiked, hell, slept, in these woods since he was a child. He knew them like he knew his own living room. He habitually carried a compass in his gear though he never remembered using it in this place, at least not since he played with it as a kid. He pulled it out now.

He'd been going east when he jumped the little stream. He’d known where he was then with absolute certainty, since he first jumped it probably forty years before. His grandfather had owned this little patch of forest and he had spent more time in the trees than in the house. Over all of those years he had jumped it more times than he cared to try counting and every time he’d landed on the other side surrounded by the same trees through which he had been walking when he reached it. Well, not every time. Once he had slipped on the west bank, headed home, and landed flat on his ass in the middle of the stream but that hadn’t left him lost, just wet and cold. He looked down at the compass needle, which pointed straight ahead.

He turned to the left, knowing that the stream should be close by to the west, and stared into the distance among the unfamiliar trees without seeing it. He looked back at the compass in his hand and was even more perplexed to see that it still pointed straight ahead. He kept his eye on it as he turned back to his right, watching the needle stay perfectly perpendicular to his shoulders as he did so. It never wobbled or jiggled, as you might expect it to do while changing directions, it just followed his motion steadily. This was too much.

He shook the instrument in his hand, trying to get some other motion from it, but it just steadily pointed in front of him as though sitting on a rock. This was a fine tool and he’d used it in many places successfully, but it floated on its center and reacted noticeably to such extra motion. It always had before at least, now it just sat there, pointing the same way he faced, apparently regardless of which direction that was.

He tested that hypothesis, turning slowly all the way around. The needle followed with him all the way, so he tried turning his hand while facing the same direction. At this point he was unsurprised to see the needle rotate in the case to continue pointing away from his body. It seemed futile to continue the experimentation, so he dropped the compass in his pocket and studied the trees.

There had been no such trees in this part of the world in his lifetime, that much was certain. They were enormous. The forest canopy was at least a hundred feet above his head and the tops of the giants soared above that. Smaller trees were scattered among their larger siblings but even they were as large as any trees upon which Andy had ever cast his eyes, the smallest probably 16 inches in diameter. The forest floor, shadowed under that high canopy, was leaf littered but had very little undergrowth to hinder walking. He made sure that he was facing the same way he had been when he landed on this side of the now seemingly nonexistent stream and began walking, looking carefully for anything familiar.

The ground sloped gently upwards, just as it would walking away from the stream, so there was that. Birds sang and squirrels jumped from branch to branch, chattering at his intrusion. All of the general forest life seemed, well, normal, despite the magnificence of the trees. Along the top of the low ridge he was climbing (assuming that he remained on the same ground) ran a rough road, just wide enough for a truck. Andy continued straight ahead, hoping to find it still there.

He found it, maybe. He found A road, but stepping onto it showed something that wasn’t exactly the same. The road he’d known all his life was an old logging road, rutted and winding. What he stepped onto here was smooth and ran straight as an arrow at near perfect right angles to his direction of travel. Robert Frost would have been terribly disappointed with this path; it wasn’t grassy in the least nor did it bend into the undergrowth. Less taken or not, it was clean and disappeared into the distance among the trees. He reached impulsively into his pocket for the compass again.

It pointed to his right, down the road, just as steadily as it had pointed away from him in the woods. He turned around and it maintained its direction without a single shake or quiver. It was as if the road itself provided a line of magnetism which it followed unerringly. Andy turned and strode into the woods, back down the hill which he’d just climbed, holding the compass in his hand.

For several minutes it pointed back at him, toward the road which he had left behind. On the land with which he was familiar, he should be walking straight back west, toward the little stream where all of this had begun. Everything looked as it had during his approach, he could even follow the disturbed leaves of his passage (he’d taken no care to hide his movements) all the way to the foot of the slope. It was there, where he knew that the stream should be, that the compass again pointed away from him.

It did it suddenly. So quickly that he could scarcely follow it, the needle snapped around, pointing him forward again despite the road behind. He turned around again, watching as the compass opposed his every movement, pointing away no matter his direction. He reached the end of his rotation and looked carefully at the ground again.

He stood at the bottom of a little saddle which sloped up ever so slightly to his left and rose gently again in front of him. This was just as it should be as far as it went; the stream flowed through to the creek north of here. Andy snorted out loud at this thought. Despite the proper geographical design, the stream failed to materialize. A squirrel chattered, almost sounding angry, above his head and he decided to walk down the slope where the stream should be rather than up and out of the saddle. Maybe he would find the creek itself.

He walked at least twice as far as he thought the creek should be and found himself looking into what could only be described as a shallow bowl. Huge trees, not one of them less than ten feet in diameter, surrounded the top of it, but nothing at all grew inside it. The ground to each side, which had been sloping gradually down as one might expect entering a creek bottom, rose again and formed a nearly perfect circle, with a slight dip like the one in which he stood in each side. The ancient stump of a huge tree, much larger than the ones forming the ring, stood about three feet high in the center of the bowl. It was smooth around the sides and formed a bowl itself, with water bubbling into a shallow pool on top and flowing down the sides. Where the water went he couldn’t tell, it disappeared into the leafy floor.

He took a step forward, intending to enter the bowl, and the compass in his hand snapped around again. He turned himself in yet another circle and the compass steadfastly pointed directly away from the odd fountain in the bowl. He stepped backward and the needle spun again, pointing forward. He walked all the way around the bowl, stopping at each (entrance?) to the dell and stepping into it. The compass pointed him forward all the way around but spun instantly away when he moved toward the center. When he reached his original point, he decided to step in anyway. 

The compass went mad as he stepped into the ring of trees, onto the final shallow slope of the bowl. It spun like the rotor on a helicopter, faster and faster with each step toward the fountain. He was certain that he could hear the whirring sound of its spinning as he stepped up to the great stump. It was like the distant sound of hornets, disturbed from their nest by some intruder.

The stump looked petrified, or perhaps a stone sculpted into the fountain. He walked all around it, compass spinning the entire time and found no mud and no stream flowing away. The water, clear as glass, bubbled up into the bowl and flowed down the sides, disappearing at the roots. He reached to touch the water and the compass became so hot that it burned his hand. He dropped it with a shout.

He looked at it lying in the leaves and reached for the water again, slowly. The needle sped to near invisibility and the case took on a dull, red glow. The large leaf on which it lay began to smolder slightly and he withdrew his hand. Whatever this place was, his compass didn’t want him here and DEFINITELY didn’t want him touching the water. He drew back and the color faded, leaving the compass spinning, but looking as it normally did. Andy picked it up and walked out of the circle the way he’d come.

As he stepped out he turned to the right, theoretically his way home from the strange road, and the needle, unsurprisingly, pointed him steadfastly forward again. In only a few steps he found himself climbing a gentle rise and quickened his pace, sure of what he would find and purposefully striding toward it. It wasn’t long before he again stepped onto the strange, straight road and the compass again spun to his right. Regardless of how he turned, he seemed to be walking in the same direction, except near the fountain in the dell.

He turned immediately and walked down the road, following the compass. He was swift on his feet and wasted no time but he still felt as though he walked for hours before seeing anything to alter the scenery. On his left a small house appeared ahead of him. It was a simple board cabin, neatly constructed with a wide porch across the front. As he drew nearer, Andy noticed that an old man sat in a chair there, rocking softly back and forth, looking straight at him with keen eyes that seemed to sparkle. It was only then that it occurred to him that despite having been walking for what might be hours, he wasn’t hungry or thirsty and the light hadn’t changed at all.

“Seems a mite strange, don’t it, Andrew?”

The words, after all the silence, were startling. The sound of his full name was even more startling; only one person had ever called him by his full name.

“Grandfather?” Andy had stopped in place, looking at the old man still twenty yards away.

A soft, but full, laugh erupted from the old man and he spoke again. “You always was a bit mule-headed, Andrew. You find a plain road, right where you looked to find it, then walk back into the woods like you know a shortcut.”

He'd covered the last few steps and stood next to the porch now, looking up at the old man with a smile. “I was walking on your old place, woods I’ve known all my life, and found myself here. It’s only natural to try and find my way back home.”

“I suppose it is.” Grandfather said, “This is my new place though. What do you think of it?”

The thought that his grandfather, who’d died fifteen years ago, had a new place was a combination of disturbing and, well, thrilling. Andy had loved the old man, loved being in those woods, and very much missed spending time with him. At the same time, he didn’t know how any of this was possible or what it meant. “The forest is beautiful, but what is it?” Is all he could say.

“It’s the afterlife, son, mine anyway.” Grandfather told him plainly. “Yours, maybe, but you done give yourself a choice that most folks don’t bother with.”

“And what’s that?” Andy was puzzled.

“You went and found the fountain. That’s the wellspring of life and you can go take a drink and be back home if that’s what you want. Most of us get to this place, whatever our version is, and just sit down and rest. You started trying to find your way back.”

Andy frowned. “I’ve been finding my way home from the woods all my life.”

“Only if you stay here now.” The old man chuckled again. “I kinda think you’ll never get to again if you go back, but I don’t actually know.”

“What do you know?” Andy was confused here.

“I know that you wouldn’t be here if finding your way out of the woods was all you had to do to be home. I already told you that if you chose to, you can go back and I know that if you make that choice, it’s gonna hurt.” He looked and Andy shrewdly. “You had a wreck, son, a bad one, but you’re tough as an old tree root and stubborn as a mule. Not many people even look for a way out but you found it, so you can get back if you want. Or you can come up here and rest awhile, it’s up to you.”

Katherine stroked his hair again. It had been three weeks tomorrow since the accident and here he still was. The fireman said no one should have gotten out of that car alive. The paramedics said he shouldn’t have survived the ambulance ride and the doctors said he shouldn’t be alive now, yet here he still lay. There were no tubes, no machines, Andy had never wanted that. Whatever kept him breathing was inside and here he remained.

As she looked at him, his eyes opened just a little, enough for her to see them, and his hand moved ever so slightly. She reached for it, her heart beating fast, and felt the fingers squeeze ever so softly. 

“Amy! Charles!” she shouted and the kids jumped up from the couch behind her.

Andy’s mouth turned up into a wide smile, and behind her the monitor fell to a single tone.