Train Tracks

It’s November 15, 2018 and I feel cold. I feel cold and I don’t know how to warm up. There is no frost on my arm and yet I feel it crawl on my skin like a sleeve of frozen ants. I’m inside, lying on the couch. I should smell the candle burning on the table beside me, but I don’t. The air has the stark, empty smell of a winter day. My nose feels stiff and brittle as if the next breath in could shatter it. Jack Frost has touched my hair, making every strand stab sharply into my scalp. The silence of the cold lingers as well. The television is on, but its sound doesn’t reach my ears. Only the lonely flows of frozen wind live in my soundscape. My mother sits at the dining room table. I know she wants to cry, but she isn’t. I wish I was. A stray thought crosses my mind. One that hasn’t tickled my brain in a long time. The ice shifts.  

It’s November 8, 2018. I’m sitting on a cold, plastic bench. A nurse walks up to me and rests a hand on my shoulder. Her words don’t reach me. I’m somewhere far away or at least I’m trying to be. After a moment she walks back into the room across the hall. From the open door, I hear a chorus of thick, wet sobs. I know these should affect me, but they don’t. An icy shield deflects their pain. 

It’s July 8, 1973. Twelve-year-old Stephen is struggling to catch up to his friends. Every step he takes rustles his tuft of red hair. The hair leaks sweat that drips into his eyes and forces him to stop. He knew the day would be too hot, but Benji was insistent that today was the day. Stephen elected for a sleeveless shirt and now he regrets it. As he pumps his arms trying to catch up, he can feel the Sun’s blisters on his shoulders. His friends stop at the train tracks running perpendicular to the street. They don’t wait for Stephen to talk about the next step of their journey. He catches them in mid-conversation. 

“Ok, now we go left for 150 paces along the tracks until we see the dark wood tree,” commands Benji, a short, chubby boy with freckles sprinkled over his cheeks. 

“I swear to God if your brother’s full of shit on this one…” warns Harry, a mess of motor oil with a blonde mullet.

“Why can’t you ever trust me?”

The two boys argue as Stephen catches his breath against a thick oak. The fourth member of their group, Andrea, jumps between them. She holds out two olive-skinned arms to keep them apart. The boys don’t get any closer. At this age, Andrea is still taller and stronger than them. She’ll give them bloody noses if she must.

“Hey, idiots! I can only be out ‘til dark. There’s no time for a debate team meeting. Let’s get moving.” 

The quarreling boys grumble but listen to their leader. They walk down the train tracks, flicking quiet insults at each other with each step. Andrea turns to Stephen before she leaves. He has his arms above his head like his father taught him when he got overheated playing football. 

“You ok?” She asks with a tone much more delicate than the one she used on the others.

“I’m fine,” Stephen says. “Or at least I will be if we walk the rest of the way.”

Andrea laughs and gently pushes him in front of her. They walk down the tracks together toward their destination. 

It’s November 13, 2018. I pull on my tie to loosen its grip on my neck. My mother made me wear it even though it feels like a stainless-steel noose around my throat. It’s cold outside but the ice clotting my veins numbs me to the weather. My blood has become one of those glacial rivers where the water is barely visible through the train of massive icebergs. If I concentrate hard enough, I can feel them scraping the sides of my arteries. They’re lowering him down. I stare into the hole where he’ll lie for the rest of eternity. Nothing stares back. Everyone around me refuses to meet the glance of the abyss. They’re too busy crying. I wish I was crying too. 

It's November 8, 2018. I’m frozen in place as my mother beckons me into the hospital room. I can’t see him like that. No. I can’t. I…I…I can’t.

It’s November 15, 2018. I search through the junk drawer for a piece of paper. It’s not there. I tear apart my parents’ room—still nothing. I remember the loose vent in my room. It used to be a treasure chest for toys and leftover candy. We fixed the vent years ago, but I’m able to pry it off with a screwdriver. Inside is a yellow piece of paper folded into quarters. I’m afraid it may disintegrate upon my touch. Although it's over a decade old and has been through many winters of blasting hot air, the paper survives the unfolding. The words spark something in me. For the first time in a while, it doesn’t hurt to breathe. Meltwater runs from my lungs to my stomach. I carefully slide the paper into my pocket and race outside. 

It’s July 1973. Benji is nervously scanning every which way for the “dark wood tree.” The problem is the only descriptors they have are the words: dark, wood, and tree. The forest that surrounds them is dark and filled with wooden trees. The group’s faith in him has dropped considerably. He looks down at the note his brother gave him and tries to decipher more meaning out of it, but there is none. 

“What about that one? That tree looks pretty dark to me,” Harry shouts.

“Oh! Maybe that one?” Andrea shouts back, pointing East.

“Are you sure this was 150 paces, lardy? You always did take small steps,” Harry sneers.

Andrea strikes him on the shoulder. “I took the steps, remember?”

“Oh yeah, heh heh.”

Stephen hangs back as his friends argue about tree pigment. He tries to take a wider view like his mother always taught him. Of course, she meant that more politically, but the advice still works wonders for him here. He notices a glint coming from the middle of the forest. Like light bouncing off metal.

“Hey guys,” he says. “Look at that.”

They follow Stephen about fifty yards into the woods before finding themselves at the foot of a tree that has grown around an old street sign for Darkwood Avenue. 

“Good find, Stevie,” Andrea says. 

“Told you my brother wasn’t full of shit, Harry!” Benji mocks. 

“The jury’s still out on that one, buddy. Let’s talk when we find that treasure.”

It’s November 12, 2018. I stand in the far corner of the room. As far away as possible from the body. My hands shake just thinking about it. It feels darker where I stand like a cartoon cloud is getting ready to dump rain on me. Relatives come up to talk, but I push them away with one-word answers. His childhood friends try to tell me stories, but none of them connect. I overhear them telling my mom that I look just like him. She agrees but glares at me from the other side of the room. She’s still mad that I didn’t watch him die. I pretend like I don’t care. 

It’s November 15, 2018. I drive for ten minutes until I reach my destination. I park my car in the gravel lot and leave my phone on the passenger’s seat. I don’t know how long this is going to take, he never made it clear in the stories. I think about texting my mom to at least tell her where I am. It would be a kindness I haven’t afforded her lately. The fear of losing someone else might send her after me, though, and I need to do this alone. The car’s chime as it locks is the last thing I hear in the modern world before I step onto the tracks and walk toward the past. 

It’s July 1973. The friends are frozen in front of a massive hole in the ground. Their sense of adventure drains from them at the foot of this unknown environment. There was no searching this time. When they found the dark maw of earth, they were certain this was what they were sent to find. 

“You sure this is the cave your dipshit brother was talkin’ about, Benji?” mutters Harry.

“105 paces West of the Darkwood tree. Yep…this is it.”

Stephen can’t help but be enthralled by the darkness. He knows that caves have mouths, but this is more like the pupil of an eye. For all he knows, the thing could punch right through the planet and he’s staring at the black of space. He doesn’t even realize that he’s a step closer to it than everyone else. 

“Who’s goin’ first?” says Andrea.

Silence from the normally boisterous boys. Stephen knows that he’s the only one who can do this. There is a warm current pulling him into the hole. He swallows the saliva pooling in his mouth and takes a step forward into the black.

It’s November 15, 2018. I’m frozen in front of a tree. I’d heard about it for years, but never actually seen it. The street sign embedded within has lost its green shine, now replaced by the brown of rust. My fingers graze the knotted bark and, although it’s just above freezing, it feels warm. I rest my palms on the tree and take in the pulsating heat. Whether it’s actually coming from the tree doesn’t matter at that moment. The warmth lets me know I’m on the right track. I pull the yellow instruction manual out of my pocket. 

105 paces West.

It’s July 1973. The hole is much steeper than Stephen imagined. After sliding for almost thirty seconds, he lands on a bed of soft dirt. No, not dirt. Sand. Fresh cuts on his back flare in pain but he ignores them. The darkness is about what he expected. The air is almost thick with it. Stephen hears his friends calling for him from the entrance but can’t make out what they’re saying. He’s focused on the soft ringing of running water. With a flick of his grandfather’s lighter, the cave is suddenly alight. Seconds later, Andrea falls next to him. Then Benji. Then Harry.

“Your dumbass brother is paying for my medical bills if my ankle is sprained,” Harry remarks.

“Oh fuck you—”

“Guys, shut up,” Stephen says.

“You’re just mad that the cave was real, and you were—” 

“Benji, shut the fuck up!” yells Andrea.

“Look,” Stephen says, pointing his lighter towards the source of sound. The two boys fell completely silent. 

It’s November 15, 2018. A hole as black as ink is mere feet from me. How it still exists after so many years, I cannot figure out. The dark caught in the cave’s mouth feels alive. I imagine black tendrils shooting out of it and pulling me in. There’s something in there, staring back at me. Maybe it’s not a monster, but it’s something.

 I try to make my legs move but they remain cemented in place. I can’t do it. What if he made it up? What if there’s nothing and all of him is gone? Ice creeps up my ankles, anchoring them to the ground. The cold is almost nice. It’s familiar at the very least. The ice warns me that staying above will be easier. Not knowing will hurt less. But the tree’s heat is still fresh in my mind. I need more. I grit my teeth and take a step into the darkness.

My tumble isn’t nearly as graceful as I imagine his was. The idea that the hole could’ve been an animal’s den hits me at the same time as the ground. I freeze, listening for a snarl or a growl. Nothing comes. Darkness hangs in the air like a thick smoke. I focus on a faint trickling sound in front of me. I crawl to it until my hand falls into a puddle of water. 

It’s July 1973. Stephen tears up at the amazing sight in front of him: a pool of the purest water he’s ever seen. So clear that without the ripples, it would be completely invisible. Streams pour in from three natural spouts at the back of the cave. The pool is filled with perfectly round rocks so white that they give off a faint glow. It looks like something from a fairy tale. The four friends crouch at the mouth of the spring, in awe of the beauty before them. A drop of water hits Stephen’s shoulder. He peers back and sees Andrea crying too. They share a glance, and she rests her head on him. Benji is at a loss for words for the first time in his life. There’s only enough room for three tweens at the edge of the pool, so Harry sticks his head between Andrea and Benji. He lets out a sighing sound that Stephen had never heard from him before. Quietly, he speaks up from the back.

“As amazing as this is. It’s no treasure.”

“Then let’s give it one,” says Stephen.

It’s November 15, 2018. The story was real. All of it. Every detail was true. I don’t know how to feel. A childlike magic blossoms in my soul. Some part of me believes that the cave opened again for me to find it. It’s silly but I like the thought. However, my quest isn’t done yet. 

The water is chilly, but I reach in any way. For the first time in a long time, the cold stings me. My fingers search the bottom of the pool for a specific shape. They snake between rocks, digging in the hope of a miracle. Finally, I land on it. My throat catches when I feel the flat coin between my numbing fingertips. I pull it out of the water and spark my great-grandfather’s lighter to reveal a rusted quarter with the faintest signs of something etched into it.  

SC.

Stephen Corwin. My father.

There are three similar coins with different initials lying in the pool. I stare at mine almost tempting it to disappear from my hand, but it doesn’t. A pain too enormous to describe pries itself out of the hole I trapped it in. My vision starts to blur as warm tears start to pour down my cold cheeks. I hold my lips shut for as long as possible before the horrible sounds I’d been holding back for weeks finally break free. The warmth I expected has become red-hot. I almost retreat from it, back into the cold. That instinct is overtaken by the heat of my exposed grief. It has become a sun locked within me that will not die but will eventually dim. I know this and so I embrace the burns. 

 I can’t take it with me. He wouldn’t have wanted that. Instead I pull out the knife he gave me for my twelfth birthday. I slowly etch my own initials into the other side of the coin. A soothing relief washes over me as I finish the curve on the C. Enough relief to allow me to let go of the coin. The plop it makes in the water echoes through the cave. It is a beautiful, harmonious sound. I can only imagine how it sounded when four dropped in at once. 

I climb out of the cave realizing that hours have passed since I first entered it. A few steps outside of its maw, I feel the ground buckle. Dirt, grass, and long-dead tree roots collapse into the hole. I watch the whole thing and smile. It’s uncomfortable, bending my mouth like that after so long, but I’ll get used to it. The stars provide enough light to guide me to my car. My mom has called me ten times since I left. I don’t know how to put what just happened into words, so I keep it simple. I text her:

I’m ok.