The Clearing

"So, that's it?  You're just going to give up on this now?"

Janice sat at her kitchen table, staring at Sheldon with an unwavering gaze.  It had been nearly two years since Chaney had disappeared, and it was apparent that those many months had taken a toll on her.  She looked thin and weary, much different from the confident woman she had been the first time Sheldon had met her.

Sheldon poured two cups of coffee, attempting to avoid eye contact with Janice.  He handed one to her and then took a slow sip, trying to buy himself some time before he answered her question.  She didn't touch hers.

"I just don't understand how you can completely ignore everything that has happened over the last two years.  How can you give up on Chaney?  On me?"

Her voice broke.  For a moment, a crushing silence filled the air.  It was so different from their usual meetings.  While the circumstances surrounding their relationship had always been tragic, up until this moment they had always been filled with a strong sense of hope that Chaney would be found.  And today Sheldon had taken that away.

He put his coffee down and took a deep breath.  "I've tried, Janice.  People have been pressuring me to abandon this case for the last eighteen months, but I refused because I wanted so badly to find Chaney.  I did.  I've given my reputation for this case.  You know that.  The officers in this town think I've lost my judgment.  They think I've either gone crazy, or I'm doing this because of you.  And maybe they're right on both counts."

Janice looked down at her coffee, now slowly growing cold in her hands.

"You know how much I've come to care for you.  If I could bring your son back, I would.  But, in light of everything that's happened, and especially after last week, I can't keep devoting time to this.  And I can't expect more of my officers to risk their lives to find a boy who is most likely dead." 

The moment after he said those words, he wished he could take them back.  Janice stood up from the table, screeching her chair along the floor.

"He is NOT dead.  He's out there."  In an angry display that was completely unlike her, she hurled her coffee cup across the kitchen.  It crashed against the floor, spraying coffee and pieces of yellow ceramic across the cabinets.

For a moment, both Sheldon and Janice seemed shocked.  Then Sheldon moved to pick up the pieces.

"Janice, I'm so sorry.  I--"

Janice cut him off. "Don't, Sheriff.  I'm sorry for my outburst." She pressed her hand against her temples. "I think it's time for you to go."

"Let me help you."

Janice smiled a bitter smile.  "You've tried.  Please just go." She turned her back on him and began to mop up the brown liquid that had spread across the tile.  Sheldon hesitated for a moment, but realized that he would only make things worse by staying.  He grabbed his hat and started heading for the door.  Just before leaving, he hesitated.

"Janice," he said, turning back to look at her.  She stopped mopping for a moment, but kept her back to him.  "I'll come back next week to make sure you're doing alright.  Let me know if you need anything before then."  He waited for a response, but none came.  Feeling awful for letting her down, he turned and walked out into the night.

Why did he feel that he had failed her, though?  He had given everything to this case.  He had devoted his time to searching and investigating and following any semblance of leads, no matter how small.  And, frankly, the few leads he had had all been small and convoluted, at best.

All leads but one, that is.  This lead had been unbelievably accurate, much to Sheldon's surprise.

He had stumbled upon this new information last week, during what had now become a routine sweep of the forest for him.  It now seemed like a meaningless gesture to Sheldon, but it helped him feel like he was doing more for the case, so he kept at it.  By this time, Sheldon had explored every inch of that forest ten times over.

At least, that's what he thought.  That's when he wandered into the clearing.

He must have been caught up in his own thoughts, because he had no idea how he stumbled upon this place.  He had never seen it before.  He was sure of that.  This wasn't exactly a place that you could forget.

It was not a particularly large clearing; maybe twenty feet across or so, surrounded by towering trees.  The odd thing about the trees was that every single one had the same mark on it--a deep, jagged gash about nine feet up from the ground.  From each mark, a line of black sap-like material had spread out, congealing on the tree bark.  That wasn't the only thing odd about the place.  Everything in the surrounding parts of the forest was green and full of life.  This place was oddly silent--as if the birds knew to avoid it.  The few bits of grass that had tried to grow here were shriveled and dead.  And, in the center of the clearing was a large hole, charred and blackened.

Sheldon couldn't help feeling a sense of dread standing in that clearing.  There was something so eerie about the silence and the decay here.  He was almost about to leave when something caught his eye next to the hole.

Fragments of a guitar.

"A Chase, and Awakening"

He was running as fast as he could. The young blonde girl frantically clasping his hand was practically being pulled through the air at his side, struggling to keep up. In his other hand he held the Martin guitar which had been his fathers.

He had only a moment, standing in a charred clearing to take in his new surroundings before the girl had come dashing out of the woods screaming indecipherable words and grabbing his hand and pulling him on. He'd seen a sky filled with what looked like black smoke, and a landscape pocked with stone structures in the distance that he couldn't quite make out.

Then they were running, through a forest of what could only be described as "slimy black trees". They looked like squid tentacles doused in the animals ink, and their leaves were red offshoots like explosions of fire from the branches.

Only 30 seconds before he had been lying at the foot of that same old tree in the woods near his house, writing a song for a girl She would most likely never hear it, he'd thought, but he enjoyed himself nonetheless. He closed his eyes for what must have been a second, and then feeling a swift immense pressure around his neck and torso opened his eyes to the black clearing. Now he was running hand in hand with a stranger. As the sounds of mammoth breaking wood, and earth being swept into the air behind him suggested, they were running for their lives, from an animal or force that tore through the trees like tissue paper.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
"TOM AWAKES"

Tom woke with a shock at the sound of heavy timber snapping. It was only the fading echo of a dream but to Tom it might as well have been his bedpost splintering above his head. It felt so close. He'd already forgotten the majority of the dream but the part he did remember was disturbing.

The sleep specialist his mom had taken him to at Stanford University at age 13 had diagnosed Tom with a rare form of night terrors, and Rapid Eye Movement Behavior Disorder or RBD to explain his bizarre fantasies, and night time screams. Tom hadn't even thought of the nightmares in 10 years till this instant. To Tom, they were the side effect of those summers long forgotten, of a time when sleeping and daily living were nearly impossible to distinguish from one another. But the last remaining image of the dream, that lingered in his memory was about to stir it all up again.

It was Tom, standing in an empty church with dirt for the floor. He turned to walk to the open entrance. A white field stretched out before him and golden trees shone under an orange sun. At the edge of the forest stood a high limestone wall. Between the church and the wall a lone tree stood much taller and more graceful than the rest. So beautiful. He remembered it as though he had been there.

Suddenly in the distance, a dark canvas like oil spilling into pure snow crept onto the horizon. Tom began to lose his breath and he turned to close the entrance to the chapel. There were no doors. The blackness rushed forward faster than he could think. It covered the forests, over the wall and rushed forward to engulf the lone tree. As it did he heard the tree snap and crackle like a log burned in a fire. Suddenly that voice returned. "Gideon" the voice said. That's what it was called. Tom mouthed the name to himself. "Gideon".

A picture in his living room had triggered his journey into the woods that morning. Now the fog was lifting further. Soon Tom would remember much more than "Old Man Giver" and his presents. Tom knew that it was real.

An Interruption in the Story....

Hey Jeff!!!!

I know I've been a little scary today.....

Maybe it's because I'm feeling slightly groggy.

I did eat soup, after all.



So, let's just get through it and then we can hug. Yes?

And then I'm going to make a blanket that has enough pouches for all my koala friends.

Love you!

Koala Jules

The Kelland Case.

Sheriff McDonald was not a superstitious man by any means, but he believed that no lead was too foolish or far-fetched to give careful consideration. Some of the officers under his jurisdiction thought his methods were a little too exact; too nitpicky. His need to research every possibility in even the most minor of crimes around the city bordered on the obsessive. Still, he had built up his reputation as one of the most diligent of sheriffs in the general area, and his men were willing to go the extra mile for him.

But his reputation was firmly shaken after the Kelland case.

Sheldon was perplexed by the whole thing. Most of the people on the force and in the town, for that matter, felt that it was simply the result of a tragic accident. So what if his body was never found? Those mine shafts were deep and dark, and it would have been easy for someone to fall in. Tragic, but completely explainable. Others were convinced that he had run away. It was a well-known fact that his father, Charlie Kelland, had deserted them years ago. Maybe there was a "run away" gene in the males of that family. That was another perfectly logical explanation. This explanation never sat well with Sheldon, though, especially after he met with Janice, Chaney's mother.

Sheldon had dealt with several missing persons cases in his lifetime, and he had met with the family members more times than he wanted to count. Janice was completely different than all the rest. For one thing, she wasn't in shock. She was completely focused and handled everything with a business-like attitude. The first time Sheldon mat with her, in fact, she had invited him to sit down and offered him a drink.

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Kelland," Sheldon had said, as if an apology would help the situation. "We'll do everything in our power to find your son."

She had smiled, slightly. "Thank you, Sheriff. You should know right off the bat that my Chaney is not dead."

Sheldon remembered being a little taken aback by the confident manner in which she said this.

"Well, ma'am, we're not entirely sure of his whereabouts, but I like to think he's still alive and we will continue the search until we find him."

Janice poured some more lemonade into his glass. She had insisted that they meet out on the porch. It was an unusually warm day for fall, and if it hadn't been for the circumstances, Sheldon would have thought that he and Janice were old friends spending a beautiful indian summer afternoon together. She poured herself a glass as well and sank into her chair. She looked out across the landscape, staring into the woods that had presumably claimed her missing son, sipping thoughtfully. Sheldon couldn't help but notice how beautiful this woman was. She was slender and had almost regal posture. She looked young to have a child of fifteen; her hair was a deep brunette color and had no gray streaks that Sheldon could see, and the only wrinkles on her face were smile lines that showed she was prone to being cheerful.

After taking a few sips from her glass, Janice turned to Sheldon. "You know, this is where Chaney and I always sit. He's a good boy, a wonderful son. His father left when he was seven or so, and since then he's been very protective of me. I know that people think he ran off, but they don't know Chaney. He wouldn't leave me."

"We're looking into every possible scenario, Mrs. Kelland. Now, is it possible that he could have gotten lost in the woods?"

Janice shook her head, chuckling slightly. "You don't know my son, Sheriff. He was practically raised in those woods. He spends most of his free time out there, and he can find his way blindfolded. I promise you, Sheriff, he's out there still. And he's still alive."

Once again, Sheldon was surprised at her confident, almost carefree manner. "Ma'am, I know that you know your son better than anyone else, and that you feel very strongly that he's out there, but you need to be prepared for the scenario that something happened to him, and that he won't be coming home. We're doing everything we can, but I don't want to give you any false hopes."

Janice was silent for a moment, staring intently at Sheldon. "Sheriff McDonald, have you ever known something to be true, even though you have no proof? I don't know what you call it. Intuition, faith, a hunch. It doesn't matter what you call it, but you feel deep down in your soul that something is true. Do you know what I mean?"

Sheldon looked back at his life, particularly his professional career. One of the reasons he was sheriff now was that he had followed his instincts, and they had rarely failed him. He nodded at Janice.

"Then hopefully you'll understand what I mean when I tell you that I know Chaney is alive, and that we'll find him. We just have to keep an open mind. He's out there."

And Sheldon knew she was right.

As soon as he returned to the station, Sheldon jumped with both feet into the case. Search parties combed every inch of the forest. It seemed that every person in the entire city was questioned. Months and months went by without any leads at all, but Sheldon was determined to make headway. He couldn't shake the feeling that Chaney was right under their noses. He just had to look harder.

Every few days, he would check in on Janice, just to make sure she was doing alright. They would sit on the porch together, both confident that soon Chaney would be found and they would be able to give up the exhausting search.

Sheldon had no idea that the case would soon take a turn for the worst.

"The List"

Sheriff Sheldon McDonald was looking over a handwritten list 100 years in the making. It was attached to a clipboard in the bottom drawer of a black metal filing cabinet in the basement of his office, a place that was used primarily for broken chairs, outdated police equipment, and records of old cases. The majority of them were neatly filed, in folders filled with color coded documents, and photographs. But this was merely a list. It had been rewritten because the paper it had been started on around 1940 had begun to tatter and fray, as if someone had been wringing it nervously for a long time. Someone had placed the first list in a dingy plastic bag which was taped to the back of the clipboard. Attempts to discover who exactly had started and maintained this list were fruitless. They hadn't been signed, and no one knew anything about them in his office. As far as he could tell, there were three distinct types of handwriting on it, meaning that he was the fourth keeper of the list. The only item of note other than the names, dates and places was a series of numbers and letters scrawled at the bottom of the first list. "135.7 - MCM"

It had 9 names on it, each with a date, and a location. The first was from 1911. Abigail Fortenberry. The location listed was "Pilgrim's Swamp". This name meant nothing to the Sheriff when he first read it back in 91'. He however had done some studying of an old Maiden Valley map from 1952 and discovered that there had once been a marsh on the site of what was now the Quail Run Housing Development at the base of the south foothills below Mount Hummingbird. The first new name on the rewritten list was from 1981. Taralee Spencer, age 9.

The last time he had looked at this list was 2004, but then he had been looking at it every day as it sat on his desk since 2002, the year that Chaney Kelland had been added to it. Kelland was a 15 year old Maiden Valley Sophomore that had last been seen in the fall of 2001 near the water plant one mile west of Oak Grove Forest, which bordered Quail Run. He had gone into the woods alone to write a song for a classmate on his guitar. Kelland had lived with his mother in one of the smaller duplex homes in Quail Run. He was a pleasant yet shy boy, with an obsession for music, well liked by those few students who had taken the time to get to know him. After the police had scoured the area they found no evidence, and his guitar was never recovered. There had been no signs of foul play, and everyone assumed he had either fallen into one of the old abandoned mine shafts that were common in the area, or had simply run away. His mother Janice Kelland did not agree with either one of these assessments.

Sheldon had promised himself that he would never look at this list again. That it was only a list of coincidences, that a paranoid person or someone with far too much free time had started. After all, the children's disappearances had taken place every 10 years since 1911. Who exactly could have been kidnapping children for 100 years? Still it was a striking pattern, that at least three of his predecessors had picked up on, and that now even he continued to document. He simply hoped that he wouldn't have to add another name in the coming months.

Regret

Tom walked out of the forest and toward his parents' home, completely engrossed in thoughts about the past. Though he was proud of the person he had become, he had one major regret that constantly troubled him. One regret that was constantly in his thoughts; sometimes it consumed his thoughts entirely, but mostly it stayed off in the wings, constantly pecking holes in his concentration. "Remember me?" it would say. "I will never leave you alone or give you a moment's peace." And Tom knew it was true. Because no matter how hard Tom tried to move on, no matter how many people he tried to help or how many awards he received, he couldn't drown out this thought; this one regret:

"You didn't save her."

It was always there, haunting and harrassing him, but over the years he had managed to find ways to dampen the sound. Now, though, it seemed to attack him with a vengeance.

"You were supposed to be different than the others."

"You were supposed to succeed. But you didn't."

"You didn't save her."

With every step he took toward his parents' house and out of the forest, the thought grew louder and more insistent in his mind. Tom felt as if he could almost hear a voice berating him for his one major failure. Yes, Tom had helped many people during his lifetime, but none of them mattered anymore. She was the one that mattered. She was the one that he had been "destined" to save. It was because of her that the forest had chosen him at twelve.

And he had failed.

Finally, Tom reached the aged white farmhouse belonging to his parents. He placed his hands on the gate, turning around to take one last look at the forest. The words "You didn't save her" still echoed in his mind.

"I tried," he muttered. "I couldn't do it." He waited, just to see if he had managed to quell his troubled thought, even if for a moment.

Silence.

Then, Tom heard a whisper, and he knew this whisper was not in his thoughts. It came from deep within the forest. Rather than being accusatory, however, it sounded deeply hurt. "You wouldn't," it said.

Tom felt that shudder run up the length of his back, and he knew exactly to whom that voice belonged.

That damned tree.

Well, he wasn't going to listen. Not this time. He had followed the tree's instructions long ago, and it had only caused trouble. He was a grown man now, and he was too old to give in to the foolishness of his own imagination. After all, this whole tree business was a creation of his subconscious, wasn't it?

Yes. He thought. I got rid of these ridiculous thoughts once, and I'll get rid of them once again. It's just the shock of being back in this place. That's all. And with that, he passed through the gate and into his parents' back yard.

The house was similar to the way it was when he was a child, but the years were starting to creep up on it. The paint, which once had been brilliantly white, was not starting to turn yellow and peel off the wooden slats. The wrap-around porch needed to be swept and stained, but it still held the rocking chairs and wicker furniture that his family used to sit on during the summer nights before Megan was taken.

Megan. It was best not to think of her. And best to never mention her name around his family. That would be difficult this week, seeing as how all of his siblings and parents would be together for the first time in ten years. That would be difficult because it was the anniversary of Megan's disappearance.

But no one would mention it. It would be at the forefront of everyone's thoughts, but no one would mention it. They would bite their tongues and paint on the forced smiles, all while thinking about Megan and how everything would have been different if she were still here.

Maybe, if Megan were still here, Dad wouldn't have started drinking. Maybe, if Megan were still here, the family would have stayed close together, rather than spreading out across the country. Maybe, if Megan were still here, Mom would still be alive, and her funeral wouldn't be happening tomorrow.

Chapter 2

Tom stared at what was now the flat canvas of the branches' stump and tried to imagine words ever appearing there .

Those years of his life had begun to blur anyway, and his memories of the obvious delusions he had experienced had begun to fog over. Tom was surprised he even remembered to come here. Had he not seen a particularly beautiful picture his brother Kevin had taken of a large oak tree that hung in the living room, he would have never even thought of it.

Tom had always looked at that part of his life, his time spent in the forest, as some television show or vivid dream. That wasn't reality. He looked at it all as some bizarre alternate existence, as though one day his mother and father would sit him down and let him in on the secret.

"Son from the time you were twelve to fourteen you were in a coma. We never told you because you never asked".

What else could it have been? There was no way that what he had experienced was real.

He was even more convinced as he stood here staring at the stump. Nothing was ever there. No writing had ever appeared. He'd never gone to that place and time.

He knelt down by the foot of the tree, for what he told himself would be the last time. He didn't even want to dig. It would only serve as a reminder of how foolish he had been. Finally he told himself there was no harm in proving it once and for all, and he pulled at the grass that had grown in the spot where the roots met the dirt; a place where he had once imagined a kind of treasure, and a series of adventures. He plunged into the dirt. Tom went a good seven inches and nothing. Surely it couldn't be deeper than he remembered. He dug another half a foot, but nothing. He stopped digging and brushed the cold wet dirt from his hands.

Maybe someone had taken it. Maybe it had never existed. Tom stood up and leaned against the tree. "No" he told himself finally. "There's no way I made this up. I'm not that clever." Tom turned and walked away from the tree.

As Tom walked through the woods and the 'Old Man' disappeared around the bend, he thought about his life now.

In high school Tom had been an odd duck. Always wanting to talk to people, and tell them his stories, always wanting to find a group of friends, but somehow never crossing the border from completely withdrawn and shy. It was in his dark college dorm room one winter night in Boston, as far away from the tree as he could be, that he had told himself it would all have to change. He couldn't carry on in college the same way that he had in high school. He couldn't hide in the places he had become so adept at hiding in. No matter how amazing they had been.

He took a step. He tried out for a play, and he got a good part. The play gave him confidence, even if it was a tad superficial. Tom had been lost as to what major he should study until he had taken a communications class as a general study course and become obsessed. Soon he found that listening was his strong point. In high school, all those years of wanting to talk to people, he had never known that all it would take was to ask a person a question about themselves, and then really listen to the response.

It became a type of experiment. He listened for hours. He got to know almost everyone he came in contact with deeply, and they loved him for it. Even those he wouldn't have ventured a second glance toward; those especially. Soon he was elected student body president, riding on the wave of adoration from the quiet, shy or odd members of the campus. He had finally experienced the world he should have known years earlier, and it changed him for the better. Not that he needed to change or improve who he was. Tom had proven his worth at the age of twelve, when he'd first met 'Old Man Giver', and he'd ventured into the parallel worlds where anything was possible. It was a time in his life that was now slipping from memory. But the tree, and the forest would soon find a way of reminding him. It would find a way of reminding him of what he had done for all those people, even if they had never known that he was there.