A Westward Stream

"I saw grandma last week."

Chelsea spoke matter-of-factly as she lay on the grass, a nearby dandelion catching her attention. She plucked it from the earth, blowing a thousand white bristles into the clear spring air. Each one disappeared into the ether as she reached for another.

I considered her outlandish statement with furrowed brows, peering at her through my thick glasses. Whispy lengths of hair from the mop on my head fell into my eyes. It had been more than two months since mom's last bowl cut.

"Grandma died more than three years ago. There's no way you saw her."

Chelsea smirked, pursing her lips with smug satisfaction. "Did too. She came to me as a butterfly, Peter."

Chelsea had far more confidence than I did as a ten-year-old, but her mom —my aunt Carol— spoiled her continually.

“A butterfly?”

"Yep, a beautiful butterfly." She twirled a dandelion between her fingers. "Uncle Charlie said became a monarch after she passed because marigolds were her favorite."

"Yeah, sure." I sat upright on the grass and blew a loud sigh through my lips. Between Chelsea's nonsense and the day's increasing heat, I was beginning to tire.

"Monarch populations have gone done 90% since 2010. Did Uncle Charlie tell you that, too?"

Chelsea shot me a dirty look that lasted precisely three seconds, then her expression assumed its natural state of sassy contentment. She looked like a vanilla wafer.

"Apparently our elders come back as animals sometimes. A boy in my class, Connor, said his great-great-granddad was an eagle that flew above Cedar Lake."

I bit my lip to keep from snorting. "Science doesn’t support that. Do you actually believe in superstition?”

Chelsea shrugged as she inspected another dandelion. "Maybe."

Disappointment hung over me like an ill-fitting costume in a school play. "Come on, let's go inside and get some lemonade."

Drinking a cool beverage was one thing we could agree on. We lifted ourselves from the soft green grass and strode toward the cottage that our families used as a vacation home. Rows of tall pine trees loomed beyond the edge of the yard, signaling the start of the state park that bordered the family property.

Unease gripped my senses as I strained my neck to look at the tops of the pines. The suppressed memory of two summers ago bubbled to the surface as we bounded up the wooden porch steps and into the cottage.

At the dinner table that night, Chelsea and I sat next to each other in silence as the adults clinked their silverware and chatted among themselves. Different as we were, we stuck together during family gatherings. Nobody else in the Robinson clan had children.

My mom, deliberate as she cut the grilled steak on her plate into evenly sized pieces, spoke of her clinical research to Aunt Carol, who listened carefully, responding only to clarify a specific detail. My dad sat next to her but might as well have been on a different planet. The bowl of mashed potatoes before him captured his full attention.

Chelsea bumped me with her elbow as I raised my water glass. Drops of liquid dribbled down my front, turning the green squares of my checkered shirt a darker shade of green. I scowled at her, but she just smiled, eyes rolling into the back of her head. This was her way of expressing boredom.

Our Uncle Charlie chewed his food and beamed at us from the far end of the table. Of all the uncles and aunts in our family, we liked Charlie the best. He told good jokes and stories and was less rigid than the others. Shaggy, sunbleached hair fell to his shoulders and he always wore flannels at the cabin. We waited in anticipation for him to remind the others that we existed.

Charlie dabbed the corners of his mouth with a cloth handkerchief and lightly rapped the wooden table with his hand.

"So, kiddos. What'd y'all get up to today?" A slight southern drawl marked his accent, the result of living in the Outer Banks of North Carolina for the past ten years.

The adults quieted as the attention turned to us. I looked at Chelsea to take the lead. Speaking up at the table was one skill I had yet to master — one of many.

Chelsea sat upright and smiled at the room. "Peter said there's no way grandma could be a butterfly, that it's all just superstition."

Aunt Carol frowned at me from across the table. Throwing me under the bus was a classic Chelsea move. Dad shifted his attention to me as he spoke in his low, gravelly voice, "You didn't go into the woods, did you, Peter?"

"No, sir."

"Good." He returned to the mashed potatoes before him. "I don’t want you anywhere near there without an adult.”

Aunt Carol looked ready to scold me when Charlie came to my rescue.

"Well, now, let's think about this for a minute. Peter, is there any way you can say that the butterfly was not grandma?"

I shifted in my seat, glancing at the faces around the table. Mom studied me with a blank expression.

I gulped, "Umm, I cannot say that, no."

"Did you see this butterfly?"

"No. I only heard about it from Chelsea."

"And is there a chance your cousin might be telling us a little fib?"

Chelsea deflated in her chair beside me. "I'd say there's a good chance of that, yeah."

Charlie smacked his fist on the table in good humor. He smiled merrily.

"Well, then. That settles it."

Later that evening, I found Charlie alone in the second-floor study. He sat in a leather recliner as he flipped through a thick volume titled Yugoslavia During the Second World War. Noticing me at the entrance, he closed the book with a smile.

"Howdy, Peter. What's shaking?"

"Nothing much. I need to find a new book." I looked at him through the stout lenses of my glasses. His smile grew wider.

"Say, there's something I wanted to tell you during dinner."

"What's that?"

"It's the story of the na pueo, the owl of Hawaii."

"There are owls in Hawaii?"

"You bet."

My eyes narrowed as I thought in silence. "Is it like a barn owl?"

"Sort of, but it's smaller and darker than the barn owl. It's native to the islands."

"Do you know that because you used to live there?"

Charlie chuckled, his eyes alight and soft. He was already reminiscing.

"Those were the days, Peter. The roads were free of cars, smartphones weren't around yet, and everybody had enough waves."

I nodded, unsure what to say. Charlie came back to the present. He crouched down and laid a hand on my shoulder.

"Anyways, there's something you should know about the na pueo. The Hawaiians see them as ancestral guardians, and many people around the world associate them with the unknown."

I considered his words for a moment. "OK. Why are you telling me this, Uncle Charlie?"

"Well, grandpa was fond of those birds. He used to tell stories of owl-watching in his youth. Grandma Debbie admired them, too, though she always liked insects best."

Even two years on, hearing the word 'grandpa' sent a shiver down my spine. My mouth dried out as I glanced around the study.

My eyes found their way to a framed picture in the corner, perched above a large, faded globe. I had forgotten about its existence until that moment. In the middle of the frame, an elderly man with a long white beard, tiny spectacles, and kind, twinkling eyes looked back at me.

It was Grandfather Richard, the patriarch of our diverse family clan whose death I watched unfold two years ago. After it happened, weeks went by until I felt an emotion other than suffocating anxiety. People close to our family said that no 10-year-old should bear witness to something like that, though a dispassionate uncle created a stir when he remarked that younger children had seen far worse throughout human history. "Damn you," my father had said to him.

As these thoughts absorbed me, a clock in the corner of the study chimed the passing hour: 12 o'clock midnight. Even though the long weekend had only begun, mom would soon make sure I had tucked myself into bed.

Charlie followed my gaze to the portrait of Grandfather Richard on the wall. He moved a foot to his right to obscure my view, then smiled once more.

"Listen, Peter. Find yourself a book, then let's go down for some chocolate milk. What do you say?"

I nodded my head as I approached a bookshelf stuffed with volumes, hardcovers, and paperbacks. A worn-out copy of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring popped out at eye level. I snatched it up and turned for the door when a fountain pen on the desk caught my eye. A tiny brown owl adorned the cap, its wide, rounded eyes staring into space.

The next afternoon, Chelsea joined me in the backyard facing the pine trees. I was inspecting a long row of worker ants as they harvested loose bread crumbs around the colony entrance. I knew Chelsea would be rolling her eyes before she even spoke.

"This is so you." But then she sat down on the grass, knees crossed, and leaned in to watch the ants stream in and out of the entry mound. Warm sunlight fell on our backs while distant birdsong accompanied our solitude like background music in a pleasant hotel.

After a while, she leapt to her feet and broke the silence with an obnoxious yawn.

"This is so boring. Let's go walk around the woods."

I looked at her directly for the first time that day. She was still too childish to know how Grandfather's death in the forest had affected me. I attempted to brush her off by playing it cool. "Nah, I'm not going in there."

"Come on, Peter. Don't be a lame-O." She made an 'O' with one hand and an 'L' with the other, planting the latter on her forehand.

"Seriously. I'm fine right here."

"I'll tell your friends that you were too chicken to play in the woods."

"Go ahead. Why should I care?"

Chelsea planted her feet in front of me, hands on her hips. She smiled deviously. "I'll tell Dorothy."

This made me stop. "You wouldn't dare."

"Yeah-huh. I'll tell her what a wimp you were."

Great.

"OK, OK. Have it your way." I got to my feet and looked warily at the pines. "Let's go to the rope swing down by the creek."

The forest was less dark than I remembered. Rays of brilliant sunshine pierced through the pine canopy that cloaked the cool earth beneath our feet. Each row of trees mirrored the ones that came before it, lending the forest an aesthetic quality that was oddly pleasing.

Chelsea skipped ahead of me as we passed a fallen Hemlock whose trunk bore the carved initials of various family members. The cottage fell away from view as we rounded a grove of autumn olives that marked the edge of the family property.

I felt fine as we entered the state park. We walked on for a while, eventually reaching the edge of a slight depression in the woods. I directed us downward until we heard the sound of a gurgling creek: our cue to make a hard right toward the stone escarpment that ran the length of the gorge.

We continued descending until a faint deer trail appeared among the leaves and undergrowth, prompting Chelsea to look at me for guidance. I nodded to indicate a forward direction, which made me feel proud. Bookwormish as I was, the Boy Scouts had taught me how to orient myself in nature. Just a few minutes of walking remained until we reached the rope swing.

Heading up along the trail, I was in a state of relative relaxation when Chelsea suddenly darted off.

"Look, a butterfly!"

She swung an arm overheard, clasping for the colorful insect that surely wanted nothing more than to evade her reach. It retreated higher into the air before fluttering away into a nearby thicket. She took off after it, disappearing behind a large maple.

I called out to her, "Chelsea, where are you going? Come back!"

A moment went by as I waited for her to return, but she remained somewhere in the woods beyond me. I stepped off the trail to find her.

Several minutes passed as I searched the dense vegetation for my cousin. Thorny stalks pulled at my shorts and damp tree bark left dirty spots on my t-shirt. Mom would be pissed once I got back to the cottage.

I pushed through a large deer berry bush, arriving in a small clearing in the understory. Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I inspected the wall of hardwoods that towered above me.

This part of the forest was much darker. The sun's rays no longer showed, and a pale light tinged the trees with a bluish hue. Dusk was approaching. While the sun warmed the earth during the day, evenings still carried the chill of spring.

I shivered for a second in my sneakers. The annoyance I felt only moments before turned to worry as I yelled "Chelsea!" at the top of my lungs.

Silence.

Not a whisper of wind nor a note of birdsong made its way through the trees. Chelsea was either lost in the woods or back on the trail that led to the rope swing. Brushing the pine needles and dirt from my forearms, I turned to head back.

Darkness fell over the forest. I was lost in thought. Fragments of recent memories ran through my mind as I trudged along a narrowing trail. I thought of Chelsea, the ants from that afternoon, the books I read, the owl in the study, and, of course, Uncle Charlie. He was different from the others. How did he get away with his Bohemian lifestyle in our family?

No answer was forthcoming as I drifted back to the present. Glancing around, I failed to recognize my surroundings. My feet no longer traced the contours of the trail. I was standing in a sea of ferns, and the evening had become quite dim.

And then I saw it.

Ten or so feet ahead of me, the outline of an arched bridge appeared amid the falling darkness. I knew that bridge well. Grandfather Richard had enlisted me to help build it as a kid, and it was there that life slipped from his grasp two summers before.

He had brought me along for a woodland walk on a spectacular spring day, speaking of the many flora and fauna that inhabited the forest. Our walk lingered into the sunset hours. But towards the end of the hike, he complained of exhaustion and a stiffening back. When we reached the bridge, he keeled over and leaned against it. As much as I wanted to run back to the cottage and tell my parents, he forbade me from leaving his side. His eyes widened as he spoke single words between shortened, heavy breaths.

The wild, sparkling look in his eyes frightened me, but I found it impossible to turn away. It seemed a vision had come to him the same way it had to Joan of Arc. I knew of the legendary story from repeat watches of The Messenger, a movie that Grandfather Richard often put on the VHS player. He used to watch it, and many other films, as he sipped red wine from a tall crystal glass, the dark liquid turning his white moustache a shade of bordeaux. Even when DVDs became commonplace, he continued to record movies on tape and watch them on the old TV at the cottage.

Months later, when I felt I could speak up about watching him die, Dad commented to the family that he was an apathetic grandparent who cared only for himself and his research. Mom brushed this aside, saying the brain aneurysm that killed him had been there all along, waiting for the right moment to rupture.

Uncle Charlie said it was cruel I had to be there, and unfair that Grandfather Richard had died so suddenly. But I overheard him say to a girlfriend that the circumstances of his passing were, in some way, poetic. He crossed over "to the other side" on a bridge that he built with his own hands, a bridge that connected two sides of a vast forest separated only by a dribbling creek. The water that passed under this bridge flowed through nearby glacial valleys en route to a river in the next county. In the spring months, the banks of the stream swelled with fresh snowmelt and pools of water appeared on the boundaries of the family property. On more than one occasion, I heard Grandfather Richard say that a stream of fresh water, good enough to drink, was one of Mother Nature’s supreme gifts.

Between the many differing opinions and viewpoints in our family, I never knew quite what to think of it all.

A sudden movement in the shadows brought me back to the deepening evening. A winged creature soared down from the treetops without so much as a sound. It perched on a corner post of the arched bridge, remaining there in total silence. Just enough ambient light remained for me to discern a small bird with dark feathers and a round, whitish face. It at first appeared to be an oversized pigeon, but as my eyes adjusted, the barn owl's narrow eyes fixed on me between complete rotations of its head.

Fear and worry subsided as the owl's presence awed me. The owl scanned every edge of the dark woods around us, turning its gaze upon me for only fleeting seconds as it cocked its head and flexed its talons. It continued in this way for a while, and I lost track of time. Then, just as quietly as it had come, the owl spread its wings and was gone.

Cool air swirled with the fragrance of ancient pines. A gentle breeze brushed the tops of the trees, and the flowing water in the creek sounded brighter. The night sky above shined with the beacons of a thousand tiny stars. I took a deep breath and felt at ease as Uncle Charlie and my dad burst onto the scene, the intense beams of their flashlights piercing the darkness like lighthouses in a December gale.

"Peter, Peter! What's happened to you?" Dad reached me first. He squatted beside me, his eyes searching for an explanation.

Uncle Charlie approached at a slower pace. Something in my manner told him all was good. He looked over the bridge, then squeezed my shoulder with great care. "Chelsea's back at the cottage. You're OK, yeah?"

It took me a few seconds to acknowledge the adults. I gazed at the corner post where the owl had perched only moments before, then turned to my dad and uncle with clear eyes. "Yeah. I'm fine."

---

The next family reunion took place during the height of summer. Ice cream trucks from nearby towns reached the county road that ran perpendicular to our cottage. The carnival tunes from the trucks proved so enticing that even dad ran with us to chase down the drivers for a frozen treat. All over the region, locals and visitors came out of the woodwork to celebrate. Fireworks exploded in the distance, and faraway concert music reached our secluded haven at all hours.

July 4th, which fell on a Friday that year, meant extra-long weekends for everybody in our family. On the big day, Chelsea and I helped construct a makeshift dining table in the backyard, close to a stone structure housing a large metal rack and firepit for warm-weather grilling.

The mood was light and lively as the entire family assembled in the yard. Uncle Charlie and dad took turns grilling every type of potluck food imaginable: local corn, chuck eye steak, tenderloin, bratwursts, sausages with cheese, bell peppers, and slices of the largest eggplants I'd ever seen. Jokes and hearty laughter abounded as Uncle Charlie fetched bottles of champagne for the adults and sparkling grape juice for Chelsea and me, uncorking them to the delight of everybody present.

I was standing at the edge of the group, listening and smiling with the others, when Uncle Charlie pulled me aside.

"Nice haircut, kiddo." His large hands roughed up the fresh bowl cut on my head before neatly straightening it once more. He reached into the broad pockets of his overalls, retrieving a weathered, leather-bound book titled Selected Musings. The initials 'RR' adorned the cover. He beckoned me to open it.

The first few pages were blank. A handwritten message appeared at the bottom of one:

Just as time continues its steady march, a westward stream runs for the horizon. It follows the way of the land, roaring at times and whispering at others. It gives life and asks for nothing in return, nothing but the land in which it runs.

None loves the brook more than he who understands life is but a single blink in the eyes of a giant.

Uncle Charlie stood in contemplation. "Grandpa gifted me that book when I was just a year or two older than you are now. Years went by before I ever opened it. The words in this book affected as much anything else, right up there with a year in Asia and psychedelics.”

I tucked the book into my baggy shorts and thanked him.

Following our feast, I searched for birds through a small set of binoculars when Chelsea appeared by my side. She waited a long time before speaking.

"I read about dandelions in one of your textbooks, Peter."

"Oh, yeah?" I set the binoculars on the warm grass beneath us.

"Yeah. It said the little white fuzzies on dandelions are like sails and that the wind carries the fuzzies to places where they might grow into other flowers."

"That's right. Each fuzzy is called a 'pappus.' A pappus is what carries the seed far and wide." I smiled at her. "Keep reading and you'll ace every science quiz next year."

"Maybe." She looked sheepishly at the ground. "The rest of it is still boring."

This made me chuckle, and Chelsea giggle. We shared a moment of delightful laughter when a flash of tawny color in the afternoon sun caught our attention. A monarch butterfly fluttered about the semi-wild marigolds at the yard's edge, hovering just below the first row of pines in the forest.

Chelsea watched it dance in the summer air. "Think it's Grandma?"

I motioned her to follow. "Let's go see for ourselves."