The air, thick and sweet with the scent of pine sap and damp earth, usually felt like a comforting embrace to Leaf. Today, it pressed in, strangely heavy, clinging to his skin like a second shadow. He adjusted the straps of his worn pack, the familiar weight doing little to quell the prickle of unease that had been steadily climbing his spine since they’d left the last faded logging road behind.
Beside him, Rowen strode with the unburdened confidence of someone who knew exactly where they were going, his steps light, almost buoyant, despite the uneven terrain. He held his phone, its screen a cool blue beacon against the emerald gloom of the forest, occasionally glancing down at the pulsing GPS dot that marked their progress. “Almost there, Leafy,” he called over his shoulder, his voice echoing a little too loudly in the stillness. “Just a few more clicks to the old lookout point. Best view in the whole damn province, I swear.”
Leaf didn’t reply, his gaze sweeping the tree line. The spruce and fir, usually a symphony of rustling needles and creaking branches, were eerily quiet. Not a breath of wind stirred the boughs. The forest, which should have been alive with the chatter of squirrels, the distant call of a raven, the myriad tiny sounds of hidden life, held its breath. It was a silence that spoke of absence, not peace. It was the kind of quiet that made the hairs on Leaf’s arms stand on end, a hollow space where the vibrant pulse of the woods should have been.
He watched Rowen, the easy smile on his friend’s face, the slight bounce in his step. Rowen, with his boundless energy and fierce loyalty, was a force of nature in his own right, a bright, unyielding flame against the wild’s indifference. Leaf found himself tracing the line of Rowen’s strong jaw, the way his dark hair caught the dappled sunlight, a warmth spreading through his chest that had nothing to do with the exertion of the hike. He pushed it down, deep beneath the growing knot of worry.
“You sure about this path, Row?” Leaf finally asked, his voice softer than he intended, almost swallowed by the oppressive quiet. He kicked at a patch of particularly vibrant moss, its spongy texture familiar beneath his boot. He’d seen this moss before, the exact shade of emerald, the exact way it clung to the base of a fallen birch.
Rowen paused, turning, his dark eyes sparkling with amusement. “What, my trusty digital map not good enough for you, Mr. ‘Reads-the-Forest-Like-a-Book’?” He tapped the screen playfully. “This baby’s got satellite imaging, real-time tracking, everything. Way better than your granddad’s hand-drawn scribbles, eh?” He grinned, a flash of white against his tanned skin.
Leaf felt a familiar frustration, a subtle clash of worlds. Rowen’s world was one of definitive lines and glowing screens, of quantifiable data. Leaf’s was of whispers and shadows, of the earth breathing beneath his feet. “It’s not the map, Row. It’s… the feeling.” He gestured vaguely at the silent trees. “It’s too quiet. Even the jays aren’t squawking. And,” he paused, his brow furrowing, “I swear we passed that triple-trunked pine a half hour ago. The one with the lightning scar.”
Rowen scoffed, but good-naturedly. “Leafy, you’re seeing ghosts again. That’s just the woods being the woods. And every pine in this place has a lightning scar, probably. It’s all in your head, buddy. You’ve been out here too long.” He gave Leaf’s shoulder a quick, reassuring squeeze, his touch lingering for a moment, sending a surprising jolt through Leaf before Rowen turned back to the path.
Leaf watched him go, the broad set of his shoulders, the confident sway of his hips. Rowen was right in a way; Leaf *had* been out here too long, or perhaps, not long enough. He had spent his childhood learning the language of the forest from his Kokum and Mushum, their words like roots reaching deep into the earth. They had taught him to listen to the wind, to read the patterns of the moss, to understand that the forest was a living entity, with its own moods and warnings. This silence, this specific, heavy stillness, was not the quiet of a forest at rest. It was the quiet of a hunter, waiting.
He remembered his Mushum’s words, spoken by a crackling fire one cold autumn night: *“The land, she speaks, Leaf. Not always in words, but in the way the light falls, the way the animals move, the way the air smells. If you listen, truly listen, she will tell you everything.”*
And the land was telling him, in no uncertain terms, that something was profoundly wrong. The path, though seemingly well-defined on Rowen’s digital screen, felt wrong underfoot. He noted the way the light filtered through the canopy—too uniform, lacking the subtle shifts he expected as they moved through different micro-climates. He noticed the lack of fresh animal tracks, an absence that felt louder than any sound. The earth under his boots felt strangely compressed, as if countless footsteps had worn it down, not just their own.
They walked for another twenty minutes, and then Leaf saw it again. A cluster of three ancient birches, their white bark peeling in elegant curls, stood sentinel beside a boulder draped in a thick shawl of vibrant green moss. He remembered the specific angle of the sunlight hitting the highest branch, illuminating it like a spotlight. He remembered the way the moss looked like a shaggy beard on the boulder. He remembered it because they had stopped there to share a water bottle just an hour ago.
“Rowen,” Leaf said, his voice sharper this time, cutting through the heavy air. “Stop. We’ve been here before. This is the same spot.”
Rowen stopped, turning slowly, his smile faltering slightly. He glanced from the birches to his phone screen, then back to the birches, a flicker of confusion crossing his face before it smoothed back into a familiar confidence. “No way, Leaf. The GPS says we’re heading due north. Look.” He held out the phone, the digital map a brightly lit portal to a world that seemed increasingly disconnected from the one around them.
Leaf stepped closer, his heart thrumming a frantic rhythm against his ribs. “The birches, Row. And that boulder. We had a break here. You spilled water on your boot right by that root.” He pointed to a gnarled root snaking out from the base of the largest birch, still slightly darker where the water had soaked into the dry earth.
Rowen knelt, inspecting the root, his brow furrowed. The casual amusement had been replaced by a faint line of concentration. He pulled out a small, almost imperceptible flask from his pocket, unscrewed the cap, and poured a small amount of water onto the root. The dark patch grew. His eyes widened, just for a moment, before he stood, a determined set to his jaw. “Okay, okay, so maybe it *looks* similar. But the map doesn’t lie, Leaf. It’s impossible. We’re moving in a straight line, according to this.” He gestured emphatically at the screen, as if its glowing pixels held an irrefutable truth.
Leaf felt a cold dread settle in his stomach. Rowen’s faith in his device was absolute, almost a religion. It was an admirable quality in its own way, that unwavering trust, but out here, in this ancient, unpredictable wilderness, it felt like a dangerous blind spot. He knew the land, knew its moods, its tricks. He knew the forest could swallow you whole, silent and indifferent, especially if you weren’t listening to its warnings.
“We’re circling, Rowen,” Leaf stated, the words a flat pronouncement. “We’ve been circling for a while now. The silence, the familiar landmarks… the forest is playing tricks on us, or we’ve missed a turn, or… something’s off.” His voice was low, laced with an urgency that, for the first time, seemed to chip away at Rowen’s composure. Rowen’s gaze flickered around the trees, his confidence visibly wavering, though he quickly masked it.
“No,” Rowen said, his voice a little too loud, a little too firm. “We’re not. We just… we just need to re-calibrate. The signal must be a bit spotty out here. Happens sometimes. Just keep going. Straight ahead. We’ll break through the tree line soon, and then you’ll see. Lookout point, clear as day.” He started walking again, faster this time, his previous buoyancy replaced by a forced, almost frantic pace. Leaf followed, his eyes scanning the forest, not for a lookout point, but for any sign, any whisper from the land, that would tell him where they truly were. The silence deepened, pressing in, an unseen weight, and Leaf knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that the forest had them now. And it wasn’t letting go.
He felt a profound fear, not just for himself, but for Rowen, for the way his friend’s confident stride had begun to falter, for the barely perceptible tremor in his hand as he clutched the phone. He had to protect him. He would. But first, they had to face the unsettling truth. They were truly, utterly lost.
About the Author
