Arrival
Serial Short Fiction - The Treehouse Part 1
It was time to write a story with an ode to this publication’s name. I hope you enjoy the journey and my imaginary companion, Rufus, as much as I had fun writing it. Published in parts as the story developed. Find a link to Part 2 at the end!
*Everything in this story is fictional and not to be regarded as fact or inferred in any way.
The Treehouse Part 1: Arrival
This place felt like home from the moment the dirt road curved and opened into a field of wildflowers. Trees border the edges in sporadic clumps, like tribes of small forests holding secrets. Vulchers orbit overhead. Brilliant streaks of gold light beam from the low westerly horizon casting long shadows, one shaped like me and another outlining that of Rufus, my 5 year old mixed-breed who happens to look like the offspring of a wolf and a bernese mountain dog.
We came for a purpose. In search of The Treehouse.
Sprinklings of chatter about the mysterious canopy haven started infiltrating my life about 2 years ago. A stranger mentioned it while soaking in a nearby hot spring. My friend, Nev, heard about it at our local dive bar a few hundred miles away. And some other random occurrences of which the circumstances haven’t seemed to matter, except for the tidbits about The Treehouse itself.
Through some low-key journalism tactics, mapping and online investigation, I find myself at the end of a dirt road that somehow belongs to no one. A rarity in the US due to our cultural obsession with ownership pride.
I don’t know what we’ll find, if we’ll find The Treehouse or if it even exists. Maybe it’s folklore. Maybe someone made it all up one day to impress a stranger. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a magical wooden fort waiting for us in those high, leafy branches.
The other theoretical roadblock is that I only have an approximate 3 mile radius in which this maybe-fake treehouse exists. On foot, it could take months to discover every facet of what’s hiding in the trees beyond this field. And I know little else about it. No clues, no hints. But at least I have time.
So Rufus and I walk in the most obvious direction first. Something I learned from my dad who was part of a volunteer search and rescue team throughout my teenage years, finding - or hoping to - lost hikers in the nearby mountains. There's a trace of a narrow path meandering through the wildflowers that appears to open into a trail at the treeline. We follow along knowing it could very well be a game trail, but the lightly dusted over footprints shaped like a human boot seem hopeful. The path does in fact turn into a legitimate trail as we reach the cedars and maples, and I keep needing to remind myself of our goal, Rufus and me, because this place is truly magical.
Vibrant green ferns as tall as my waist. Almost neon-yellow moss thriving on the tree bark. Canopy above swooshing in the breeze. Fireweed in full bloom, brilliant purple standing out amongst its leafy companions.
About 2 miles in we reach the creek where this path ends. Damn. No signs of footsteps or a clear path on the other side.
Today is mostly an entry level exploratory mission, absorbing the terrain, making mental maps and taking some notes, sensing any possibilities that could point to a hidden treehouse. What I do know about this treehouse, though, is that whoever built it - if it does, in fact, exist - certainly kept it hidden for a reason. There wouldn’t be an obvious path. There will be no signs like “Hey lady, what you’re looking for is right here” with a blinking red arrow from the sky. So, we cool down in the fresh, clear water, Rufus laps at the surface with his tongue to rehydrate, and we exit on the opposite bank.
I grab a snack out of my day pack with a keen eye on our surroundings. First, to make sure we can navigate back to the creek, our pathway back to camp, and second so I don’t miss any potential clues. While it’s a fairly remote area, a solid 90 minutes from any paved roads and even further from a real town, it’s not untouched.
Though its traces of humans are slight, they're there. Occasional sights of ratty pink and blue flagging tape along a stretch of trail that appears to have once been a two-track road, now overgrown and seemingly rarely accessed. A rusty metal “NO SHOOTING” sign slathered in bullet holes hanging from a tree near the creek.
Flashes of my childhood treehouse flicker across my mind as Rufus and I bushwack slowly in a northwesterly direction, according to the sun and my compass. Running through the tall grassy field behind our house, climbing the wooden slats, arranging my thrifted pillows and blankets just so, and laying down with a build-your-own-adventure type book until the cicadas and my father’s shouts from the back deck reminded me of dinner time.
As I stack my last cairn of the day in an opening at the base of a large oak tree with an unusual hollow that resembles a fish, we retrace our steps, our eyes adjust to the almost dark, I pull out my headlamp and backup flashlight and we head back to our new camping home for a fireside dinner before furry bedtime cuddles under the starlit night’s sky.
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