Crow: The Awakening

Chapter 2

The harvest was starting to dwindle. The end of the season was seeing flowers starting to thin out, which meant less honey. It hadn’t started getting severely cold yet, but the nights were chilly. Of course, in the hill country at this time of year, snow was just a quick cold front away, though it usually waited until December.

Steven towed a flatbed cart behind a little farm tractor back from the bee yard. On it he had stacked a few white wooden bee boxes, all covered with canvas to keep the bees out. They were heavy with honey and Steven had to harvest them frame by dripping frame. He wore a veil, but the bees he tended never really bothered him. The veil was more for the comfort of Jonah, who couldn’t approach the hives without a full suit. He grinned at that thought, feeling special.

His thoughts meandered to his biological parents as Steven drove across the farm, back to the little cob shed he and Jonah had set up to be his honey house. He had never known them since they went missing when he was still an infant and their closest friends had adopted him. Steven found it maddeningly peculiar that no pictures even existed of them.

The only thing he knew was at one time they were close friends, and quite suddenly his biological parents met some mysterious calamity that had yet to have been fully explained to him. He resented that, as much as he liked his adoptive parents. Steven felt that he had a right to know. Was anyone trying to find them, or did anyone try when they first went missing? He had seen no hint of any sort of search and he wondered if, after ten years, they would ever be found.

The tractor jostled as it passed over one of the cattle guards on their farm that allowed access to their modest pastures. The jolting woke Steven from his thoughts. He had done this so many times that often he would go on automatic pilot as he drove from the barn to the fields and back.

While most of his peers loathed the homestead chores their parents had given them, Steven had taken the initiative himself to manage hives Jonah would have otherwise gotten rid of. He didn’t get an allowance; their farm life wasn’t that lucrative. But the honey he sold from the hives more than made up for that. And that money was what he needed to try to get answers about his parents that he’d not been able to coax from anyone in town or from his adoptive parents.

After he backed the trailer into the barn, he unhitched it and drove the tractor out so Jonah could use it out in their gardens and orchards. He had considered extracting the honey, but it was nearly time for market. They would have to wait until later. There were already a few cases of honey bottled up and ready for the sale sitting in the bed of the truck anyway. He was eager to get to his booth at the market and start making sales. He was ecstatic about the growing popularity of his honey and even more so at the income. Most kids in the area subsisted on meager allowances.

Steven was preparing that day’s lunch for market when Sally and Jonah finally dragged themselves out of bed. It wasn’t all that late, though. He always had been the early riser of the family, getting his chores done ahead of breakfast so he’d have the rest of the day to do things he wanted to do.

Last night’s events didn’t help, however. They must have been up late last night cleaning up from the tremor because he didn’t see any of the mess. Sally reached up into the hanging egg basket, and grabbed a few of the eggs Steven had collected that morning. Pulling a large ceramic bowl down from the shelf over their gas stove, she began preparing breakfast. She bumped into Steven with her hip as he tried to move out of her way, making him giggle, then she turned and gave him a big, spontaneous hug.

“How are you doing, pumpkin?” She ruffled his black, wavy hair and looked at him, smiling. There was a glint of worry in her eyes, however.

“Better.” Steven smiled. As nightmares go, last night’s was fairly typical for him.

She gave him a kiss on the forehead and smiled back at him for a moment. “Way better?” He nodded.

“I almost thought you were going to call me Mom again.” Sally held his chin up.

Steven fidgeted and looked away. “Sorry. It’s just…weird. You know.”

She smiled sadly at him and turned back to cracking the eggs into her mixing bowl. “I hope you’re hungry.”

“Oh yeah,” Steven said excitedly. He was famished. He took a jar of dried mushrooms down from the shelf and put them next to her. The best eggs always have a bit of fungus in them, he thought to himself, smiling. Then he went out to the porch and brought in that morning’s harvest of miner’s lettuce. After rinsing it off, he put the bowl on the counter next to where Sally was cooking. Grabbing a handful of the greens, he started chopping it for the eggs.

It didn’t take him long to finish gathering and preparing the various ingredients they liked in their morning eggs. Satisfied, Steven wiped his hands and sat down on a large hand hewn bench at the heavy picnic style wooden table that Jonah had made from trees he had milled. He played absentmindedly with the grain of the redwood. “Can I go to Brandon’s after the market?” He hadn’t seen his best friend in town for a few weeks since he spent part of his time at their primary mansion in Seattle.

“Are his parents going to be home?” Sally glanced over her shoulder at him while she whisked the eggs. Steven hesitated and she turned to look at him.

“Um,” Steven didn’t know but really wanted to avoid that question. Sally never let him go over to Brandon’s if his parents weren’t there. “They might. It’s the weekend.”

“We’ll see.” She poured the eggs into a heavy iron skillet and started stirring them as they scrambled while she adjusted the flame of the stove with her free hand. The vintage gas stove still seemed almost too modern for a kitchen that consisted of a lot of hand milled wood, cob construction, cast iron shelf supports, and rough slate floor tiles. A wood stove would probably have fit in better, and Jonah would have preferred it. But then, Sally ruled the kitchen. She glanced at him as she poured the scrambled eggs into the ceramic bowl and top-dressed them with some fresh goat cheese.

Steven pouted. ‘We’ll see’ usually meant ‘no.’ “We’re just going to look at his comic books.” Mostly, he thought to himself. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

“And get on their computer?” Sally brought over the bowl of steaming scrambled eggs just as Jonah arrived with a tin of home grown dried figs from the root cellar. He put it on the table and tied back his long black hair. He grinned at Sally and winked at Steven, then grabbed some glasses from the shelf while he listened in on the discussion. Sally stopped and looked at Steven expectantly.

“No,” Steven answered too quickly. Sally already knew, and he knew that she knew. Jonah smiled at him, shaking his head. He knew, too, and that just made Steven more frustrated. “We only play games anyway.” Well, not exactly, but that’s what Brandon always wanted to do so it wasn’t an outright lie. “How much trouble can we get in just playing games?”

“Sorry, bub. No parents, no Brandon’s.” Jonah sat down next to Steven and passed him a plate. Like the bowls, the plates were hand turned ceramic from Sally’s little pottery shop, glazed with abstract designs with a decidedly Native American motif.

Steven was exasperated at the same old losing battle. What would possibly warrant their unreasonable fear of computers? “But Jonah, we don’t do anything that’s dangerous. Just games and stuff.”

“And stuff.” Jonah nodded, looking at Sally as she placed a pitcher of orange juice on the table and sat down. He waved the spoon for the eggs at Steven for emphasis. “I’ve told you before, I’ve been there and seen the crazy stuff that goes on. There’s nothing safe about computers nowadays. Not even games.” He spooned eggs onto his plate and piled some on Steven’s plate and passed the figs to his adopted son.

Steven sulked, picking at his scrambled eggs with his fork. “It hasn’t hurt Brandon.” He just wanted to download some hacking software for his project and it was easier at Brandon’s. They had a great connection to the Internet. How else was he going to find his parents? But he couldn’t tell them that. They were already too strict on computers as it was. If they knew what Steven was doing they’d probably ground him to his room and make him do chores until he was gray and old. Jonah didn’t answer Steven’s perfectly logical reasoning. Sighing, Steven finished his plate and put it in the sink after rinsing it off.

“I’ll be out by the truck.” Steven grabbed a handful of figs and walked out, dejected, dragging his feet a little to emphasize his displeasure.

Sally looked at Jonah while chewing. Jonah sighed and shook his head. The kid was brilliant and bucking against the limitations pretty hard. He and Sally had all but given up computers ten years ago when they moved out to the hills to raise Steven.

“It’s going to be harder and harder as he gets older. All of his friends have computers,” Sally said, wiping her mouth with her napkin.

“Telling him the truth won’t make it any easier.” He got up, grabbing the last fig from the tin. “See you at the market?”

Sally nodded and gathered up their dishes as he left.

~ ~ ~

The trip to the market was fairly quiet while Steven fumed. They had told him about the dangers but he was smarter than they gave him credit for, and he was ten years old. Most certainly not a baby anymore. He sniffed as he stared out the window watching the trees and scattering farm fields and vineyards go by on their short trip to town.

“You ready for school?” Jonah hoped to distract him from his foul mood. Steven really enjoyed school. They homeschooled him and he soaked in everything he could learn and was always looking for more. He was already three grades ahead of what he normally would be at his age. Jonah wondered sometimes if he was reading the town library’s collection over yet again, checking books out and disappearing into the forest to wherever it was that he went to read them.

Steven tried to think of something negative to say, but drew a blank. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Eighth grade already. Can you believe it?” Jonah gushed. He was amazed at how fast the kid was progressing.

Steven grunted, milking his sour mood out for as long as he could. The prospect of new textbooks and yet another level of schooling did excite him, but he tried hard to not show it.

Jonah looked at him then back at the road. “What were the years the Civil War was fought?”

Steven sighed. They often played this game. “1861 to 1865.” He fiddled with the fraying weather stripping on the window.

“Hmm. What was Black Tuesday?” He looked sideways at the pouting boy.

“The Wall Street Crash of 1829,” Steven sighed loudly.

“What year was Black Tuesday?” Jonah grinned.

Steven was about to answer then stopped and looked at Jonah. “Really?”

Jonah laughed out loud.

Steven grinned and straightened himself in the seat then sobered. “I just don’t understand why you are so afraid.”

Jonah was quiet for a while then looked at Steven. “There are some really bad things that are going on, Steven. I’ve seen it and it was brutal. I don’t expect you to understand right now. All I ask is that you respect our limitations.”

Steven sighed again. “Yes, sir.” The forest started thinning and Steven watched the occasional farmhouse pass by, wondering if his adoptive parents would ever relax about computers. After all, it was his parents that were missing, not theirs, and searching the computer networks was the only way Steven knew to look for information about them.

Crow: The Awakening

Chapter 3

The market was held on city property near the quaint courthouse every weekend all year round. It was a combination crafts market and farmer’s market, and was frequented by art and food connoisseurs as well as professionals.

Steven stepped out of the truck and took in a deep breath. He loved the market. It made him feel important. He looked around at the early visitors starting to trickle in. Some people came for the ambiance. Others were art collectors who resold what they found to businesses and restaurants in their respective cities. Steven’s main customers were chefs looking for distinctive honeys, though he did sell to a fair share of honey to enthusiasts, too. Every region blessed their honey with its own distinctive flavor and his was popular.

Jonah finished helping Steven set up his little honey booth. It was a modest but sturdy handmade table with a homemade display for his jars of honey and extra jars tucked underneath in their cases. Jonah’s predilection for playing in his woodshop resulted in a rustic, solid display for Steven’s jars of honey.

He mussed Steven’s hair then moved a few stalls down to his own booth which currently displayed the latest harvest of the waning summer season. That harvest consisted mostly of squashes, pumpkins, fresh beans, corn and a big display of wild harvested mushrooms.

Steven looked at Jonah’s display and thought about how much he enjoyed helping Jonah with his stacks of wood that he cultivated mushrooms on, as well as scouring the forest around their property looking for wild mushrooms. If he had to choose one thing to eat, it would be mushrooms. Or figs. Steven thought for a second but was unable to decide between the two.

Farther down was Sally’s stall. She had just arrived and begun setting up her stoneware, pottery, glassware and woodenware that she made in her little shop on the farm. She had discovered working with clay when she first met Jonah’s grandparents and had taken to it obsessively. Most of their dishes were made in her shop, even the glasses they drank from.

“You forgot this, gloomy.” Sally plopped the basket with Steven’s lunch on the honey table, and adjusted his display. He grumped and adjusted the display back. She grinned as she walked toward her booth. “You’re welcome?”

“Thanks.” With her infectious effervescence, it was hard to stay mad at her. He peeked under the homespun cloth napkin covering his lunch and saw that she had included a small jar of canned peaches and a spoon along with the sandwich he had put together. He tried hard to not look too pleased as he tucked the basket under the table.

As he did so, he saw a pair of black leather shoes peeking under the tablecloth and heard a jar clinking up above. Steven stood up quickly to see a smartly dressed man with a graying, close trimmed goatee, wearing a tweed sport coat and gray slacks. He was holding a jar of his honey up to the sun, examining its clarity.

“Oh, hello, Dr. Dougherty.” Steven smiled. Dr. Dougherty was the town psychiatrist, but more importantly to Steven, his beekeeping protégé and friend. He had helped the physician revive his ailing hives earlier this season and was rather proud of the work they accomplished. “How are the bees?”

The doctor looked down at Steven and put the jar down. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he extracted a small jar of dark honey. “Spectacular, Steven. Absolutely spectacular.” He grinned, handing the jar to Steven. “My first harvest this year and the honey is sublime. A hint of citrus, of all things.” He shook his head. “I have seen it and still find it hard to believe. Your methods are completely unorthodox from everything I had learned before, and yet I have never seen hives become as strong as these.”

Steven shrugged, grinning. “Well, it’s not all me.”

“Thank you nonetheless, young Master Crow,” he said, giving a little bow. The psychiatrist looked at his watch. “Ah. I need to visit a few more stalls before my next appointment.” He straightened his jacket. “Come by the yard sometime. I could use your opinion on whether or not to combine a couple of late swarms before winter sets in.”

“Sure.” Steven tucked the small jar of honey into his lunch basket as Dr. Dougherty walked off, noticing that he stopped briefly at another booth a few stalls down. Steven wondered if he could get him to talk to his parents about computers. He was a therapist and may know how to reach them better than he’d been able to.

“I see James stopped by.” Jonah walked over grinning, startling Steven. “How’re his bees?”

“I think he’s pretty happy with them.” Steven tried hard to be modest. He was thrilled that his advice was working out so well for the man.

“Yeah, pretty happy.” Jonah laughed. “I’ve seen his little yard and his hives are already five and six deeps tall. Happy is an understatement. Just ten years old and you’re already getting consulting gigs. You’ll be a hard act to follow soon.” Something caught Jonah’s eye. “Hey, Brandon. Back in town already?”

Steven looked around Jonah as a tall, lanky young teen pulled up to the booth on his dual sport motorcycle. Steven could tell that Brandon had been modifying the motorcycle again and wondered what changes he had applied to it this time.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Crow. Mom and Dad dropped me off last night.” Brandon turned the motorcycle off and removed his helmet, shaking his auburn hair.

“Another wine tasting?” Jonah asked.

“Yeah. Hopefully next year they’ll be able to host their own wine tasting,” Brandon said.

“Well, you tell them the cuttings they gave me are growing great! I hope to get grapes next year,” Jonah said, smiling widely. Brandon nodded as Jonah noticed another customer coming up to his booth.

“‘Sup, Steven?” Brandon balanced on his motorcycle, grinning. Jonah gave Steven a knowing look, then rushed back to his booth to help the customer. “Coming over? I got a bunch of new games to play,” Brandon whispered conspiratorially when Jonah was out of earshot.

Steven glanced at Jonah who was sacking up some squash for a customer. “Can’t. The usual.” He rolled his eyes. “I really wish your parents wouldn’t disappear as soon as you get in town.”

Brandon smirked. “Well, I guess they’re happy to get away from me for a while.”

“I need you to download something for me, though.” Steven dug in his pocket and pulled out a piece of sketch paper he had scribbled instructions on, glancing over at Jonah to be sure he wasn’t eavesdropping. “Just follow this. Same as always.”

“If the site is available.” Brandon frowned as he looked at the file name.

“Huh?” Steven looked at Brandon, confused.

“The jailbreak site you gave me is down,” Brandon said, waving the paper.

“Really?” Steven looked over at Jonah to make sure their conversation still wasn’t being eavesdropped on.

“Yep. Just getting an error,” Brandon sighed. “My phone upgraded and the old jailbreak doesn’t work anymore.”

“Probably hit by denial of service. Give it a couple of days or so,” Steven said. “It usually clears out after that.” He pointed at the paper. “That IP address will give you a priority connection to the download section.”

“A couple of boring days gaming on my own,” Brandon said, looking over at Jonah and shaking his head.

“Sorry. Not until your parents get back.” Steven sighed as he played absentmindedly with his honey display.

“Man, you’re missing some killer action.” Brandon stuffed the paper in his pocket and fiddled with his helmet. “Really sucks. No one else can keep up like you can.”

“Maybe next week, if your parents don’t run off,” Steven said. Brandon’s parents were often busy working in their little vineyard so it was easy to sneak in some game playing time. “See you at the same place?”

Brandon nodded as he put his helmet back on. They bumped fists and he started the bike and zoomed off, swerving to avoid a poodle. Steven cracked a smile as the owner of the poodle shouted something at Brandon while picking the scared dog up.

Steven sighed, and got back to tending his booth. A few times he actually had a line. He loved seeing his regulars come up and rave about his honey. They brought back their empty jars and the canvas bags Sally had sewn together for his business so Steven could reuse them and walked away with fresh jars of honey. As he was pulling more jars from the case to fill the display back up, someone plopped a small box on the table, still taped up from shipping. His eyes got big, and he grabbed it and opened it.

“My JTAG tool and memory! Sweet! I’ll be up and online in no time. Finally!” Steven grimaced and glanced back over to his adoptive parents who remained busy, then up at the person who brought the box. He was a short, stocky, graying man with metal rim glasses on his nose and a big smile. “Thanks, Dmitri. How much do I owe you?”

The town’s computer serviceman and librarian thought for a moment, then raised an eyebrow. “Five pounds.”

“What? That’s crazy! I could get away with three pounds easy.” Steven looked appalled, pushing the box away from him.

“That JTAG tool was really hard to get. And I got a Shikra device, and there’s wireless specs in there too that you don’t get just anywhere.” He smirked, pushing the box back.

Steven looked in the box and saw the booklet and flash drive tucked away in there and a USB connected tool. “Well, I might be able to part with four pounds. But I’m really pushing it.”

“Deal!” The Russian beamed. They always haggled like this and it was a game they both enjoyed. While most of his customers needed a virus removed or a repair, Steven really pushed the limits of his resources for the computer project he was working on. Grinning, Steven bagged up four bottles of his honey in a sewn canvas sack and pushed it toward him. “Don’t forget to bring the bottles and bag back when you’re done.”

“You bet.” He grabbed the bag and looked at the delicious honey. His wife would be so pleased. “How close are you?”

“I got it to boot up a couple days ago! I just need to get the wireless working and I’m in business.” Steven grinned. He’d built his computer by scavenging parts from several broken laptops and ordered what he couldn’t find from scraps to fill in the holes. “The new bootloader I wrote works great, but I’m having trouble getting the wireless driver to work. I think the chip is buggy and the manufacturer hacked it to work, so I just need to back trace their fix and make it work on my system. JTAG will be a lifesaver.”

Dmitri was about to pursue that line of thought when a couple of men in their young twenties stepped up to the booth. By their appearance, Steven guessed they were from Seattle or some other major metropolitan area. More chefs, he hoped. They usually took at least half of his cases. One was carrying a few canvas bags of produce and mushrooms. Steven could tell some came from Jonah’s booth. Definitely a chef, Steven thought to himself.

As they looked at the display, picking up a jar of honey and looking at it in the light, Steven grabbed a gallon jar of his honey and put it next to his display and pulled out his sample jar and a pair of fresh spoons. Dmitri moved over to let them shop the booth. He wanted to pick Steven’s brains a bit more about his little project so he waited patiently. It’s not every day a kid as young as Steven wrote his own operating system.

“So you’re the young beekeeper everyone is talking about,” the chef beamed, admiring the display of golden joy. “Shawn from Palm Kitchen wouldn’t stop talking about you so I had to come see for myself.” He took a sample and tasted it, closing his eyes. “Oh yeah. That will work great. I’ll take that gallon.” He looked at the display for a second. “And this.” He held up a block of wax. “My wife makes lotions and soaps.” His friend tried a sample, too, and nodded. “Wow. There’s nothing quite like real honey.”

“I remember Shawn. He was here last weekend.” Steven smiled widely. It was great to have chefs talk to each other and make the trip to get his honey. He grabbed another canvas bag and sacked up the honey and the wax. “If your wife likes the wax, I’ve got a lot more as well as propolis and pollen.” He held the handles of the bag up for them. “And let me know what your customers think of the honey. There’s lots more where that came from.”

The chef’s friend leaned in. “I heard you talking some serious computer talk. We have summer camps and intern programs you might be interested in.” He handed him a business card for a tech company in Seattle. “I handle recruiting and we’re always on the lookout for new talent.”

Steven looked over at Sally and Jonah to make sure they weren’t overhearing the conversation as he pocketed the business card. His computer project was getting more attention than he was comfortable with. “Thanks. Yeah, well, I dabble.” He wrote out a receipt for the chef, hoping the conversation wouldn’t continue.

“Dabble? Writing an operating system at your age?” Dmitri was particularly proud since he was Steven’s computer mentor, though now Steven was moving beyond even his own capabilities. “I used to teach him, but he teaches me nowadays,” he confided in the executive.

Steven grinned sheepishly. “It doesn’t do much right now. I forked in bits and pieces from other projects.”

“For now.” Dmitri winked at the computer executive. He had always encouraged Steven’s technical ambitions, in spite of his adoptive parents. He pointed at Steven proudly. “He is a legitimate genius. Absolutely amazing watching him work.”

Steven chuckled shyly, still uncomfortable with the conversation so close to Sally and Jonah. He handed the chef his receipt and thanked him and his friend as they moved on to the other booths, and Dmitri started to ask him more about his project when he stopped and smiled at someone behind him.

Steven looked over at Jonah’s booth and was shocked to see Jonah standing right beside him with a stack of books. Did he just walk up or did he overhear the discussion? Jonah plopped the stack of books on the table, jostling the jars of honey. “These just came in for you.” Steven looked at them. His homeschool textbooks.

“Um. Thanks?” Steven looked up at Jonah nervously, but Jonah showed no sign of having heard anything. He noticed Jonah giving Dmitri a stern look, though. A distraction might help. Steven fingered through a textbook that came with a video dvd. “I’m learning Cantonese this year? That’ll make seven languages.” Steven glanced at Dmitri and shook his head.

Dmitri quietly grabbed up his honey and wandered off, glancing furtively at Jonah. Their relationship perplexed Steven. They seemed to be good friends, but sometimes he could tell something was off. He usually spent a lot of time at the library checking out books, however, so he would talk to him about his computer project then.

“Cantonese should be easy for you. You learned Mandarin in three months and French in one. I’m running out of languages I can help you with.” Jonah played with the cover of one of the books thoughtfully.

Steven shrugged. “It’s just different ways of saying the same thing.”

“Now, be sure not to go through these too far ahead of the lessons. You do that every time and we have to follow a schedule to keep the state happy,” Jonah chided.

“Their schedule is too slow.” Steven grumbled as he looked at the books. “It’s like they’re trying to hold me back or something.” Steven was already a few years ahead of his normal grade and was on the verge of graduating high school before other kids entered junior high.

“We’re trying to keep a low profile here, Steven. You’ll finish these courses fast enough.”

“Okay.” Steven was still pleased as he flipped through a few pages. Fresh meat, he thought. He remembered the small box of computer parts sitting on the table and his heart jumped, but Jonah hadn’t noticed it. He placed a book on top of the box, hoping to obscure it even more.

His adoptive father shuffled through the stack of books and pulled out what he knew would be Steven’s favorite – a large sketchpad. “And, here ya go,” Jonah said as he presented it to him.

“Cool! I’m almost done with mine!” Steven grabbed it and flipped through the blank pages, savoring the new paper crispness of the pressed cotton sheets. Jonah grinned. He was delighted that Steven was so artistic. Steven looked around the books. “Did you get any more pencils?”

“Oh…” Jonah almost forgot and rushed back to his booth. Steven quickly tucked his box of computer parts under the table in his lunch basket, relieved. When he stood up there was another box on the table, but this time full of both color and black art pencils. “These should last you for a little while,” Jonah said.

“Excellent!” Steven opened the box and pulled out a pencil as he shoved the lunch basket under the table with his foot. His favorite way of passing time was drawing, and he went through pencils fast.

Steven grinned, as he looked around the market. Jonah ruffled his hair then returned to his booth. Steven nodded. Today ended up being a good day after all. Now he had to just finish at the market and head out to his tree house where all his computer work took place and get busy.

A young girl with wavy, red hair stopped at his booth and picked up a jar. She giggled as she held it in the sun. “This looks yummy.” Steven grinned and grabbed another canvas bag.

Crow: The Awakening

Chapter 4

“Hold up there, Steven. Sheesh, what’s your hurry?” Jonah slammed shut the tailgate on the bed of the truck.

“No hurry. Just, you know. Want to go play.” Steven fixed a teetering stack of empty honey crates.

“You going to extract that?” Jonah pointed at the fresh bee-boxes of honey.

“I have all week!” Steven frowned.

“You have school.” Jonah crossed his arms.

“Tomorrow morning before Sunday Market? I’m always up and done before you wake up anyway.” Steven looked at the forest, eager to get moving on his project.

“Okay. But watch out for bears.” Jonah grinned.

Steven gave him a look. He always seemed to have an unspoken rapport with the animals of the forest. Many times they would see wolves or bears sitting next to him way out in their little pasture while he was off in his own little world drawing something or reading one of the many library books he was constantly digesting. Their most memorable moment was when, at barely five, a lost Steven was found being towed back to their homestead clinging to the tail of a puma.

Steven started to trot off towards the house, when Jonah hollered at him.

“What?” Steven turned around, exasperated. Jonah pointed. Steven saw his stack of books sitting on the hood of the truck and sighed as he trudged over to retrieve them. “Thanks.” He rushed back to the house, hoping to avoid any more interruptions.

All he could think about was the final step he needed to get his computer networked and every little delay seemed like hours to him. In a rush to leave, Steven stuffed his sketch pad and a handful of pencils in his backpack. He rarely went anywhere without those essential tools, and his bedroom walls were plastered with drawings he had made of virtually anything that caught his eye out in the forest.

Looking around, he reached under his bed, grabbed his moccasins, and hung them from his belt. He preferred to roam the forest barefoot, but the footwear came in handy just in case he ran into a rough patch or very sharp rocks. But most of the terrain out there was covered by forest floor detritus, moss, ferns and various understory plants so he rarely used them. When climbing, he found that bare feet could not be beat.

Looking over his shoulder to make sure no one was peeking in, he secured his computer parts in a pocket of the backpack, then went to the kitchen for some snacks. While Steven’s favorite foods were the many types of wild mushrooms that grew on the forest floor and the trunks of trees, he liked to supplement his foraging with dried or honeyed figs from Jonah’s orchards.

As he scurried around getting stuff together, Sally handed him a canteen of water and gave him a quick hug. “Hey, you. Don’t stay out late tonight. We’re having trout for supper.” Steven smiled and wiggled out of her embrace. She tried hard to hold onto him but he still eluded her grasp as he got away and ran out the door.

“I’ll be back by supper,” he yelled over his shoulder as he sprinted down the trail. Sally shook her head as she watched him race away toward whatever adventure he had planned for himself that day. She marveled at how he was always doing something and wondered where the energy came from. Looking around the kitchen and the chores she had to accomplish, she sorely wished she had some of that abundant vitality.

Steven’s staff was leaning against the rustic fence post where he’d left it. He grabbed it without breaking stride as he dashed past. Before he knew it he was in the forest on the other side of their small pasture, ducking branches and jumping over roots as he went.

The forest was a familiar place to him, as familiar as his own bedroom. Every trail, bush, sapling, and tree seemed like old friends to him. His safe place. As he ducked through the underbrush he knew exactly where to go to avoid getting snagged or slowed. At times he’d swear the forest was getting out of his way or helping him along.

In spite of entering the dense wood, the world around him seemed to expand rather than contract. The trees, towering up into the sky, surrounded him by the hundreds in his direct line of sight and receded into the distance until they all blended together, giving the impression of an endless space around him. The forest sounds were abruptly apparent to him as well, markedly different from the sounds of the open farmland their homestead sat on.

It was almost magical to him. Steven could feel the life in the forest and hear the tiniest rustle of leaves on the ground or the claws on bark as squirrels climbed. He stopped briefly and closed his eyes to let the forest soak in. He could sense nearly every living thing in that part of the forest – a hawk picking at a mouse up in the trees, a bear foraging for berries some distance away, even a puma curled up in a den in a rocky bluff nearby. He also found the smell of the forest intoxicating, with the plants and humus enveloping him with an earthy, woody aroma like a comfortable blanket. For him, it was like entering a completely different world.

But there was little time today for him to stop and experience the forest in greater detail. Though he never became bored with it and his endless discoveries, Steven had a meeting to attend to and an important component of his computer project to acquire. With just the slightest hesitation, he headed quickly to the rendezvous point, hoping Brandon was successful in getting the file for him. He found a comfortable rhythm as he trotted through the forest and covered ground rapidly. No matter how far he ran, in the forest he never seemed to get tired.

As he ducked branches and ran along deadwood trunks and through the ferns, his thoughts wandered and his playful fantasy world surfaced in his imagination. He saw gnarled, dead branches as terrible monsters reached wretched claws out for him and he whacked at them with his staff as he dodged, weaved, and swerved through the underbrush. He turned it into a full running fantastical battle.

He jumped up onto a leaning tree and ran along the trunk and onto a branch, whacking at reaching tentacles as he danced his way between the spiny arms that threatened to grab him. Without breaking stride, he jumped off onto a downed trunk that became the back of a massive dragon. He balanced on it as it writhed wildly, trying to knock him off. While at a full sprint he ran along its back, crossing a small ravine over which the dragon lay. Angry trolls reached up from the ravine trying to grab his feet and pull him down. He soundly beat them back with his staff as he jumped from the dragon’s back onto the far bank and continued his jog through the enemy territory.

A tree thrust its branches out, and before they could trap him he grabbed one of them and swung up into the tangle of the canopy, crawling quickly from branch to branch up high. He jumped from the canopy and grabbed another branch of a neighboring tree and repeated scrambling from tree to tree as he picked up the pace. He found he could travel even faster this way than flat out running. It seemed like the branches actually helped and he imagined giants tossing him from one to the other as he rapidly made his way.

As the forest thinned a bit he jumped out of the canopy and grabbed a long thin branch that bent down low enough for him to drop to the ground. He felt most liberated as he gallivanted through the forest without a care in the world.

With the giants and monsters behind him, he suddenly came face to face with a large, black bear. Not the typical monster he faced, but a real one. For a moment both froze, staring at each other as Steven crouched. The bear cocked its head, curious at the sudden intrusion as it rooted around for berries. Steven giggled. “You scared me, silly. Can’t play now.” He got up and jogged off, with the bear looking at him as he quickly receded into the thicket.

The dark forest fantasy faded behind him as he continued on, and his attention returned to reality. As he ran, he stretched out his senses to feel the forest around him. It was like he could feel the Earth breathe. It was exhilarating. It did occur to him that it could just be an adrenaline high from the run, something he learned a couple of years ago in his biology texts, but it didn’t matter to him. It was still a magical feeling. Running through the forest never really tired him much anyway. It was as if he was energized by the abundant life around him.

A young elk stag suddenly burst from the bushes as Steven ran and trotted alongside him. He grinned and grabbed a handful of the thick fur on its neck and let it pull him along. He used to imagine these creatures too, until the real creatures replaced his imagination and now made regular appearances when he was out in the forest. The elk followed a subtle trail through the underbrush as it headed toward a watering hole. Steven saw several others behind it and up ahead too. What was for Steven a full out run was a modest trot for the elk. They both ran through the forest until the trail turned away from where he was headed and he let go to jump up into another tree.

These trees were taller and easier for him to travel through. He climbed up higher into the canopy and used the springiness of the branches to help him travel from tree to tree. At these heights, he could sometimes see the forest of the neighboring hills. In spite of climbing from tree to tree, he was still able to move faster than if he was on the forest floor running.

The meeting location was getting closer. As he got closer to the ground, this time he didn’t climb back up but kept traveling until he was at the lower limits of the canopy. While jumping out of the canopy onto another downed tree, he spied a rich growth of mushrooms growing up from the soil and detritus beside the trunk and passed several until he came upon some he recognized. They seemed to call to him, and he instinctively knew they were nontoxic. The poisonous ones looked dead to him, even though they were often very pretty. Field guides had confirmed the identities to him as he helped Jonah collect for the market. He grabbed several of the most succulent mushrooms, avoiding the older woodier ones, and stuffed them into his backpack for a snack later on.

A clamorous noise caught his attention. It was not part of the normal forest sounds, and it was distant but approaching rapidly. Over the years, Steven had infrequently come across a hunter riding through the forest on an ATV or setting up a blind and cutting firewood for camp, but this sound was more familiar. He started running again, recognizing the sound of Brandon’s dirt bike.

Abruptly, he emerged from the dense thicket onto one of several fire and logging roads that crisscrossed the forest. It was mostly overgrown but was a favorite road for Brandon to drive along because of the copious ruts and dips he liked to jump and bounce through. Brandon would loan Steven a spare dirt bike and they’d often race up and down the fire road, jumping the dips and occasional pile of dirt.

Steven found the stump that they always met at and jumped up on it and sat down. Someone had cut down a few trees in this area a few years ago and the clearing was just now starting to fill in with young saplings. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a mushroom and started snacking on it as he waited for Brandon to get there.

Brandon exploded around a curve in the road and weaved back and forth across the road playing in the ruts as he approached Steven. He jumped off a deep rut, landed hard and sprayed dirt as he twisted the throttle and caught more air rebounding off another rut, landing unceremoniously by the stump close enough that Steven pulled up his legs. He excitedly whooped at him, then yelled over the sound of the engine, “You almost missed that rut!”

Brandon looked back. “No I didn’t. Landed square on.” He killed the engine and removed his helmet.

Steven snickered, “Not. Your baby sister coulda done better.”

Brandon got off the bike and leaned it against the stump. He thought for a moment. “You’re probably right. She’s a week off her training wheels.”

Steven laughed and jumped off the stump to inspect the motorcycle. “It sounded different. What did you do to it?”

“Sounded different?” Brandon knelt beside his bike. “I got a new carb, but it shouldn’t sound all that different.” He pulled a branch out from the frame and checked the throttle cable that had come loose from its clip.

“Mm-hmm, maybe you gained weight. Been pigging out down at the mansion again?”

“Yeah. On salads and lentils. Mom’s on a vegan kick again.” Brandon made a face.

Steven walked around the bike. “Let me give it a go.”

Brandon tossed him the helmet. If anyone was able to nail down performance issues, it was Steven. For a relatively new motorcycle rider, he seemed to have a knack for fine tuning them. Steven snapped on the helmet and looked down the road as he started the bike. There was an old overgrown pile of dirt beside the fire road that he liked to jump and he was eager for some airtime.

“Be back in a second.” Steven twisted the throttle and felt the motorcycle surge forward. He kicked through the gears as he gained speed, hitting the ruts to get some air and feel out the suspension. It had been a few months since he’d last ridden this particular bike, but it seemed familiar enough. He could feel a slight difference in the handling and response, however. Pushing the bike harder made it easier to discern.

His jump was coming up quickly and he braced himself as the motorcycle hit the pile at high speed. The bike came up under him, pushing hard against his legs as he powered up the pile and launched off it. Letting off the gas, he coasted through the air for what seemed like eternity, using the gas and brakes to keep from tipping up or forward too much, then made a near two-point landing.

Braking hard, he slowed down then kicked into a low gear and hit the gas hard enough to break out the rear wheel as he spun the bike around to face the opposite direction. Another twist of the throttle sent him zooming back toward Brandon, hopping over the ruts as he went. He stopped just inches from his friend, grinning wildly.

“What do you think?” Brandon asked.

“Timing’s a little advanced and the chain is too tight.” Steven dismounted the bike and propped it against the stump. “But your suspension upgrades rock. I just eased over that jump this time.”

“What? I used a computer to make the timing perfect!” Brandon exclaimed.

“Do computers drive the bike?” Steven asked smugly.

Brandon frowned, looking at the bike. “Almost nowadays.”

“Just a little. That’s all it needs,” Steven insisted. “Did you repack your baffles?”

Brandon shook his head. “Naw. Was going to do that later.” He took the helmet and fiddled with the clasp. “Too bad you couldn’t come over. Your bike is gathering a lot of dust. We could have gone racing out here.”

“I know. Maybe later on. Sally would have a fit if she knew I was tearing through the forest trails on these things. I think she hates them worse than computers,” Steven pouted. “Besides, I keep beating you. Where’s the challenge?” He smirked at Brandon.

“I let you win, bub.” Brandon pushed Steven, who jumped away laughing.

“You only think so. Two jars of honey if you beat me next time we race,” Steven challenged. He was going to bring the jars then anyway. Brandon’s parents loved his honey.

Brandon nodded, smirking. “Easy win.”

“Did you get the file?” Steven couldn’t wait any longer. The motorcycle was a fun distraction, but he was eager to get busy on his computer projects.

“What file?” Brandon looked innocent. Steven gave him a look.

Grinning, he tossed a flash drive to Steven.

“Yes!” Steven danced around. “Yes, yes, yes!”

Brandon laughed at him. “Happy?”

“Oh yeah!” Steven held his hands up. “Thank you so much.”

“No prob.” The teenager sat back on his bike again and donned his helmet. “Now, are you ready to lose again?”

“Again? I beat you last time!” Steven put the flash drive in his backpack, zipped it up, and put it on.

“Only because I slipped.” He fumbled with the helmet clasp.

“Excuses, excuses. See you at the creek.” Steven sprinted back into the forest toward their favorite creek, disappearing into the underbrush. The creek wasn’t far off, but while Brandon had to ride around on the trail, Steven preferred to take the shortcut through the brambles. Even the densest of thickets seemed to give way to him as he passed by.

“Hey, that’s cheating!” Brandon started his bike and swung it around on the dirt road, spraying dirt, and zoomed off over the ruts, slipping through the turns as he tried to get to the creek before Steven did. As he rounded the last curve and gunned it for the final stretch, he saw Steven swinging from a low branch by the creek.

“You cheated,” he yelled over the sound of his motorcycle as he pulled up.

“You snooze, you lose.” Steven grinned.

“Jump it,” Brandon goaded him. Steven had tried a few times over the years to jump the shallow creek and managed to fall in every time. It wasn’t wide – more of a ditch than a creek, but it was just on the limit of Steven’s ability to jump. Brandon could probably jump it, but he was nearly four years older, too.

“I don’t know. I didn’t make it last time.”

Brandon made a chicken noise, then jumped his bike off the eroded bank of the creek, forged across the shallow brook, and scooted up the other side. Steven tossed his backpack and staff to Brandon then eyeballed the creek. The other side was tantalizingly close and this had been a personal challenge for him for a while now.

“While I’m still a teenager!” Brandon teased.

“Hold on!” Steven backed a few yards away from the bank, then focused hard on the other side. A phrase came to mind from a movie he had watched at Brandon’s house, something about there being no spoon. He launched himself, running as fast as he could. His last step was right on the edge of the bank, and he pushed off screaming loudly. For a bare second he was flying, weightless in the air. All too soon, though, the ground came back. He reached out with his feet, sensing that he just might make it. He was actually a few inches short, his feet hitting just below the ledge of the bank. He flailed his arms wildly and Brandon reached out and caught one, pulling him up onto the bank.

“Ah, man. So close,” Steven said as he looked down into the creek.

“You almost made it. I bet you will next time.” Brandon looked impressed. The years of watching him fall into the muddy creek were almost gone now.

Steven caught his breath for a moment, wondering if he could try it again, then remembered the flash drive. “Oh, I need to get going.”

“Yeah, I figured you had a project. Hope the file works for you.” Brandon knew about Steven’s hunt for his parents and how hard it was with his adoptive parents being so strict about computers.

“Thanks!” Steven put his backpack back on and picked up his stick. “Maybe next time I won’t fall asleep waiting for you to get to the creek.”

Brandon made a face, then waved as Steven rushed off into the forest again. He could never run through the woods like that. It was hard enough taking his bike through the wildlife trails, especially where it got dense. His friend seemed impervious to the undergrowth and slipped through it with ease. Gunning his motorcycle, he raced down the bank, back onto the fire road, and off to his own adventures.

Crow: The Awakening

Chapter 5

As Steven trotted deeper into the forest, the diversity of trees narrowed to primarily tall pines. They towered overhead like immense spires that reached far into the heavens. He slowed down to soak in the ambiance. The energy of the forest was intoxicating. Every little beetle crawling on the bark, lizards scrambling up the branches, chipmunks rustling in the pine needles seemed to add to the whole as brush strokes to a painting. He found some morel mushrooms and picked a handful, shaking them off as he went to bless the Earth with their spores before he stuck them in his backpack.

Finally he arrived at a particularly large pine tree on the outer reaches of the territory he played in. Looking up, he spied his tree house high up in the canopy. Putting down his staff and hitching his backpack tighter, he dug his fingers and toes into the bark and started climbing. It got easier when he reached the lower dead limbs on the trunk, which he treated like a ladder, climbing higher and higher. Eventually he arrived at the living limbs that were denser and easier to climb on. As he proceeded ever higher his view of the forest became a cloud of green coniferous boughs.

Steven arrived at the tree house abruptly. He had built it over a year ago and was still amazed at how well it stood up to the elements. Most of the construction process was instinctive for Steven. He didn’t go by a blueprint or any drawn design of any kind, but by what seemed right at the time. The tree dictated a lot of the specifics but the general idea of it came from within him as if there was no other way to do it as he bent living branches up to form a modest woven ball that encompassed the trunk. The end result appeared like a huge, tightly woven basket with a tree poking through the center and a pair of salvaged portholes for windows. It had a pointed, thatched roof and a round hatch on the bottom. Branches stuck out of the bottom, creating a tea cup and saucer look and giving him something to grab onto as he climbed out on the tree house to build and maintain it.

On the branches just above the tree house Steven had attached a small collection of solar panels and a homemade directional antenna made out of a large soup can. He had that pointed toward the town library and wireless internet provider that was just a few miles away. The modern technology broke the general naturalistic motif of the tree house, but given that this was where he worked on his computing projects, he had little choice.

As he inspected the tree house he noticed the antenna was drooping a little, so he climbed up to it, aimed it toward the town, and tightened its attachment to the branches. While he was up there he examined the solar panels and removed pine needles that had dropped on a couple of them.

The view of the forest up that high was mesmerizing and Steven sat down on the thatched roof to admire the scenery for a few minutes. All around him he could see the tops of trees and the hills beyond them. The breeze created a gentle rocking motion in the treetops and he could feel the strength of the tree all the way to its roots. He found the sensation comforting and it helped him center himself before diving into his projects. Steven looked over his shoulder at his backpack and decided his new toys required his immediate attention.

With the deftness of one who had done it hundreds of times, he swung down from the top of the tree house onto branches below the structure and pushed the hatch in the floor up against the trunk inside and climbed up into the tree house. He peeked out to make sure no one noticed him, then closed the hatch. His tree house was well hidden, but there was always the chance that a hunter could spot it.

The interior was surprisingly roomy for such a modest tree house. The inner walls were a much tighter weave than the exterior walls. He pulled back the drapes from the portholes and suddenly the interior was flooded with light, making him wince a little. With the late afternoon sun shining in through the portholes, he had more than enough natural light to work with for most of the day.

Whistling to himself, Steven found his main perch where he did most of his work. While most of the branches emerging from the trunk within the tree house itself were pruned back, a few were kept and strung with straps made out of dried inner bark to form seats that allowed Steven to sit at the counter.

Steven tossed his backpack onto a clear spot on the counter he had built into the wall and dug into it. There was a slight breeze that caused the tree house to sway back and forth gently, and he had to put his spare pencils into a cup he had screwed to the counter to keep them from rolling off. He then eagerly dug out his electronics.

He hoped these remaining few pieces would give him the networking independence he needed so he wouldn’t have to depend on others to get files for him. He grabbed a handmade wooden box sitting among numerous wooden boxes on the counter, all courtesy of his adoptive father’s workshop, and put the JTAG in it, but kept the flash drive, wireless specifications and memory out. Those he would be using right away.

“Okay, you’re going up on the wall.” Steven mumbled as he pulled out his sketch pad and found the drawing of his parents he made after the last nightmare. He looked up on the wall of the tree house at numerous other similar drawings. He pulled a splinter out of some deadwood and fashioned it into a pin and pushed that through his drawing into the weave of the wall and stood back.

He found it odd that he would be dreaming their features so specifically without ever having seen them except as an infant. Is it possible that an infant could so precisely remember his parents? Steven couldn’t be sure. But the drawings felt right. Each drawing served as yet another motivation to continue his search for his parents. He sighed, feeling the weight of the urgency of the search on his shoulders. “I’ll find you.” Steven nodded as he sat back and looked at the drawings.

After dumping his backpack out on the little workbench, and nibbling on a mushroom, Steven pulled a large, flat, wooden box closer to him and opened its thin, hinged lid to reveal his makeshift computer. The screen was mounted to the lid, and the box contained the guts of his computer, covered by a salvaged keyboard.

Putting the mushroom on the counter, he lifted up the keyboard and inserted the memory into an empty slot on the computer’s main board, effectively doubling his capacity. He also plugged the flash drive Brandon had given him into a USB slot and then put the keyboard down. He had intended to cut slots into the box to let him access the USB ports from outside the box but had never gotten around to it.

Steven peeked under the workbench and wiggled the wires on an off-grid battery charge controller he salvaged from an abandoned hunting cabin. The wires were a little loose so he grabbed a small wrench and tightened them down. He squinted at a pair of old golf cart batteries that were tucked under the counter in a little cage and felt their wires too. The constant shifting of the tree seemed to loosen the wires over time and that was one of the first things he checked before powering up his system.

He checked the meter on the charge controller to make sure he had a full charge then flipped a switch to activate the circuit. After the diodes lit up indicating a good circuit, he returned to the computer. The little desk lamp came on when he connected the power, giving the little work area more light and he moved junk and spare parts out of the way to make more room to work.

Once he booted into his own operating system, he extracted the files on the flash drive Brandon had given him and got to work making his wireless network connection work. Being able to connect using his own computer was his last hurdle for having a fully functional tool in his search for his parents. Up until now he had been sneaking around at the mercy of others and the search was very slow as a result.

He typed a few commands into his laptop and watched as text scrolled up the screen. He had written into his system binary compatibility with many of the free systems out there so it was trivial getting drivers and software to work on his system. With the system up, he connected his diagnostic tools and put them to work back-tracing the network hardware, then sat back while he waited.

Steven pulled out the notes that had formed the foundation of much of his search. Jonah and Sally had been engineers for a computing company in Seattle and had made a discovery that horrified them enough to drop out of the computing environment altogether. Steven couldn’t get them to divulge just what that discovery was, however. But their insistence of keeping a low profile worried him.

Thankfully, Jonah had kept copious and detailed notes of his work and committed them to paper to ensure they weren’t digitally lost. Steven had found those notes in a floor safe he managed to finally unlock. After skimming over them, Steven snuck the notes to the city library to copy for deeper reading. From the notes, it wasn’t surprising that Jonah had dropped out of the tech world. He could imagine that certain people would be very unhappy he had made this discovery. That made the fact that his parents were missing all the more ominous.

After reading these texts, he opted for ultimately writing his own software to better control how every aspect of the computer worked. Doing so allowed him to bypass vulnerabilities many other systems had. His had a very specific purpose, which made it easier to lock down securely. It was absolutely necessary if he was going to be sneaking into secret networks.

The notes illuminated a scary, dark world under the hood of most computers, one that was extremely secretive and dangerous. They indicated that most software and even hardware were engineered to allow unknown hackers to freely enter into any system, regardless of the security measures put in place. A nearly undetectable backdoor existed, and from what the notes indicated, this “door” didn’t require the computer to actually be actively on. Just plugged into the power. Most modern systems never fully turned off when plugged in, which made it easy to surreptitiously utilize the computer for non-sanctioned tasks.

Someone was using these computers and spying on people on a massive scale and manipulating data and transferring resources and funds with no restrictions whatsoever. From what he saw, wars were even sparked by this dark network by exploiting the power of social media and forged messages to various diplomats. That sort of thing was easy enough already, but the power of a practically hidden network made it almost predictable. Being able to observe emails and digital conversations live and the ability to manipulate these communications without being detected gave these people tremendous power over world events.

They were people that Steven wished to avoid, but at the same time investigate. They were surely behind the disappearance of his parents and the reason why his adoptive parents were hiding out here in the hills and avoiding computers completely.

By writing his own system software, and cobble his system together from hand-picked parts, Steven was able to block most of the hardware exploits indicated in the notes and eliminate the software security holes, while at the same time opening those doors for his own exploitation. He even wrote his own microcode that ran on the central processors, closing up even more vulnerabilities.

He constructed the system specifically to enter into other computers in his search to find his parents, allowing him to access databases, medical records, real estate records, tax records and more using the very hardware and software exploits that Jonah had discovered.

He grinned at the mischievousness of it all, but there was always a chance of being discovered. However, by identifying the secret networks thanks to the notes, Steven was sure he would be a ghost out there.

A part of him was still apprehensive, however. These people detected and abducted his parents after all. But what choice did he have? If no one else was looking, what could he do? But he felt confident. His parents may have not known of the threat until too late. Steven had the benefit of the notes and their experience to be better prepared.

Steven closed the notes and put them in their own box and relaxed a bit to let the anxiety pass. He daydreamed of spring days and the fresh explosion of growth that resulted from them. Soon there would be nothing but grey skies, brown foliage and snow. He resorted to his imagination to accommodate for that, seeing green growth where snow and winter had made brown and white, making for himself his own little world amid the desolation of the season.

Inspired by his daydream, he took his sketchbook and absentmindedly sketched what he saw. Living plants, flowers, insects, and life of all sorts filled his pages, as well as things he saw in his dreams and people he knew or that stood out in his memory. It was for him a way to record what he most wanted to remember and to make sense out of things that troubled him.

As he sketched, he glanced out one of the portals and noticed that a neighboring tree had fallen, opening up the view a bit. He was happy about that; the other tree was looking rather ratty and was tall enough to cast a shadow on his solar panels during part of the day.

He started sketching the new view when a beep from his laptop captured his attention and he looked at the readings from his networking application, bouncing on his chair in anticipation. He had been trying to connect to the library’s wireless for a few weeks now but errors in the wireless software and hardware had proven difficult to overcome. Abruptly, a flood of data scrolled across the screen and Steven jumped up whooping and jumping around, causing a flutter outside the tree house as nearby birds were startled into flight.

Suddenly he froze in mid jump, a quizzical look clouding his face at something he had just noticed about the fallen tree. Steven cocked his head, his memory tickled by something out of place. He looked back out the portal at the space opened up by the tree that fell. The view of the clearing had been blocked by that dying tree and saplings that got broken by its fall, but he could clearly see it now. A large meadow with a towering, light gray pine snag poking out of the center.

His mouth dropped at the sight. He fumbled for his sketchbook and flipped through pages until he found the detailed drawings he had made of his nightmares. The vampire and werewolf were prominent along with drawings of his parents, but he had also sketched what he remembered of the clearing and the ghostly white dead tree in the center of the clearing, which remained the same from dream to dream. Excepting a few details, what he drew matched the snag in the meadow branch for branch.

“No way!” he exclaimed as he peered out the porthole, straining to see more of the meadow. Most of the view was obstructed, but the lifeless tree was easy to see. Steven sat back, dumbfounded. Memories of the nightmare flooded back and he shivered at the terror and hopelessness he felt, as well as the sense of abandonment that had washed over him. He found it hard to believe that it could possibly be a real tree.

But then, his parents were real, so why not the tree? He had no idea what the vampire or werewolf represented but his psychologist friend in town had some constructive input on that. Fear of abandonment seemed to be his predominant theory. That and separation anxiety.

Another beep from his computer distracted him. He glanced over, typed in a few commands and got to work creating a stealthy wireless connection, all the while thinking about the snag. Once he had hacked into the library’s network by way of a back door he had created while at Brandon’s using his friend’s computer, he initialized scripts on their network router that gave him unfettered and unlogged Internet access. “Yes!” He expected it to work because it was so trivial to him, but was always pleased when the pieces fell in place perfectly.

After he finished setting up his surreptitious presence on the internet, he logged into a remote corporate server he had given himself access to and activated his little private network of accounts on various servers from which to conduct his search for his parents. A little web of servers came to life, all completely unlogged and hidden from the owners.

The strength of his system was not in his own homemade laptop, but in the distributed computing power he had assembled. Sitting back, he abruptly was at a stopping point. Up until now his entire effort was getting his system to work. Quite suddenly, he had it up and humming quite nicely and waiting to be put to work. Now he had to switch gears and get into search mode. His parents were real, and anyone who lived in this day and age left a history that nowadays was logged in one database or another.

But the snag weighed on him. He was split between going out to the meadow or setting up his searches. Steven opted for the middle ground, downloading several census databases to the waiting servers and running a search program on them from the servers he had hacked into. Satisfied, he shut his laptop down and sat back. He could revisit the search tomorrow. It was time to see this clearing with his own eyes.

He looked again out the portal. What could this mean? He had never been there that he could recall. And yet he was having dreams of it. Standing up, he put his sketchbook and a handful of pencils back in his backpack, then hesitated. If the tree was real, and the meadow was real, what about the monsters? What if they weren’t psychological constructs as Dr. Dougherty had hinted at? He looked out with a little trepidation this time, not sure he wanted the answers. But, it had to do with his parents and he had to know for certain.

As he was about to climb down, the glint of sun through the window momentarily blinded him. The angle reminded him that it was getting late. He stood up and looked out. The sun was getting low.

“Oh, man!” he exclaimed, disappointed. Getting in trouble for being out too late was out of the question. Any chance of being grounded from the forest would set his search back significantly and he was so close to getting things seriously underway.

He looked at the white snag in the meadow longingly. He really wanted answers, to touch it and know that it was real. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to go right away. Disappointed, he opened the hatch and climbed out, glancing at the snag as he climbed down until the rest of the trees obscured its visibility. There was always tomorrow, he thought to himself.