The Great Bog

When I was young, I only went into the Great Bog with my brother. Berin didn't take me often, but, when the sun was high and the day still early, we would undertake the long walk down through the first field past the alders and over the rock bridge. Afterwards, we would hop from hummock to rotten log in the swamp, weaving through weeds and marsh grass until, finally, we would stand on the edge of the Great Bog. Perhaps the woods didn't scare Berin, but he always hesitated at their brink, looking deep into the shadows, and then advanced slowly. The sounds of our steps were lost in the moss and lichen of the dark spruce trees which hung over us, and we would hush our voices. "Over there is where the turnip twins were found, and carrot was buried up to his neck," Berin told me, pointing to the spot with a shaking finger. "Peas were found scattered over there, and this is where Mr. Potato Head lost his body."

I never wondered how Berin knew who had died in the woods, or exactly where the bodies had been found. Instead, I looked for the humped forms of corpses amongst the creeping plants and the fallen branches.

The passage through the Great Bog was nearly a mile long but felt much longer, and we usually rested by the creek before going back. We needed all our energy, Berin claimed, to attempt the passage of the Great Bog twice in one day. The trip was much more dangerous when the trees were alerted to our returning. They knew we'd be tired after trudging through the creek bed after the sudden glisten that was a frog, after the flash of silver fish and sparkle of mica on the sandy creek bottom. The Great Bog would be aslant with the golden sun of evening, and would seem asleep. Nearby sparrows and finches would sound no longer, and instead, quick shadows crept near the boles of trees. Strange brown-coloured birds carried their young in their beaks, and ate white grubs living under the bark of massive trees.

We searched the trunks for bears and the elusive moose, only to be scared by the sudden silent swoop of a great horned owl sweeping overhead on the way to some hidden errand. Only the largest frogs called here, and when we passed their eyes followed us uneasily. Once, we found a salamander; so bizarre were the yellow spots on its purple skin that we left it alone. Snakes slipped by, slick in the mud, and disappeared into holes.

Berin would be calm about the return trip, but usually I was terrified--a feeling made worse by having to pee halfway through the woods. I would try to hold it, but more than once I arrived on the other side with a dark stain running down my leg. The last time we went through the woods was no different. We were both tired and dripping from the creek. Berin had been grumpy and quiet the entire day, and I'd lost the fish we'd managed to catch.

I was carrying a willow stick so that I could beat the heads off of the cattails, but, as we entered the woods, I no longer swung it by my side. I held it like a lance, and Berin sneered at my fear. He walked as though the ground were not corrupt with burrowing insects, as though nothing lurked just out of sight beyond the trees. We were almost through the woods when we heard footsteps. We both stood and waited. We had never met anyone there, and our tracks barely marked the trail, even if we'd been through the day before.

"It's a hunter," Berin said, but I could tell that he didn't believe it himself. We stood in the gloom, the sun drooping lower and lower until the footsteps faded, and then came again, closer and then farther away. I motioned that we should run. I had to pee, but Berin was curious about the approaching noise. He pushed me into a cedar bush--its lower branches chewed by rabbits--and stepped out of my sight in the direction of the noise. I waited until the sun tangled in the crowded trees, and it grew dark in my tiny bower under the cedar.

When I finally climbed out, it was late. I expected the angry cucumber that I had eaten the day before to come after me. I saw menacing broccoli in the distance, and, underfoot, spinach folded over my shoes as I walked. Eggplant, purple with anger, joined by tumbling apples, crowded together in the gathering dusk. As I ran through the swamp, my willow stick forgotten and twigs lashing my face, asparagus attempted to spear through my shoes, and bean vines twisted from the trees. The second field went by as a blur and water cress watched me pass over the rock bridge. On my path through the alders, cabbage heads leered and smiled evilly. Even when I was flying over the fields nearest the house, crying and almost blind, blurred green beans lifted slender fingers and potatoes rolled across the ploughed trenches to trip me.

It was only when I got to the house and saw Berin's muddied shoes and heard voices inside that I realized I'd been tricked. I entered ghastly pale, Berin said years later, and he laughed when he told the story. For all his bravado, however, Berin never entered the Great Bog again after I told him about the vegetables. When I grew older and suggested to Berin that we take a shortcut through the Great Bog, he always invented some reason we needed to step through the minefield of manure that the Goodine cows left behind in the pasture.