<== Chapter IX 

The next day was Saturday, and Alex awoke to the sound of Connor wining at the door of her camper. She let him out of the small shelter, and made sure he went towards the trees. While he did his business, she cleaned up the last of the mess she’d dealt with the night before.

Connor returned to the camper, and took position near her as she dealt with her morning. While she made coffee in the small but cleverly designed living area of her camper, Connor lounged on a bench that served as couch and half the bed. There he curled up and went back to sleep.

It was Saturday, and after her coffee, Alex being Alex, would normally have explored the latest town where she’d found herself. Typically when she came into a new area to do some long-term surveying, she’d spend a Saturday finding an interesting diner to eat breakfast, figure out when the local Catholic church held services on Sunday, resupply her camper at whatever passed for a grocery store, find the local town park and read a book all afternoon. Normally.

This Saturday, after such a strange and harrowing experience from the night before, she needed to do two things. First, she needed to know more about the strange man who had helped her, and she wanted to go to church to give some thanks for the survival of her dog.

A quick search on her computer told her when Saturday Mass occurred at St. John’s Catholic Church. She had a little time before the morning service.

Next she fired up her laptop and did a search for Tom Fiddle. 

And of course she found him. There were three news events that mentioned Tom Fiddle that caught her attention.

The paper mentioned the Fiddle family several times, as they were major landholders, even a hundred years ago. Tom Fiddle, born in the decade after the Great Depression, according to a birth announcement. Then the archive didn’t have anything for several years. Then there were a number of articles in the Bangor Daily News about a fifteen-year-old named Tom Fiddle and a 22-year-old woman, Molly Ouellette, who both became lost on Sam Cooke Island back in the 1940s. An animal had attacked them, according to the stories, injuring the boy. The paper described Tom Fiddle as the son of one of Chester Lake’s most successful businessmen. The journalist described the injuries as serious, but did not provide details. The article quoted the police chief at the time, who managed to simultaneously praise Ouellette for saving the teenager’s life, while also insulting her gender because a woman became lost on an island that was just a couple of miles wide. The article mentioned a search by locals for a rabid wolf or “some other large predator”, which sounded creepy.

Then there was an article three years later announcing the engagement of Molly Ouellette, 25 to Thomas Fiddle, now 18. The article, which was just a brief engagement announcement, described Molly as the art teacher at a nearby summer camp and Tom only as the son of Jacob Fiddle, the founder of Fiddle Land Holdings.

The final article was an obituary for Molly Fiddle, listing Tom as the surviving spouse. Molly had died before she was thirty, which was unusual. The obituary only mentioned that she had “died suddenly”, which could mean anything from heart attack, brain aneurysm or suicide. 

Alex glanced at the clock, and realized she was late for church. She put on her best pair of pants, a less crumpled blouse, and just blew off putting on make-up. It was only Saturday Mass, after all.

The story about the death of Molly Fiddle reminded Alex about her own dead partner. Alex looked at the photo of Brianna in the corner of the mirror above the small washbasin in her camper. A young woman, healthy, wearing a white gi with a black belt. Nearly twenty years dead, Brianna had not dominated Alex’s attention in a long time. She now remembered her mostly with fondness instead of sadness. She wondered if Molly had died from cancer like Brianna.

Then she caught her image in the mirror and had to struggle with her hair for a moment, putting her long graying hair, still holding on to a few streaks of brown, into a ponytail. Afterwards She walked the dog one last time in the cleared area near the store. She attached a light chain from a metal loop[ on the camper to his collar. It was long enough it would keep curiosity seekers away but short enough to keep him near the camper. She transferred his sleeping pad from the camper to his spot beneath the truck. He curled up on the pad and started scanning the area around the rig. He seemed to know his mistress was heading out on her own, but Connor was confident he would accompany Alex when they went for a walk later.

Alex lowered her red scooter from it’s rack on the back of the camper. She put on her helmet, started the engine, and sped off to the church her earlier search had revealed. 

The apparent dichotomy between having a relationship with a woman and still attending a church that essentially said she was a sinner didn’t bother Alex. It never had. She liked men, she always had. She also liked women. She never brought it up to the Catholics she knew, and Brianna had come down with cancer so quickly after they met, it had never occurred to anyone in her old congregation to identify her as a sinner or deviant, or whatever might bother folks. Alex just didn’t care about that aspect of her Catholicism, and no one had mentioned it to her. Besides, it was no one’s business anyway.

At church, she didn’t tell anyone about her encounter with the man the day before. She did say a heartfelt prayer to God for the survival of her dog, but otherwise she just mulled over all that had happened the day before. She sat near the back of the church, kneeling, standing and genuflecting at all the familiar places. She pondered the meaning of the events from the day before - Tom Fiddle, her dog, the animal that seemingly attacked, the drone that had sped off from the island to who knows where.

The Priest (Call me Father Jim), officiated over an enormous wooden altar, one with intricate carvings and patterns all across the surface. The wood was a rich deep yellow, perhaps of maple. Her eyes were drawn to it several times as she participated in the service and meditated.   

During the recessional, when everyone files out of church after the priest, she felt a determination to find out more about this Tom Fiddle. She was amazed that no one jumped up on one of the pews and shouted “There’s a freaky man on the island!” But no one seemed to realize it, or maybe they just didn’t care.

After the service, Alex drove her scooter back to her truck and checked on her dog. Connor was fine. He pretty much went where she did, but he took it in stride when she left him alone. He had the fatalist attitude of an old farm dog. 

She then drove the scooter back to the island, crossing the old rusting trestle bridge.

She searched beneath the bridge. The flat rock beneath the bridge in daylight just looked like a rock. She could see bloodstains from her vantage on shore, but that was the only evidence of the previous evening’s craziness. The sun shining and the water lapping at the shore were at such odds to the turmoil of the night before. 

After standing beneath the bridge for a time, she took her scooter towards the Overlook, searching for the sign announcing Tom’s Weed. The path was obvious the night before, but the wooden sign and the path that had opened up to Tom Fiddle’s yurt home was just gone. 

She went all the way to the Overlook turnaround on other side of the island and back, but saw no trace of any paths or even trail heads. The island and the Overlook was an interesting tourist attraction, and she thought it would be popular with hikers, but the lack of trails meant apparently not.

When she returned to her camper, she played with Connor a bit and then continued her research on her computer while eating a tuna fish sandwich for lunch and typing notes with one hand. 

Later articles spoke of Molly’s husband, Tom, making agreements with the town about access to the Overlook. There had been some fear that Tom Fiddle would block the tourist attraction to public access.  The Fiddle Forest Land Corp said they’d keep access available, but that most of the island was posted. That’s probably why there were no trails, she thought. 

Apparently the fierce little man had grown up to be a bit of a forest philanthropist.

What she couldn’t find was any mention of powers or strangeness about Tom or Molly. Tom’s first wife had an art gallery and made handcrafted furniture. There was an article and a picture of one of her pieces which she’d donated to the parish. It was, Alex realized, the altar she’d seen earlier at the church.

She took her truck, along with Connor, to the full service gas station in town after lunch to have the mechanic check out her electrical system. She took Connor for a walk while the mechanic was diagnosing any problems. She’d thought maybe she’d overloaded her truck’s electrical systems with all her gear, and that had something to do with why the drone had failed. Maybe it hadn’t charged its batteries or something. 

She looked at the kid behind the counter. Looked again and realized he wasn’t a kid. He must be nearly thirty.

“Your truck seems fine, Ma’am. The CPU says all the systems are working. You have some belts need replacing and your oil could use a change. If it happens again, you can come back here and we’ll check it again. We aren’t the dealer, but I know a guy at a dealership that might help.”

He looked at her with all seriousness, “Those belts and the oil, though…”

She ended up paying for an oil change and umpteen belts the mechanic apparently needed to replace, because she’d forgotten to maintain her truck.

“You really ought to follow the schedule in your operator’s manual.” She nodded, handing her card to the man.

She had a thought. “You guys ever work on a truck made out of wood?”

“You mean Tom Fiddle’s truck?” The skinny mechanic scratched his chin and seemed a little wistful. “I’d do a lot to have look under the hood of that pickup of his. Ain’t nobody ever had a real close look. It don’t matter. Tom’s a good guy.” He paused and added, “He grows really good weed.”

“So I hear. So what’s the gimmick? Doesn’t he need any work done?”

“Well that’s sort of it exactly. That’s Old Tom. He’s been Old Tom for as long as I can remember, since before I was born. His truck though, it never needed any major engine work except for tires. No rust, no replacement parts. I’m freakin’ curious about it. Fiddle buys a full set of tires every year or so, and he always stays in the waiting room until the job is done. I tried to lift the hood once, but it won’t lift. I looked up and Old Tom was in the garage beside me saying, “Leave it, Son,” talking in that silly wise voice of his, like what he says is important. But again, that’s Old Tom.

Alex explained how she’d encountered the truck and trailer on the bridge the day before.

“He brings that rig of his into town several times a week, always driving back and forth, but hardly ever stopping. The Knights of Columbus have been trying to get him to join their annual car show, but he won’t have any of it. The whole town can’t figure him out, but he’s a good fella.”

“So you know Tom Fiddle?”

“A little. Mostly all I do is put gas into that truck of his and buy a little of his weed. I will say there are parts on that truck that shouldn’t be made of wood. His wheel rims are polished oak, even the brake drums. How does that even work?”

“How does he pass inspection?”

The mechanic suddenly seemed cautious. He paused for a moment before responding in a low defensive voice. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. His rig really caught my attention, and I say that as someone who drives an unusual truck too.”

The mechanic looked at the smooth polished surface of Alex’s surveying topper custom fitted to her truck.

“I can see that.” 

He apparently decided he could trust her. “You ever spent time with someone dealing with PTSD?”

“I…” she began.

“My partner, they’re a veteran. It’s...well it’s bad. Or it can be. Sometimes it can get violent, especially if Dale’s dreaming. Tom sells some weed that keeps things steady for us. His truck passes inspection because I certify that it meets all standards.”

The mechanic looked defiant, “And it does. Pass inspection I mean. If anyone says different, I’ll call them a liar.”

Thinking the old man must buy food, Alex went to the local grocery store, Paul’s Grocery. There was a woman in the vegetable section wearing a brown apron and a pin on her Shop n Save shirt that said “Marta” and proclaimed her the manager.

Marta looked up from where she had been counting radishes, and repeated. “Tom Fiddle? Oh sure, yes I know him. He owns the island.”

“That’s what the newspaper said.” Alex put her hand up, palm out. “You’re talking about Sam Cooke Island? The whole island? Does he maintain the trails out there on his own?”

“Oh there are no trails on the island. People have tried to make trails, but no one can seem to find them when the snow melts in the spring.”

“So no trails? Are there any trails around here?”

Marta took a map off a display rack. “Oh sure. Chester has a trail committee. Have a look.”

Alex looked at the map, which was just a map of the town and some red lines indicating trails around the small municipality.”

“But none on the island, not even the Overlook?”

“Oh no. He arranged that with the town years ago. My father knew him back in the day, and he said Tom did not want any trails.” Marta was eying the radishes again, and then an angry voice was rising over by the checkout stand. “What do you mean you’re out of coffee brandy? Wayon!”

Alex smiled in sympathy at Marta. “I can see you’re busy. I’ll bother you some other time.”

Marta looked grateful before heading over to the register.

“Hang on, Tina, I think we might have received a shipment of a new coffee brandy just this afternoon.” She eyed the short hefty customer, “We’ll get you set up.” 

The customer followed Marta into the back, saying loudly, “Well Allen’s is what I drink. I don’t know if another brand can cut it.” 

“Oh, you’ll be pleased with this.” Marta reassured the customer as they disappeared through a swinging door.

Alex finished her shopping and decided to check out the island one more time. The wooden sign had been so obvious the day before, and she was sure she would recognize the tree from which it hung. She drove to her RV spot at the convenience store and walked Connor before attaching him to the tether again. She checked that her warning sign was visible in the window at the back of the camper and on her dash. It read, “Dog will only attack if you touch my truck. Don’t touch my truck.”

“Sorry Bud. I have to do this on my own.” Alex scratched Connor’s ears. Connor went to the shaded spot beneath the truck and hopped to his pad that she’d put there for him. He was not happy.

Alex finished putting the groceries in the camper, and then she grabbed her little backpack, the one Brianna had called her lady go-bag, which she’d thought meant a toiletries bag of some sort, but Brianna later said, no, it was a go bag for ladies, which included important things she would need if she had to leave in a hurry.

Alex straddled her little red Honda again. She shouldered the backpack behind both arms, put her helmet on, and headed on the road, zipping across the town of Chester Lake.

She was taking the right from Main Street to Shoreline Road when she realized Tom Fiddle’s truck and camper were parked in the library parking lot.

There was no telling how long it had been there. She cussed under her breath. She’d probably seen the truck a couple of times as she traveled through town, probably looked right at it, taking up two spaces in the parking lot right there on on the corner of the square, wooden teardrop trailer and all.

He wasn’t hiding, Alex thought. She pulled up beside the strange pickup that only looked strange the closer you looked at it. From afar, it looked rather dull, almost blending in with the trees and bushes in front of the library. Almost camouflage and probably the reason why she missed it when she was crisscrossing the town.

Alex put her feet down to steady the scooter, and spent a little more time examining Old Tom’s Truck. 

Up close, she noticed more details. She looked at the wooden fender, and was immediately struck by the rich detail. This fender was red, but had lines and ridges swirling  through the surface. She’d swear she was looking at a stained and polished piece of wood. It reminded her of coffee tables made from a single piece of rough-cut timber, sanded smooth but for the bark at the edges. The carpenter would have lacquered it with a thick solid coat as if covered with smooth glass or perfectly transparent wax. 

Alex could see her reflection.

She examined the camper as well. No logos, she noted, confirming it was definitely a custom job. It looked to be made completely of wood. It blended in style with the rest of the ensemble, except up close, and it appeared to be more than a mere shell. The windows were dark, and closed. The solid shell, had a certain swoopiness to it, she thought, with hardly any sharp angles. The material that composed the camper itself was a light blue color, and she thought it strange, because it looked like fine oak veneer, except for the blueness, with lighter and darker shades marking the surface.

It was just as startling and subtle as the pickup. She’d seen it on the bridge, but she had no idea it was so well-crafted.

Alex climbed off of her scooter and then had to heave the two-wheeler on its kickstand. She figured the weight of a large motorcycles is what kept women on the backs of large motorcycles rather than driving. It’s why she used a scooter. She knew she wasn’t one of the Amazonian women who could arm wrestle NFL linemen, but she spent a lot of her time outdoors, and that meant she had a reserve of strength. That little scooter went back in its place with a satisfying clunk. She stored her helmet under the seat and headed to the doorway to the single story brick building.

“May I help you find anything?” The lady at the front desk was a younger woman, ring on her finger, probably the daughter of a merchant married off to the son of yet another merchant, and living a life of relative ease, Alex thought. Her name tag said Stella, Librarian at Stony Farmers Library.

“Hello, Stella,” began Alex, purposely using her name. “As a matter of fact, you can help me find something. Or someone. Is Tom Fiddle here?”

“Oh yes. He’d be in in one of the study rooms about this time.”

“Does he come here often?”

Alex had forgotten all about libraries, having finished with them when she was in college. After Brianna’s death, when the world started to hold interest for her again, she began to read her romance novels on an eBook reader, or by ordering books online, which had just started to become a thing. She hadn’t been to a real bookstore or library in years.

“Oh yes. I see him nearly every day. He might be our most busy patron. That man is always reading.”

“I’m, uh, not familiar with the library. Where are the study rooms?”

Stella looked at Alex with a little reproach. Then she pointed to the far side of the building.

“The study rooms are at the back of the east wing.” Alex nodded and headed to the end of the library.

It was a small building, but there was a set of three doors at the far end of a crowded labyrinth of comfortable chairs and couches. There were five or six patrons, some typing on computer terminals, a woman playing with a young girl and Lego blocks, and a young woman reading a book. She remembered more books and shelves in the library from her college memories.

At the far wall there were three doors with large windows in each door. One of the windows had light in it, and she walked up to it.

Through the window Alex could see the man who’d helped her the night before. He was sitting in a chair at an unremarkable desk, and he was reading.

Alex was startled to see he was reading a stack of trashy romance novels. Alex liked historical trashy romance novels herself. Tom Fiddle sat in the chair, back straight, with the book on an angled wood podium, which raised the book level with his eyes.

When Alex moved again, Tom’s eyes shifted from the book in front of him, to the window in the door.

Tom said something, but the door was blocking the sound. There was the sound of something moving on the other side of the wood, a rustling sound of some sort. The door rattled in its frame, catching Alex’s attention with a startled, “Oh!”

Then Tom spoke louder, and his voice came through the door sounding annoyed. “Just leave well enough alone, child. I can’t tell you anything.”

Alex started to speak, “Can we talk?” Her voice echoed through the library. She looked behind her, and it seemed all the patrons were looking at her, like groundhogs in a field. Stella poked her head around from the frond desk, frowning. Then she smiled and raised her finger in a shushing motion.

Alex returned a weak smile and turned back to the door.

“I need to talk to you.”

Tom smiled from his chair in the room, pointed to his ears  as if to say he couldn’t hear her. Tom turned his eyes back to the little podium on the desk and continued to read the book it held.

She knocked lightly on the door again, but he ignored her.

Alex was pissed. What the hell was wrong with this guy? Rather than disturb the patrons again, Alex grabbed a book from the shelf and sat in a nearby chair to wait for Tom to emerge.

Time ticked by and Alex learned more than she ever wanted to know about small engine repair. Apparently belts and oil had to be changed all the time on small engines as well as truck engines.

Eventually she returned that book for another, browsing and hovering in the rear  section near the study rooms.

She sat back down with a book on controlling arthritis pain with yoga. The text actually started to interest her, as she was starting to feel pain in her hips and hands more and more. The illustrations in the book were also captivating, made with curving black lines as if made by a Japanese artist. She turned the page to the pose known as The Tree. 

Alex looked up from her book, as if she’d heard a sound. The door to the reading room was open. Her eyes went back to the painting.

It was really special, and it drew a feeling of primordial nature or fundamental forces in the picture. Alex paused, and looked back to the door.

It was closed.

Alex stood up, and she went to the door. She looked through the window. The room was now empty, of course.

Alex returned to the front entrance, speeding past the circulation desk.

Stella called, “Is there anything I can help you with?”

Alex ignored her and rushed through the double doors.

Sure enough, Tom’s pickup was heading down Main Street.

“Like hell this is over,” Alex muttered. She popped the seat of the scooter open, grabbed her helmet and nearly slammed it shut in her hurry.

She straddled the scooter as if it were a Harley Davidson between her thighs. She turned the key, starting the engine in all of its 49cc strength. It puttered like a cheerful sewing machine. Then she heaved it forward off its stand, before scrambling backwards, cursing.

Finally, she had the scooter pointed in the right direction, and she turned the throttle, placing her feet prim and proper on the scooter, before speeding out of the lot.

Tom’s truck was heading out towards Overlook Road, and Alex figured the island was where he was headed.

Tom was far ahead, but was traveling slow. Alex had seen a shortcut behind the church when she’d examined the map from the town’s trail committee. There was supposed to be a  trail that ran behind the buildings of Chester Lake’s main strip, between the lake shore and the buildings.

Alex took a left at a small alley, and slipped between Bill’s Garage and the VFW. There was a cut to the narrow multi-use trail, and soon Alex was screaming along at 45 mph, her top speed with the throttle full out, and headed along the trail, praying the town’s trail committee actually graded the trail occasionally. She knew how those sorts of meetings could go.

As she left the border of the town, she could see Tom’s truck passing through the trees  on Lake Shore Road and then taking the left to cross over to the island. She was much closer when she left the trail for Lake Shore Road. As Alex pulled up to the trestle bridge, the truck and trailer were leaving the other end. The rig transitioned from the bridge to the road, rattling the beams. It disappeared as the road curved behind the trees.

Alex didn’t hesitate, but leaned forward and zipped on to the bridge, following the truck across. Her red scooter went unnoticed by the bridge’s beams. The road curved in many places, keeping the truck from view and her from being seen by the old man driving. Alex knew the truck was just ahead of her, but it seemed to be traveling farther across the island than she remembered the sign.

The forest was thick and luxurious in the afternoon light.

She was about 2/3 of the way across the island when the road straightened out for the rise up to the Overlook. That’s when she realized the truck was no longer in front of her. 

“Not today,” she said, voice muffled in the helmet. Alex slowed and turned around in the middle of the road before accelerating back the way she’d come. She double-backed towards the bridge until she came to a turn that looked to be about the right distance from the bridge as her memory said Tom’s wooden sign had been. Something in her ribcage said this was the spot, even if she did not see the tree and the sign from the day before. 

Alex pulled to the side of the road and listened. She even turned off her engine, and took off her helmet, scratching her short-cropped hair with one hand and holding her helmet with the other, the scooter clenched firm between her legs.

She heard trees, birds, wind, rustling through the leafy branches. Faint, through the trees, she heard voices. Just at the edge of hearing.

It sounded like an argument. Alex looked around and at the trees, and she saw a fairly thick stand of trash trees. They seemed to be growing thicker than the other brush.

Alex pulled her scooter to its stand and popped open the seat storage. She placed her helmet there, shouldered her go bag, and took a closer look at that part of the road. She saw that the brush growing there hid an entrance to a dirt driveway. There was even a mailbox there, it’s body covered in thorny burdock, but the opening peeking out like a cautious hedgehog.

Alex followed the narrow drive, which immediately made a sharp turn so it was nearly impossible to see the pathway from the Overlook Road unless someone were on top of it.

Alex followed the drive through the woods, still hearing the distant sound of an argument.

The drive took a switchback and suddenly straightened out, opening up to a shaded meadow. No. Not a meadow. It was a clearing beneath an enormous oak tree. The open area she’d sensed the night before was actually just the cleared area beneath a tree that was enormous. She realized the voices sounded distant because they were coming across the clearing beneath the boughs of the tree, and the enormous trunk was between her and the people speaking. 

Alex followed the curved drive around the large tree, and when she reached the base, she could again see the tiny yurt that was Tom’s house. The truck was parked outside, partially blocking her view. Alex paused to watch and listen before making another scene and knocking once more on the old man’s door. She knew she was going to do it, but she just had to gather her will.

The night of the storm had been dark, and she missed how large the tree was, and the odd shape of the base. In the bright sunshine she could see it, and what she saw took a moment to take in.

The tree was old. It reminded her of a place in a dream. The branches above stretched in all directions, with the lower branches ten or so feet above Alex’s head. The green leaves were oak or something, and Alex smiled because she had no clue about leaves. Call them oak leaves, or maple, she wasn’t close enough to see the leaves, but the whole green mass of it definitely gave off a huge tree feeling, like really huge.

The clearing she was stepping into was at least 50 yards to the opposite side. The canopy of the enormous tree determined the edges, with forest growth resuming with natural abundance once outside the shade of the tree.

The central trunk was also huge, seemingly twenty or more feet from one side to the other. It squatted low to the ground, like a sumo wrestler. The trunk split, forming a dark opening through the bark. 

She crouched behind a pair of boulders that formed a sort of natural entrance to the clearing.

Tom’s truck was parked near the yurt on the far side of the tree. Just in the shadow of the large branches above the home.

Alex walked across the clearing, wondering at the huge tree and the opening. She came to the door of the yurt, just as she had the night before.

It was quiet, but for the faint sounds of falling water inside, like someone taking a shower.

Alex was starting to question whether she would knock on the door right away. Maybe she could snoop around while. 

Then the sound of water stopped. Alex scurried to the other side of Tom’s vehicle and hid behind the trailer. Within a few moments, the door of the yurt opened and Tom stepped out. The end of the teardrop angle of the trailer kept her from seeing anything below Tom’s waist. 

Except for his cane, which he held to his chest, Tom was naked, and dripping wet. 

He did not slouch, standing straight. He walked with care, but he seemed anything but decrepit. In fact, Alex thought, he looked pretty good for someone so old and slow. The truck was parked in such a way that from her perspective it partially obscured the front of the house.

Tom spoke, startling Alex.

“Are you ready?”

For a second Alex thought he might be speaking to her, but then a voice responded. “Just about, Tom. We want another look at our notes.”

“Well let’s get going. I haven’t all day.”

“Of course Master Tom,” said someone else in a feminine voice.

“I told you that you can just call me Tom.”

Tom moved as if to make room for another person joining him on the small porch, but that person, or those persons, must have been midgets, because Alex could not see them without raising her head and exposing herself.

Are those children? Alex thought, wondering if she’d missed something sinister.

Tom stepped off the porch and headed for the huge tree trunk at the center of the clearing. As he moved, Alex also moved to keep the trailer between her and the old man. When she came around the other side of the trailer, she could see Tom and some shorter figures enter the opening in the side of the trunk. The smaller figures seemed to be wearing leotards or some other tight-fitting outfit, but they were no larger than children.

What could he be doing with children? The terrible feeling she had in her stomach strengthened.

Alex only debated for a second before she sprinted across the clearing and also passed through the entrance to the tree trunk. The floor was dirt that quickly transitioned to wood and ended at a set of steps spiraling down below the surface of the surrounding terrain.

Lights moved beyond her view down the curving steps. 

She followed the steps down, even more curious, feeling a sense of foreboding at the idea of children being out here in these woods with this stranger.

She stepped around the last curve of the staircase, deciding to introduce herself again to at least find out why he was escorting these children.  

 Before she could say anything, she gaped at her surroundings. She was in a large open room, like a cave made of wood, that consisted mostly of a wide almond-shaped pool that was glowing as if bright lamps were shining beneath the waters. 

 Tom was removing a towel from around his waist. He placed this last item in a strange chest or box. There were smaller figures beside him, the size of children, but the box obscured them.

 Then he reached out and touched the wall, the inside of the trunk of the tree. The water began to glow in response. Then the walls and floor also began to glow. Suddenly, the whole enclosed area began to glow, shining like the walls, the pool, the floors and ceiling were all emitting a bright candlelight. Alex stared at the light, and she forgot that she was hiding. 

Tom and the two children walked into the pool. Something about the way they moved seemed off, too confident or hesitant like a child. One of the children seemed to have developed breasts. All three just waded deeper in the pool and ducked under the water at the same time. 

Alex stepped forward, still speechless, but trying to utter the words to ask Tom what the hell was happening. Her words were left unuttered. as the old man did not resurface. Alex watched the glowing water, and it took her a moment to realize the bathers were not coming back up. 

Then the lights went out.

 Alex felt a brief moment of panic, had all sorts of thoughts about old people kidnapping children to drown in some weird Satanic ritual or something, but then she knew she had to do something right away or someone could be hurt. She kicked off her shoes and plunged in after Tom and the kids. 

As soon as her foot touched the water, the glow returned. She could not see beneath the surface, so she rushed to the last spot she’d seen them and she plunged beneath the surface.

Once again the glow ended, plunging the room into darkness. 

Alex also did not emerge from the water.