Back to the Woods

Believers,

Today’s news might be huge.  I’ve located a potentially important piece of information in a book I found in the library one town over.  It's part of a collection of local stories and bits about landmarks written by several authors, but one or two of the poems are about Pale Forest.  The book definitely wasn’t in our library, but that’s not too surprising; the people of Pale Forest really don’t like being written about.

Anyway, one of the poems is especially mysterious, and even mentions the Aerie!  It doesn’t write out directions or anything like that, but it does give some idea of its location.  The entire poem is strange, but here’s the portion I’m most interested in:

Within that wood so deathly white, the twisting path reveals,

The hidden way, by darkest night, the watcher often steals.

And, oh, to reach the rarest sight and cross the last expanse—

The Aerie waits, my friend; you’ll see!  Though few are giv'n the chance.

It’s strange-- no question about that-- and most would write the lines off as little more than meaningless, but with what I know, it could also be much more.  What if the “hidden way” is the path I found in the woods that night?  It was certainly dark, and the path does seem suspciously like the one in the poem.  I haven’t been able to find it again but that could be because I haven’t gone back at night.  That’s a strange explanation, of course, but I’m beginning to embrace the potentially supernatural aspects of all this.  The expanse could be the bridge, too, which would mean I was practically at the Aerie that night! 

It that's true, though, why couldn't I see it over the trees?  It's supposedly several stories tall.  I'm reluctant to attribute everything to "magic", though I've finding myself forced to do so with an increasing regularity.  And who's the watcher the poem mentions?  It can't be the tattooed man-- the book these lines came from was published in the 1950's!

I’m not going to lie; going back, with what happened last time, is not high on the list of things I want to do.  That’s even truer when going at night is concerned.  Still, if the path leads to the Aerie, then it’s worth facing my fears.  I’ll just need to make sure the batteries in my flashlight are up to the task.

Until next time…