Deep in the southernmost reaches of Georgia lies the great Okefenokee swamp, the largest blackwater swamp in the country. It earns that title because the freshwater rivers that emerge within it and flow through it are dark amber, like southern sweet tea. It covers well over four hundred thousand acres, all shrouded in dim earthy brown and deep green light by cypress trees and evergreen oaks, longleaf pines and swamp tupelos. It is the home of tall wading birds, fat, lazy alligators, too many frogs to even think about counting, and even the occasional panther or black bear. The swamp seems to exist in a time apart, forgotten by the rush of modern life, keeping its own, slow pace as the years come and go.

The name “Okefenokee” comes from an old Creek word that means “land of trembling earth,” or just “bubbling water.” There have been people living there for over four thousand years, though it was always a hard and dangerous life among the gators, bears, wolves and “tigers” as the panthers were called, but today most folk are just visiting, just passing through. The main entrance lies just south of Waycross, Georgia, the biggest city in the biggest county in the biggest state east of the Mississippi, a distinction somewhat at odds with the actual appearance of the city of Waycross, population not quite 15,000. Visitors to the park are welcome to camp and hike among the trees or take canoes through the dark waters, and sometimes they catch a glimpse of how life used to be.

A young man walked among these trees, his feet aimless, his mind turned in on itself. He was tall for his age, but had not yet filled out to manhood. He had reddish brown hair, green eyes, and his cheeks were lightly dusted with freckles. He watched his feet shuffle through the dirt, mud, and withered old leaves and paid no attention at all to the direction he was taking.

 He’s really gone, he thought, for perhaps the tenth time since he had wandered off from his family. He’s never coming back.

Aiden’s father had been a kind and gentle soul. Aiden had loved him deeply. All he ever wanted was to make his father proud. Everything Aiden did, he did because he knew his father would like it. Everything he was good at, his father had been too. Everything his father loved, everything he hated, Aiden had sought to love and hate as well. His father had been extremely well-known and well-liked in their little town. Everyone seemed to know him and no one ever had anything negative to say about him. In his mind, Aiden thought of himself first as his father’s son, and so did most other people. But all that was now gone.

Aiden had been popular once, too, not so long ago. He had been friendly to everyone, quick with a joke, and was a great dancer. But then his father had died, and so quickly. First the odd symptoms, then the diagnosis, then the sudden drop off of his physical and mental abilities, and then his death, all within just a few months’ time. The world had lost all meaning. Aiden had become depressed and angry, and then he had started driving away all his friends. It hadn’t taken much, just a few curt words here and there, and suddenly he was alone. Now he was known as the brooding kid who was angry at everyone. That wasn’t who his father had been; it wasn’t who Aiden had been. So who was he now? What reason did he have to go on?

A splash let Aiden know that he had wandered off the trail. He looked up. Where had his mother and siblings gone? “Mom?” he called out. There was no answer. With a sigh he turned around to walk back down the trail toward where he had last seen his family. But there was no trail. “Mom!” he called again. “Mason! Natalie!” But the only sounds he heard in response were frogs and insects and birds. He continued walking in what he guessed was the right direction, calling out and waiting for a response, but nothing changed. The minutes ticked away, and still he saw and heard nothing of his family.

Oh God, Aiden thought to himself. This is really getting serious. He called out again, “Mason! Mom! Dad! Natalie!” With a shock of pain Aiden realized that he had called out to his father, but there was still no response. He looked at his phone. There was no signal and his battery was almost drained. For the first time, a real sense of panic ran through him. He was lost in the swamp. He had snapped at his little brother over… what? Something he had done to annoy him, probably. Then Aiden had wandered off.

That had to have been just a second ago, he thought. How could they have gotten so far? He started running, and quickly tripped over a hidden root. He heard an odd screeching cry from some lonely bird. Picking himself up, he looked around. Which way was it? Didn’t I pass by that log on the other side? He turned left and kept going.

He called and called, seeing nothing but the misty water and the trees, hearing nothing but the birds and the frogs. Aiden felt each moment drag by, fear steadily rising. Panic overcoming him at last, he started running again. When he tripped this time, he came down hard on a fallen branch and knocked the wind out of himself. For a moment he waited there, trying to master himself and to choke down tears. Then, scrambling to his feet again, he froze. Suddenly, it was night. Not twilight, but the deep dark of full night.

How can it be dark already? he thought helplessly. It had been noon mere moments ago, hadn’t it? It could not be night. Not even if he had lost track of time could it have gotten this late so quickly. The terror that had been growing in him for the last few minutes rose to a fever pitch. He took out his phone again and turned on its flashlight. Here and there he saw eyes glowing back at him. He tried to convince himself they all belonged to the chorus of frogs surrounding him, but he knew of course that there were alligators in the swamp. Lazy as the gators were during the day, surely they would leave him alone at night too, right? He found he was no longer able to run. Fear had paralyzed him. Any step in any direction might lead him into the jaws of one of those reptilian monsters. He stood motionless for what might have been hours, petrified. Then the phone’s low battery warning came on and the flashlight went off.

Suddenly off to his right, he heard a voice singing. It was singing in a language that he didn’t recognize, but it was clearly human and it was nearby. Having learned his lesson, Aiden walked, not ran, as quickly as he dared toward the voice, calling out for help. The sound, which had been moving away to his right, stopped suddenly. “Who is there?” said a melodious voice with a strange accent.

“My name’s Aiden! Can you help me get out of here?” he blurted out.

“Of course,” said the young woman’s voice. “I am leaving now. You may follow.”

She began her eerie song again, and following it, Aiden tried to catch up to her. It took longer than he expected, and by the time he reached her his phone’s battery had finally died. He shivered at the thought that he had almost been alone in the dark in this swamp. When at last he caught up to her, she looked over her shoulder once at him, gave him a nod and a brief smile, and continued on her way without looking back again. As he looked at her coppery skin and long, jet-black hair, Aiden thought, She must be a Native American. He knew that Native Americans used to live in this area, of course, but he had never known there were any of those people still living around here.

She was far and away the most beautiful person Aiden had ever seen, so beautiful that it didn’t seem right to call her beautiful, because that word was used to describe more ordinary people. She was something else. The sight of her took his breath away, and when she spoke he felt an uncanny shiver run up his spine. Her voice was more musical than any other he had heard, although that didn’t quite describe it properly, he thought. There was something otherworldly in it, something that was oddly unsettling.

She seemed to drift along without a care in the world, never once pausing to think about the direction she should take, so graceful that Aiden knew she must be a marvel on the dancefloor. She wore a long, colorful skirt which was divided down the middle and a u-shaped blouse which left much of her arms and her midriff exposed. The intricate colors and patterns perfectly accented her bronze skin and was clearly of extremely fine make.

Apparently she knew just where she was and just where she was going. Following her, Aiden soon realized they were leaving the swamp behind. Then she stopped next to a tall magnolia tree. She seemed to be talking to herself. When Aiden caught up to her he heard her saying, “And isn’t that very strange? I have never heard of one of them being seen down there before. What do you make of it?”

She paused for a little while, as if listening to a reply, but Aiden heard nothing. “Well do let me know if they say anything else. I wonder what it means. Nothing good I think.” Then she turned to him. “This young man names himself Aiden. Do you know him?” Aiden looked around. There was no one else there, but the young woman said, “My name is Maraki of the River Folk.” Turning and gesturing toward a magnolia tree, she said “And this is Talauma, wise woman of the eastern dryads.”

“Maraki? And Talauma?” Aiden said, confused at the odd names. “It’s, um, really nice to meet you.”

 The young woman tried several times to correct his pronunciation of her name, and then with a tinkling laugh said, “You may call me Gwen, if you wish. I think that name will suit your tongue better. We must hurry now. It is far later than I intended. But tell me, if you will, how did you come to be here?”

As they walked Aiden tried to tell her how his family had stopped at the park on their way to the beach, how he had argued with Mason, his younger brother, and how quickly he had found himself out of earshot from them. She understood, she said, how he could lose himself quickly if he did not know the way. She explained that they were going to a hut on the edge of the swamp where she had left her rakko. She would spend the night there before traveling back to her home, which she said was far to the west. In the morning, they would try again to find his family. It would be easier in the daylight.

“Your rakko?” Aiden asked.

“My horse, you would say.”

Aiden had ridden horses from time to time, but never for the kind of trip she seemed to be describing. “Don’t you have a car or a truck?”

“Car?” She asked. “No, Bella has never pulled a car. We shall have to ride her bareback. She is sweet and shy but strong, so she will not mind.”

“No, I mean a regular car, not one pulled by a horse. An automobile, you know?” he said a little sarcastically.

“An auto-mobile?” she asked, thinking through the word, seeming put out of countenance for the first time. The word sounded as strange on her lips as rakko had on Aiden’s. “We know nothing of this. It pulls itself? How odd. You must teach me this magic when you can.”

“It’s not magic,” Aiden said, beginning to feel tingles of fear again. “It’s science, technology. A machine. And I don’t know how to make one by myself.”

“Then we shall have to ride Bella,” Gwen replied.

*  *  *  *  *

Aiden felt sorry for the young woman, who he guessed was at least a little crazy. Talking to herself, or to that tree, and thinking that cars were magic. It was like she didn’t even live in the modern world. They eventually made their way to a little one-room shack that was hardly any bigger than Aiden’s bedroom at home. It had just one window, a table and a bed that had an old-fashioned feather mattress on it. Aiden went to try to charge his phone, but there were no electrical outlets. Gwen unrolled a blanket she had with her and gave Aiden the bed’s pillow. He was not at all excited to have to sleep in the heat and humidity of the swamp at midsummer without air conditioning, but he fell asleep quickly, being tired out from his searching and the fear that had been plaguing him all day.

When he awoke the next morning they began to prepare for that day’s journey. Gwen packed her few things and then asked where Aiden and his family had entered the swamp.

“At the park’s main entrance, I guess.” he said.

“Park? I do not know of a park anywhere around here, and I know this area well. What do you mean?”

Aiden was getting a little tired of trying to explain things that should be obvious to this dense girl, however pretty she was, but he made himself keep his patience. “Okefenokee Swamp Park. Just past Waycross on US 1,” he said a little brusquely, proud of knowing the road names.

“I know of the town Waymeet on the other side of the swamp,” she replied, “but I do not know You Ess Won. That must be a foreign name for the road. But I can tell you there is no park there, only the wilderness.”

“Not Waymeet,” he said, rolling his eyes, “Waycross. Waycross, Georgia.”

She looked thoughtful. “This is Okefenokee Swamp,” she said at last, although she made the k’s sound like g’s. “And to the north of it lies a town, which I have always heard named Waymeet, though Waycross may do as well. But of Georgia and of a park at the swamp I have heard nothing. It may be that things are not as you remember them. Strange things can happen in this swamp at night. Perhaps you should come with me instead.”

Aiden hesitated at this. How could she know the name but not know about the park? The swamp was the park, as far as Aiden knew. And did he dare leave his family behind? They would surely be worrying themselves sick over him. But what could he do? If he went off on his own he would doubtless lose himself in the swamp again, and the thought gave him a feeling of sick dread. But if he went with her he could stop at the next house or town, charge his phone, and call his family. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”

They ate a breakfast of dried fruits and meats with a little cornbread and began their journey. They rode all day on winding dirt paths that were overhung with the branches of oak trees, stopping only for lunch, seeing only the odd farm here and there, none of which had any power lines leading to them. They all seemed to have only incredibly old-fashioned, log cabins for houses. Gwen was polite, and seemed to be in love everything around her. She smiled at the sun, laughed at a sprinkling of rain, and spoke kindly to every wild creature they met. As they rode she tried to make conversation, asking Aiden about things that interested him, but they seemed to have so little in common. Gwen knew about weaving and plants and animals, but she knew nothing about computers or television or video games or, well, anything that Aiden did in his spare time. They wound up talking about things like the cotton that was growing next to them as they rode, which was not yet blooming. Then Aiden asked why she had been in the swamp.

“Oh, I went to think, mostly,” she replied. “It is good for my spirit to be here when I am troubled. There is something about being able to wander freely without running into other people that brings peace to the mind. I love to lose myself in the maze of the swamp until I have found the answers I need.”

Aiden started to say, “You go there to think?” but he realized that he had been doing the exact same thing himself before he got lost. He did see another problem, however. “You lose yourself?” he asked. “How do you find your way out again?”

Gwen shook her head. “I have never understood that, myself. I feel at home in its labyrinth. Such a lovely word, labyrinth, don’t you think? I only learned it recently. But ever since my first visit here when I was very young, no matter how far into the swamp I go, I never feel lost.”

Aiden pondered for a while over how strange it was that she could have this ability, or this power. Eventually something else occurred to him. “If there isn’t a park here, why would you come here at all? How did you even find out about it?” he asked.

Gwen smiled and said, “My sister Halesi. She has always understood me far better than anyone else. She says that when I first began to walk I would wander around in the forests. She let me go farther and farther alone, and saw that I could always come back to where she was. She knew of the great swamp from old stories. When we suffered our first grief, the death of our grandfather, many years ago, she brought me here. It brought me comfort and I found peace here. I have always returned here in my times of uncertainty.”

Aiden wondered if he should ask what had been troubling her, but he stopped himself. Too personal a question, he thought.

The day wore away, swelteringly hot and humid. Eventually their conversation died away and Aiden was left wondering what his mother and siblings were doing, and how much trouble he would be in when he finally got back to them.

They stopped that night at a farmhouse in a large grove. There were still no power lines or outlets that Aiden could see, so his phone had to stay dead. There were no vehicles parked outside, no lights shining in the windows. It was just a simple three-room building. This time there was a wood-burning stove in the corner, but besides that, it was very much like the shack they had stayed in the night before. Gwen apparently knew the family, the Harrells, but Aiden hardly paid any attention to them at all, he was so tired. He slept uncomfortably on his pallet on the floor that night, being sore from the day’s ride. When he woke up, he was more stiff and uncomfortable than he had ever been in his life. It was with a heavy heart that he remounted Bella for the next day’s ride. They ate breakfast as they rode and only stopped briefly for lunch.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

It was early afternoon that day when they reached a small town. Aiden was so sore from riding that he could hardly stand and he was sick from the smell of the horse. He had always liked the smell of horses, but it had gotten old quickly. The first sight of the town lifted his spirits, with the roofs of the buildings poking out from the trees, but when he looked again he felt his heart sink. The roads were not paved. The buildings were all brick and wood and stone, with no stucco or vinyl siding among them. There were no lights or parking lots or neon signs, no billboards or advertisements or sidewalks. They rode up to a three-story building, the tallest one around, and Gwen tied Bella up to one of the hitching posts that stood outside. A hand-painted sign outside announced that it was the Fernbank Inn. The building looked like it had come straight from one of the old westerns that his dad used to watch.

He stood frozen there for a long while, his mind refusing to see what should have been so obvious. He felt weak, unable to comprehend what his eyes were telling him. “I’ve—I’ve gone back in time….” Aiden finally admitted to himself.

“That is my guess as well,” Gwen said, unexpectedly overhearing him. “I have never heard of half the things you have described on our journey, and the other half seem so different that they cannot be what I think they are. Yet you knew the swamp by the name the Northern Folk give it, and by your complexion and your voice you seem to come from that people. It must be that you come from this place but not this time. I can think of nothing else. But there is more to it than that. I sense in you something that I have never felt before. It is as if a veil lies between you and this world that none could penetrate. You live on the other side of an immeasurable cavern, and though you walk among us, this is not your home.”

She said this calmly, like it was curious but not completely out of the realm of possibility. Aiden again wondered if she weren’t somewhat insane. But then again, he thought, maybe he was losing his mind, too, given the whole situation.

“This is Stephensville,” she said. “I think that you will find some of your own people inside this inn. It will be easier on you, perhaps, if you take up with some of them. I must continue on to my own people.”

Aiden agreed. Gwen was the most beautiful, polite, charming woman he had ever met, but she was… different. Her seeming perfection unnerved him. He would be glad to have some other company. They said goodbye to each other and Aiden went inside.

*  *  *  *  *

At first he could only hear the happy sounds of a boisterous crowd. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light coming from a few oil lamps scattered around the large room, he noticed a somewhat diverse crowd. There were black people and white people and others that looked Hispanic. They wore homespun clothes made mostly from cotton and leather which put Aiden in mind of old sepia-toned photographs. A man sat at an upright piano in the corner, playing a jaunty tune, and a few people stood around him singing. There was a roar of greeting for him when he came in and he waded into the mix, smiling and somewhat relieved. He suddenly felt much more at home.

 A friendly-looking man waved him over and introduced himself as Roy Cothern. He was built like an ox, with thick, broad shoulders and close-cropped hair. The hand he stretched out was covered in thick calluses.

“I’m Aiden Woodward, pleased to meet you,” Aiden said politely.

“Another Woodward!” Roy exclaimed, and called a few more people over. Aiden was introduced to Jason and Grady Woodward and Jason’s fiance Ruby Davis. The boys looked a bit like Aiden, with reddish-brown hair and freckles. They were a little shorter than Aiden, and they had brown eyes instead of Aiden’s green. When they heard that Aiden was a Woodward they took him to their hearts as a long-lost cousin. Grady grabbed him by the hand and pulled him into a tight embrace, but Jason and Ruby were content just to shake his hand and smile.

He let the conversation wash over him. It was mostly light-hearted gossip about people whom he couldn't have known, but most of the places and families they named sounded familiar. The Woodwards, it seemed, ran a sawmill together at the north end of town. Roy was a blacksmith, which explained his calluses. Parker O’Steen, a friend of Grady’s, worked either as a barber or a surgeon, Aiden couldn’t tell which from the stories he told. It all reinforced the idea that he had gone back in time. Despite this, his nervousness slowly ebbed away and he began laughing with the others. In response to their questions, Aiden explained that he had gotten lost and didn’t really know where he was. Grady invited him to stay at the mill with him and his brother, and Aiden gratefully accepted.

After a while Grady asked, “So, what’s that you got on, stranger? I ain’t never seen clothes like them.”

Aiden looked down at his old Nirvana t-shirt, well-worn jeans, and muddy sneakers. He had been dressed for a walk in the woods, so they weren’t really all that nice, but they did make him stick out from the others. He didn’t really know what to say back.

“It’s just a… a cotton shirt, and, um, what we call blue jeans, and tennis shoes,” he said.

Grady raised his eyebrows. “Alright, then,” he said, seeming bemused. “Well, maybe we can get you hooked up with some normal clothes when we get you back to the house,” he added with a grin.

He left the inn with the Woodward brothers late that evening, saying goodbye to Roy and the others he had met. He rode in the back of a horse-drawn cart, and after a quarter of an hour or so the conversation died down. Aiden started thinking. If he had really gone back in time, perhaps he could use his modern knowledge to his advantage. He had read a story about a man who went back in time to medieval England and started industrializing it. Maybe with his help, Stephensville could modernize faster than the rest of the world and become more than a backwater small town.

They rode to their home on the edge of town, another small but cozy little house. It was made of wood and painted a cheerful red, Aiden saw in the fading sunlight. In the expansive backyard Aiden saw the shed with the large saw for the mill in the middle and one other building that Aiden realized was the outhouse. They piled inside the little two-bedroom home, and Jason and Grady insisted on sharing a room so that Aiden could have a bed to himself. He laid awake late into that night dreaming of becoming a famous inventor in this time. The more he thought, however, the more he realized that he had no idea how to create something from his own time. He was young, not out of high school yet, not an engineer like the man from the old story, and try as he might he couldn't think of a single invention he could bring back to this time.

Just what year is it, anyway? he thought after a long time. I guess I could just ask, but what if they think I'm crazy like Gwen, or, worse what if they think I'm… like, a witch?

 At first this was a funny thought, but slowly it dawned on Aiden how real a possibility this might be, and with that the full impact of his situation hit him. He was alone in what was, for all practical purposes, another world. He knew next to nothing about living in this time. His family and his friends were all gone and he had no idea when or if he would ever see them again. He was far more lost than he had ever been in that swamp. The despair he had been fighting for two days conquered him and he fell asleep weeping pitifully.

He awoke feeling miserable, but Jason and Grady were warm and friendly, and before long he half-jokingly began to think of Jason and Grady as his ancestors. It didn’t take long before the brothers really did feel like family to Aiden. They liked a lot of the same food he did, they had some of the same mannerisms. They even looked something like the Woodwards from his own time, with broad faces, freckled cheeks, and easy smiles. The Woodward Mill had begun to feel a little like home.

Aiden’s attempts to figure out what year it was had not been successful. He tried asking if they had ever heard of George Washington but they had not, so Aiden thought that maybe it was before Washington’s time. When he understood they hadn’t heard of Georgia or England either, however, he started to get confused. Maybe they’re just really uneducated, he thought.

Then he thought of another way to try to place the time, although the thought shamed him for their sake. He asked if any of the African Americans he had seen were or had ever been slaves. There turned out to be two problems with this approach. For one thing, the Woodward brothers had no idea what he meant by “African American.” They called their darker-skinned neighbors the Eastern Folk, though they weren’t clear about where from the east they were supposed to have originated.

But more interesting was that the young men seemed shocked and horrified at the suggestion that anyone around Stephensville would ever keep slaves or even allow other people to do so. Aiden agreed with them, of course, but this did not agree with the history he knew. Since he was afraid of saying too much, this pretty much put a halt to Aiden’s attempts to pin down the date.

So he stopped worrying about that. What else could he do? It didn’t really matter what year it was anyway, he guessed. All there was to do, he decided, was to settle in as best he could and try to find out how he could get back to his own time. His best bet, he figured, was to try to get back into the swamp and hope that the same magic or whatever would work again. He wasn’t quite ready to face the Okefenokee again just yet, however, so he started leading a more or less normal life with Grady and Jason in Stephensville. The town reminded him strongly of his own hometown, Douglas, with even some of the same road names and shops, and though he never felt entirely sure they were the same place, the two were clearly related somehow.

The young men always woke up with the sun to start their day’s work. At first Aiden just helped load the heavy pine or oak logs onto the saw and then moved the planks after they were cut. Soon, though, he had learned to operate the saw himself, which was actually much easier work. Most of the wood was sent to Earl Crinshaw, the carpenter, by carts that were driven by Earl’s boys Buddy and Hank.

The hardest adjustment Aiden had to make was to the lack of air conditioning. He had never sweated so much in his life and he sorely missed the feel of cool air blowing in his face after coming in from the heat and humidity. Though he worked harder now than he ever had before, it was extremely satisfying to see his work actually made into something that people really used. Maybe, he had begun to think, it would not be so bad being stuck here. Maybe he could make a life in this old-fashioned version of home. His dad would have loved it here.

*  *  *  *  *

The second week since Aiden came to live at the Mill, Grady took him to go snipe hunting and to see what he called the Pearson Light. The Crinshaw brothers went with them and a black boy named Curtis Winters whose dad ran a restaurant called “The Po’ Boy’s House,” which was near the mill. Grady wore a bright red shirt that Ruby made which clashed terrifically with his freckles. Hank Crinshwaw was very short and stocky with sun-darkened skin and dark brown hair and eyes, and he talked endlessly. His brother Buddy was his exact opposite: taller, paler, sandy-blond, and almost completely silent. They both wore shirts that had begun their lives being white but which now were a dull gray with baggy black woolen pants. Curtis was dark-skinned even for one of the Eastern Folk and wore a shirt which really was white and brown leather pants. None of the other boys could have afforded such clothes, but his dad’s restaurant was extremely popular, so Curtis’ family was very well-off by Stephensville standards.

Like most of the boys his age from his hometown, Aiden had been deer hunting, though he was not a very good shot. He had never been snipe hunting before, however, and was extremely excited. The others seemed excited too, because they kept laughing at the smallest things.

“Just make sure you keep nice and quiet and hold this here bag till they come at ya,” Hank was telling him as they sat in the back of the cart on the ride out to the hunting grounds. “Me and the boys will run ‘em towards you, and then you grab ‘em quick as lighting, got it? They’re real tricky so you got to stay on your look out alright?”

They arrived at the campsite Grady had chosen, started setting up the tents, and strapped one of the horse’s legs with a hobble so that it couldn’t wander too far. The sun sank and they cooked some of the food they had brought over the campfire: some beef strips, potatoes, and onions.

“The birds have a real good sense of smell, Aiden,” Grady said as they started to get ready for the hunt. “Maybe he should put some of that special perfume on him.”

“Hey, that’s a great idea, Grady,” Hank said. “In fact, his clothes all smell like him so when we get there it’s probably gonna be a good idea for you to strip down out of most of ‘em, Aiden, and rub some of this here perfume under your arms so the birds won’t smell you. They’re a real shy kinda bird and they ain’t gone go running toward just anybody, so you gotta sit real still and hold your bag out and don’t move till we come running. But when you hear us call you run at ‘em and yell real loud and hold the bag up real high over your head so they’ll run into it.”

That struck Aiden as a very odd way to catch a bird, but he had come to really like these guys and so he didn’t want to disappoint them. When they got near the hunting ground Hank took out a little bottle.

“Here you go, Aiden. Just dab a little of this on this rag here and rub it up under your armpits.” Aiden did as he was told, but when the smell hit him he gagged.

“What in God’s name is this?” he said in a strangled voice.

“Deer piss,” Hank said. “Ain’t nothing like some deer piss to make you smell like the woods. Snipe ain’t gonna be afraid of no deer, and they won’t be able to catch your scent under this.”

“Well, God, I should hope not. I don’t think I’ll be able to smell anything else for a month.” Aiden answered. He slipped down to his undergarments. “You sure I don’t need any camouflage, Hank?”

“Yeah, you do,” Hank said. “Here, we can get some leaves and stuff to stick to you if we rub mud all over you. Help us get a mud puddle going, Buddy.”

Buddy Crinshaw grinned and grunted at his brother, who seemed to do all the talking for both of them. He took out a water skin and poured half of it on the ground. They rubbed mud on Aiden and then started covering him with dry leaves.

“Well, I think he’s ready,” Hank finally said once Aiden was good and covered.

The sky was dark and the stars were starting to come out by the time they led Aiden to a little clearing. They gave him a bag then left him. Aiden crouched down and did his best to swat mosquitoes as slowly as he could, which meant he was nearly eaten alive by the bugs. He could sometimes hear the others laughing and whooping nearby, and he guessed that must be how they were running the birds toward him, but no birds came. He squatted down, waiting. After a while they called, “This way, come on, Aiden, this way! Here they come!” and Aiden came yelling with the bag held high over his head. There was a peal of laughter off to his right and Aiden headed in that direction. Somehow, though, he missed the other guys, and soon he couldn’t hear them at all. He sat back down and waited again.

This happened twice more. He heard the others yelling for him, and he had come running like a madman with this useless bag, smelling bad and looking stupid. Each time there was an explosion of laughter, but each time the others faded away, and he couldn’t quite tell where their voices were coming from, and then everything was quiet again.

Then for a long while nothing else happened. Time seemed to grind to a halt. Aiden’s legs got stiff and painful from crouching. He heard the sounds of insects in the woods, and here and there an owl hooted in the distance. He sat down next to a tree, swatting the occasional mosquito.

What is going on? Aiden thought to himself. The smell was starting to get to him and he was getting cold. Why did they put me here if the birds were so far away?

His attention started to ebb. He found himself thinking about his family again, wondering if they had held a funeral for him. When he realized that his thoughts had wandered in this direction, he caught himself and made himself think about something else. He couldn’t help what had happened, and it was time to make the most of his current situation. These guys were friendly, always fun to be around, and they had made him feel welcome. Grady especially had really come to seem like family. He didn’t want to embarrass himself, so he resolved to wait longer.

Finally it was pitch dark and Aiden hadn’t seen any birds at all for half an hour and hadn’t heard any of the others for longer than that. At last he became fed up with the whole mess and decided to give up. The others would be disappointed in him, true, but enough was enough. The mud was dry and itching, the leaves were everywhere, and the smell of deer urine had lodged itself in his brain.

“Hank! Grady! Curtis!” he called, and he thought briefly of searching for his family in the swamp. “Hank!” he said again, and then heard, “Have you finally give up? Man if it ain’t about time.”

Following the voices and laughter, Aiden found that the others had returned to camp. “What happened?” he asked, annoyed.

The others all burst into laughter. “They ain’t no snipe around here,” Curtis said.

“What?” Aiden demanded. “Then why the blazes did I get half-naked and rub deer piss under my arms!”

“It’s how we say, ‘Welcome to Stephensville’ for new folk,” Curtis replied.

“It’s an initiation ritual,” Hank said. “You can’t really be one of us if you ain’t been snipe huntin’. We all done it before. Buddy stayed gone almost the whole night, but Curtis didn’t spend ten minutes waiting before he come out.”

“I ain’t such a fool,” Curtis said with a grin.

“Anyway we was about to come get you,” Grady said. “It’s almost time for the light, and we need to get going.”

Aiden cleaned himself up as best as he could, though it would be another couple of days before the odor of the deer urine was completely gone, and longer even than that before he could forget the smell. Then the five young men climbed into the wagon. As they rode along, the mood shifted. The other four boys kept joking for a while, but now Aiden heard a nervous note to it. Soon they all fell quiet. Then Buddy pulled the horse to a stop in a seemingly random spot. They were deep in the woods on a very narrow little dirt lane. The lane was long and straight, unlike most of the roads around here, and they could see for a good ways in either direction. No one said anything.

“What are we waiting for?” Aiden whispered at last.

“The light,” Grady said. “You’ll see.”

Aiden stared off into the distance, repeatedly convincing himself that he was seeing something before realizing it was just his eyes going fuzzy. He yawned, and it spread around the carriage. He hoped this was going to be worth it.

After a few more minutes of tense waiting Hank said in a loud whisper, “There it is!”

Everyone snapped their heads in the direction he was pointing.

“I see it!” Grady said.

“Me too,” Buddy said, speaking for the first time in what must have been hours.

Aiden strained, but saw nothing. He wondered if the others were playing a prank on him again. “I don’t see anything,” he breathed.

“There, coming down the road at us,” Curtis said.

Aiden still didn’t see anything, but the others all clearly did. They weren’t laughing the way they had been before the snipe hunt. They sat slack-jawed, all staring in the same direction. The last of Aiden’s doubts vanished in a chill shock of fear as he saw their eyes all moving together, clearly seeing something that he could not. After half a moment like this there was a stirring among them.

“You don’t see it?” Grady said. “It’s coming right at us, it’s going to—” and he gasped. He and the other three jumped to the sides of the wagon, apparently watching something pass directly between them. Their eyes moved to the back of the wagon, and then behind them. All at once they all relaxed.

“I didn’t really expect to see anything,” Curtis said with a nervous laugh.

“The only other time I come we didn’t see anything,” Hank said. “I can’t believe it came right in among us. Did you ever see it, Aiden?”

“No, I never did,” Aiden said. “But I could tell that you all did. What was it?”

“Nobody knows.” Hank answered. “They just say you’re supposed to come on this road at midnight on a new moon and sometimes you’ll see it. It doesn’t always work.”

“What did you see?” Aiden asked.

“Just a bluish kinda light,” Grady said. “It was about this big,” he held his hands up about a foot apart, “and it was just drifting and bobbing along. Then after it got about there,” he gestured down the road, “it just disappeared.”

They sat in silence for a moment, and then they all started to laugh, for delight, for relief, and for sheer pleasure in each other’s company. They traveled back to their campsite and settled down for the night.