Anxious Hearts by Tucker Shaw Page A

have no pillow, and my hair is full of pine needles.
    I got no sleep last night.
    I get up and run my hands through my hair, working tangles loose with my fingers. I stretch. I fish around in my backpack for a toothbrush, but there isn’t one. But there is an apple. It’s my last one, but I bite into it anyway, the crispy flesh cool and sweet and clean on my teeth. Sun spackles sharply through the leaves overhead, and I realize it’s already late in the morning.
    I remember how Gabe found the spring back at our clearing, and I look around for a patch of moss. Within minutes, I find a bubble of water spilling over a ledge, and splash my face with it and drink.
    My poncho is wet with dew, but I roll it up anyway. I hoist my backpack over one shoulder and I start walking back the way I came. I think.
    I walk for more than an hour before I reach the edge of the forest. But it’s not the edge I was looking for. There is no road here, no sign that forbids trespassing. Here, the pines give way to a grove of white birch trees, and a few steps later the birch grove gives way to a sprawling meadow of green-gold sea grass and blueberry bushes. And beyond the grass, nothing. Only sky. The wind swirls around me, an ocean wind, not a meadow wind, and I can hear the restless, choppy surf in the distance. I realize I am on a bluff, high above the sea.
    I walk through the grassy meadow, wind tossing my hair first into my face, then off to one side, then the other. It takes much longer to reach the edge of the bluff than I thought it would, thanks to rocks and pine logs hidden in the grass. When I reach the edge of the bluff, a monumental cliff falls abruptly below me; it is so high that I’m afraid to look over the edge.
    When I do, gingerly, my stomach sinks to my feet and I feel woozy.
    I lie down on my stomach and hang my head over the edge, safer that way. There are ledges on the cliff, and a few renegade pairs and trios of pine trees cling to its face. I toss a rock over the edge and listen, but its landing is drowned out by wind and distance and waves. I imagine daredevil kids climbing the face of this cliff, and dying for their foolishness in the frothy water hundreds of feet below, the salty waves slapping their bodies against the rocky outcroppings.
    But I don’t recognize this seascape, or any of the islands in this bay. I can’t be that far away from home, can I?
    I turn over and look at the sky. It is split in two—blue and clear and endless over the ocean, but dark to the west. Thunderclouds are gathering.
    The wind picks up and I turn back toward the woods. I stumble on a rock. Only, it’s not a rock. It’s a stone wall. Crumbled, but still a wall of flat granite stones carefully stacked. I trace it around a large rectangle of land, a small plot. I walk its perimeter in just a few minutes.
    At one end of the plot, surrounded by blueberry bushes and sea grass, I find a rock. A big rock, a boulder, with a level top so smooth it seems unnatural. Almost morelike a bench, or an altar, something made by someone for something.
    I sit on the edge of the stone and, feeling the warmth it’s been absorbing from the sun, crawl onto it and lie down. A moment ago it felt like I was at the edge of the earth. Now I feel like I’ve been here before.
    I don’t even realize that I’ve fallen asleep until I wake up and see that the sun is low now, grazing the tops of the pine trees I emerged from this morning. I sit up quickly. Have I slept all day?
    I stand up on the rock-platform to scope out the meadow for a place to set up a small camp. At the other end of the stone wall, I see two more large boulders. I could use those for shelter, I think. I gather my pack and walk over.
    As I approach the boulders I see a small, crumbled building that reminds me of the old mill up near the lakes where Da’ used to take me canoeing. He said the old mill was the oldest building in Washington County, which was saying a lot since Washington County