"The Cathedral Pet" by B.S. Miller

The Cathedral Pet

by B.S. Miller

“Lawrence, pick up the pace, would ya?” Davee pressed.

“Don’t call me Lawrence.” Wren rolled his eyes.

“Don’t give me a reason to and I won’t. You got your headlamp?”

Wren turned it on in response, clicking twice for the brighter setting as if to emphasize he did, in fact, remember to bring his headlamp on a night hike.

The brothers headed beyond the park’s log cabin learning center onto the Longfellow Trail which immediately started at an incline.

“I’ll be happy with whatever owls we might come across but I’m really hoping to see some Barred Owls. They like hemlocks near water and since we’re so close to the Tom’s Run stream, maybe our chances will be better.”

They passed Memorial Fountain and continued up the trail, passing the signage from the tornado that knocked down some of the forest’s oldest and largest trees. This was Davee’s usual spot to stop to catch his breath. Longfellow isn’t a long trail but there is an elevation gain of about 250 feet around this point. Even during the daytime, this part of the trail unnerved him—like this area was a cemetery or moment frozen in time where the trees fell and were left as a reminder of the nondiscriminatory power of nature. He was pretty sure the tornado that caused this destruction wouldn’t even register as an EF1 but to bring down such massive, living things that had stood since maybe William Penn’s lifetime? Wild. And the way they were left—preserved—like a crime scene with bodies just scattered about... It was haunting. He sat on a rock and took a swig of water.

Each of their heads snapped and their headlamps shot light up the trail. Davee jumped to his feet.

“Did you hear that?” Wren asked.

“Is that… crying?”

“I wonder if someone else was night hiking and got hurt.”

They followed the crying to where the trail split. They usually kept left and continued on the Longfellow Trail but the crying seemed to be coming from the Ancient Forest short cut that split off and down to the right. Wordlessly, they veered right toward the sobs. 

Some of the trees in this part of Cook Forest were close to 200 feet tall and 300 years old with a root system likely hundreds of years older than the trees themselves. The Eastern Hemlock and White Pines towered over the men and between the trees, the ground was thick with ferns, decaying logs, a variety of mushrooms, and pillowy moss. Forest Cathedral really earned its name here. The giants grew so tall and so closely together, they created a canopy above that made it seem like the men were walking through the kind of enclosure where old gods lived before man ever stepped foot. 

Davee jumped as his headlight caught a flaming orange streak of something hurrying across the trail. It’s just a newt. He took a breath and told himself to quit being so jumpy. He had been on this trail a hundred times, after all, albeit never looking for a crying person in the dark. 

Wren threw his arm out against Davee’s chest and they both stopped. A whiney whimper came from a spikey bump on a hemlock right ahead.

“Look,” Wren said with a half-laugh. “Did you know they sounded like crying babies?”

Davee followed up the tree with his headlamp and caught the stocky, quilled porcupine slowly climbing up the trunk, using its claws and tail for support. He let out a relieved sigh but it was cut short by another cry further ahead. “Another porcupine?” 

Wren scanned his light across the ferns and caught what looked like something hunched over. Bare skin? It was moving too fast to be a naked or shirtless person crawling. He looked to his brother and whispered, “Do you have your bear spray?”

Davee nodded.

“It kind of looks like a cub with really bad mange. Like it lost all its fur. I could only see the top of its back but the mom could have left it if she didn’t think it was going to make it. Cubs can sound like they’re crying.”

The ferns rustled and jostled as the crying lump trudged through the foliage, just the top of its back visibly bobbing above the leaves. It moved at a steady pace, so it didn’t seem to be injured or hurried. 

“Shut off your headlamp,” Wren whispered.

“Are you crazy?”

“Let’s see if it comes onto the trail.”

“Then what!” Davee hissed.

“Then we figure out what to do next. If it’s a cub, we report where we saw it and they can get it some help or put it down if it can’t be saved.”
“What if it isn’t a cub?”

“What else could it be?” Wren pressed the button on his headlamp, turning it off.

Davee sighed and pressed his off, too.

The sobbing figure trapsed through the dense ferns leading up to the trail and paused as if afraid to reveal itself.

Davee thought about turning his headlamp back on the moment the figure stepped onto the trail so they could see it and be done. He wanted out. He never anticipated his favorite trail could be so different at night—suddenly a stranger to him.

A squatty pig-like animal stepped out of the ferns. Its skin was loose and wrinkled, hanging from it like a deflated sausage casing covered in warts. Webbed feet peeked out from under folds of draping skin flaps. Tears poured from the squonk’s creased, sagging face and it seemed to look at the men with as much sorrow as it felt for its own hideous appearance.

“Thanks, pet,” a man cloaked in the shadows of the trees said to the whimpering creature as he stepped out onto the path.

Both brothers reached to click on their headlamps and as soon as the beams touched the squonk, he dissolved into a puddle of tears. The stranger remained.