I remember my father rubbing his thumb across my cheek to wake me up. I could hear his callous scraping across my skin. It was still dark outside and the room was an amber haze, lit by the embers in the fireplace. I crawled out of bed, careful not to wake my little brother, and slipped on some clothes. I grabbed my bag and my bow and met my father outside. We didn't say a word for a long time. It looked like the rest of Bellweather was still sleeping and we just walked through it without saying a word. I don't know if it was out of respect or we just didn't want to break the peaceful spell of silence that early morning casts on a town, but we didn't say nothing until we got a good ways into the woods.
"It's not far, but we gotta step quiet, Lil," he said.
That was the first time either of us spoke. I just nodded. The dark of night was starting to lighten up and I could make out the sticks and twigs in my path. I was real good at being quiet, you understand. I still am. The first time father took me hunting mother said I was too young. But he told her.... he told her that I was as quiet as his shadow, and he trusted me to come with him. And that's what I was. His little shadow. We didn't catch anything that first time, but he said it wasn't my fault. He said some days are just like that. "Some days you just come up empty."
The travel out to the clearing didn't take much time at all - at least it didn't seem like it did since I was having so much fun. Ducking under branches, avoiding muddy holes. It was like a game - a beautiful game between us and Nature. When we got to the clearing, we took a spot under a big 'ol tree. I remember it had these enormous roots that we could sit on. And for while that's all we did. We didn't start calling the birds right away. We just sat and took it all in. My father taught me that it was important to do that. The trees, the color of leaves, the space between things. You need to etch those things in your mind, because your memory is all you have.
There was a dead tree off in the distance that had fallen over. It had these holes in it, like rotted pockmarks, and some mushrooms were growing in some of them. And I remember putting it together. That the mushrooms were eating away at the tree every spring and we were slowly watching them, I guess, whittle the tree away to nothing. A process over years, you know? I know they tell us that we live to provide Nature the Structure it lacks, but there was something kinda peaceful about it. Like it had its own Structure in its own way.
It was then that we heard the first warble of the turkeys. It was more than two, I'm sure, and they were yelping about whatever turkeys yelp about. My eyes must've gotten real big, and my dad turned to me with the biggest grin. He was like a big kid too, not cynical about nothing the way other older folks get. He reached into his satchel and pulled out the caller. You make 'em from the wing bones, you know. You take their own bones and can use 'em so they think you're one of them. Like some kind of magic. I hadn't one of my own and I wanted one desperately. My father said the day I killed my first turkey, I could make my own caller.
I watched my father put his lips to the narrow end of the caller, imagining how I would do it when I got mine. He sucked in a little air and it sounded a lot like the turkeys. He cupped his hands around the wider end and with his hands would kinda quiver, changing the sound of the call. After a moment they called back and my father responded that. And pretty soon it was like they were talking like old friends in some language I didn't know nothing about. I remember trying not to giggle because it was all just so funny.
I saw the turkey first. It came in past the dead tree, looking for the bird that was telling all them funny jokes or who knows what. I I grabbed my bow and claimed it. My father nodded to me, put down the caller and slowly lifted his bow to back me up.
We sat patiently watching the turkey strut into our clearing. The turkey was gorgeous. It had a beard longer than my fathers foot, and the feathers looked like the sky at dusk. I took it all in like father told me too and that's why I remember it to this day. I nocked an arrow and pulled back the string. Sight it. I took a breath, held it, and just as I released the arrow the sound of wood cracking echoed in the distance. The turkey turned its head and my arrow sailed wide. Father immediately followed up with an arrow of his own, hitting the turkey in its thigh, insuring our dinner would not run off. The bird hopped around for a moment and then collapsed as my dad shot jumped up from the root he'd been sitting on. I was looking around for what caused that noise but didn't couldn't see anything.
"Look at that! Look at that, Lil!"
I didn't want to because it should have been my bird and I was furious, but I got up any to see what we'd caught. I took one step and I heard the crack again, followed by the sound of so many birds lifting off from their perches as fast as they could. The sky was covered in them, flying off to Bellweather. My dad looked up from the turkey and he said "Lil?" It sounded so frightened and meek. I hate that it came out of my father's mouth like that. I use to cry every night over how pathetic he said my name. But I'll remember it forever like that because that's exactly when it all happened.
There were trees and then there weren't.
You could see them just drop out of existence. My dad turned around and his eyes were bulging and his face was tight and twisted. An awful face. And I watched the ground sink into nothing behind him as he started to run towards me. I think he was screaming something but I couldn't hear it over the sound of the whole forest being ripped apart from the inside. He got right up to me and shoved me so hard I flew back into the big tree we shared. My head bounced off the trunk and I fell onto the root where my father had sat.
When I looked up it was over. I was at the end of the earth and the very edge between everything I knew and... nothing... was at my feet. My father was gone.
I stayed there crying not able to move, afraid that it would start again and suck me down with him. I remember I couldn't breath from all the sobbing and I passed out. When I finally woke up I was in Red Olis' arms. He and some men had come to see what the hell was going on. He looked down at me and I looked up at him and we didn't say anything until we got back to town.
Lily Anne Kariman in an interview 40 years after the Rupture of Grand Hai Forest.
The Rupture of Grand Hai Forest
A sinkhole 1000 feet in diameter and over 300 feet deep opened up in the Grand Hai Forest over 40 years ago. Lily Anne Kariman of Bellweather, a town 4 miles south of The Rupture, is the only surviving witness. The site of "The Rupture" is used as an example of nature's chaos by the Church of Structuralism. Some
Balusters refer to it in their sermons as the antithesis of The Great Steps, which is the notion that humanity's ingenuity and construction elevates it above Nature and closer to the divinity of the Wrights. There are some within the church who want to embrace it as a project. There is one clergy woman in particular who believes that The Rupture is a calling, and that it is humanity's duty to The Wrights to actually build within it. While it is not considered by Structuralist Elders to be a priority, giving Structure to such a natural disaster would certainly be a testament to the Church's will and humanity's divine ingenuity.
Most folks avoid this area of the forest, which is the basis for many stories told around campfires and dinner tables. The debris of countless trees, rocks, and dead animals was a horrifying sight in the days following The Rupture. Few were able to describe the carnage, and even fewer ventured out to see for themselves. For the people who were born after The Rupture, the fear and anxiety isn't as strong, and it's looked at as a tragedy of the past not a portent of disasters to come.
During the rainy months water collects at the bottom of the The Rupture, and the smell of rotting plants is potent. As the water drains, fungal growths emerge from the multitude of dead trees. In the decades since The Rupture hearty plants have emerged from the debris, their stalks reaching ever upward, desperate for the sun's warm embrace. While some claim to have seen animals residing in the depths of the sinkhole, nothing has ever been confirmed by reputable parties.
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