Field journal — volume IX
A field journal of moonlit expeditions, pressed leaves, and unhurried correspondence with the night.
The pack is laid open on the cabin floor: wool blanket, oilskin cloak, a pewter compass that once belonged to Granduncle Eames. The lamp guttered twice as I packed, perhaps the wind through the chinking, perhaps an omen. The moon will rise at 7:42 and I intend to be on the ridge by then, breath visible, boots laced twice.
She came over the spruce line slowly, the colour of unsalted butter. The valley below held a thin mist that the moonlight only half-touched. I marked the bearings (NNE, 22° elevation) and waited. A horned owl spoke twice, then stopped, as if it too were listening for something.
“The light fell on the birches like a hand laid gently on a sleeping animal.”
Found at the base of a fallen oak: three leaves, one nearly perfect. Slipped them between page sixteen and seventeen with a length of waxed thread. By morning the colours will deepen and the veins will be drawn in by the pressure of the book itself, which seems an honest way for a thing to be remembered.
Hummed the old air about the river-going boat, the one Mother used to sing while kneading. The moon was high and the trees were still and for a moment everything seemed to hold its breath in agreement. I do not believe in signs, exactly, but I am willing to be wrong.
The kettle hissed on the camp stove. Tea, dark and overbrewed, with a knot of honey from the comb at the bottom of the tin.
A doe and her fawn passed twenty paces from the cairn while I was sketching. Their tracks looked as if drawn by a careful hand, neat parentheses pressed into the leaf-litter. I followed them as far as the creek, where they ended, the way a sentence ends without a period.
| Mark | Depth | Spacing |
|---|---|---|
| Doe | 4mm | 62cm |
| Fawn | 2mm | 38cm |
| Crow | 1mm | n/a |
The sky was the colour of weak tea by the time I came down. My boots are wet through, my fingers stiff. I will lay the journal open on the kitchen table to dry; the pages have taken on the smell of pine smoke, which I do not mind. The lantern is out. The moon, too, has gone to bed.
— Faithfully recorded, E. Wren