text: Imagine you are out in the wilderness, camping with your family. You need some alone time. So you walk off into the woods. There is something of a path. It may be a game trail. It goes off in a direction you have seldom travelled. Away from the camp, the lake, the anything interesting in the area. A path for someone who truly wants to be alone as they wander off into the woods. It is the middle of the afternoon, on a bright and cheery day, in a secret camp. A place your family has come for years. You don’t know how they first found it. This is the place they have always spent at least one week in the summer going back generations. You walk out. The woods are as bright as the day. Along the way you meet another trail. A wider one. Much easier to follow. Leading you deeper into the woods. There is something strange about this new path. You have moved into the shade of a thick forest now. As you walk along you start to notice that the trees to each side grow unnaturally close together. Then you notice the ruts and it clicks. This was once a road. The trees on each side have closed off light. Preventing any plants from growing where the road itself used to be. Along the way there are indents in the dirt with unnaturally sharp angles. Places where basement walls must have collapsed. Which implies that the buildings were not left behind. Only the foundations were. Then the forest opens up. Trees blot out the sun and no underbrush grows. It is getting a little harder to pick your way through. Fallen trees and branches litter the ground. Still there are flattened paths. You can vaguely guess where roads once passed. As though you are in the middle of a long forgotten town. The easiest path leads you down. Into something of a valley. Or at least a depression. Ahead the forest wall thickens. It looks like a clearing. With the leaves thick to absorb the sun. Unlike the more open space you have been walking through so far. Pushing past a large branch. A rough scratchy bit of pine with long thin needles that brush uncomfortably against your arm. You find yourself in a large open space. The first thing you notice is the church. A big black stone building with a sagging wood roof. Around it the land is covered with dying brown shrubs. You see several toppled tombstones beside what little path there is. Even in the bright sun this place seems dreary and slightly repellant. Still, there is something compulsive about it. Details start to click. You can see the main doors. But, the steeple is on the far side. The opposite of a Christian church. The windows, stained glass, are all intact. Despite the collapse of some buttresses, part of the roof, and the generally rotten state of the wood. The building slants slightly to the side. Its walls bulged and slightly twisted as the structure is slowly failing to support its own weight. Curiosity overwhelms caution. You approach the door. It looks hinged to open inwards. You are about to simply push. When you realize the wood has long rotted away from the hinges. This place does not welcome noise. You carefully lift the door inwards. Leaning it against the stone wall. Sunlight follows you. Intruding in this place. Again, unlike a church, the entrance is fairly small. Stone closes it off from the main room. There are paths to each side. You explore these side rooms. Wrought iron and dust show where benches, shelves, and hooks used to be. Changing rooms perhaps? But, what church requires costumes for the flock? You pull out your phone. Of course there is no reception here. But, it still makes a perfectly useful flashlight. The floor is a mess of dust and pine needles. The walls pale and moldy over peeling paint of some dark color. Each change room leads back to the middle. To the worship room. This place is well yet strangely lit. Sunlight filtered through the stained glass. Windows in geometric patterns that seem unsettling. Odd colors play over every surface. Stone benches in the place of pews. Most everything is covered in a thick layer of dust. Even the debris from where part of the roof collapsed. Light streams through that hole like water into a sinking ship. Highlighting a random section of stone along the far wall. As though that one brick in particular was exceptionally important. Instead of a cross. The far wall is dominated by what appears to be an upside down ankh. You make your way to the back. The room beyond the pulpit, on the right hand side, appears to be an office. Inside you find a surprisingly intact desk. Intact in that it is instantly recognizable as such. It has collapsed to one side. The wood is warped and rotten. The walls are covered in shelves. These are in even better shape. Perhaps more amazing are the books. Many of which are not merely recognizable as such. But, are also somewhat legible along the spine. Or they appear to be. Most seem to be titled in a language you do not understand. Many are covered in unfamiliar glyphs. From an alphabet unlike any you have ever seen. There are two books in Latin. And you find one leather bound volume that appears to be Arabic. On the desk is a notebook, perhaps a journal. It is in better shape than the others. You dare to pick it up and glance through a few pages. It is written in some sort of cipher. The letters, numbers, and astrological signs are familiar. The order is not. It begins to fall apart in your hand. As though no hard evidence is willing to leave this place. Or maybe that is needlessly dire and it is just paper exposed to the elements for too long. There is another doorway beyond the office. It leads to a staircase. You head back to the worship room for a moment. Grab a branch from the rubble. Then return. Wielding the branch, your weapon against the thick cobwebs along the stairs. You head up to the steeple. Your phone the only light in this place. The top does not possess a bell. Instead there is a room fifteen feet square. This place is filled with cobwebs. So thick you can hardly see anything before you start to brush them away with your stick. A stone dais in the center. Surrounded by eight wrought iron chairs. Between the chairs the walls have more windows. Once they had shutters. Those now lay on the floor. Behind the chairs are painted slabs of wood. Everything in this room is impossibly intact. The paintings are of some bizarre alien life forms. The stained glass in the windows is still geometric. There is something maddeningly close to meaning in those shapes. A small asymmetric metal box sits open on the dais. Dust and cobwebs hide it. You brush them clear to find what appears to be a snow globe. Inside is a simple representation of a creature you recognize easily. How could you not? It has been a part of your life for as long as you can remember. Everything about the shape is exactly what it must be. In the same way you know exactly what it wants. The only thing it ever wants or ever could have wanted. On the underside of the bauble is a faded yellow price tag. It reads “tree fiddy.