CHAPTER FIVE
Three days. That’s how long the watch sat untouched in my nightstand.
After Penn left me in the alleyway, I ripped the offending item off, the weight of my rejection too heavy to carry. Stuffed into a drawer it went, along with my confusion.
This strange reality I’d faced since arriving in Sacred was another summer I hadn’t chosen, and I was done with those. I needed to recenter, regroup. Maybe look for a job or things to do in a neighboring town. I switched my focus away from the mystery of the gold watch and onto rest and recovery.
I slept in and upped my protein and practiced the yoga routine Vivian had taught me.
I helped her make a bright salad with the farmers market corn, jalapenos, and red peppers.
I started one of the rom-coms wedged in the living room bookshelf.
The only beings who came anywhere near Bearberry Cabin were an unlocked aviary of birds, some pom-pom-tail rabbits, and a coyote.
From the safety of the porch, I watched it visit the creek, backing into the cabin when the smoky-furred creature locked its amber eyes with mine. I see you.
“You should explore the forest,” Tía Viv said late Tuesday morning after I quit reading, not wanting to strain my eyes. We stood at the creek bank, needles and sticks crunching under my sneakers. “There’s something about the air here. I’m glowing, no?”
Today, her riotous hair twisted into a topknot. She wore no makeup, but her skin had that post-facial glow that I saw countless times on LA spa worshippers.
I barked a laugh, pivoting. “You barely leave the shop. How do you know I haven’t been living in the woods?”
She almost smiled. “Because you haven’t.”
I snorted. Tracked a dislodged sprig of oak leaves tumbling down the creek.
“And you need to call your parents.”
My neck reddened. Just like with Ana and Grier, I had kept trying. But the service was just as spotty as the Wi-Fi, and both calls and FaceTime kept dropping. When I clicked onto my Messages app this morning, some of their old texts downloaded at once. The highlights:
Dad: We’re having trouble reaching you. But we know you’re okay with Vivian
Dad: Beautiful day today. We miss you
Mom: Stay safe, and I’m happy you’re in a beautiful place
What did my mother know about Sacred, Oregon? She was probably in Portofino, hosting deck parties or beach excursions with spritz cocktails and striped umbrellas. Beautiful, beautiful. A big, big life.
Besides their summers away, my parents were often called overseas two or three times during the school year.
It was always at the whim of their employer, the billionaire owner of the Mercury.
Mom missed my first period on one of these trips.
They’d missed my award-winning cheer routine, and my science fair blue-ribbon ceremony, and so many sick days.
Tía Viv had been there for those, doing her best to fill the gap.
And really, what would my parents have done all these years without her?
They’d have had no choice but to fly someone from my dad’s Miami family out to LA when they took off.
Or for my mom to simply stay behind. Part of the reason neither of these had ever happened was my tía’s flexible schedule, her willingness to take me in. Her existence.
Now she yawned broadly, bringing me back. “The woods are good for clearing out the bad stuff. We can leave things there. Metaphorically, of course.”
“Right.” I didn’t tell Vivian that I’d been avoiding the forest after Del’s Sacred history lesson at the farmers market.
If the legend about the cascara sagrada triangle was true, there was more to these woods than trees and animals.
But now, better rested and numbed with reality TV, my quiet time was beginning to feel a little too quiet.
A cleared-out head had made me realize my trepidation was silly.
People visited this part of Oregon all the time—some, even to try to encounter something fantastical.
Signs tacked onto shop walls offered nature walks and zip-lining excursions in the same woods that stood just yards from the cabin door.
Vivian went in nearly every morning. She would’ve told me about anything strange.
I turned to ask if she knew anything about any legends or age-old energy fields, but she was already strolling away toward the workshop. “Hey! How easy is it to get lost in there?” I yelled.
My tía didn’t even look back as she passed the tunnel of bark and leaves of gold and green. “Getting lost is the fun part!”
Ten minutes in, I was still waiting for the fun part.
Sure, it was pretty—okay, more than pretty—as I treaded through curiously shaped rocks and tufted grass and a muted rainbow of wildflowers.
I didn’t know if it was my jaded LA sensibilities, or the isolation, or a reprise of the anxiety I’d entertained in unholy doses.
But I wasn’t feeling any of the restorative tranquility that Vivian had talked about.
Was the lack of peace because of something in the forest, or something inside me?
I decided to hunt for the cascara sagrada triangle. I had no real hope of finding anything magical after Del had mentioned she’d never seen it. But my summer home stood right in the place where this tale was born. Why not give it a shot?
Legend or not, I needed to be able to identify the cascara sagrada in the first place.
Cell service was nil as usual, so I went off what Tía Viv had described about the tree.
I wove among tall, spindly, red-barked varieties and bushy conifers.
Probably some pines and oaks. Feathery ferns sprouted at the base of many trunks.
Eventually, my mind wandered as I walked.
Did I forget my dry cleaning in LA? The Reformation dress I wore to senior breakfast?
Was that sound a woodpecker? I wanted to see a real-life woodpecker. If I had to endure Sacred for weeks, I wanted this one thing I only knew from classic cartoons.
Could I afford to stay in LA even if I found some roommates? Should I plan for life somewhere outside California?
It was sunshine that finally stopped my whirling thoughts. The Pacific Northwest isn’t exactly known for being sunny; plus, with the tree canopy overhead, my walk had been a bit dreary. But here, the sun found its way through.
I saw it then—a large cluster of them, actually—cascara sagrada.
They stood a little shorter than the surrounding trees.
Their trunks were tan, dappled with pale gray and lichens.
Leaves grew small and oval in tight clusters near the ends of skinny twigs.
It was summer, so reddish-purple berries popped from the sprigs.
The color gave a ripe invitation to eat them.
But I knew their danger, thanks to Del. I also knew that what I’d found was just a regular tree grove.
Del said the ones in the legend looked like the town logo—a group of three in a triangular formation, clearly set apart.
I took a step forward, but something gave me pause. For a moment, it felt like someone was watching me. I spun in a circle, finding no one. The only sounds were sparrow wings and breezy branches and other hidden forest dwellers.
Was Sacred playing tricks on me?
I shoved out a thick exhale and marched ahead anyway. But ten more steps had me straining against a magnetic field that was no longer a subtle gut tug but the fight-or-flight surge of brain chemicals.
Go back.
Electricity peppered my skin at the whispered voice, and I studied my surroundings again. No magical tree conduits stood anywhere in my path, but something . . . elsewhere was present.
You’re too far. Go back.
Again, the words were barely there, but so close, they seemed to come from inside my head.
I turned, but the path I’d come from was simply gone, erased into the whole of this place. A dozen routes spread out like leafy tunnels.
I’d been lost before. Namely at age seven, in Target, when I’d drifted toward the display of notebooks in the stationery section, thinking my mother was right behind me.
Soon, I was sobbing in the middle of the aisle.
An employee found my mom searching the toy section.
Sure, I liked toys. But I owned at least ten notebooks, even back then when I could barely write.
Hello Kitty, Beauty and the Beast, and slick-covered models with zipped, clear pockets for storing tiny treasures.
Instead of wandering, I’d stayed put, waiting for my mother. Panicking.
Here in the forest, there was no panic. There should have been, but it was as if my instincts had flipped, somersaulting into opposites. My body felt like it did when I floated in the Santa Monica surf. Weightless.
All my feet wanted was motion. So I went, clearing one step, then ten, then one hundred.
Go on. Just keep going.
The voice was the same, but the words changed.
And I obeyed, heartbeat battering against my chest. As I passed shrubs and fallen logs, nothing seemed familiar.
Then a known sound—not natural to the forest, but second nature to me—rang out.
Vivian’s saw. I followed the metallic whine until the cabin loomed, and my pulse finally slowed.
Here was peace. Here, in the coming back, was everything I was supposed to feel in the big and different forest.
Keep going.
Vivian’s table saw revved as I passed the white Ford and the workshop, the Camaro asleep under its tarp. But the urge to follow this perfect path didn’t stop at the creek or the Bearberry Cabin boundary, so I didn’t stop either until the porch and living room were behind me.
Go on. Just keep going.
Finally, the gossamer rope tug ended, and my heart thudded at where I stood.
One more step and I would’ve run into my nightstand.
Three days ago, I’d taken off the gold watch and placed it next to Abuela’s Omega.
And today, I’d walked farther away from it than ever, searching for enchanted cascara trees and woodpeckers and peace.
But it wasn’t the forest or an old legend telling me I’d traveled too far into its depths.
It was another magical force: the watch.
It wanted me to come back and keep close.
That probably should have scared me. Instead, the energy filling my little cabin bedroom felt settled, like finding a missing puzzle piece.
I still had a million questions about the mysterious enchantment that had found me in Sacred. Yet it was also a gift. Fear and shock had overshadowed that at first.
In my nightstand was a valuable timepiece I could sell to fund my future.
The only complication was that Penn’s spirit was trapped inside.
For me to even think of selling this piece and risking the wrong person discovering its secret, I had to find a way to release him. I had to help him find his way home.
I opened the drawer and returned the watch to my wrist. My body gave a sigh that rippled from the inside out.
And as afternoon hit, and I sat outside with lemonade and a snack, the second hand ticked like a fantastical reward.