Read Online In the Forest of Light and Dark by Mark Kasniak - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Mark Kasniak
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But, there’s no-way I was ever going to be dumb enough or whore enough to ever be a cheerleader.)
It was just a few blocks after we’d passed the high school when my mama had told my step daddy to make a right, and as he made the turn I saw a street sign at the corner that read Collings Avenue. I had recognized it from the letter that Mama had received from my grandmother’s estate lawyers as being the street in which my Grandmother Lyanna’s house was located. We were finally there.
My first thought was that the street appeared picturesque. All the houses looked well-maintained and the place seemed to have a lot of very large, old-growth trees in all the yards. Their enormous branches and canvases of leaves working together to swallow up the scenery behind them like they were trying to keep what lay beyond a secret. I recognized a few of the trees as oaks, others as maples. There was also a myriad of pines scattered throughout the entire area which Mama had said that most of the larger ones were well over two hundred-years-old.
As we passed by one particular house on the street, I noticed a couple of small boys playing in their front yard with a basketball-sized red-rubber ball that bounces. As the boys saw our station wagon approach they stopped playing and took to staring at us as we passed. The smaller of the two sticking out his tongue at me when he noticed me watching him. So, I playfully stuck mine right back at him to see the kind of rise I would get out of him, but all he did was stare back at me with a sour puss.
Further down the road my mama pointed to the right and said to my step daddy, “In there… There!” as the road began to bank into a wide-left curve.
At the time I couldn’t even tell that there was even a driveway there. Not with all the over-grown shrubs and trees that lined the edges of the roadway like a colonnade. But it was there, tucked away among the foliage.
As the Pontiac ascended up the curving driveway, I looked out my window but couldn’t see my grandmother’s house just yet on account of the driveway snaking through a series of ‘S’ curves as it banked around a dozen or so impressively large maples.
But then, there it was slowly coming into view. It was bigger than I had imagined it in my mind. Its grey-brick façade, making it look almost impenetrable and it had a row of evenly spaced dormer windows on the upper floor that peered out like gun turrets. Two massive maples stood in the front yard like giant sentinels standing guard over a castle. There was a large bowed-out window on the first floor that I’d figured was a living room, and a two-car garage that stood on the opposite end. The yard—at least the part that was mowed—stretched out and around the west side of the house disappearing into the rear of the property. There was easily enough room to build horseshoe pits and to set up a volleyball net, and maybe even have a fire pit if we wanted.
“Behind the house, past the yard and just down a small escarpment is the Genesee River. And, just beyond that lay the state forest I’d mentioned.” My mama said to me as the Pontiac slowly braked to a squeaky stop.
“Sounds pretty cool, I’ll have to check it out.” I told her giving her a perfunctory answer as I exited the vehicle, but I wasn’t really listening to her. At the time I was too eager to get out of the car and check things out for myself rather than stay and listen to what she or anybody else had to say.
“Yeah, but wait for me though, okay, honey?” My mama, then said while looking back at me over the roof of the car. “Those woods are really big and dangerous. You can get yourself turned around in them pretty fast. As I was growing up we’d hear stories all the time on the news about a how kid or some hiker would get lost in these woods—search and rescue having to eventually find the body. And, it
It was just a few blocks after we’d passed the high school when my mama had told my step daddy to make a right, and as he made the turn I saw a street sign at the corner that read Collings Avenue. I had recognized it from the letter that Mama had received from my grandmother’s estate lawyers as being the street in which my Grandmother Lyanna’s house was located. We were finally there.
My first thought was that the street appeared picturesque. All the houses looked well-maintained and the place seemed to have a lot of very large, old-growth trees in all the yards. Their enormous branches and canvases of leaves working together to swallow up the scenery behind them like they were trying to keep what lay beyond a secret. I recognized a few of the trees as oaks, others as maples. There was also a myriad of pines scattered throughout the entire area which Mama had said that most of the larger ones were well over two hundred-years-old.
As we passed by one particular house on the street, I noticed a couple of small boys playing in their front yard with a basketball-sized red-rubber ball that bounces. As the boys saw our station wagon approach they stopped playing and took to staring at us as we passed. The smaller of the two sticking out his tongue at me when he noticed me watching him. So, I playfully stuck mine right back at him to see the kind of rise I would get out of him, but all he did was stare back at me with a sour puss.
Further down the road my mama pointed to the right and said to my step daddy, “In there… There!” as the road began to bank into a wide-left curve.
At the time I couldn’t even tell that there was even a driveway there. Not with all the over-grown shrubs and trees that lined the edges of the roadway like a colonnade. But it was there, tucked away among the foliage.
As the Pontiac ascended up the curving driveway, I looked out my window but couldn’t see my grandmother’s house just yet on account of the driveway snaking through a series of ‘S’ curves as it banked around a dozen or so impressively large maples.
But then, there it was slowly coming into view. It was bigger than I had imagined it in my mind. Its grey-brick façade, making it look almost impenetrable and it had a row of evenly spaced dormer windows on the upper floor that peered out like gun turrets. Two massive maples stood in the front yard like giant sentinels standing guard over a castle. There was a large bowed-out window on the first floor that I’d figured was a living room, and a two-car garage that stood on the opposite end. The yard—at least the part that was mowed—stretched out and around the west side of the house disappearing into the rear of the property. There was easily enough room to build horseshoe pits and to set up a volleyball net, and maybe even have a fire pit if we wanted.
“Behind the house, past the yard and just down a small escarpment is the Genesee River. And, just beyond that lay the state forest I’d mentioned.” My mama said to me as the Pontiac slowly braked to a squeaky stop.
“Sounds pretty cool, I’ll have to check it out.” I told her giving her a perfunctory answer as I exited the vehicle, but I wasn’t really listening to her. At the time I was too eager to get out of the car and check things out for myself rather than stay and listen to what she or anybody else had to say.
“Yeah, but wait for me though, okay, honey?” My mama, then said while looking back at me over the roof of the car. “Those woods are really big and dangerous. You can get yourself turned around in them pretty fast. As I was growing up we’d hear stories all the time on the news about a how kid or some hiker would get lost in these woods—search and rescue having to eventually find the body. And, it
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