The Enchanted Woods

What’s on my mind? We saw the Enchanted Woods this morning. The sun lit the trails; glorious glorious! I hope you never see them.

It took us two years to find the woods, and then only because we followed up on a whispered rumor.

I won’t tell you the location of the woods’ unmarked entrance, or the name of the picturesque creek that meanders through the trees. 

I won’t lead you to the many places in these same woods where the trees grimace and glare. I won’t tell you where to find Sir Douglas’ castle, or take you to what appears to be a small grave, marked with a branch-and-bark cross. I won’t reveal the place where someone left an ode to Karen: “My friend, my angel.” 

These are, after all, the “Enchanted Woods” - a magical place in which flat stones are transformed into birds’ eggs laid in sea shells; in which stones are painted to look like dinosaurs’ eggs, ladybugs, and snails. 

If you stumbled on this place, you’d only bring your city friends with their city ways, and that would be no good. 

They’d tramp around in their city clothes and city shoes, oblivious to the magic just beyond the shadows and the trees. Your city friends wouldn’t notice the teddy bears and action figures and other toys abandoned by the long-ago children who transitioned to adulthood and forgot about this place. 

More than two dozen species of songbirds live here - pileated woodpeckers, flickers, dippers, pine siskins, juncos, winter wrens, robins, chickadees, cedar waxwings, jays … In and around the creek are red-tailed squirrels, raccoons, mink, West Coast black-tail deer, black bears, cut-throat trout, fresh water shrimp, bullhead frogs, Northern red-legged frogs, tree frogs … 

Bits and pieces of artwork are nailed to trees, tucked into holes at their bases or closeted in their branches. There are tiny, moss-draped figurines from another era. There are statuettes of plaster dwarfs, cemented gnomes, and plastic elves. An amber pendant dangles from a branch, swaying in the wind. 

Some of these things have monetary value; most do not. To remove even one item would be bad karma, I think. Mess with magic, and magic has a way of biting you in the butt.

There is schlock: The reclining frog; the frog under a mushroom umbrella. And more schlock: The plaster skunk and plastic hedgehog, circa 1960. What matters is that these things once gave someone pleasure, and are doing so again.

And then there are the signs: “I came, I sawed, I fixed it,” says one. “Let your colors shine!” says another, crayoned on a shell. 

I can safely guess there are at least 150 pieces of lost, donated, and hand-crafted treasure in the acres and acres of trails that encircle the Enchanted Woods. The people of the island where I live are the guardians of this place. The location of these woods must remain a secret.

No offence intended, but you’re not wanted here.

© Nicole Parton, 2019