Chapter 8 Eight

Ellie had been at school for a week, and on the Saturday before the college students returned to school, the Creeds were sitting on the lawn, Ellie had just ridden, drinking iced tea, and Gage was crawling in the grass Crawling to see worms and maybe eating a few, he doesn't care what his source of protein is.Crandall came across the street towards them. "Chad," Louis said, standing up, "I'll get you a chair." "No," said Chad, who was wearing jeans, an open-neck shirt, and green boots, looking at Allie, "do you still want to know where that path leads?"

"Yeah!" Ellie jumped up immediately, her eyes lit up, and said, "George Barker at school said it led to the pet cemetery, and I told my mother, but she said I'd wait for you, because you knew where it led .” "I do know, too," said Chad, "we can go for a walk there if your parents don't mind. But you gotta wear your boots, it's kind of muddy." Ellie ran into the house to get the boots. Chad looked at her fondly and said, "Maybe you want to go, too, Louis?" "Yes." Louis replied.He looked at Rachel and asked, "Do you want to go, honey?"

"What about Gage? I think it's a mile." "I put him in the harness." Rachel laughed and said, "Okay, but on your back, sir." They set off in 10 minutes, all in boots except Gage.Gage sat in the harness and stared around over Louis' shoulder.Ellie kept running ahead, chasing butterflies, picking flowers, and the grass in the field was waist deep.It was autumn, but the sun was still hot, and Louis had sweat under his armpits when they reached the top of the first hill. Jud stopped, and at first Louis thought he was coming, because the old man was tired too—but then he saw another mountain behind him. "Right up there," said Jud with a blade of grass in his mouth.Louis heard from the old man's precise southern accent a feeling that he hadn't finished speaking.

"It's beautiful!" Rachel gasped, almost reproachfully, to Louis. "Why didn't you tell me?" "I didn't know there was a mountain here either," Louis said, feeling a little ashamed.They are still on their homeland, and I have not had time to climb the mountain behind the house until today. Ellie has been running in front, and now she is back and staring at the hill curiously, Churchill walks lightly at Ellie's feet.The mountain is not high, and it does not need to be high.The lush woods in the east cover the view, and the golden land in the west is like a dream in late summer.Everything is silent and hazy.Not even a big Orinco truck on the highway to break the tranquility.Of course, there is a river valley on the side of the mountain, the river is wide, and the river flows quietly, as if sinking into a dream.The spire of the church in the distance sticks out from a grove of old elm trees, and the outline of the brick wall of the school where Ellie goes to can be seen on the right.White clouds fluttered overhead, the sky was azure blue, and the breath of late summer was everywhere.

"It's really beautiful," Louis said at last. "People used to call it Mount Hope," said Chad, putting another cigarette in his mouth but failing to light it. "Some people still call it that, but younger people have moved to the city, and this mountain is almost forgotten. I don't think many people come here, because the mountain is not high, it seems that there is not much to see, But you can see—" He waved a hand and stopped. "Can see everything," Rachel said in a low voice of awe, and she turned to Louis and asked, "Honey, do we own the mountain?"

Before Louis could answer, Chad said, "Oh yes, it's part of your estate." Mountains are not the same as real estate, Louis thought. It's a little cooler in the woods, maybe eight or ten degrees.The path is still spacious, with some flowers in pots scattered along the roadside, and the road is covered with dried pine needles.They walked down the hill, about a quarter of the way, when Jud stopped Ellie and said kindly, "It's a good little girl to come here for a walk, but I want you to promise Mom and Dad that if you come here Be sure to stay on the trail." "I promise," Allie said, and immediately asked, "Why?"

Jud glanced at Louis, who was tired from back gage and stopped to rest. "Do you know where you are?" Louis shook his head.Chad pointed his thumb back from his shoulder: "That's the city. This is a forest that stretches for more than 50 miles. People here call it the North Lutheran Forest, but this forest is next to Orrington and Locke. Ford. At the end of the woods is the land I told you the Indians wanted back. I know it all sounds funny, and on one side is your nice house on the highway with a phone. Lights, wire TV and all, and there's savages on the other side, but it's true." The old man turned back to Ellie and said, "I mean you don't want to get lost in the woods, Ellie. If you don't walk on the road, you will get lost Yes. Then only God knows where you are."

"I won't, Mr. Crandall." Ellie was touched by the old man's words, and even showed awe, but she was not afraid.Louis could tell, but Rachel was looking at Chad with some uneasiness, and Louis felt a little uncomfortable himself.He thought maybe it was the city people's instinctive fear of the forest complex.He himself had found his way with a compass at Boy Scout camp twenty years earlier, and he was no longer sure how to judge direction by the dipper and the moss growing on the trees. Chad looked at them and smiled. "None of us have gotten lost in the woods since 1934, at least not the natives. The last one who got lost was Will Jepsen."

Rachel asked nervously, "You mean the locals don't get lost anymore?" Louis understood his wife's thoughts almost immediately: We're not locals.At least not yet. Chad paused, nodded and said, "It's true that a tourist gets lost every two or three years here, because they think they won't get lost if they stay away from the main road. But don't worry, ma'am, they haven't disappeared forever." "Are there moose in the woods?" Rachel asked worriedly.Louis smiled. If Rachel wanted to worry, no one could stop her. "Oh, you might see a moose," Chad said, "but it won't give you trouble, Rachel. Moose are a little restless during mating season, and other times they just stare when they meet people .The only people these moose chase after in rut are the ones from Massachusetts. I don't know why." Louis thought the old man was joking, but the old man looked serious. "I've seen it a couple of times. People from Massachusetts climbing trees and yelling at a herd of moose. The moose are amazingly big. Like moose can smell Massachusetts people, maybe they wear I don't know about the smell of new clothes, either. I wish some animal husbandry students at the university would write a paper on this phenomenon. But I don't think anyone will."

"What's a rut?" Ellie asked. "You don't need to know," Rachel said, "but Elle, you're not allowed to come here without grown-ups." " Chad was a little uncomfortable. "I'm not scaring you, Rachel - to scare you or your daughter. Don't be scared in these woods. The road is fine, only a little bit more bedbugs in the spring and muddy at other times - except in 1955 Well, it was the driest year I've ever seen in my life. And there are no poison vines and poison oaks on this road, but there are behind the school grounds. Elle, you don't go near those poison things, or you have to I have to take ointment baths for three weeks."

Ellie covered her mouth and giggled. "It's a safe road," said Chad earnestly. Rachel was still in disbelief.Chad went on to say, "Hey, I bet even Gage could walk this way. The kids in town come here a lot, I told you, they keep the roads pretty good, no one told them to do it, they did it themselves I did. I don't want Ellie to feel bad." He bent over and winked at Ellie. Go off the right track, and if you're unlucky, you'll get lost. Then a search party will have to be sent to find you." They went on.Louis was starting to feel a little pain in his back from the baby's suspenders.From time to time Gage would grab his hair with both hands, give it a tug, or kick him in the back.Mosquitoes, which had survived for a few days, buzzed around his face and neck, biting him, making people weep. The trail winds through the old cedar forest.The roads were rough, and Louis' boots sometimes got stuck in the mud.For a part of the way they were walking on a patch of grass, and that was the worst part of the way.Then I started climbing again, with trees on both sides.Gaiji gained 10 pounds like magic, and the weather seemed to be 10 degrees hotter.Sweat trickled down Louis's face. Rachel asked, "Honey, what do you think? Let me recite it for a while?" "No, I'm fine," Louis said.Although his heart speeded up a lot like a whip, he was fine.He is more used to prescribing people to exercise more, but not exercising much himself. Chad and Ellie walked side by side, Ellie's lemon-yellow trousers and red blouse shining brilliantly in the dark brown-green shade. "Louis, do you think he really knows where he's taking us?" Rachel asked in a low, anxious voice. "Of course," Louis said. Chad looked back and shouted happily: "It's not too far...Louis, can you hold on?" Louis thought, My God, this old man is in his 80s, and I don't think he's even breaking a sweat. "I'm fine." Louis replied defiantly.Even if he felt that he was going to have coronary heart disease, his pride would make him answer that way.He grinned, tightened his straps, and moved on. They climbed to the top of the second mountain.The trail winds its way down the hillside, gradually narrowing.Louis watched Chad and Allie walk under a weathered, curved wooden sign that read "Pet Sematary" legible in black. Louis and Rachel looked at each other amusedly, walked under the wooden sign, and instinctively reached out and shook each other's hands together, as if they were here for a wedding. For the second time that morning Louis fell into astonished contemplation. There was no carpet of pine needles here, but a neatly manicured circle of grass perhaps forty feet in diameter.Thick criss-cross bushes lined the lawn on three sides, and fallen trees piled up in disorder on the other side, looking eerie and dangerous.Adults would have to wear protective boots to walk over there or climb over the mess, Louis thought.The clearing was littered with signs, made of planks, splinters, and tin strips, evidently made of whatever the children could get their hands on.In contrast to the surrounding trees and shrubs that are vigorously expanding their territories and competing for sunlight, it seems that the purpose of building a pet cemetery is even more prominent.The symmetry of life and death is more profound here, which makes people feel mysterious, not a Christian sacredness, but a pagan mystery. "It's beautiful," Rachel said insincerely. "Wow!" Ellie exclaimed. Louis took off the straps and put Gage on the ground. Gage could move around, and Louis felt a sense of relief on his back. Ellie ran from one tombstone to the next, screaming at each one she saw.Louis followed her, and Rachel watched Gage.Chad sits cross-legged with his back against a protruding rock, smoking a cigarette. Louis noticed that this place not only looked neat and uniform, but also that the tombstones were arranged in concentric circles.A wooden slatted tombstone reads: Smucky the Cat, below: An Obedient Cat, and below that: 1971-1974.The handwriting is that of a child, but seriously.Dimly read in red handwriting on a wooden sign on the outskirts: Beverly, and below these two lines: Beverly, Beverly; the capable little dog with a good nose; he died and created for us Wealth reduces poverty. Chad said, "Beverl's the Dessler's long-haired dog. He was run over by a car last year. There's a poem on it, right?" Soot was buried in it. "There are two lines of poetry," Louis replied. Some of the graves had flowers on them, some were withered, and others were rotting.Half the inscriptions Louis was trying to decipher were penciled or painted, and more than half were blurred or not readable at all.Others had no markings at all, and Lewis guessed they might have been written in chalk or crayon. "Mom!" Ellie called, "There's a goldfish's grave here, come and see!" "I'm not watching," Rachel said.Louis glanced at her.The wife stood alone at the outermost edge of the pet cemetery, looking extremely uncomfortable.Louis thought: even here she was depressed.She was always uncomfortable in situations involving death, perhaps because of her sister.Rachel's older sister had died very young, and her death had left a scar on Rachel's heart that Louis knew about when they were first married, so he seldom mentioned it.Her sister, whose name was Zelda, died of spinal meningitis.Her fatal illness was probably long and excruciating, and Rachel was probably just at an impressionable age.Maybe it would do her good to forget about that past. Louis smiled thoughtfully at his wife, and Rachel smiled gratefully.Then Louis looked up, and they were in a natural open field with lush grass and sunshine, but the grass needed watering and loving care.The water may be brought up with a jug or carried on the back.It's strange, Louis thought again, that kids keep doing these things for so long.He also thought of his enthusiasm for doing things when he was young, just like Ellie now, like burning newsprint, burning fast, burning hot, but quickly extinguished. The further you go, the older the pet's grave is, and the inscription on it becomes more and more blurred, but the age can still be seen.There are 1968, 1965, 1958, 1953, even 1929 and 1939 and so on.These pets include rabbits, dogs, parrots and more.Louis finds a tombstone made of stone with the inscription: Hannah - Best Dog.Although the writing was small, Louis could imagine that some child must have spent hours carving these words into the stone.The love of children for their pets and the grief of their death is so heart-wrenching.Some people cannot do this even with their own dead parents or their own dead children. "Man, this tomb is really old," Louis said to Chad, who was strolling towards him. Chad nodded and said, "Come here, Louis, I want to show you something." They were only three rows from the center of the cemetery when Chad stopped in front of a grave with wooden slats that had fallen over.Jud knelt down and lifted the wooden bar, and then said to Louis, "It used to have writing on it, and I carved it myself. But it's gone now. My first dog, Spot, is buried here. It died of old age, right in 1914, when the First World War broke out." Thinking that this tomb was even older than some people's, Louis was a little dazed.He continued walking toward the center of the cemetery, inspecting several tombstones, the words on which were barely legible.Most were covered with moss, and one fallen tombstone had grass growing over it.He lifted the board, and there were several beetles crawling around underneath.Louis felt a little chilled.He thought, this is a graveyard for pets, I don't like it. "When were these graves?" Chad put his hands in his pockets and said, "Jesus, I don't know. They were here when Spot died. I had a bunch of friends. They helped me dig Spot for Spot together. You You know, it's not easy to dig a hole here, it's full of rocks. I help people sometimes. If I remember correctly, the one over there is Pat's dog's grave, and the three of Glotley's are buried side by side in that one. Cat. Old Fletch kept a lot of carrier pigeons. I buried one with Grottley and Hannah, and it was killed by the dogs. There it is." He paused for a moment, thinking, and said : "You know, I'm the last of our gang alive. My mates, they're all dead, they're all dead." Louis just stood with his hands in his pockets, looking at the pets' graves, without saying a word. "The fields here are full of rocks, so you can't grow anything, I think, it's just a burial ground," Chad said. Gage wept softly across the road.Rachel picked him up on her back and said to Louis, "Baby is hungry, I think we should go back, Louis." Her eyes were begging, go back, please? "Of course," Louis said.He put on his braces, turned to let his wife put Gage in, and called again, "Ellie, hi, Allie, where are you?" Rachel pointed to the fallen log pile and said, "There she is." Ellie was climbing on the pile of logs, like climbing a school railing. "Oh, baby, come down and get out of there!" cried Chad alertly. "You'll get your foot in holes and crevices and break your ankles." Ellie jumped down and ran towards them screaming and rubbing her ass.She didn't scratch the skin, but a hard dead branch tore her trousers. "You see I'm right," said Jud, stroking her hair, "that's the kind of tangle that no one who knows the woods really wants to climb over if he can get around it. The pile of trees has become vicious, and they would bite you if they could." "Really?" Ellie asked. "Really. You see, they pile up like grass. If you happen to step on the wrong foot, all the logs will come down like an avalanche." Allie looked at Louis and asked, "Dad, is it true?" "I think so, baby." "Damn it!" Ellie turned her head and yelled at the messy pile of wood: "You broken wood, you tore my pants!" The three adults all laughed.The pile of wood wasn't funny, it just glowed white in the sun, as if it had been there for decades.It looked to Louis like the skeleton of a monster slain by knights long ago, like the bones of a dragon in a great boulder pile. It occurred to Louis again that this log pile would be a convenient way to connect the pet cemetery to the woods over there, the Indian forest that Chad later accidentally mentioned.This randomly stacked random wood is like a perfect work of art by nature.it-- Just then, Gage grabbed Louis by one ear, squealed and twisted happily, and Louis forgot about the woods beyond the pet cemetery.It's time to go home.