A Gap in the Trees

You kneel on a flat stone with your left palm on the rock. Under it, eleven small taps, and then nothing. If you wrote down ECHO, the last tap comes slower on the left. The compass lies open on your right hand. Northeast, you say, to the stone.

Above you the hill goes on up to a small orange flag. Below, to the northeast, it drops to a creek. The trees stand close all round.

You stand and turn, and on your wrist four white corners hop from square to square and stop on the one you would step into. You step toward the creek. The branches shake, a hard buzz goes up your wrist, and you have not moved. The four white corners have not left their square. You turn one point and step. The branches shake. You turn one more and step, and they do not.

You walk through a gap in the trees, into a clearing no bigger than a room. In the grass lies a pinecone, gold the whole way round. You step onto it. It rings once, high and small, and is not there.

Far under the hill, a bat turns toward the sound.