Everything about this place was wonderful and new, full of magic. “It’s like another planet here,” Helen said, leaning into Nate, who hugged her from behind.
He showed her the pitcher plants with red heart-like flowers and leaves at the bottom shaped like little pitchers.
“They’re carnivorous,” he said. “Bugs are drawn into the pitcher and they drown in the water there, then the plant digests them.”
“Why don’t they just crawl out?”
“They’re trapped. The sides are sticky and have little teeth. Once they’re in, there’s no easy way out.”
Helen shivered.
At the heart of the bog was a deep pool of dark water. Water lilies floated on the surface. Dragonflies soared over the top.
“I wonder how deep it is,” Helen mused.
“Could be pretty deep. It’s spring fed—feel how cold the water is here.”
They got to the other side of the bog and found piles of large round fieldstone on the solid ground at the edge.
“An old wall, maybe,” Nate suggested.
Helen walked around, looking. “No. Look, there are four sides.” She stepped back, getting a better view. “It’s an old foundation. There was a building out here once, Nate! Maybe a small house!” She walked back up to the foundation, got a little thrill as she stood there, right on the place where she imagined a front door had once opened.
“Funny place for a house, so close to the bog,” Nate said, brow furrowing in that way it did when something confused him, didn’t make sense to his rational mind.
Helen leaned down, picked up a rock, wondered who had stacked it, how long ago, and what had happened to them. The rock seemed almost alive to her, thrumming with history, with possibility. She wondered what else she might find if she did a little digging around the site—glass, pottery, bits of metal—signs of the people who’d once lived there.
“I bet there are old records, something that would tell us who lived here and when,” she said, getting excited. Maybe this had something to do with the ghost the realtor had mentioned that first day. Seeing proof of an actual building renewed her resolve to start looking into the history of the land—history that she was now directly linked to as the current owner and steward. “I’ll stop in at the town clerk’s office and library this week and see what I can find out.”
Nate mumbled, “Sounds good, hon.” He was squatting down by a clump of pitcher plants, staring down the throat of one of them.
Helen set the rock back down gently, caught a hint of movement to the side, and turned her head.
“Do you see that?” she asked.
“What?” He looked up.
She pointed to the edge of the other side of the bog. “That huge bird.”
Nate followed her finger, spotted the wading bird, and smiled. “Oh man! That’s a great blue heron!”
It was a tall bird with a long neck and stork-like legs, and it wasn’t blue at all but a lovely gray.
The bird turned and stared, eyes glowing yellow.
Intruders,the eyes seemed to say.What are you doing here?
“She’s watching us,” Helen said.
“How do you know it’s a female?” Nate asked.
“I just do,” Helen said.
Nate pulled out his phone, started taking pictures of it. “I so wish I had my camera!” he said. “When we get back, I’ll look it up. Most birds have different coloration between the males and females.”
The bird grew tired of watching, or of being watched, and took off, its enormous wings flapping, long legs tucked tight under its body, head and neck pulled back into an S shape.
They turned to go, and Helen’s eye caught on something near the ground.
