Previously:

"Look at those trees over there." They both looked toward several strange-looking trees as Liz explained how she'd never noticed them before. "We've driven by them, walked by them, but I've never noticed them before."

Tommy squinted, then opened his eyes wide. "Are those what I think they are?"

"I think so, pretty sure, anyway."

Linda was clearly feeling left out. "What? What's special about them? They do have unusual shapes. What do you both know about them?"

**********

"They're called Culturally Modified Trees. Am I right, Tommy?"

Tommy had caught onto Liz's excitement. "Our people twisted those trees, in different directions for special purposes, when they were just saplings."

"There must have been a slaughter around here. That majorly tangled tree is called an Atrocity tree." Chills ran through Liz's whole being. "Look at how contorted the branches are."

Tommy was reflecting upon how it must have been planned out. "So, they must have twisted and tied the young branches. Someone weighted down particular limbs. Their hearts must have been wrenched."

Linda was catching the enthusiasm. "Then it kept growing and growing into this giant incredible shape. Wow."

"I bet there's a grave marker tree over there too." Tommy stretched his neck to look farther into the smattering of trees.

"It's over there." Liz pointed a little to the left of the Atrocity Tree.

There stood, a most creative tree. It had grown upward for about four feet. It must have been tied down a long time ago because it had grown straight out with a dip. The dip had continued to grow straight upward.

Liz noticed something more."Look, the tree didn't originally grow up from that spot, we're looking at. Follow the ground with your eyes. It looks like a fallen log near it, but that's part of the tree too. Whoa."

Linda realized what Liz was seeing. "They are both pointing in the same direction. What does that mean?"

Tommy had an expression of deep concentration. "That is a grave marker tree. I bet there are burial mounds a little ways back, in that direction."

He took out some tobacco. Looking upward, he said, "Prayers up and tobacco down." Then he chanted while sprinkling tobacco onto the ground. He put his fingers to his forehead and silently bowed. Liz and Linda were respectively still.

"I'm so glad you saw those trees, Liz. What an honor to be in their presence. I will come by later, with some of my friends, who will be pleased. I will also notify Chief Lavendar.

"Well, we should get going. But, I will warn you, there are going to be some switchbacks ahead. I will go slower, so you don't think I've disappeared."

When they'd gotten back into the car, Liz told Linda about the time she and some friends had traveled along Route 1 in California. "There were so many serious twists of switchbacks, we could look behind us, and see where we'd just come from. It was flatter than this, though. There weren't the hills to block us."

Linda was listening to Liz, trying to understand what a switchback was. "What? Where'd he go? I could follow him fine, before." She shook her head in disbelief. "I turn to look at you for a minute, and he's gone?

"Do you think we should go back? Maybe he turned onto another road, and he's sitting, waiting for us to find him." She stopped the car, unsure what to do next. "Maybe I should have let you drive your car, after all."

"I think this may be one of the switchbacks he was alerting us to. Keep driving. Let's creep up a little farther. I bet he's just ahead, waiting for us."

As Linda took the last twist around a tall hill, she breathed a sigh of relief, creating a raspberry sound. "You were right, there he is. Ooh, I do not like switchbacks, I do not like them at all."

As they resumed their travel, Liz warned Linda, they would probably meet more challenges. "Just keep moving ahead, no matter if we can see Tommy or not. He said he'd wait for us."

As the road finally straightened out, they noticed Tommy had switched on his right-turn blinker.

"I wonder what's going on now" Linda pulled up behind him and zipped down the window.

"We thought you had been..." Liz almost used the word,'abducted', but caught herself. "We were afraid, you'd turned onto another road, and we'd missed you."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I told you I'd wait if we lost connection on the turns. We are going to take the turn up ahead. We'll soon come be a fork. You'll swing right, and I'll wind left.

"There's a bed and breakfast about twenty minutes out, for you to spend the night in real beds with clean sheets. From there, you should just follow the road to where the signs direct you to the route you will need to take to head back home."

None of them wanted to say they were going to miss each other. They'd shared much of themselves, emotionally, story-wise, humorously and in meaningful discussions.

With too many reasons to be thankful, they could never list them all. Tommy excused himself for a minute, opened his car door, and returned carrying a couple of his business cards.

"This is the best I can do, is to give you my number to call in case you or any friends are out this way. How can I thank you?"

Linda answered him with a question. "How can we thank you?"

"Well, I guess we're even, then." Tommy laughed. "Okay, let's just say 'goodbye'. I will never forget you ladies and how you changed my life, and my sister's life." He put his fingers to his forehead and bowed in reverence.

They clumsily said their goodbyes and Tommy got back into his car. It wasn't long before they came to the forecasted fork in the road. Tommy went left and Linda turned right.

The sadness growing in their car was interrupted by a sign for the bed and breakfast. Linda accelerated up the incline, as a setting sun behind them reflected on the windows of the house. They could both see a notably, sparsely-populated parking lot, ahead of them.

"Not this again, another location that has been ghosted?" Linda groaned.

Liz said with a gallows huskiness to her voice, "Oh no. This is different. Read the sign."

Linda paused the car at the front door of the building on their left. She tilted her head as she read the official-looking sign. "'Tulip Inn'. What's the big deal?"

"Read the other sign."

Linda slowly read the additional sign. "'Masks Required'."


THE END