Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there lived a boy who was unfurling in his youth. This boy lived in a town surrounded by forests and ghosts.

He was a woodcutter, this boy and so during the day he’d go to the woods with his father and help to chop down trees. They would always make sure there was another woodcutter around so that one could take turns standing guard.

I won’t bore you but the basic premise ends with the boy becoming a young man, not listening and being enticed into the woods by a female ghost. Of course he lived happily ever after, though the villagers only heard screams, which they assumed were his.

I was contemplating this story while in a trip at Olympic National Park. Reason being that. I had seen some off color art carved into trees and a park ranger mentioned a lost boy who did them.

Of course I didn’t take him seriously, but when I heard a child’s laughter floating through the woods I cut my hike short and turned around, preferring the comfort of my car to the dark unknown forest with only my tent to keep out ghosts.

Funny how that works, how a grown man can, once outside of his normal environment, come to believe in ghosts — and to have been primed by a story from childhood no less.

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