I am ten years old and holding a small handful of nuts and seeds, arm outstretched and still as a statue. I’ve long since lost the ability to be so motionless that songbirds deem my hand a safe place to land. I shake too much nowadays.

Chickadee-dee-dee-dee-dee!

My little brother calls out as he bounds towards me. I scold him for spooking the birds, tossing the birdfeed onto the ground below the tree and cleaning the traces of peanuts from my hands. I ask if he wants to go see the horses. I never got caught by the neighbours for beckoning their horses over with wild raspberries and patting their muzzles. I made sure to triple-check that they weren’t around to see each time I did. 

He says he wants to play pool in the basement, even though neither of us actually know how. We wield the sticks like swords instead. By nightfall, the alien around the corner, pinned to a wood-panelled wall beside the furnace, begins to glow and we’re called upstairs because the sauna is ready.

We take our damp swimsuits from the clothing line hanging from the porch and put them on. Bathed in heat, I toss water on the stones once, twice, before my mother stops me. The steam is already thickening. She says I’m getting ahead of myself. I wait a couple of minutes to toss another bowlful.

More löyly, more löyly, la-la-la-la-la!

We leave the next day and come back a week later to see our cousins. We race to the picnic table at the back of the old tree farm and dance on it. We venture deeper through the wood to find the small towers of stones we built last time. We create new places between us and leap through the grasses barefoot whilst avoiding prickly summer plants. The scent of pine wraps around us until nightfall, when the sounds of coyotes chase us back to the hearth. We wash the day from our skin in the pool before going to sleep, our heads buzzing with the sounds of a hidden world.

The trees and grasses are lost to us, as well as the birds, the pool, the alien, and the sauna. All that is left is what those children conjured, and there in our minds it will remain.

The smell of wood smoke lingered on our clothes for days after we departed. Some of my belongings still smell of it, the scent having sunk its teeth firmly into the thread. I keep them in safe places, away from any filth that might force me to chip away at what they carry.

I will see you very soon, I promise.