Wheel

“Gina, slow down! I can’t keep up!”

Gina always ran really fast when she was excited to show me something. I guess that surge of adrenaline gave her an extra boost. Maybe if I knew why she was so excited, I could run a little faster too.

“It’s just over there! Come on!

“It’s too rocky! I’m gonna fall! Wait up!”

She wasn’t going to wait up. She was ahead of me by at least thirty feet. I could barely see her moving through the trees. What could be so amazing all the way out here, anyway?

After a few more minutes, I lost total sight of Gina. I knew the general direction she was going, though, so I just kept running. It was the middle of the day and we weren’t too far from home. If worst came to worst, I could just turn around and wait for her at home.

And she did say “it’s just over there,” so it couldn’t be too much farther. I decided to walk the rest of the way. I was practically hyperventilating and I didn’t even know what for. I’d catch my breath and cool off a bit.

The trees started thinning out and I saw a clearing in the forest up ahead. Gina was standing in the middle of the clearing on some rocks.

“This is it‽ A clearing and some rocks‽” Now I was a little pissed off. All that running just to see some rocks in a clearing? What a bunch of bull crap.

“Look down,” Gina said as she pointed in a circle.

I just saw a bunch of tall grass. I moved closer to get a better look.

Looking at it again, the grass seemed to be growing a bit unevenly. When I got to the edge of the clearing, I saw a big stone with tall grass growing all around it, almost hiding it from view. Next to that big stone, there was another one that was also almost completely hidden by the grass. I looked all around the clearing and it looked like there must be stones laid out in a big circle.

“Come here. You can see it better from the center.”

I walked over to Gina and as I did, I noticed a row of stones leading up to the center. When I got there, I noticed there were rows of stones all around the circle pointing to the center.

“What the heck is this?”

“I have no idea. I just found it this morning. Isn’t it awesome, though”

It was pretty awesome. It was also pretty eerie. This was obviously made by humans and abandoned long ago. But who made it, and why? And why did they leave it?

“I think I should tell my mom about this.”

“Don’t do that, Carla! She probably won’t let us play here if you tell her. She’ll say it’s dangerous or it’s too far into the woods.”

Gina’s mom was a drunk and never had time to look after Gina. That’s why Gina was always out exploring the woods. She really liked it out here in the clean air. And there wasn’t anybody to tell her she couldn’t go. My mom, on the other hand, was strict as all hell. If she knew I was out here with Gina, she’d blow her top. But still, it seemed like this place might be important in some way. I didn’t feel like it should be kept a secret. Maybe somebody else knew what it was.

“You can’t tell her. You have to promise.”

“I don’t know… What if someone could tell us what this is? Don’t you wanna know?”

“Yeah… But we don’t have to tell anybody where it is. And we could try to find out on our own first.”

“But how?”

“I have an idea.”