Crow - The Awakening by Michael J. Vanecek Read Free Book Online Page A

rustling in the pine needles seemed to add to the whole as brush strokes to a painting. He found some morel mushrooms and picked a handful, shaking them off as he went to bless the Earth with their spores before he stuck them in his backpack.
    Finally, he arrived at a particularly large pine tree on the outer reaches of the territory he ran in. Looking up, he spied his tree house high up in the canopy. Putting down his staff and hitching his backpack tighter, he dug his fingers and toes into the bark and started climbing. It got easier when he reached the lower dead limbs on the trunk, which he treated like a ladder, climbing higher and higher. Eventually he arrived at the living limbs that were denser and easier to climb on. As he proceeded ever higher his view of the forest became a cloud of green pine needles.
    Steven arrived at the tree house abruptly. He had built it a couple years earlier and he was still amazed at how well it stood up to the elements. Most of the construction process was instinctive for Steven. He didn't go by a blueprint or any drawn design of any kind, but by what seemed right at the time. The tree dictated a lot of the specifics but the general idea of it came from within him as if there was no other way to do it as he bent living branches up to form a modest woven ball that encompassed the trunk. The end result appeared like a huge, tightly woven basket with a tree poking through the center and a pair of salvaged portholes for windows. It had a pointed, thatched roof and a round hatch on the bottom. Branches stuck out of the bottom, creating a tea cup and saucer look and giving him something to grab onto as he climbed out on the tree house to build and maintain it.
    On the branches just above the tree house Steven had attached a small collection of solar panels and a homemade directional antennae made out of a large soup can. He had that pointed toward the town library and wireless internet provider that was just a few miles away. The modern technology broke the general naturalistic motif of the tree house, but given that this was where he worked on his computing projects, he had little choice. As he climbed up to the tree house he noticed the antennae was drooping a little, so he climbed up to it and aimed it toward the town and tightened its attachment to the branches. While he was up there he inspected the solar panels and removed pine needles that had dropped on a couple of them.
    The view of the forest up that high was mesmerizing and Steven sat down on the thatched roof to admire the scenery for a few minutes. All around him he could see the tops of trees and the hills beyond them. The breeze created a gentle rocking motion in the treetops and he could feel the strength of the tree all the way to its roots. He found the sensation comforting and it helped him center himself before diving into his projects. Steven looked over his shoulder at his backpack and decided his new toys required his immediate attention.
    With the deftness of one who had done it hundreds of times, he swung down from the top of the tree house onto branches below the structure and pushed the hatch in the floor up against the trunk inside and climbed up into the tree house. He peeked out to make sure no one noticed him, then closed the hatch. His tree house was well hidden, but there was always the chance that a hunter could spot it.
    The interior was surprisingly roomy for such a modest tree house. The inner walls were a much tighter weave than the exterior walls. He pulled back the drapes from the portholes and suddenly the interior was flooded with light, making him wince a little. With the late afternoon sun shining in through the portholes, he had more than enough natural light to work with for most of the day. Whistling to himself, Steven found his main perch where he did most of his work. While most of the branches emerging from the trunk within the tree house itself were pruned back, a few were kept and strung with