Fall is here and the leaves are falling. We know that winter is near!

I had looked for Odo’s return, but as the weather started to cool off I had plenty of projects to get done before we were snowed in. We did a little canning and took care of the garden patches and I was finishing a little garden shed when I came out one morning and there it was. That turkey feather in my apple tree!

I started looking around and then I saw them, Odo and 2 others like him. They were standing near the turkey pen. Odo raised his arm in greeting and then he said he had asked the others if I could visit where they lived, and after a lot of discussion they finally agreed. Odo asked me if tomorrow morning I could return to the place he had seen me in the woods where I had fallen asleep that day years ago hunting?

I told him I could and then he and the 2 others left. I almost didn’t believe this had just happened.

The next morning, I got the trail bike out and headed for that road on the other side of the lake. That place I had been to and fallen asleep was about 5 miles from my home! I ditched the bike where I had done so before and walked through the trees and swampy area till I came to the old road by the ridge again. I found a downed tree near the depression I had sat in on the ridge, and I sat there waiting.

Then beyond where I was, down that old road I could see movement and here they came, 6 of them with Odo in the front! I was greeted with an arm and then I was asked to follow. We started down a stretch of that old road, over hill, around bog and after I would say about 2 miles, we veered off the old road and went up on top of a tree covered ridge with some old growth white pine. There was a well-worn game trail, and we had followed that trail when we veered off that old road. 

There had been a couple of moments after we left the road that I thought I had smelled a very faint odor of wood smoke. Now in years past I have been hunting in different areas of the woods and I have had that same sensation! I would always stop and try to pick up where that smell was coming from, but I could never quite get a direction? Well, this was happening again now.

Odo stopped us. We were on a game trail on this ridge and he veered off the trail near an old tree that had been struck by lightning about 40’ up its trunk. There was nothing left of the upper part of the tree, it was long gone and there was no bark left. He went down from that burnt tree and came to a cluster of hazelnut brush and then he made his way into the center of it. He was gone!

Soon he reappeared and signaled the others and me to come to him. In the center of the brush was an entrance going into the side of the ridge that we were on. It was in a depression where a huge tree had been uprooted, who knows how long, as there was no trace of it left. A small stone archway had been constructed where the entrance to their home was, and a wooden door sealed the entrance with hazelnut brush over that. You would never have found it without being shown!

Now I couldn’t fit in that doorway, no how, but I could see a dim glow coming from within – a light of some sort, and I could smell something cooking. I asked Odo how they kept warm in the winter.

He said they have a small hearth and they didn’t need much heat as the ground is warm also. He then pointed to the dead tree up the slope and told me that was the chimney for the hearth! When lightning struck the tree, it fried the inside right to the ground and it was naturally hollow. By the time the smoke got to the top of the tree there was nothing but a faint smell that drifted off and there was no smoke visible at all.

While there, I got to meet the rest of his group and counting himself there was an even dozen that included 2 little ones. I promised Odo I would not tell of this place and then he followed me to the old forgotten road.

He told me that this group would be leaving in the future. He was positive it would be in the spring.

I asked him for how long?

He stood in silence and then replied, “Forever!”

He said he would see me again in the springtime. Odo waved goodbye and we parted ways.

I didn’t go back there and never told a soul of what I had found. Winter came shortly and I waited for spring!