"The Gorge Road" Chapter 3

 3. The Gorge & The Boy

  Nothing about the drive to the DiAnnon’s house captured my attention – at first.

My route led me north along the I-205 loop until it intersected with Interstate 84 going east. Road signs encouraged me to see the old Historic Columbia River Highway, but a not-small part of me feared getting lost. Angela's directions were to keep to the interstate, until a specific exit. 

You could drive out into a low-reception area and render your GPS useless. You might have Angela's instructions jotted down, but those aren't gonna help you orient yourself if you make a wrong turn. 

As I continued along 84, the sudden and absolute change in landscape was indeed disorienting. One moment, I had been speeding past typical roadside scenery – the backsides of Wal-Marts, truck stops, billboards, graffitied overpasses. 

In the next, it all vanished.

On my left, a small bit of foggy marshland slowly dissolved into the cold expanse of the Columbia River. Then, rock bluffs rose up sky-high on my right side, covered in dense, dark trees. Green shadows enveloped one side of my car; dull grey light reflecting off the water seeped into the other.

I felt as if I’d driven back in time several hundred years, or into a sword-and-sorcery fantasy world. The tall peaks, bare and rocky in some places and forested in others, sloped – or plunged – down to the water. High overhead, the tops of fir trees made jagged edges against the murky sky. 

I struggled to keep my eyes on the road. After a few minutes of feeling like a location scout for a Tolkien movie adaptation, I spied the sign for the exit I needed. I steered my little car up the ramp and onto a mossy old overpass with ornate concrete railings. In all the other places I’d lived, I’d never seen basic civil engineering (bridges, railings) that attempted to be classically beautiful.

They were still lovely, in a way, but the old white paint had cracked and the moss was rampant. I began to think of neglected gravestones in a haunted Victorian cemetery.

Slowly but steadily, I coaxed the car uphill via a switch-backed road; each turn shrouded in ever-thickening tree coverage. I turned my headlights on, only to reach the top of the ridge a moment later, emerging into overcast daylight.

The DiAnnons had given instructions to pass through the town of Corbett, which was little more than a volunteer fire station and a country general store. After that, Angela said, I needed to pass the Vista House (whatever that was) and the rest of the tourist areas, before turning into the driveway with the ornate mailbox.

And it didn’t occur to you to ask what she meant by ‘ornate’?

Modest but well-kept farmhouses with lavender and berry stands gave way to a scenic overlook: the gorge lay stretched out before me, the great river winding its silver path eastward amidst the rocky bluffs and forested hills. The interstate, back down on the floor of the Gorge, continued to follow the path of the river. But the country road I was on wound along the side of the ridge I had driven up, in and out of the green shadows, until I arrived at what surely had to be the Vista House.

It was certainly not a burned-out bed and breakfast. The stone rotunda sat perched on a bare rocky cliff, with the road circling around it, looking like a relic of some ancient advanced civilization. A few off-season tourists milled about, taking photos. I vowed to stop back through on my way home to take in the incredible view and explore the green-stained-glass structure -- a motorist rest stop from a bygone and more glamorous era, apparently.

    The road started to descend back down the canyon wall in great looping switchback turns, so that the downhill grade was never too steep. Once the road had returned to the gorge floor and was running somewhat parallel to the river and the interstate, I passed several more tourist areas: wide spots in the road with small parking lots for people to stop and take pictures of waterfalls. Traffic thickened as I approached the most impressive of them: Multnomah Falls.

     I sat idle in the road, waiting while more cars tried to squeeze into the parking lot on the left, and pedestrians crossed the road toward the falls and the gift shop on the right. Finally I caught a glimpse: a frothing white ribbon tumbled off the top of the forested ridge overhead, plummeting six hundred feet straight down into a mountainside pool. It was breathtaking on its own, but one man-made detail provided even more atmosphere: the first pool drained into a second waterfall, shorter and wider, over which was perched a small, pale-concrete footbridge, arching to connect the opposite sides of the rocky stream banks with its simple but lovely pillars and railings. 

     Sitting back away from all of it, as I was, the full picture was incredible. The footbridge seemed to hover in midair between the two falls; stone, yet while poised against the rugged backdrop, seeming as delicate and ephemeral as a bit of white lace tying the two worlds together. Romantically but tenuously, this mist-shrouded magical bridge provided a portal between my reality of the noisy humans and our traffic, and the majestic, enchanted forest above and beyond.

     I car honked behind me and my eyes snapped back to the road. I realized my mouth had been hanging open in awe again; I closed it and swallowed, embarrassed by my own rubbernecking.  Traffic had cleared ahead, so I drove on carefully.

Once away from the prime sight-seeing areas, the other cars eventually turned off – or turned around --  and I was alone on the road. It once again broke out of the tree line, this time to curve closer to the river and the interstate. My gaze wandered over to the river’s shoreline: Rock spires, once volcanic shafts of magma whose earth encasings had been ground away by time, water and ice, jutted up forty feet high. They reached out of the earth like pagan monoliths… or spindly fingers.

I shivered. After several minutes, I began to fear that I had missed the turn; that the DiAnnon’s driveway had somehow blended in with one of the stony creeks or outcroppings I had passed.

And then I saw the mailbox: a stone gargoyle, perched on a pillar-top box, fangs bared and bat-like wings outstretched. I couldn’t decide if it was intimidating, tacky, or both.

Doesn’t really seem to match their taste. But then, you don’t really know them well enough to know their taste.

“What in the hell…” I laughed to myself, turning into the narrow gravel drive. It wound through the woods and over several small brooks for about a quarter of a mile; long enough to make me think I had taken a wrong turn, and was possibly about to end up at an abandoned campground. Then I came around a curve, and the house emerged; a beautiful but imposing old mansion. 

I couldn’t quite place the architecture; somewhere between Gothic and European Renaissance-revival. A buttressed archway loomed over the front entry, and just above that, a second gargoyle leered out of a keystone. A stonework turret at least 3 stories tall accented the north wing of the house, but behind it were panels of parchment-colored stucco latticed with dark beams -- the signature of a Tudor manor.

On closer inspection, I noticed several of the large, gabled windows had been fitted with modern thermal custom panes, made specifically to blend in. Looming over all of it was a steeply pitched slate roof, in the Chateauesque style.

My guess was that the house had been built at least a century before by some wealthy anglophile who had no qualms about mixing different architecture styles. Similar houses fell to ruin after subsequent generations went broke trying to maintain them, but this place… There’d obviously been a legacy of people to take care of the thing. Or else the DiAnnons had the resources to put in a lot of time and money.

So how come Deon has no clue about who Richard and Angela are, or where their wealth comes from? People must know that this old house is out here, even if it is a private residence. People must wonder about it.

I scolded myself for focusing too much on social status and money. 

If people judged you the same way… who knows what they’d say.

The dense trees and low-hanging clouds seemed to muffle the sound of my car crunching to a stop in the circle driveway. I climbed out and allowed myself one more moment to gawk. Then I fussed with my hair in the car window, threw my bag over my shoulder, and walked as confidently as I could to the front door.

There was, predictably, a Marley-style knocker: yet another gargoyle with a great iron ring in its mouth.

But fae creatures can’t abide iron, I thought randomly. I lifted the ring and gave three quick knocks.

I listened for a response, or any sound from the house at all. I was answered only by the sound of the wind in the trees, and the occasional caw of a faraway crow. Without thinking, I tried the old handle, fully expecting the door to be locked.

It opened. 

I realized suddenly that I had no way to know for certain that I was in the right house. Cautiously, I stepped into the foyer. I intended to announce my presence, but my voice evaporated as I took in the manor’s interior.

The collage of architectural styles was just the beginning. The house was full of contradictions.

It was warm and cold at the same time: Grey and black cobblestones covered the floor of the entryway. I stepped over them as quietly as I could, and emerged out into the main gallery; a great hall where all the wings of the house converged.

Except for an entry rug, and what looked like a medieval tapestry hanging over a great stone fireplace, there were almost no soft textures anywhere in sight; no carpets, no curtains to cover the leaded glass windows. The dark flagstones gave way to rich hardwoods under my feet, which spread through the space, and into the nearest adjoining room to my right -- a parlor, perhaps. I only saw the flooring planks continue and disappear under the closed pocket doors. 

Two staircases flanked each side of the main gallery. Behind one was a large stone archway that looked like it belonged outside rather than inside. For a moment, I thought I saw green moss growing between the ancient-looking stones. Then the image was gone; I was distracted by the darkened dining hall/ball room I glimpsed through the passage. Crystal goblets gleamed faintly from a large hutch, which sat behind a huge table with more chairs than I could count.

Wherever light did shine within the house, it changed everything. It was dim, but warm, and softened the edges of everything it touched. The sterility of modern blue-white bulbs was completely absent. Shaded lamps dotted a few stone-topped tables throughout the gallery, filling in where the yellow-orange light of the chandelier was insufficient.

The chandelier itself was great wrought-iron monstrosity that dominated the space. It hung over the hall like a giant medieval-gothic crown, hanging on a huge chain, and set all over with special light bulbs that looked like flickering candles. It was a mass of iron and fire, molded, as if by magic, into an elegant work of art, seemingly lit with two-dozen dancing flames.

I felt my head tilt further back as my eyes continued up into the vaulted ceilings. They should’ve been crisscrossed with rafters, had the house truly been built in the Tudor style. Instead, buttressed arches loomed in the darkness, holding up the second and third stories, all under the steep roof.

Slate, I remembered. You need the arches to support all that extra weight.

But any fear of the tremendously heavy roof bearing down on me was negated by the feeling of the space; the aura of the house.

How can a place seem like a cozy hunting lodge, a drafty meeting hall, and a haunted mansion all at the same time?

And then came another mental picture, like the moss appearing on the archway. In my mind’s eye flickered the images of generations of people, coming and going, for council meetings, audiences with the lord of the fiefdom, shamanic rituals, hunting preparations, and more. I could almost see them all, like ghosts: they had the look of Vikings, Celts, and druids one minute, and then simple villagers, pilgrims, farmers and Native Americans in the next; all gathering in times of celebration, and sheltering in times of danger. The hard, gleaming walls and floors, the wood and the stone and the iron, were all imbued with their emotions; with their fear.

Come inside, and you will be safe, the house seemed to say to me. But you must let me swallow you first.

“Alexandra.”

I jumped. At first, Angela only smiled in response.

“What do you think?” she said, after a moment. She was leaning against the stone archway.

“How old is this house?” I blurted. It occurred to me that I should’ve heard her footsteps coming through the hall, but I’d been too caught up in my thoughts.

Her smile instantly widened; became more genuine.

She’s laughing at me. I’m acting like a hick.

“That’s a difficult question to answer,” she said. “But very insightful on your part. The house was brought here from Europe in pieces and re-assembled, with some local materials added in. Some parts are quite a bit older than others.”

“It’s incredible,” I said quietly, reverently, as if I was afraid to disturb anyone – alive or dead.

“We’ve lived here since before Daniel was born,” Angela added, following my gaze up to the tapestry. “There’s a lot of memories in this house.”

“I can only imagine,” I said, finally meeting her eyes.

“Did you find your way here all right?”

“Yes, absolutely. Your directions were spot-on.”

 “Well.” She clapped her hands together. “Let’s have you meet Daniel, then.”

Angela walked across the gallery and cautiously opened one of the sliding parlor doors.

“Darling?” she called softly, sticking her head in.

“Hey Mom,” came a male voice.

“Are you feeling up to meeting your new art tutor?”

“Oh, sure. Totally.”

Angela smiled back at me and then slid open both doors. I walked behind her into a cozy and classically-furnished library. On the opposite wall was another crackling fireplace under a darkly-hued landscape oil painting. Bookcases were built into the surrounding walls, filled with leather-bound volumes. The mantle and some small tables held various tools and all the accoutrements of a scholar of a previous century: A globe, a few magnifying glasses, a set of fountain pens. A loveseat and a large sofa sat facing each other in the middle of the room, and lying on the sofa under a throw blanket was my student.

My immediate reaction was that he was much too old to be my pupil. I was expecting a teenage boy, and unless I misjudged, Daniel was in his early twenties. Despite his thin frame, he had broad shoulders and the marked beginnings of a beard across his jaw.

He sat up carefully and, as if reading my thoughts, rubbed the scruff around his chin self-consciously before carefully reaching out his hand. His opposite arm was heavily bandaged, and set in a sling.

“Hi, I’m Daniel,” he croaked in a slightly husky but articulate baritone. “They didn’t tell me you were coming by today, otherwise I would’ve shaved.” He eyed his mother, and then grinned at the floor.

Angela said nothing, only rolled her jade-green eyes to the ceiling and smiled. 

“I’m Alex,” I said, shaking his hand.  “And no worries. I’m in your house, no need for you to get cleaned up, especially if your shoulder is out of commission.”

“I’m actually feeling pretty good today –“ he started.

“It’s important that he maintains a regular rest schedule,” Angela said quickly, cutting him off. “Especially if he insists on getting himself injured. His physician gave strict orders.”

Daniel exhaled loudly and looked pointedly at his mother, eyebrows arched high. She looked back with the same expression.

“I have to apologize,” I said to Daniel.  “I was expecting you to be a little younger.” I turned to Angela. “I would never have guessed you were old enough to have a son his age. Instead of paying me for a week, could you just show me your skincare routine?”

Angela blushed and opened her mouth to reply, but Daniel spoke first.

“Oh, it’s simple. She just bathes in the blood of virgins while dancing naked in the moonlight.” He grinned an easy, affable smile.

“Daniel!” His mother did her best to act appalled, while also snickering at him. The tension from the previous moment dissipated.

“Hey, clearly it’s working for you,” I said.

Maybe cut the flattery and talk business?

“Erm.. I think maybe the best way for everyone to figure out whether or not I’m a good fit for the job, is if I have Daniel complete a test I designed? Then I determine if and how I can assist him based on the results.”

 I had planned on discussing this with Richard and Angela privately, but with Daniel clearly an adult, it seemed only appropriate to include him in the conversation.

“Beyond that, I was thinking we’d start with a mix of contemporary art history and art concepts, all connected thematically to a project, kind of like a lecture/lab format. We could start with any artist or period you like.” I turned to Daniel. “Are you into the Impressionists, or the Renaissance Masters… or maybe Picasso or Dali?”

“Yes to all,” he said, smiling again, chocolate eyes bright. “When do we start?”

I was caught off guard by his eagerness, though I covered with a smile. 

“We can start today,” I said. “Your parents wanted me to do a kind of working interview anyhow. We’ll start with that assessment to see where you’re at, how you tick, how we get along, -- and go from there.”

“Well, luckily for you, I’m good at tests,” Daniel replied. “And I play well with others.”

Angela rolled her eyes and smiled again. “I’ll leave you two to it,” she said in her honeyed voice, and then walked out, sliding the doors shut behind her.

“And here I was thinking she was going to chaperone us,” Daniel cracked, and then motioned at the loveseat. “Have a seat, please. Let’s see what you’ve got.” 

“Likewise,” I smiled, sitting down and pulling some materials out of my satchel. “I put this together based on some of my undergrad work, and some newer research about emotional response to different art styles.”

“Is this going to be the sort of thing where you hold up an inkblot and ask me ‘how does this make you feel?’”

“Not quite. It’s a bit more interactive than that.”

I handed him two pages, one with a labyrinth on it, and another featuring a Celtic knot design.

“I like this one better,” he said almost instantly, waving the paper with the knot.

“Good to know. But that’s not the point.” I handed him a pencil encouragingly. “Take a few minutes to work on these.”

“How do you mean, ‘work on them’?”

“Whatever that means to you.”

Daniel looked skeptical, but he settled into the sofa, pencil determinedly in hand despite his shoulder injury. He focused on the labyrinth first, I noticed. 

Dealing with the thing he wasn’t initially drawn to first. ‘Get it out of the way’ approach…. Good. 

The labyrinth was more evidently “solvable” because it looked (at first glance) like a traditional maze. The Celtic knot was more visually complex, which could have made Daniel feel more anxious. But he showed a preference for its style and subject matter, which overrode. And, as I hoped Daniel would soon deduce, the Celtic knot wasn’t a puzzle at all. There was nothing to solve. How annoyed (or not annoyed) he was by this revelation, and how long it would take him to come to it, would give me some more insight into his personality and how his brain worked.

With the fireplace just a few feet away, I was feeling toasty. I shrugged out of my jacket and twisted  to lay it over the back of the loveseat.

Daniel looked up from his work and sucked air through his teeth.

“Ouch. That looks like it stings.” He squinted at the crook between my neck and right shoulder.

“Oh. Yeah, seatbelt burn,” I shrugged. “My roommate slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting an animal in the road on Saturday night. Nothing antibiotic ointment won’t fix. I just forgot to clean it this morning.”

“What animal?”

“I know this sounds crazy, but I think it was a cougar.”

Daniel shrugged and turned his focus back to the test. “I don’t think you’re crazy. I’ve read about cougars getting bolder as humans encroach on their natural habitat.”

“Scary stuff. But thanks for your vote of confidence in my sanity, at least.”

“Of course,” he muttered quietly, looking back over the papers. After a moment, he decidedly spread out both sheets on the coffee table.

“I’m not totally sure what I’m supposed to be doing here,” he said cautiously, “but the druidic knot – at least, I’m fairly certain that’s a druid knot – is not solvable. There’s no beginning and no end. The labyrinth is solvable, but you just go out the same way you came in, once you reach the center. Like this,” and he traced the path quickly with the pencil.

“Good,” I said, impressed again.

“Is that really the whole test?”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “Though you’re off to a good start. You’ve figured out the most utilitarian part of it. What I want to know is what you – you, personally – think of them. Observations, feelings….as simple or as detailed as you like.”

“Do you want me to write them down?”

“I’d prefer you to talk to me about it, if you’re comfortable with that.”

“Sure,” he smiled. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, for some people, the very thought of mazes and knots makes them feel claustrophobic and anxious, and they start to shut down socially. But I can already see that that’s not you. Or if it is, you’re really good at hiding it.”

“No, honestly, neither one of these, like, stresses me out or anything. They’re just not comparable. This -” he held up the Celtic knot – “is more representative of nature. This –” he indicated the labyrinth “—is like the layout of a planned subdivision. I would argue it’s not even a real maze. There are no dead ends, no wrong turns; just one winding path all the way thr-“

He stopped himself. I smiled at him; he evidently needed very little help expressing himself. 

And I think he just stumbled on the next answer.

“They are comparable, aren’t they?” he asked, grinning at me, working through the realization. “Yeah. Yeah, because the labyrinth does have a beginning and an end, but, with both of them – there’s no wrong way. There’s no way to screw it up.”

“And not to sound like a TV shrink,” I laughed, “but how does this make you feel?”

“A little silly. Like I was over-thinking it.”

“I know that feeling. I do it all the time.”

“Yeah. And it’s a relief when you realize that you didn’t miss something after all. So yeah… I guess I feel relieved.”

“How did you feel when you were drawing that pencil line through the labyrinth?”

He considered for a moment.

“Relaxed, but confident. It was oddly satisfying.”

“Remember when you said that you liked the Celtic knot better? Do you still feel the same way?”

“Kind of? I like it better, in terms of a piece of art to passively look at. But as far as engaging with it, like you would the labyrinth… not so much. Writing on it with a pencil would only mess it up.”

I was prepared for this answer. I pulled a pack of colored pencils out of my satchel, and handed it to him. He accepted them with a smile and a raised an eyebrow. 

“Are you telling me I’m supposed to color the pretty picture?” he joked.

“Only if you want to,” I said nonchalantly. “Your response to the test has already given me a lot of good information about how you tick. I’m just interested to see what you do with a different tool – or, set of tools.”

“Fair. Can I ask what you see so far?”

I stood up and moved around the coffee table so that I could sit next to him on the sofa and point out features of the two designs.

“Well, I think the fact that you compared the Celtic knot to nature is telling,” I said. “At first glance, the knot design is much more complex,” I said, tracing the outermost border with my finger. 

“But you were referring to the way that the shape mimics leaves, vines and rivers,” I continued. “Versus the labyrinth design that represents a man-made structure. And, I think you realized pretty quickly that the knot was not solvable, which is why you sat down and focused on the labyrinth first. But, you still retained a preference for the visual style of the Celtic knot. A lot of people get frustrated with things – art, especially – if they can’t immediately ‘figure it out’ or derive some clear-cut meaning from it. Not the case with you,” I finished.

He nodded, and opened the pack of pencils. I watched while he selected a green, a blue, and then a red. He started filling in a swirl with the green.

Interesting.

“How much of this do you think will matter to my parents?” he asked, after a moment.

“That depends on what I tell them.”

“You’re not going to tell them everything from our session?”

“Not at all. I’m going to tell them what I feel is relevant. Otherwise, I’m a believer in student-teacher confidentiality. I imagine your parents will expect progress reports, not a minute-by-minute recap of our conversations.”

“Good,” Daniel said quietly. “I could use a new friend. Even if you are being paid.”

I hesitated a moment before gently asking the next question. I didn’t want to sound like I was coming down on him.

“Do you really think that friendship can be bought?”

“Not really,” he said. “But you’d be surprised. You’re not the first paid companion to come through this house.” He suddenly put the green pencil down and picked up the red one, firmly coloring in an angular part of the design.

Very interesting.

I tried not to overthink his statement. 

He’s probably just referring to a nanny or an in-home nurse that his parents hired. He may still be sore that that person left and moved on, like you would from any other job. 

Like you would.

I decided to avoid specifics, but to maybe touch on this in my report to Richard and Angela. This had to do with his social development, which concerned them more than anything else.

“I’d like you to continue experimenting with that,” I said, pointing to the knot and changing the subject. “Color as little or as much of the design as you’d like. If, at any point, it starts to feel like work or that you’re not doing it ‘fast enough’ – stop. That’s not the point of it.”

“Is the point to relax? Because I’m kind of feeling that.”

“Great. Yeah, that’s the main point. For the rest of the lesson, I want to talk to you about the history of the two designs, if that’s all right with you.”

“Sure. I know just enough to be dangerous… Celtic knots are a mix of Roman Christian and Briton images, right? And the labyrinth also had some pagan origins, but now it’s used in churches too.”

This kid and I are going to get along just fine.

“Exactly,” I smiled. “Wanna know more?”

“Well, sure,” Daniel grinned. “Wanna start with where you were born?”