50 - At the 9 sign.
joneworlds@mailbox.org

PJ is ticked  off at me for messing  up the deploy
of his ogre sensors on the hill the other day. But
it's  not my  fault the  goblins are  playing with
them, or that  I don't know how  to reprogram them
in fifth or whatever.  Anyways, I'm back out there
yesterday trying to fix them,  and when I get done
I hike  out back  to that path  where I  found the
cars buried  in the hill.  And I continue  on down
that path for  an hour into the bush,  and this is
new territory to me. Sometimes you got to explore.

And then  I see  it. It's  this little  carved and
painted wooden sign on a peg in the ground, and it
has "1" etched  into it. And how or  why this came
to be way  out here, I can't say. I  keep going on
down the path, and sure  enough there's a 2, 3, 4,
and so  on. And  when I  finally get  to 9,  I see
there is  one of those battery-powered  tea lights
sitting  on top  of  it.  Then  I  get this  funny
feeling, like this is  somehow an important place.
Barely there by  the sign, is a  track leading off
the path and  into the deeper woods.   And then it
starts, this  high-pitched buzzing  in my  head. I
wince  and look  over to  the other  side, and  up
there sitting on a branch  is that old woman I saw
that  afternoon last  month  at  the ball  diamond
washroom.   And  she's  pointing down  at  me  and
laughing, "You  don't know what to  do!  You don't
know what to do!"

And the buzzing gets louder and I grab my forehead
in my hand. The buzzing stops, and when I look up,
the old  woman is gone.  And I stand there  a long
while by the 9 sign, before I head on home.