Secrets in the Magic Valley

The Lost Letter

Sheets of snow and sleet surged in waves against a porch, lifting a letter from a mail box and driving it edgewise into a drift by a front door. Between blasts of the February storm, bursts of sunshine glittered on crystals of ice and threw sparkles of light across a porch. With each gust of wind, bare branches of an elm tree projected shadows that raked gray walls of a duplex. The blizzard raged for days, burying the letter under brittle ice.

Jim's car slid across his icy driveway and nudged a bank of sooty snow. He shouldered the door open and followed frozen tracks. Each step crunched and squeaked. Crystals of ice twinkled under street lights.

After dropping packages, he dashed to his bedroom and curled in his bed in preparation for another long office day. Arctic winds combed the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania. Wind whistled through a cracked window until ice sealed it. Snuggling deeper under a quilt, Jim drifted to sleep.

In his dream, howling winds changed to noise from a jet plane that circled three times around a volcanic valley dappled with cactus, tipped its wings to fly through a cleft in a cliff, and swooped under a veil of mist to an ocean.

A Mayan woman with gray hair watched the plane until it was gone, then floated up to a ledge below rugged peaks where a Gothic cathedral perched. Organ music changed to the haunting music of pan pipes, and the cathedral melted into a pyramid with Mayan Indians dancing around its base.

On top of the pyramid two men wrestled over a gold box . The older man grabbed it, ran to a pit of boiling water, stood on the rim, and collapsed into it.

Plumes of cobalt and red sprayed from the pit, swirled, and exploded into purple pieces that turned into flowers and drifted off to the sky. As the dancers stood in awe, snakes spewed from fingers of lava and slithered down the pyramid steps. Eagles scooped them up and swooped into a black cloud. Swarming with snakes and birds, the cloud rolled across the valley, spilling snakes and eagles across its meadows.

Jim squirmed and tossed in bed. The dream continued in vivid color.

An earthquake shook the pyramid, tumbling blocks of stone down its steps, then it cracked open to expose the cathedral pipe organ that played a haunting tune. As each note flew from a pipe, it joined another note to form a swallow that chirped across the valley. Now swarming by the thousands, they sang music like a symphony, exploded to a crescendo, and triggered another earthquake. The bowl-shaped valley split open and sucked in all the swallows. A run of notes from a single pan flute bounced across the valley.

In the stillness, mist drifted toward him and turned into a maiden who engulfed him with caresses. She whispered like a breeze that his dream would come to be, then, with a pouf, she vanished.

A sense of his bed dropping startled him awake. He wondered about the Mexican looking maiden with cat-green eyes who gave him an omen of events to come. A shiver shot down his spine. Nothing in the dream resembled his isolated, apathetic community, yet a feeling of prediction lingered.

Morning light speckled his ceiling as the first sunrise in days burst through his window. Crystals of ice, frozen like feathers, spiraled across glass like an etching, and threw streaks of red, green, and blue across a white wall. He lay there half awake, hypnotized by dancing colors, and pondered the meaning of his dream. He had to get up, yet the quilt clung to his body like a warm friend. Gas heat clicked on and melted the icy window into a blur. Jim flung the covers off and dashed to the bathroom.

Streaks of sunlight lit the hall as he bounced downstairs, dabbed a nick on his chin, pried the front door open, kicked crusts of ice that shattered and spun across the porch, and turned for his car when he saw the edge of a letter.

Winds howled as he reached for a letter from an uncle he liked, an old eccentric with unusual ideas. Uncle John had visited him last year and encouraged Jim to visit what he called his Magic Valley, so hidden in the wilderness of Washington State that only Uncle John knew about it.

He was almost ninety years old and had wanted Jim to come west last year to get involved in the valley that linked his Uncle in some unusual way to projects around the world. Jim had felt uneasy about leaving. Like most of the community here who clung to their safe haven, he had never traveled outside the state, though his curiosity about life outside his isolated community of Rone drove him to ask about experiences from his Uncle each time they met.

As he cracked open the frozen envelope, he shivered and started the engine to warm it before driving up an icy road. Yesterday he hadn't waited until it was warm. The car had stalled.

"Dear Jim,  I'm writing urgently to ask you to visit me. I've tried to reach you by phone, but you've been impossible to reach. I've been ill and want you to understand my Magic Valley and projects before I die, including one hidden in the mountains of Mexico. There's too much to explain to put in writing. Ordinarily I would meet you at Sea-Tac airport in Seattle with my jet, but I'm too shaky to fly."

Jim didn't know about the private jet, but he could imagine Uncle John flying one. Everything he did was unusual. Last year he had zipped up flights of stairs with his luggage and looked more like a trim sixty year old than his ninety years. His stories from around the world intrigued Jim with information, ideas, experiences, and relationships that didn't exist in this conservative, sequestered community suspicious of the outside world. The mention of Mexico gave his dream a hint of reality.

"Knowing your questions about flying, I expect you'll want to come by train. Because it's urgent, I've enclosed a ticket on Amtrak, leaving Altoona February 20 at five in the morning."

Jim glanced at the date on his watch, February 19, l997. The train left early the next morning. The letter might have hidden in the ice unt