Trees.
Trees, trees, trees, trees, trees.
Her eyes drifted down to the book in her lap.
A few minutes later, her father's voice growled from the front seat. "Are you reading again?"
She slid the book off her lap. "No, Dad…"
"I brought you all the way out here to see this, so look at it."
Jamie's mother gave her father an exasperated glance, then turned around and held out her hand. "Honey, give me the book."
"No, look, Mom, I'm looking at the scenery." Her eyes flicked between the trees and her mother's face. "See Mom? Look…"
Jamie's mother continued to hold out her hand. Jamie handed the book over, and her mother tucked it in the door pocket by her knee. "Look at the scenery. I'd like you to actually remember these trips someday."
Jamie leaned her head against the window glass, and watched the dark branches reach towards the car as it lurched around one hairpin turn after another. The trees were majestic; they were big; they were different from trees back home; they were exactly the same as the trees five minutes ago. The same as the trees ten minutes ago. Fifteen minutes, an hour, two hours. They were exactly the same as the trees that had boxed in the motel last night.
The motel had been interesting. Cigarette smoke had oozed from the pillows. Mildew rimmed the windows. Rust stained the shower and sink. It was cool. She hadn't been anywhere like it before.
The trees continued to swoop by outside the window. She shut her eyes.
The car swerved left. Right. Right again. She felt vaguely sick.
Her parents inhaled in unison. The car slowed. Jamie opened her eyes, saw a glimpse of gray through the windshield, and sat forward to see.
The view in front had changed. Every tree had been combed dead against the hillside.
Her father took the next turn slowly, the road leading out into the open. Jamie pressed her nose against the glass. The line dividing the green standing forest from the gray one was crisp. Trees and stumps lay in a wreckage of splinters, the logs aligned regardless of the slope of the land beneath them.
The car turned again. Now there was nothing out there but splintered, gray logs pressed flat to the earth. Hill after hill beyond hill. Jamie stared. She couldn't wrap her mind around that much destruction.
The car turned again.
"Mama, look!" Jamie clutched her mother's shoulder.
There, looming larger than the windscreen, was the volcano. Smoke twined from the open crater. Jamie craned to see better.
Five hours, two visitors' centers, four interpretive trails, and uncounted "Don't be a pumice picker!" signs later, Jamie sat in the car, stroking a piece of pumice she had hidden in her pocket. Ash streaked across the back seat, carried by her hands, her shoes, and the cuffs of her jeans.
The car lurched left, right, and right again. She leaned her forehead against the window, staring at the view.
Logs.
Logs, logs, logs, logs, logs.
