by Willa Reece
I was invited.
I was welcome.
The Ross cabin, Granny had assured me, was mine for as long as I would have it.
To my left, Sarah’s bedroom door was open. Unlike her mother’s room, there was still an iron bed, painted a cheerful sky blue. And hanging on the walls were dozens of paintings, crinkled and aged, the sort a young girl would create at school. A sudden, ferocious grief scalded my throat and burned my eyes. At the same time, I rushed forward to lay my hands on her creations as if I could infuse them with my life and breath and create a bridge between this living Sarah and the dead one I’d lost.
They didn’t connect me with my Sarah, of course. Every poster was filled with flowers and plants and the life she’d known before her mother’s murder. The Sarah I had known had been more muted and darker than the Sarah who had painted these.
My hands fell away and my eyes dried. There were no other belongings left in the room. The shelves were empty. But I still went to the bare bed and looked under the faded pillow. Somehow, I was surprised not to find the crochet mouse charm I’d held as Sarah in my dreams. Its place was empty save for a dusting of lavender. The floral dust trailed to the edge of the bed, but there was no charm on the floor.
Maybe Granny or one of her friends who had helped keep the cabin clean had taken the charm away. The missing charm made my chest feel tight, but the room bothered me less because it wasn’t my Sarah’s room. I closed the bedroom door in respect for a young girl I’d never actually known.
After that, it was easier. I found the spare bedroom on the other side of the landing. A slanted ceiling made it small, but floral wallpaper and another iron bed painted white made it cheerful enough. I opened the window and a deep woodsy scent freshened the room. It came from the wildwood path I could see directly below. In the late afternoon sun, the backyard wasn’t exactly like the one from my nightmares. Butterflies stirred the blossoms they favored and peace seemed possible.
Not that I’d found peace yet. There was no Internet here. No streaming. I couldn’t pop out for a bagel or a new book. It was intimidating. All I had was my own company and mundane tasks to keep me occupied. The isolation magnified my nerves. I tried not to search the surrounding woods for faces. No one would follow me here. Who would want to spy on me sweeping out a cabin or stocking the fridge? I would get used to the hush and the remote location. Eventually I would stop seeing kerchiefs in every shadow. I would replace Sarah’s nightmare images with current happier ones.
Finally, after more windows were opened, my bed made, and towels hung, I put the groceries away in the harvest-gold refrigerator and pantry by the light of the setting sun… and every bulb in the house. The Ross Remedy Book sat on the counter, back in the place where its pages had once been ripped and flung. More than anything, restoring the repaired book to its rightful place helped me to settle. It looked at home, as if I’d clicked a difficult puzzle piece into position. The picture hadn’t been completed yet, but the possibility of completion was within reach. Only a few more pieces to go.
Tomorrow, when the sun was high, I’d visit the garden.
Sarah had been sent to retrieve the pan. The same one had been used to feed the yeast for so long no one knew if it had been shaped to fit the crook in the old oak tree’s roots or if the crook had grown to provide a perfect place for the pan after generations of Ross women had welcomed the wildwood to enrich the rye bread broken at Gathering.
Sarah’s mother had added a fine-mesh screen over the customary linen cloth to discourage creatures bigger than pollen and spores and beneficial bacteria from invading the mixture, so Sarah had to dust off only a few early fallen leaves.
Her mouth was already watering at the thought of the fresh brown bread, heavy with seeded texture, and its darker crisp crust just perfect for a slathered dollop of creamy butter. She leaned to carefully pick up the bent pan, transferring it from the fitted hug of the oak’s roots to her arms.
“You there, girl. Why are you skulking around that tree?”
Sarah knew the voice. She’d heard it before preaching truly scary things on Main Street—hate, separation and suffering—the sort of things that were the opposite of all she’d been taught.
“Fetching the yeast for my mother is all,” Sarah answered. She tried to keep the fear from her voice because her mother had once told her Reverend Moon was drawn to fear the way raccoons were drawn to hornet larva. One whiff of that squiggling vulnerability and he’d dig and dig until he found more.
“Heathen practices. Communing with the trees and the plants as if they were your Savior,” Moon hissed. He’d come out of the trees behind her, skirting the wildwood garden rather than walking near it. The old oak was off the path in its own smaller clearing. Moon invaded it, his every step wrong in a way that made her throat tight and her hands on the yeast even tighter. Protective. He was in the wildwood, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t welcome or accepted. If the leaves and vines could move quickly, they would have curled away from him to avoid his blight.
Sarah lifted her chin, but she also edged toward the path that led back to the cabin and her mother. She was only ten. Old enough to be given the honor of fetching the pan. Not old enough to stand against Reverend Moon all alone.
“Better to take that pan and throw it in the fire, girl. Better it burn than your ssssoul,” Moon spit when he spoke, so full of anger he shook with it and it bubbled up in spittle on his lips.
She already had a white-knuckled grip on the pan. He was a threat to the yeast, the bread, Gathering and everything their communion with the forest meant to the wisewomen from the mountain.
He’d come way closer than she liked and his body was poised as if he was going to pounce and wrestle the pan from her fingers. He was a big, bony man. At least six feet tall. And his black wide-brimmed hat made him seem even taller. It shadowed his face until his eyes looked almost like empty black holes and his teeth were gritted so she could see the filthy tobacco stains that made her shudder.
“I found the blasphemous trail that leads my flock astray. No telling how many have been drawn here by this abomination and the evil worked with these devil weeds,” Moon said. He punched at the garden, gesturing with a fisted hand. To her, he was the abomination. The garden was peaceful in all of its familiar tangle. In it, she saw only help and healing not evil.
She planted her feet in the ground, digging into the undergrowth with her heels. She could tell by the fist he continued to shake this wasn’t going to end with her easily walking away. Her mother had trusted her with this sacred chore for the first time and Reverend Moon wanted to ruin it.
“Take the pan to the house, Sarah. The ladies have the kitchen ready.” Melody Ross came up the path like she always did. As much a part of the wildwood as the trees themselves. She left the path to come and stand beneath the old oak with Sarah and Reverend Moon, but unlike Moon her steps were comfortable and careful. She didn’t hate or hurt the forest. She noticed. Every leaf. Every fern. The wildwood wouldn’t curl away from her. Ever.
“I want nothing from your kind. I came to warn you. Stay away from my women. Don’t taint them with your potions or poison them with your balms,” Moon growled. He loomed over Sarah, still, but even though her mother wasn’t much taller than she was, Moon seemed smaller than he had seemed before. His broad shoulders had rounded in on themselves and his fists looked less threatening.
Her mother reached to place her hand, palm flat, against the oak tree and she seemed to grow even taller, as if the old oak lent her its height through its rough gray bark.
“Okay, Mama,” Sarah said, as if Moon hadn’t spoken.
Spurred on without another glance or word, Sarah walked away. The yeast was too important to risk and she was its caretaker. She didn’t run. Predators chased, and Moon was always hunting for prey. The wildwood had fallen silent. No insects whirred. No squirrel chattered. No birds sang. Even the breeze had died. She held her breath, feeling a million eyes on her, hidden in the branche
s and bows above and the bushes and briar patches beneath. And none so icy as the gaze of Reverend Moon drilling into her back and freezing her spine.
Suddenly, Sarah stumbled on a tendril of creeper. Her mother had taught her how to walk in the forest. She was never clumsy or awkward in the wildwood. She paused and looked nervously back over her shoulder, afraid that Moon would decide to pounce after all.
But Moon had stepped back several strides from her mother and the oak tree. He was half turned toward the way he had come.
“Take care not to get lost on your way home, Reverend. The wildwood can easily turn you around if you aren’t careful. If you aren’t wise to its ways,” her mother said. “This ground has been sanctified by Ross women for generations. Trespass leads to misfortune.”
Reverend Moon no longer had fists. His hands were limp at his sides.
But when Melody Ross began to hum he jerked backward from her as if a puppet master had pulled his strings. Sarah recognized the tune. Her mother had once told her it was ancient. Written long ago and far away. It had come across the ocean from distant lands with the first Ross who had settled in Morgan’s Gap. Her mother softly sang the words to the chorus in a language few had spoken or heard. It was a lullaby of sorts. Meant to put babies, and maybe even gardens, to rest.
Reverend Moon hurried away mumbling a much clumsier rhyme that had no real faith behind it at all.
He crashed through the forest the way he’d come—twigs snapping, branches scratching, bushes scrambling.
Finally, the first bird sang, heralding his absence.
“Well, why are we dawdling? It’s time to make the autumn loaves!”
Sarah was allowed to carry the pan all the way back to the cabin. An honor her mother didn’t revoke because of Moon’s interruption. She was glad to have her mother behind her on the path, in between her and Reverend Moon. Yet, it was the wildwood that sheltered them from Moon and others like him, a living wall they would tend forever.
Thirteen
I slept for several fitful hours before I was startled awake. I’d met an older, more horrifying Reverend Moon in person, so it wasn’t the lucid dream that woke me. There was no need to reach for a light because I’d left the bedside lamp on. To read by. Or so I’d told myself. Even though the remedy book had been closed on the table long before I closed my eyes.
My whole life I’d slept through city sounds at night—sirens, car doors, neighbors shouting and stray-cat fights. Whatever had disturbed me had been strange to my sleeping senses. I’d placed the baseball bat under the bed. It was there if I needed it, but I wasn’t going to scramble for it every time an insect whirred.
I sat up as an owl called from deep in the woods outside. Its echoing cry drew my attention to the window. I clutched the blanket and stilled so I wouldn’t disturb the small gray-and-white mouse that sat on the ledge, silhouetted by moonlight but illuminated enough by the lamp’s glow that I could see its crinkled whiskers and the twitch of its pink nose.
The owl called again and the mouse turned slightly toward the sound. It didn’t duck or run for cover. It simply settled on its haunches before turning back to look at me.
Did it understand that the owl couldn’t get through the screened window?
The cabin had been empty for a long time with only the occasional cleaning, but I hadn’t seen any mouse droppings or any other evidence of rodent infestation. Maybe a solitary mouse had found its way in to shelter before the weather grew colder?
“Did you wake me? Or was it the owl?” I asked, thinking my voice would startle the little creature away.
The mouse only looked at me and I was suddenly reminded of the way CC looked: Knowing. Aware. As if complex thoughts were going on behind his furry face.
“If you don’t make a mess, you can stay. Keep me company until Gathering,” I said. I drew the line at confessing to the mouse that my sudden need for lights was embarrassing. Concerning my mental health, a fear of the dark was probably no more worrisome than feeling compelled to talk to a mouse.
“Not on the bed, of course. That’s off-limits,” I continued.
And then I thought of Sarah’s charm. The crocheted mouse that had disappeared. Oddly enough, the mouse on the windowsill was also gray and white with a pale pink nose. But it was its crooked whiskers that most reminded me of the clear nylon thread that had created whiskers for the crochet mouse. Sarah’s pocket and her clutching fingers had crimped that thread. I knew that. I’d seen and felt it in my dreams.
The mouse on the windowsill had real whiskers. I watched as it slowly began to clean its face as if it regularly chatted with houseguests at midnight. Real, crimped whiskers.
“Charm,” I breathed out as I fell back on my pillows, but I fell asleep before I could decide if the idea was any crazier than sharing Sarah’s memories.
The next morning dawned cool and bright. I flicked off lights in every room. It was probably the glow from the cabin that had disturbed the owl the night before. Maybe acting as a beacon to the mouse. I vowed to use only a normal amount of light tonight. I’d slept deep and hard after the interruption. No more nightmares. Maybe living here in the wildwood air would be good for me like Granny had said.
I checked more carefully for mouse droppings and found none. I wiped down the kitchen anyway. From the tops of the knotty pine cabinets to the crooked plank floor, I found only one living thing—a long-legged spider I quickly banished out the front door with an express ride on a dustpan I’d found on the pantry floor.
Maybe I’d dreamed the gray-and-white mouse so like the crochet charm I’d also dreamed. If so, I hadn’t dreamed anything else for the rest of the night, which made me less worried about rodents than I probably should have been. Sarah’s charm had been stuffed with garden herbs to keep the nightmares away. If I did share the cabin with a mouse, and if he kept the nightmares away, I would consider myself charmed as well.
It was well after lunchtime before I realized I was putting off the inevitable first trip back to the wildwood garden. Granny had given me instructions for which recipes I needed to learn before Gathering. I’d brought some ingredients with me—sugar, flour, baking soda and salt. But I would need to harvest the rest. I changed from flip-flops to sturdier canvas sneakers and grabbed the basket I knew I’d find waiting by the back door.
How many times had Sarah or her mother hooked the large container woven from willow branches on the crook of their arms before heading out to the wildwood path at the edge of the lawn? I tried to imagine happier times rather than the torn and bloody pages of the remedy book soaking up dew as I marched off on my mission.
But it wasn’t only a garden I meant to visit.
It was a murder scene and a cemetery, and the ground, while not hallowed by priest or preacher, seemed sacred from the many generations who had turned the soil and planted the seeds. They had harvested and brewed, and from what Granny had said, fed the yeast, baked the bread and gathered in communion as a community of wisewomen. Year after year, for as long as anyone could remember.
I was supposed to be a part of that community this autumn. My head filled with the remembered hum of angry bees with that thought. I wasn’t as alone as I’d been when Sarah had died, but I couldn’t quite accept the totality of connection the wildwood seemed to want from me. Unlike the remedy book puzzle piece, no matter how I twisted and turned I could never fit myself into place.
Even though I’d been isolated for hours, I wasn’t surprised to find Tom in the garden. Granny had told me to get used to his coming and going. And Sarah’s memories of him were warm. He was a person she had trusted. The woods had welcomed me onto the path with the fussing screech of angry squirrels and a song of mingling birdcalls I was too inexperienced to separate and identify, but Tom was such a frequent visitor that the wildwood didn’t fall silent at his passing.
“Oh, I see you beat me to it,” I said. The older man was spry and quick and he was picking plump handfuls of blackberries from the bushes that lined
the north edge of the garden and depositing them into a white five-gallon bucket that was stained with the evidence of having been used for just such a chore before.
“For you,” Tom replied, gesturing with his equally stained hands, more purple than red, toward the bushes, drooping and heavy with fruit.
I’d never seen such blackberries before or such abundantly filled bushes. Each briar-spiked vine held dozens of giant berries. I stepped forward and leapt the creek to help Tom with the harvest. We worked silently until my fingers—and my lips—were as stained as Tom’s.
The first bite had shocked me with a taste so rich and juicy and full of darkly sweet flavor. The wildwood blackberries reminded me of dewy midnights and morning mist and mountain fog. There were deep woodsy notes behind the berry tang I’d never tasted in blackberries purchased from the grocery.
“Not bad for my first taste from the garden,” I commented. Tom paused in his picking and looked at me. I knew to expect his scarred face, but I still inwardly cringed at whatever grievous injury had caused the slash across his nose and mouth. The medical treatment he’d received hadn’t prevented the cruel curl of his lips that made his speech so difficult. For him to utter and listeners to understand.
“Jam even better,” he croaked and his smile would have been a horrible thing if the beautiful berries we labored together to pick and preserve hadn’t colored it.
Finally, after over an hour of filling the bucket and partially filling my basket as well, we had divested the bushes of every last blackberry. Tom picked up the heavy bucket and gestured toward the path, telling me wordlessly to lead the way. I hadn’t been surprised to find him here, but I was surprised by how easily I’d settled into working with him. I felt completely comfortable with him at my back as we returned to the house. The screeching squirrels had gone back to their own harvest, assured by our interest in the berries that we weren’t after their walnuts or acorns, so only birdsong soundtracked our hike back to the cabin.