Wildwood Whispers

by Willa Reece

  “I still owe you some preserves, but the orb is worth more. If you won’t accept the hiking stick, I won’t accept this,” I said, raising the glass sphere to the light. I couldn’t help it if my proclamation sounded sad. I could already imagine the cabin lit by the sphere’s purple glow when the morning sun passed through the glass. I didn’t wait for Jacob to refuse. I carefully placed the orb in my basket beside the bags of candy, then reached for the fox handle.

  But he stopped my hand with his. The full on contact of his grip startled. My breath caught and my whole body stilled.

  “Gifts from the wildwood are tricky, Mel. Not sure if Granny has taught you that yet,” Jacob said. “I haven’t taken the preserves because I wasn’t sure if you knew about the connections that are forged.”

  “I understand more than you think. I know I still have a lot to learn, but I’m not afraid of the wildwood or of sharing anything that grows in it with my friends.”

  “Are we friends?” Jacob asked. “Because I can never decide if we’re completely at odds or so in tune it scares me.” His grip eased as if he worried he might be holding me too tightly, but, although strong, his hand was gentle. Scarlet blossoms stirring beneath his fingers.

  He seemed to be asking more than I could answer. There was more to Jacob Walker than he showed the world. Much more. Granny knew it. And didn’t fully trust it. But he had helped with the old Chevy and he had sent Lu to help me the morning after the intruder frightened me. Even if I discounted the physical attraction between us and the slight animosity between him and Granny, he definitely didn’t seem like an enemy. He had helped me apologize to the bees.

  “I’m buying you the hiking stick,” I countered, refusing to answer his question. Friend or foe, the fox was his like the basket had been mine when Sadie had woven it even before she met me.

  Maybe I was beginning to hear the wildwood’s whispers. Maybe I couldn’t accept a gift without giving something in return.

  Jacob let me go and I pulled the hiking stick from its slot. The carver rose from his stool where he was working on a cane with a handle shaped like something with wings. While Jacob watched silently, I shuffled my basket to pay. Then, I turned to hand the purchased stick to the person I knew it belonged to.

  “Yeah. I reckon that’s right.” The carver nodded sagely before he spit a streak of brown chewing tobacco juice into a plastic soda bottle. Then, he went back to his stool and picked up his current project.

  Jacob took the hiking stick with both hands and he gripped along its length as if getting to know it from handle to tip and back again. The fox’s onyx chip eyes glittered and winked. A ripple of something flowed through me with the exchange—rightness. Another puzzle piece snapped into place.

  “Granny isn’t going to like this,” he warned. And suddenly I wasn’t sure how to handle the quirk of his mischievous smile.

  Barter was common on the mountain. I’d dealt with it during my deliveries for Granny, often accepting fresh eggs, flower bulbs, baked goods and other offerings in exchange for her concoctions. I’d seen it going on all day at the market. But trading the hiking stick for the glass orb felt different. Like an exchange of gifts. And I didn’t know what to say. I’d only known he had to have the fox and I had to have the sphere. Luckily, my awkward response to his smile was interrupted by the sudden rise of music in the distance.

  Around us, the crowd had thinned. Neither of us had noticed. I’d been completely distracted by Jacob, the orb and the hiking stick. We both blinked and turned to see people had gravitated toward the far edge of the pavilion where a makeshift stage had been erected. Sometimes Lu presented educational workshops about her dulcimer making at the market, but apparently this one had given way to an impromptu performance.

  I could hear Lu’s rhythmic contralto along with her playing, the usual poetry in motion that made you hold your breath to keep from singing along when you knew you couldn’t carry a tune. But there was a high, sweet soprano singing along with the old hymn Lu played. Clear and lyrical like a fresh mountain spring bubbling up from some throat I couldn’t yet see.

  “Trouble’s coming,” Jacob predicted in a growl under his breath. He reached for my arm as if he would hold me up again, but I slipped away, drawn by the haunting quality in the way the unknown singer trilled the sustained notes.

  I had to weave my way through all the people who had dropped everything to stand and listen. I didn’t blame them. Lu was practically humming under the song now, buoying the soprano notes on top of hers, giving the hymn a depth and resonance that made the old words seem more human than heavenly, voicing the ache of heart, and head, and bone.

  I halted like everyone else around me when I finally saw the soprano singer. She wasn’t up on the stage with Lu. She didn’t have to be. She stood with her arms outstretched and her chin tilted high and the song came from some deep, tortured place inside of her that didn’t show in her perfect doll-like appearance.

  Violet Morgan had the voice of an angel, a fallen angel, with broken wings and only a song to keep her suspended for a short time from hell.

  Jacob had chased me through the crowd. He stopped beside me. I looked away from Violet only because he put his hand on my arm. I started and partially turned until our eyes met.

  “Come away. This won’t end well,” Jacob said.

  I looked back at Lu, but she was absorbed in the moment of making music. Fallen or not, Violet Morgan’s voice was sublime and Lu wasn’t going to waste a second of the opportunity by looking at the crowd.

  I didn’t know Hartwell Morgan well, but I knew enough. If Lu wasn’t lost to the music, she probably would have known better than to continue playing. I suspected Violet wasn’t free to choose her own clothes or hairstyle or friends. She didn’t talk much. She probably sang even less. I suddenly remembered the real fear in her eyes when she’d hidden the jam in her purse. And the way she’d snatched the mushrooms too.

  “She might need help,” I said. He didn’t stop me when I stepped forward, but he did maintain his hold on my arm so he was forced to come with me. We stopped directly behind Violet and only then did Lu see me. She allowed the current verse to be the song’s last, trailing off in a few subsiding chords. Violet followed her lead, dropping her clear trill to a whisper that made goose bumps rise on my arms and a shiver run down my spine.

  But Lu hadn’t ended the song soon enough.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” Hartwell Morgan said. His teeth were gritted in a smile that didn’t reach his narrowed eyes. The crowd erupted in applause and Lu graciously accepted with the sort of humble gratitude only a genius displays. I suspected she would have pulled Violet up on stage to receive her share of the recognition—if she had been anyone but Hartwell Morgan’s wife. It was obvious the mayor was livid. His cheeks were red. His eyebrows low and tight. He had grabbed Violet by the elbow and I could see where his fingers dug cruelly into the flesh of her arm. Her dimpled flesh seemed to cry out even though she didn’t. Seeing her suffer his abuse in silence slammed into me with the force of a blow. And I wanted to hit back.

  “Great turnout at the market today, Mayor,” Jacob said. “Maybe you should say a few words.”

  I had been seconds away from throwing myself forward to stand in Hartwell’s way. He had obviously been prepared to jerk Violet away and I wasn’t at all sure what she might face once her husband got her alone. He seemed ready to explode.

  Jacob Walker had seen what I had seen. And he had said the one thing that would perfectly distract a politician and protect his would-be victim. At least for a while.

  Hartwell immediately released Violet’s elbow and straightened his tie. He raised his arms high and waved at the crowd with both hands. The crowd obliged by continuing the applause that had begun for his wife. The red on Hartwell’s cheeks faded. His smile became real as if he fed on the attention. Violet Morgan transformed back into the meek and tepid angel she’d been at the salon. Her smile turned small and obsequious. Her shoulde
rs rounded in on themselves and her kitten heels came together. Hartwell patted her cheek before he jumped up on the stage Lu had quickly vacated.

  She wouldn’t lend the husband the same support she’d shown musically for the wife. If Lu had seen what I’d seen in the mayor she would have had to move or risk vomiting on his shiny black shoes.

  Jacob somehow maneuvered me back into the crowd and off to the side. I didn’t protest moving away from Hartwell as he began to speak. I didn’t care what the man had to say. I’d seen enough of him to know he would never get my vote. Not for any position.

  “To silence Violet’s voice is a crime,” Lu said. She’d zipped her dulcimer into a leather case and now it rode on her back. She held its straps with tight fingers. Like me, she was holding herself back. Unlike me, she didn’t also have Jacob’s hand on her arm. He didn’t have to squeeze or manhandle the way Hartwell had. His presence was enough in addition to my own realization that any scene I made would only hurt Violet more.

  “Don’t, Lu. Leave it. You’ll only contribute to Violet’s problems,” Jacob said. “If he gets enough adulation from the crowd maybe he’ll go easy on her.”

  “She’s like a different person when she’s singing. I could hardly believe my eyes. Or my ears,” I said.

  “It’s a crime,” Lu repeated and this time she sounded choked up as if her frustrated fury was going to come out of her in tears if she couldn’t release it with a fist to Hartwell’s face.

  “A crime it’s almost impossible to fight without the victim’s cooperation,” Jacob said. His body was stiff beside me. He held the hiking stick with his other hand in a white-knuckled grip.

  We stood there together, surrounded by the crowd, but alone in caring what was really going on. And our commiseration helped. Unlike my sudden, furious connection with the bees, my togetherness with Jacob and Lu gave the anger somewhere rational to go. We were a triumvirate of fury, contained, through all our efforts to keep the peace for Violet’s sake.

  As Hartwell continued to speak, there was movement in the crowd. Some people had dispersed and I was afraid a diminished audience would make Violet’s punishment worse. But the thinning crowd only made room for Reverend Moon and a group of men dressed in similar black garb. They came to the front of the stage and clapped each time Hartwell paused for approval.

  “Wonder where his flock is today?” I mumbled.

  “Sect women aren’t allowed to come to the market,” Jacob said.

  “Other women singing and laughing and running businesses might give them ideas,” Lu said. “Let’s get out of here, Mel. Before I vomit on someone’s shoes.”

  I agreed. Violet looked even smaller beside the group of Sect men. She physically diminished herself by blanking her face completely and looking at the ground. Meanwhile, the Sect men continued to clap and shout “Amen” as if they owned the world. Maybe they did own this one. Hartwell laughed and nodded in their direction as if he knew them all and counted them as good friends and loyal constituents.

  Jacob released my arm.

  For whatever reason, it felt strange to step away now. And Lu looked between the two of us as if she suddenly sensed the strangeness as well. The three of us together could take Hartwell Morgan down. Even as I thought it, I doubted it. Political corruption was much more complicated than planting a flower. And yet, the whole park seemed to be improving. Every time I walked by, the trees seemed healthier. The grass seemed lusher. The bergamot ever in bloom.

  “I’ll come for those blackberry preserves soon if you don’t mind,” Jacob said.

  “I’ve saved two jars for you,” I replied. I should have told him I’d leave the preserves in town so he could grab them from Granny’s house. I didn’t. With an arch of one brow, Lu told me she’d noticed.

  “Soon,” Jacob said to my back as I followed Lu away from the crowd.

  I returned to the cabin that evening with the riot of market still in my head. Lu had introduced me to a potter and I had impulsively spent more money than I’d meant to on three earthenware mugs. Three. It seemed extravagant. Not only in price, but also in the fresh hope that I would have someone to share tea with. When I’d lost Sarah, I’d seen a life stretched before me with only solitary sips. Now? I thought maybe a set of mugs was practical and possible.

  My circle was growing.

  Lu, Sadie, Kara, Joyce, Granny.

  Jacob Walker.

  Like my new basket, the mugs were swirled in a natural pattern of green and brown. The potter’s stall had been set up like Sadie’s, with his finished wares on tables, around a work station of a stool and a potter’s wheel. His name was Matthew and as he shaped the beginnings of a clay bowl with his thick yet obviously sensitive fingers, he’d explained that his kiln was too large for the market. He fired his pieces at his home and brought them back to sell.

  His wife, Grace, had wrapped my mugs in reclaimed paper bags with store logos I’d once frequented. They were crinkled, but serviceable, and I had been suddenly, fiercely happy to be using the bags for something a person had made with their own two hands. Not only because of the beauty of the mugs, but because the clay and natural dyes Matthew had used to make them had come from the mountain itself.

  I’d placed my new basket on an empty peg by the back door. I’d washed my new mugs and placed them beside the sink to dry. The orb I’d gingerly taken and hung above the kitchen sink because I knew the morning sun would catch it there. Gingerly because it was delicate and because my feelings about it were as fragile as the glass. After that I went to clean up the stack of fresh pamphlets that had been left at my front door. The gas company and the “No Pipeline” activists had been all the way out to the cabin again. This time, instead of throwing them all in the trash, I kept the rainbow-colored “No Pipeline” bumper sticker.

  What would become of the soil and the streams if the mountain was polluted? Pipelines leaked. I’d barely noticed the mention of it on the news before I came to Morgan’s Gap because it had become a common story. But the construction horror stories had been more volatile. The land grabs and the right-of-way battles. The soil erosion and degradation of water quality. What would become of potters like Matthew and basket weavers like Sadie, the instrument makers and glassblowers and hiking-stick carvers, the foragers, gardeners and gatherers if the mountain was destroyed? On the news, the environmental costs had seemed distant. Here, in Morgan’s Gap, with the people I’d met and the garden I’d tended, the cost suddenly seemed personal.

  I saw Charm’s little face in the window as I straightened from placing the bumper sticker on the rusted tailgate of the old Chevy. The window’s glass reflected the sunset’s glow, red on the horizon. I turned to see the wildwood trees outlined by the setting sun with an aura of light.

  Charm must have been attracted to the light or maybe he was waiting for me. I went back to the house as if the little mouse had called me home. It felt comforting to join him and close the door against thoughts of the world intruding on the wildwood I was beginning to love.

  Twenty-Three

  The first heavy frost crystallized on the mountain with a hush of white that glittered in the morning sun with a fairy-tale patina. I had settled into a quiet daily routine, but as I sipped steaming chicory blend from one of the heavy pottery mugs I’d purchased at the market, I stepped out on the front porch to appreciate how much more noticeable the frost was on fields and forest compared to city streets.

  The air was more tangible than usual. It rested against my cheeks, lips and nose, a calm, cool thing that caressed when its crispness melted into moisture against my warm skin. I breathed deeply, taking in the fresh coolness and the way it enhanced the sharp scent of evergreen that was the top note of a forest that had mostly gone to moldering damp.

  If the wildwood had been layered with scents in the summer, it was even more so now. The frost had only accentuated its richness.

  I finished my chicory on the porch in spite of the chill, but my last sip was interrupted by the
sudden flash of russet fur in the distance. I lowered my cup and narrowed my eyes to better track the movement near the trees at the edge of the wildwood. It was a fox, gamboling along the wood line, either on the hunt for mice or rabbits or playfully practicing its pounce.

  I held myself still and silent as it traced the forest with its leaps and bounds until it had disappeared around the side of the cabin. But in spite of my stillness the fox, hyperaware of its surroundings, paused and looked toward the porch several times. Like the frost, the fox sighting was almost magical. The brush of its tail and the handsome sweep of its bristling ruff were so real and yet had almost a storybook quality when you’d never seen one in the wild.

  I didn’t breathe until the fox was gone and only after did I go back inside to get ready for my chores for the day.

  Most blackberries were trimmed in late winter and early spring, but the blackberries in the wildwood garden needed to be trimmed in autumn, as soon as their leaves began to fall. Granny had told me how to go about it and when I’d suggested that maybe Tom would do the pruning she’d balked at the very idea.

  “He’ll know you’re to do the trimming this year,” Granny had said in that tone of voice that said there was no doubt about it.

  I changed into jeans and a heavy flannel shirt with a lighter, long-sleeved T-shirt beneath. I’d switched over to boots from sneakers. A business expense ordered from the hardware store in town that moonlighted as a mercantile for the farmers in Morgan’s Gap. I laced them up tight over my ankles, thankful for the lug soles that could easily handle the slippery carpet of leaves on the ground. I’d also recently purchased some gardening gloves. I put those in the basket Sadie had made for me along with some serious hedge clippers Granny had told me to fetch from the old potting shed in her backyard.

  The frost had mostly melted by the time I left the house. The air was slightly warmer, but I could still see my breath when I stepped onto the path under the trees. I paused and noted the footprints the fox had left in the dirt on the path that wasn’t hidden by leaves. I wasn’t afraid the fox would bother me. I had no Internet at the cabin, but in town I’d been able to read about some of the wildlife I might encounter in the Appalachians. Unless they were rabid, foxes weren’t known to bother humans and the one I’d seen that morning showed no sign of disease.