by Maria Mutch
The couple whose young son disappeared into the forest go to the same forest, even though five, eight, twelve years have passed. Who do they expect to find? The boy they’re waiting for is no longer the same at all. Will they know him when he emerges, rearranged, from the trees, from the edge of what had been previously dark? Will he look at his parents’ faces and then turn to look back at the woods as if that is now his true home?
Perhaps the woman will rise from the silver sea and tell her husband, Go away I was never satisfied in the tellurian world. I wanted the fin, the wet lung. Leave me alone. The new form of her will turn in the other direction, breach on the surface, then vanish.
The Documentary
“Oh, people want closure,” says the man who searched for his brother. “That’s what they say they want. People have to have an answer, but the one that they want isn’t always the one that they need. This closure principle gets to be a problem. You have people who wait years for it, decades. They say they can’t move forward, but if you look at them, look at their lives, time has moved them forward without their permission. They look older, because they are older. The person they’re looking for is preserved at this particular age, right? Frozen in time. A relic, or object in a museum. Time keeps going and the evidence is all around. Until you see the images of the preserved person—the photo or video or whatever.
“So imagine it’s two centuries ago and your sibling or your child or your wife vanishes. All you have is what’s in your mind. Right up here, that’s it. Now a person disappears and you not only have hundreds of photos, but you can watch them moving around, blowing out birthday candles or walking out of the ocean. Maybe they’re talking and laughing, and so you have their voice, even. Everything there, right inside the screen. The family says maybe the person is still alive, they have to believe that. And they won’t believe anything else until they have the body and this enigma called closure.
“I think closure is a mystical idea, you know? Esoteric, secret knowledge. And the people left behind, they become seekers for it. They have a question they want answered, and the body has the knowledge.
“But that’s not the only thing going on here—there’s also time. The older the seekers get and the further away in time from those photos and videos, the more they try to find the way back. The body won’t resemble, in any way, the images or the memories. The seekers say they want the body, but they also want to deny time. They already have the question, but, you know, people are unsatisfied with questions.
“The real answer is that we have to decide questions are okay. … How? Well, that’s another question, isn’t it? Go back to the body. We think it’s the answer for a problem we can’t solve. … Sorry, what’s that—the problem? Well, I don’t know, I guess it depends on the person. I can only speak for myself, but I think the problem is the basic one. Why the hell are we here? And if you really want to make your hair stand up, the other question is:
“How did we arrive?”
Molly
Leaving. Many of the trees are bare, but close by me are three deodar cedars with sloping, deep green branches. They stand out in this season, and their dark forms make them appear knowledgeable somehow, as if they are conferring. Conifers conferring.
* * *
You will notice that the sidewalk is comprised of hexagons. Pavers in the shape of hexagons. They run through the walkways of the park, too. Secrets, lots of them. With a coating of salted white sand on top to confound whatever ice had had the temerity to form.
* * *
Benches line the walkways inside the park and are laced together from behind with heavy black chains that keep them from leaving.
* * *
The Musketeers have nothing left to say. The Joker, too, is quiet. The Gatekeeper stands close enough to him that their shoulders touch. The Crones clasp their hands and bow their heads. Revenge checks the time. The Lover weeps.
Luna
It wasn’t easy for her to get here. She had to take the long way around because for some reason so many people out today. There are more than twice as many births in this place as there are deaths, and so she supposes this means the expansion of the crowds. But she has arrived, and people are hustling along, except the ones who have stopped to circle the woman on the ground. She approaches slowly, casually, the tableau of onlookers and gradually works herself in. There is a natural parting, a space around her as she gets closer to the woman. No one touches her or pushes her away. She leans down and watches the woman, her grimace, the electricity coursing through. The ferocious beauty of a grand exit.
She notes, though, that the woman is underdressed and had the audacity to wear sandals. She herself wouldn’t do it, even on a hot day. Not here. She pats the woman’s arm and touches the face. A fabulous secreter, if ever there was one, and perhaps long gone. She locates the outer breast pocket of the grey coat and deftly sticks her fingers in without arousing suspicion. They would think she was trying to steal the woman’s wallet or phone when all she wants is the folded-up paper. What belongs to her anyway, and the woman will not be needing it. This was never about falling, but rising.
She straightens up and walks away, clutching the paper, and then putting it in her own pocket. She consults her watch, and feels some satisfaction. It has taken her seven minutes to walk from the location of her brandy to here. A storm is coming. As ever, she has been right on time.
Molly
I see the woman shaking on the ground and hear what the others gathered don’t seem to detect, the rumbling of passage to another place. Only a particular, hard-won knowledge can come from this sort of relinquishment. Being so taken over. She appears powerless but this isn’t the truth of it, or the only truth. She has an immense energy, gold-spiked and full of terror, the kind reported in the presence of angels, ones that blind.
I watch her and note that her face is exactly like mine, her torso, her limbs. She seizes right to the tips of her hair. Today we’ve picked the same outfit, same scarf, same regrettable sandals. Same jacket in dark grey to mask grit and stains, the marks of travel to the underground. The people of the sidewalk, the ones who were blasting through only moments ago, have stopped and gathered. A common assumption about city dwellers, and these ones in particular, is that they’ll step over a body if they must to get where they’re going, but it isn’t true. Not here, at least, where the people have worried expressions. An older woman leans over to touch the shaking woman’s shoulder. Other people hover and jostle and murmur about emergency vehicles and a nearby police officer. There is a boy, too, and his mother. No one in this crowd yells or panics anymore. They listen to the woman’s long, deep gasps. No one hears the horns blaring. Hands touch down here and there light as insects. The bodies stop the cold wind from reaching the shaking woman. They ring around her, ancient and tribal. It is possible that the people know a holy experience when they see one.
Acknowledgments
Many people and things have to align for books to be written. Sometimes the support is directly literary, and sometimes it is simple, loving friendship, or guidance, or an extra set of hands. Sometimes the gift is wildly astute editorial advice or the sharing of knowledge, and other times it is the prompting of a huge belly laugh (you know who you are). Sometimes I am rescued or uplifted or inspired by people in my immediate circle, and other times it is a complete stranger who renders what is needed. To everyone who has helped in ways big and small with the creation of Molly and her world, thank you.
* * *
There is a form of metta meditation that goes:
May you be safe and protected.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you live with ease.
I wish this for you, and all beings.
* * *
Thank you, especially,
Laurie Grassi
Nathaniel Jacks
Marjan Kamali
Patti Hall
Patricia Magosse
Ron MacLean
Ilan Mochari
Sarah Gerkensmeyer
Cliff Thompson
Georgia Silvera Seamans
Robin, Gabriel, and Samuel (to you, the most gratitude of all)
More from the Author
When We Were Birds
About the Author
PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBIN WILSON
MARIA MUTCH’s memoir, Know the Night, was a finalist for both the Governor General’s Literary Awards and the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and was listed in The Globe and Mail’s Top 100 and Maclean’s Best Reads. Her debut short story collection, When We Were Birds, received stellar reviews. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, The Malahat Review, and Poets & Writers Magazine. She lives in Rhode Island with her husband and two sons. Visit her online at www.mariamutch.com or follow her on Twitter @maria_mutch.
SimonandSchuster.ca
www.SimonandSchuster.ca/Authors/Maria-Mutch
@simonbooks
ALSO BY MARIA MUTCH
When We Were Birds
Know the Night
We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.
Join our mailing list to get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.
Simon & Schuster Canada
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
166 King Street East, Suite 300
Toronto, Ontario M5A 1J3
www.SimonandSchuster.ca
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Maria Mutch
“You that come to birth and bring the mysteries” [4 1.] from RUMI: THE BOOK OF LOVE: POEMS OF ECSTASY AND LONGING, TRANSLATIONS & COMMENTARY by COLEMAN BARKS ET AL. Copyright © 2003 by Coleman Barks. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Simon & Schuster Canada Subsidiary Rights Department, 166 King Street East, Suite 300, Toronto, Ontario, M5A 1J3.
This Simon & Schuster Canada edition April 2020
SIMON & SCHUSTER CANADA and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-800-268-3216 or [email protected].
All photographs by Maria Mutch.
Jacket design by Jessica Lacy Boudreau
Cover image © Jacob Loafman/Stocksy
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Molly falls to earth / Maria Mutch
Names: Mutch, Maria, author.
Description: Simon & Schuster Canada edition.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190176466 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190176474 | ISBN 9781501182815
(softcover) | ISBN 9781501182822 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PS8626.U885 M65 2020 | DDC C813/.6—dc23
ISBN 978-1-5011-8281-5
ISBN 978-1-5011-8282-2 (ebook)