by Liz Phair
We walk back behind the house and a little way up the second ridge to the forest’s edge. A hundred yards farther in is the clearing where Winnie and I pick wildflowers. One time, we encountered a full-grown buck with towering antlers, standing stock still, silently watching us. Fungi sometimes grow between the tree roots, and I’ve found toadstools that look exactly like the ones in fairy tales: bright red caps with white polka dots. Purple nightshade also grows back there, which Winnie warns me is poisonous.
Phillip dares me to eat unknown berries all the time. I’ve watched him pop things into his mouth that I would never touch let alone taste, only to see him drop them to the ground behind his back in a diabolical sleight of hand. The only wild berries I trust are the ones growing in the blackberry thicket. I’ve stood among the brambles and darting honeybees eating them by the handful until my fingernails turned black from the juice.
There are so many things to do at Red Bird Hollow. I wish Phillip would give up on his quest to impress our cousins. It’ll only lead to more taunting and abuse. It’s not that I’m afraid of heights. Young though we may be, Phillip and I are both experienced climbers. I crawled across our jungle gym before I could even walk steadily. My dad nearly had a heart attack when he came home from work one day to find my mother watching me from the screened-in porch. She put her finger up to her lips and shushed him. “Elizabeth can do it,” she whispered.
We hang out in trees a lot. Especially me; it’s my favorite way to disappear. If you want to win a game of hide-and-seek, just haul yourself up into a tree. You’d be amazed how few people ever think to look up. It’s relaxing to lie back among the branches, bathed in dappled sunlight, listening to the sound of the rustling leaves. I feel safe up there.
But I’m used to climbing the groomed yews and maples that grow in our neighborhood. The white pines on Winnie and Granddad’s property are generations older and twice as wild. There’s no city forester out here removing dead branches or marking hollowed-out trunks for felling with a big orange X. If Phillip’s tree is diseased, we won’t know until it’s too late. One of the boughs could give way. Or the soil around the roots might be eroded, and the whole thing could topple over from our weight.
Phillip shields his eyes, gazing up between two pines, trying to gauge which trunk belongs to the tree we want to climb. He can’t tell unless he can see the tops of them. He instructs me to wait here while he goes back down to the house to check our position. I pat the bark of the one I’m standing beneath. It sounds pretty healthy.
The truth is, now that we’re here, I’m intimidated. Not just by their size and coarseness but by the worry that we ought to ask their permission first, as if they can feel us eyeing them, and they haven’t decided whether or not we’re trustworthy. It’s an unfortunate fact that every Christmas, Granddad gets out his chain saw and cuts down one of their young to prop up in the living room and decorate.
I love my grandfather. He’s very patient, and encouraging with us kids. But he has a rural attitude toward the stewardship of the natural world that is anathema to my delicate sensibilities. My mother and uncle tell a gruesome coming-of-age story about Red Bird Hollow, and how a calf they raised and named Mooey wound up on their dinner plates the next year.
I touch my forehead to the tree trunk, silently transmitting my good intentions in case there really is a tree sprite or woodland guardian listening. My life is filled with spiritual rituals at this age. Phillip thinks I’m a witch, but I’m only a pagan. At church, I scribble “help” on backs of the suggestion cards they stock in the pews next to the hymnals. Years later I’ll be confirmed as an Episcopalian, but right now I belong to the woolly faith of my imagination.
Phillip shouts for me to move over to the tree to my left. He comes running back up the hill, out of breath. He looks a little nervous, too, and I pray that he’s about to change his mind. It’s not a great day for climbing. Dark clouds are looming on the horizon. We stand flush with the trunk and look up its central artery, calculating the best route. It’s a handsomely shaped tree with a uniform number of offshoots, spaced evenly and tapering gradually. I can hear the great branches swaying in the wind overhead. Every time the boughs creak, my stomach crumbles with queasiness.
The dogs are racing back and forth across the lawn, chasing a ball that they keep running up the hill and dropping at our feet. Phillip picks it up and throws it in a high arc down the hill, to distract them. Then he boosts me up onto the lowest limb. I’m only six, so I can’t reach it by myself. We have to hurry. If Winnie or Granddad sees us through the windows, they’ll come out and tell us to get down. Once we ascend past the sparse lower branches, we’ll be hidden from view in the dense foliage. Diana, our cowardly springer spaniel, squirms and whines at the foot of the tree. She points her nose up at us, barking loudly. Phillip snaps his fingers angrily and tries to shoo her away.
I move slowly and deliberately. The twigs scrape my skin every time I hook a leg over a branch and pull myself up. Phillip overtakes me and nearly knocks me off-balance in his determination to be first. I grab hold of some sturdy greenery to reestablish my footing. My hands are covered in the sticky sap that oozes out of tiny woodpecker gashes in the bark. It’s pretty cluttered up with dead sprigs in here. I start breaking them off like a bushwhacker as I go.
It smells wonderful, though. Pine is my favorite smell in the world besides tomato leaves. We’re about thirty feet off the ground, but because we’re on a hill, it feels higher. I stop to take in the view. Phillip was right. The surrounding landscape is spread out before me in a glorious expanse. I can see the wind rippling through the grass in the field behind the barn. The pond is ruffled by gusts that sweep over its surface, changing the color from silver to black and back again. Our tree sways ever so gently. Something colorful catches my eye on the slanting gray roof of Winnie and Granddad’s house.
“Phillip!”
“What?”
“It’s your parachute!”
Phillip climbs back down to see. Sure enough, it’s the missing paratrooper from the Roman candle he shot off last Fourth of July. He thought it was a dud, because we could never find the toy that was supposed to be inside. He was bitterly disappointed at the time; he was only nine. I know I’ve scored points by finding it, but I also know that he’ll never give up until we’ve gotten it off the roof somehow. It’s lying right above the false fireplace.
The original farmhouse at Red Bird Hollow was built in 1849. It was just a simple five-room plan. Over the following century, several owners added on to it, including my grandparents, who constructed an additional two-story wing. They made other improvements as well, widening the dining-room and living-room areas to make space for bookshelves—and a longer dinner table, since they liked to entertain. In the process, the architect discovered a discrepancy between the measurement of the outside of the house and the inside perimeter of the rooms they were renovating. There were about three and a half feet of missing space.
When they broke through the wall next to the fireplace, they discovered a secret chamber that we would later find out had once been used to hide men and women fleeing slavery. In the 1850s and ’60s, Cincinnati was a major stop on the Underground Railroad. Kentucky had some of the harshest laws of any state in the South, and it was just across the river from the emancipated territory of Ohio. You could push off in a boat and make it to the shores of freedom in less than an hour if the weather favored you. Unfortunately, the Ohio River valley was also crawling with bounty hunters. People weren’t immediately safe from captivity once they set foot in the North; they could still be caught and returned if one of the mercenaries found them.
Once our family realized that an abolitionist had built the farmhouse, the whole layout suddenly made sense. No one ever used the front door, because it faced a relatively steep drop-off overlooking the valley. You had to approach the front porch from a side path, whereas the back door opened
out onto flat land and a gently sloping driveway, which looped around past the barn and down the hill before intersecting with the main road. It was almost as though someone had built the house backward.
But now it all made sense, because safe houses always hung lanterns out front to signal their hospitality. Fugitives traveling by foot across the dark valley would have been able to see the lamp on that front porch from miles away. The farmhouse at Red Bird Hollow was sited and built specifically with this purpose in mind. It was a humbling and inspiring realization that sent a shiver through your bones. There might never have been any other purpose to the house at all. There’s certainly no farmland beyond Granddad’s small field. Thoughtful details, like how the hidden room would have stayed warm from the back of the heated bricks in the fireplace and how the chimney had two separate shafts to allow fresh air to get in, speak to the convictions of the builder.
Whoever those men and women were who came seeking sanctuary for a night or two, or more, they must have successfully made it farther north, or the secret room would have been found and destroyed long before my grandfather’s time. There’s a strong likelihood that the house itself would have been burned to the ground if the hideaway had ever been discovered. Imagine how much fear and disquietude, relief and impatience, that windowless three-by-six-foot refuge had known. Imagine the stories this tree could tell if it could speak. The evergreen I’m dangling in was alive through it all. It saw and heard everything.
A faint rumble of thunder echoes across the valley. I look up at Phillip, who is ten feet above me already, and wonder if he’s more likely to be struck by lightning since he’s up the highest. I start climbing again, but slowly, so I can maintain a safe distance between us.
The back of my hand itches. I brush something crimson off my wrist. Now my forearm itches. I inspect my skin and spot two microscopic red spiders crawling on me. I hate spiders more than anything, but these arachnids don’t look dangerous. They’re no bigger than pinheads. Still, I frantically shake my clothing, flipping my long hair over to make sure there’s nothing in it. The branch I’m standing on bounces a little bit too freely, and I hop onto the next one quickly. We’re up very high now. Almost twice as high as the roof of the house. I can see Tiffany’s über-modern glass home through the trees—a multilevel, multicolored architectural experiment.
I hear Phillip’s foot slip off a branch overhead, and he scrambles to save himself. Some loose material falls around me as a result of his misstep. “Go back!” his panicked voice suddenly urges me. “Libby, go back down! Hurry!”
“What’s wrong?” I start to scoot along the limb, gingerly reaching a toe down to the branch below me. It’s a lot trickier climbing down than climbing up.
“Just go! Hurry!” Phillip lets out a shriek, and a string of swear words the likes of which I’ve never heard—which is impressive, considering how much our father likes to curse. It’s an introduction to a brand-new area of the English language.
“What is it? Tell me!” I wail. His fear is contagious. I’m slipping all over the place. I try to maneuver my weight toward the center of each branch, but I’m suddenly clumsy and can’t find my balance.
“It’s a spider’s nest. Don’t look up, Libby! Just go! Faster!”
“What?!” Of course I look up. At first I don’t see anything. Then, slowly, my eyes adjust to make out the familiar eight-legged shapes splayed out on all the branches, motionless, camouflaged perfectly. They’re huntsmen, huge, bigger than the size of my hand, and they’re everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere.
I burst into tears. “Phillip!”
“It’s okay, Libby. Go down! Please!” He’s begging.
“I can’t! They’re going to fall on me!”
“You can do it.” Phillip knows spiders are my number one fear, the only thing that absolutely incapacitates me. I reflexively jump and scream whenever I see one. And these are the biggest goddamn spiders in the world.
“It’s okay! I’m going to stay above you, okay? I’m going to stay right above you, Libby. They won’t fall on you; they’ll fall on me.” I know Phillip is almost as scared as I am. His gallantry in this moment is something I’ll never forget.
I’m trying to move quickly, but I’m terrified they’re all going to start running toward me. I know if they do, if even one of them zips closer, I’ll let go and free-fall to the ground. There’s no way I can stop myself. I hold my breath, moaning with misery as I squeeze past a spider that’s resting vertically on the trunk. At the last second it darts around to the other side, and the motion of its legs is enough to make my knees buckle. I shudder with revulsion, emitting little squeaks and whimpers. I can’t believe they were here the whole time we were climbing up.
It feels like an eternity before we’re out of spider territory. I’m shaking so badly by the time we get down that I can’t even hold on to the last branch, and I fall the final six feet onto my back. Winnie is there, picking me up in her arms, asking us what happened, and pushing the dogs away as they jump all over us trying to lick our wounds. My skin is covered in nasty scratches that will take weeks to heal, because they’re infected from the sap. My face is smeared with tears and dirt. I have pine needles and broken twigs tangled in my hair.
Phillip gives me a big hug as the first raindrops start to fall, saying, “I’m proud of you, Libby. You were really brave up there.” I hang my head down as we walk inside the house, letting my hair close around me like a veil. I just want to look at the ground, and at my feet in my red sneakers, and at the small, familiar things that don’t overwhelm me.
Winnie washes us off in the kitchen sink with her rough, gray Lava soap, which she thinks can cure anything. Lightning flashes outside the window, followed by a close crack of thunder. A gust of cold wind blows the curtains up. Winnie rushes around the house closing all the windows while Phillip and I change clothes. The thunder doesn’t even make me jump anymore. My adrenaline is utterly depleted.
Downstairs in the living room, Phillip switches on the TV, and we watch I Love Lucy, sitting cross-legged on the carpet. The rain beats against the windowpanes as lightning freeze-frames the sky and thunderclaps vibrate throughout the walls and floor, but we’re safe inside our sturdy old farmhouse. Winnie brings us bowls of Honeycomb cereal with milk. Poor Diana is hiding beneath the couch, trembling, because she’s the most cowardly dog ever and always dives under the bed during thunderstorms or fireworks. I get on my hands and knees and crawl to her, squeezing in to fit my body around hers, stroking the side of her rib cage to stop her shaking. “It’s all right, girl,” I whisper in her silky ear. “You’re safe.”
Granddad comes into the living room and gives a whoop, invigorated by the storm. “It’s raining cats and dogs!” He lights a roaring fire in the fireplace, then settles into his wing chair to do the crossword. Winnie brings him a Scotch on the rocks, singing, “It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring” for our benefit. She’s got dinner going in the kitchen, and I can smell beef and potatoes browning in the oven.
Diana’s stopped shaking, now that she’s warm. The violent part of the storm has passed over us. I lay my head on my arm and stare into the dancing flames, feeling drowsy. I spot my favorite Barbie-doll shoe silhouetted against the firelight. I thought I’d lost it months ago. And there’s the blue agate marble from our 3-D tic-tac-toe game. I rake my fingers through the carpet, snaring half a dozen more beloved lost items amid the loose fuzz and dust bunnies: treasure I put in my pockets and don’t tell Phillip about. He doesn’t believe in magic. He’d call it junk and take it from me or toss it into the underbrush. I’m the keeper of the sacred rituals, and it’s my job to make sure the universe stays on track.
I take my job very seriously. I don’t want the fairies to get mad at me or the trees to complain. But mostly, I don’t want to live in the flat dull world of reality. I need more than that. And I know it’s out there. There’s
always something precious hidden at Red Bird Hollow. These woods are enchanted. After all, they contain my childhood.
I’m sitting in the makeup chair, one of those canvas-backed director’s thrones that are awkwardly tall and feel like they could fold inward at any moment. There’s too much air circulating around me—on my calves and the small of my back, across my naked shoulder blades. I’m restless and anxious about the photo shoot, frustrated to be sidelined here in the beauty department while the rest of the crew discuss the setup. You’d never know it to look at me, though. I’m frozen in place, holding absolutely still.
A petite woman with red hair and perfect features is lining my lips. I have my mouth open in an obliging O shape, and she has her pencil in her hand, squinting at my vermilion border like a forensic scientist trying to trace the outline of a missing piece of evidence. We met fifteen minutes ago, and we are literally breathing into each other’s mouths. I try to conserve oxygen, exhaling slowly, off to one side. My eyes flick between hers, the pencil, and the large vanity mirror on the wall. I no longer recognize myself.
The incandescent globes give off a warm glow that is both comforting and vaguely incriminating. I feel X-rayed, displayed in flat white light with all my flaws magnified. The process of transformation is always the same, but the results vary considerably, depending on who the artist is and what look they’re going for. I never get used to the precision of professionally applied makeup on my already angular face. It seems like we’re doubling down where we should be compromising. But I let my glam squad do their thing, because the only outcome that matters is what the camera captures.
The pictures we’re taking today will run in a hip New York teen magazine, alongside a feature promoting my latest album. We’re down in the Meatpacking District at somebody’s friend’s loft, and the photographer is pregnant. It’s all very avant-garde, but I have to protect my upcoming record launch. I want to see the references for the concept they’re pitching. I need assurance that it’ll come across in print the way they say it will. I’ve been doing a lot of photo shoots lately, and I feel like my identity’s being robbed. I have no idea that I’m about to take some of the best pictures of my entire career.