Secrets of Harmony Grove

by Mindy Starns Clark

  Up ahead I caught a glimpse of the main gate, so I cut to the chase and explained that Daphne’s grandfather had been a renowned scholar, and many years before she was born he had joined with an arborist to create a very unique grove behind the family home, one based on the epic poem The Metamorphoses.

  As soon as I said “poem” I could tell I was losing their attention, so I simply added that Daphne died giving birth to Emory, and when my grandfather moved back to the states a few years later, he decided to re-create that grove here as memorial to his late wife. I didn’t add that Daphne and her entire family had deeply loved the grove, nor that she had in fact been named from one of the main characters in the poem.

  “So what makes a grove a grove?” Rip asked.

  “I think it’s the same thing as an orchard,” Charlie said.

  “No, I think a grove means it’s just one certain type of tree, not a variety,” Mike ventured.

  “Technically,” I said, “a grove is simply a grouping of trees where the ground is kept clear of undergrowth. The trees don’t have to be fruit bearing, nor do they all have to be the same kind.” Hoping my correction hadn’t sounded rude, I added, “I mean, I’m sure Harmony Grove has plenty of underbrush now, but when my grandfather was alive it didn’t. He tended it constantly, keeping it immaculate.”

  Up ahead, our beams of light illuminated the main gate and reflected off the brass plate on the left door. Other, smaller reflections from closer to the ground shone back toward us as well, so before anyone might think that those were animal eyes looking at us, I quickly explained that they were markers.

  “Markers?”

  “Yes, you know, like little signs about the different trees? My grandfather knew how to do metal work, so he made them for all over the grove.”

  “Oh, I know what you mean by markers,” Charlie said. “Where they’ll have the common name for a tree at the top and then the scientific name under that? Like, Pine Tree and then pineaniculus treealiopulas?”

  Everyone chuckled.

  “Kind of like that,” I said, smiling, “except most of these markers don’t identify the types of trees but instead have poem excerpts about the trees. You’ll see when we get further inside. Some of the markers never made much sense to me, but at least they’re interesting. The whole grove, really, is fascinating—it’s full of unusual plantings, with a beautiful bridge over the creek and lots of ornamental touches.”

  Mike asked if any of the markers in here said anything about a Fishing Tree, which was the thing Troy had called to ask me about earlier today.

  “I’ve been thinking about that. I do remember one that says something about dolphins, and maybe another that has to do with fish, but I’m not sure where either of those is. With at least a hundred markers in here, it could take some time to find them—and even if you did, there’s no way to know if one of those is what my grandfather meant by the term Fishing Tree or not.”

  What I didn’t mention were the more bizarre markers in here, including one that referred to “walking skeletons,” another to something called “Blood Street,” and even one about werewolves, which was no doubt how those particular rumors were started.

  We reached the gate and stopped there, all of us shining our lights up on the beautiful wrought iron arch, the words “Harmony Grove” spelled out in the curve of that arch. On the left door, etched in a brass plate, were these words:

  Through me what was, what is, and what will be are revealed.

  Through me strings sound in harmony, to song.

  “Is that from the Bible?” Rip asked.

  “No, it’s from Ovid’s The Metamorphoses,” I replied.

  “Meta who?”

  “Metamorphoses. It’s an ancient epic poem, kind of like The Iliad? The Odyssey?”

  “I read The Odyssey in tenth grade,” Charlie volunteered. “Didn’t understand a word of it.”

  We all smiled.

  “The Metamorphoses is a little easier to understand, I think. Basically, it’s a love story about Phoebus and Daphne. He loves her desperately, but she’s not interested in him at all.”

  “Can you blame her? Who could love somebody with a name like Phoebus?”

  Charlie joked, and again, everyone chuckled.

  “This ironwork is gorgeous,” Mike said, using his flashlight to inspect the gate. On the left, below the brass inscription, was an arrow pointing an upward angle and extending beyond the inner frame of the door. That arrow, like the rest of the door, was made from wrought iron, but its tip was covered in shiny brass. The right door featured a similar arrow, also pointing inward and upward, but its tip was a dull metal. When pulled closed, the two arrows crossed at the center. “Did your grandfather make this?”

  I nodded. For years I had been told that my artistic talents had been passed down to me from my grandfather, though my dad always insisted that those talents had skipped a generation along the way. Now as I looked at this incredibly beautiful gate and the grove that lay beyond, I felt a deep sense of pride. Abe Collins had been a strange and remote man in his lifetime, but there was no question he had also possessed an enormous amount of talent.

  While the technician went to work on the gate’s latch, checking it for Troy’s fingerprints, and Mike studied the ground around both gates, looking for footprints or other evidence, Rip and Charlie seemed more interested in reading the nearby markers than watching for beasts in the shadows. Rip read the first one out loud, an excerpt from the poem, which provided an explanation for the design of the gate:

  He landed on the shady peak of Parnassus and took

  two arrows with opposite effects from his full quiver:

  One kindles love, the other dispels it.

  The one that kindles is golden with a sharp glistening point.

  The one that dispels is blunt with lead beneath its shaft.

  “Who’s the he?” Charlie asked.

  “He who?” Rip replied.

  “He, there. With the arrows. Who’s he?”

  Wishing the two men would cut their who’s-on-first banter and focus on keeping us safe, I jumped in to explain that the poem referred to a Cupidlike creature who started all the trouble by shooting Phoebus with an arrow that kindled love in him but then shot Daphne with one that dispels love. Thanks to those arrows, poor Phoebus was destined to unrequited love forever.

  “Unrequited love forever?” Charlie cried. “Sounds like you, Rip!”

  Their guffaws earned a sharp reprimand from Mike, who reminded them of their purpose for being out here. Thus chastised, they manned their posts, flanking us with their backs to the group and their flashlights shining out into the night on each side.

  As Mike and the tech worked and Rip and Charlie stood guard, I remained silent, trying not to be in the way.

  “Is this gate usually closed or open?” Mike asked me, still studying the dry, dusty ground around it.

  “Open. Actually, the only gate of the four that usually stays closed is the one we call the German Gate. If Troy got turned around and was fooling with a latch trying to get it open so that he could get back to the inn, that probably would have been the one that confused him.”

  According to the technician, this gate was offering nothing in the form of solid evidence, and he was ready to move on.

  “Okay then, Sienna,” Mike said. “Why don’t you lead us to the German Gate.”

  It was clear across on the other side of the grove, so rather than follow the meandering path that encircled it, I suggested we cut straight through instead. We headed out, once again playing our beams in front of us, watching and listening for any unusual sounds or movements.

  After a few minutes Rip and Charlie’s chatter started up again, this time wondering how an Amish man, who probably hadn’t been educated beyond the eighth grade, had ended up building a grove full of literary references.

  “The literary references came from Daphne’s grove back in Germany,” I reminded them. Though I said nothing more, I wanted to ju
mp to my grandfather’s defense and insist that the Amish often found many ways to continue learning long after they were finished with school. But though my grandfather had been a well-read and obviously gifted man, the reason for the grove’s literary ties had nothing to do with either.

  As I thought about it, I remembered what my dad always said, that while this grove may have begun as a mere copy of another one across the sea, at some point it had taken on a life of its own, growing and expanding far beyond its original, more modest re-creation.

  We pressed onward, growing silent as the grove thickened around us. In daylight, the canopy of treetops overhead was simply awe inspiring, but here in the dark, where they blocked the light of the moon and stars and a mist hovered over the ground, it simply felt otherworldly.

  I wasn’t the only one getting the creeps. I noticed that both Rip and Charlie had drawn their weapons and were holding them at the ready, just in case. Seeing the looks on their faces, I decided that if there really was a creature out here somewhere, I wouldn’t want to be it right now. Just as quickly, I realized they needed to be careful. With other teams also working the grove, they could all end up shooting each other.

  “Let’s not be trigger-happy,” Mike said, as if he could read my mind. “We have other people out here, remember.”

  “We know, boss.”

  Wondering if any of those teams were nearby, I began to direct the beam of my flashlight toward the trees that surrounded us rather than on the path in front of us. As I did, I noticed something odd.

  “Wait,” I said, pausing on the path. Playing my beam along the ground around some of the trees off to one side, I realized I was seeing holes, dozens of holes that had been dug in the ground. “This isn’t right. Someone has been out here digging.”

  “Someone or something,” Rip said, moving gingerly toward one of the holes to take a closer look.

  The technician and Mike moved in as well, squatting to study them, and after a moment both agreed they could clearly see shovel marks. These holes had been made by a human, with a tool, and not by a creature. Mike stood up, looking at me.

  “Seems like your treasure-hunting theory was correct, Sienna. Probably what the folks across the street saw your ex-boyfriend carrying around out here was a shovel.”

  While it was certainly comforting to know that these holes hadn’t been dug by some beast, seeing them now certainly raised more questions than it answered. If Troy really had been out here in the grove searching for treasure, was it possible he had succeeded in his quest? Before he died, had Troy actually found our family’s mythical diamonds?

  As the technician took some photographs and our gunmen stood guard, I noticed that Mike was shining his light all around the area, looking for markers and then reading them. I joined him at one, a metal plate next to a tall, old oak.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  “That there must have been a method to his madness. The grove is huge. Troy couldn’t have just gone digging at random. I’m thinking that there must be something right around here that indicates a Fishing Tree.”

  I helped as well, skimming the text on each plate I could find.

  “What do you think of this one?” Mike asked, pointing.

  It read:

  They set sails to the wind,

  though as yet the seamen had poor knowledge of their use,

  and the ships’ keels that once were trees

  standing amongst high mountains

  now leaped through uncharted waves.

  “This is the closest one yet, given that it talks about ships and water,” he said.

  “True, but it doesn’t mention fish. Somewhere out here, there are at least two markers I can think of that are way more specific about fishing than this.”

  We weren’t far from the middle of the grove, and it struck me that perhaps the Fishing Tree was the name of the grove’s centerpiece, the delicate bay laurel that sat just on the other side of the bridge and was flanked by a circle of beautiful wrought iron benches. We kids had always called that one the Kissing Tree, but perhaps that was just our name for it and my grandfather called it something else. Certainly, it was the most significant tree in the grove, the one around which all of the others had been planted. If my grandfather had referred repeatedly to any one tree in his papers, it more than likely would have been that one.

  I explained my thinking to Mike, so once he and the technician had finished examining the area for evidence, he used his radio to call in a follow-up team and our little group pressed onward.

  “What do sailboats have to do with the story?” Rip asked as we went.

  “Yeah, and where were they going in that ship?” Charlie added.

  I explained that before the main point of the story—the part with Cupid’s arrows and the whole unrequited love thing—Ovid gives a long, fictional tale about the forming of the earth.

  “There’s even a great flood. I think the quote on the marker comes from that part. The flood destroys all of humankind, and the ones who are left have to start over and repopulate the earth.”

  “Sounds like the Bible to me,” Mike said.

  “Similar elements,” I replied, “but this story is definitely not biblical. Instead of our one real God, the world Ovid describes is created by many mythical gods. In fact, it’s the gods that keep messing up things for the humans, from what I recall.”

  “So when does the Cupid guy start doing his bit?”

  “About two thirds of the way in. After that, the whole rest of the poem tells what happened to poor Phoebus and Daphne.”

  We came to the bridge, which was so narrow that we had to cross in single file. As I started over, I thought back to the many times Scott and our Amish cousins and I had played here. We had elaborate pretend games about an ogre who lived underneath. Striding quickly across the wooden planks now, I could only hope there weren’t any real ogres hiding under there, just waiting to come out and grab me around the ankles.

  TEN

  Once our little group was on the other side of the bridge, we found ourselves facing the centerpiece of the grove, the bay laurel tree. As we stood there taking it in, I was surprised to realize that while most of the grove seemed neglected and untended, someone had been taking care of this area recently. Here, there were no fallen limbs or intrusive weeds or even any autumn leaves. In fact, I realized, looking down at the ground, the clearing had recently been raked, the ridges created by a rake’s tines still visible in the dust. Before I could point this out, the technician picked up on it as well. Telling us not to move in any closer lest we contaminate any evidence, he very carefully and thoroughly began examining and photographing the scene.

  While we waited, Mike and I read the markers etched into plaques mounted on the benches circling the tree. Nearby, Charlie and Rip stood guard.

  “So what happens to Phoebus and Daphne?” Rip asked, which made me smile, knowing that he was genuinely interested in the poem’s story.

  “In a nutshell? He pursues her, she runs from him, and when he’s about to catch her she begs the heavens for help and is turned into a tree. A bay laurel.”

  I added that the markers on these benches, when read in sequence, provided the climax of the poem, starting with the final chase through the wilderness, followed by her plea for help, and then that bizarre transformation of human into tree:

  Her strength was gone, she grew pale,

  overcome by the effort of her rapid flight,

  and seeing Peneus’s waters near cried out

  “Help me, father! If your streams have divine powers

  change me, destroy this beauty that pleases too well!”

  Her prayer was scarcely done when

  a heavy numbness seized her limbs,

  thin bark closed over her breast,

  her hair turned into leaves,

  her arms into branches,

  her feet so swift a moment ago stuck fast in slow-growing roots,

  her face was lost i
n the canopy.

  Only her shining beauty was left.

  I read the next one out loud, its words familiar simply because as children it had always made us giggle:

  Even like this Phoebus loved her

  and, placing his hand against the trunk,

  he felt her heart still quivering under the new bark.

  He clasped the branches as if they were parts of human arms,

  and kissed the wood.

  “That’s why we always called this one the Kissing Tree.”

  “Is that this Ovid guy’s version of a happy ending?” Charlie asked, frowning.

  “The poem’s a tragedy. Unrequited love, remember? It doesn’t have a happy ending.” I read the next plate in the series:

  But even the wood shrank from his kisses,

  and he said “Since you cannot be my bride, you must be my tree!

  Laurel, with you my hair will be wreathed,

  with you my lyre, with you my quiver.

  Just as my head with its uncropped hair is always young,

  so you also will wear the beauty of undying leaves.”

  “Okay, that’s pretty sad,” Rip said. “Since you cannot be my bride, you must be my tree? I mean, personally, I’d like to find my soul mate, but I’d rather have no one at all than fall in love with a tree.”

  We all laughed.

  “Is that where it ends?” Charlie asked.

  “Almost. There’s one more,” I said. “I’d read it to you, but it’s on the marker over where they’re working.”

  I hadn’t thought that either Mike or the tech were even listening to us, but they must have been because the tech paused in what he was doing to read it for us.

  “It says, ‘The laurel bowed her newly made branches and seemed to shake her leafy crown, like a head giving consent.’”

  “At least it ends on an upbeat note,” Mike commented. “Sort of.”

  “Yeah,” Charlie replied, “’cept that’s a bay laurel and this is zone seven. Not gonna be a happy ending for this tree.”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant, but Rip understood and soon the two men were discussing trees and gardening and climate zones. Apparently, Charlie was of the opinion that bay laurels could never survive a Pennsylvania winter and in this region should always be planted in giant pots, ones that could be moved inside when temperatures began to plummet. Rip disagreed, insisting that if you nursed one along carefully enough and protected it until its roots had been well established in the ground, that it could be done. His was the winning point, because I was pretty sure that this was the very same bay laurel tree that had always been here.