“I’d like to collect some local tales of the area to print in a special edition with your lovely woodcuts,” she said.
I told her, then, about the fairy tales I’d made up for my sisters on the farm. She begged me to tell them to her. Then it was my voice that filled the darkness between the two rooms. I began with the Dutch stories I’d heard from my mother and grandmother, and then I told her the stories I had made up. I was shy at first of telling her the ones about the brave heroine I’d invented because I’d come to think of her as Vera. It was Vera’s face I saw when I thought of those stories, even though I had created them before I met her. Soon, though, I gained confidence from the dark and I began telling her my stories. I described my heroine as part Valkyrie, part fairy queen. She slew dragons and saved whole villages from evil wizards. She sailed on pirate ships and discovered lost kingdoms.
When I ran out of my old stories, I started making up new ones. One night I began one with these words: “There once was a girl who liked to pretend she was lost until the day she really lost her way.” As I described this girl wandering in the woods alone, I pictured myself running through the forest on May Eve. How had I not known it was Virgil Nash following me? Why hadn’t I run from him when I did know? How had I gotten so lost? As I described how lost and tired the girl became I began to cry, but quietly so Vera wouldn’t hear.
“At last the girl grew so weary that she begged the spirits of the forest to turn her into a tree. She became a slender white birch leaning against a strong beech and she never felt lost again.”
When I finished Vera was silent. I was afraid I’d somehow revealed too much—that she knew all about my meetings with Nash in the barn, knew why I felt so lost—but then I heard the creak of a floorboard and turned toward the door. Standing on the threshold, in her white nightgown, she looked like the girl in my story transformed: like a slim birch swaying in the breeze as she hesitated to come farther or flee.
I stretched out my arms to her and she came forward as if pushed by an invisible wind. She was trembling when she came into my arms, quaking like an aspen in the wind. I pressed the length of my body against hers—and wrapped myself around her until I couldn’t feel any space between us. Like two trees growing from the same trunk, we tossed in the same wind, shook with the same passion, were cleft by the same stroke of lightning.
“Stay with me forever,” she murmured sometime toward morning.
I breathed my consent onto her skin, from the hollow beneath her collar bone to the dip above her ankle, spilling my yes into all the little pools and valleys of her body so she would be inundated by my love.
From that night on I stayed away from Nash, but on the night that Vera announced our plans to stay together for the winter I asked Nash to meet me in the barn again. I stayed with Vera into the early hours of the morning. I had learned over the summer that she reached her deepest sleep only then. Lying beside her, listening to her breathing, I studied her face. In the moonlight her noble profile reminded me of a Greek goddess carved in marble. Wise, gray-eyed Athena, perhaps, the warrior goddess. I could imagine her striding into battle, her brave heart beating steadily under her cuirassed breastplate, her eyes flashing bright as bronze. My dear brave Vera, named for truth. She would defend me to the end. And if she knew that I had betrayed her? For the hundredth time that summer I imagined telling her. The first time had been a mistake, I would tell her. I had gone to the barn looking for her. But then how to explain the other times? Could I tell her that I had done it for the good of the colony? After all, she was the one who had said we needed Nash and his reputation to succeed. Or should I just tell her that I was weak? He had flattered me, threatened to expose me, tricked me, taunted me, bewitched me, ensnared me. If she would only stand by me now and lend me some of her strength, I could give him up. It was her that I really wanted.
And for the hundredth time that summer I imagined her eyes clouding over as I spoke. Her clear vision of me—her pure Lily!—despoiled. And I imagined her turning her face from me. I knew that I couldn’t bear it.
I got up. I couldn’t lie beside her imagining that. I stole from our room—as she called it and I had dared to think of it—like a thief in the night. I wrapped a dark cloak over my nightgown, hiding myself from the face of the moon. Still, I felt the force of the moon’s gaze upon my back as I crossed the lawn. Even when I stepped beneath the copper beech, the hot white light found me there, stippling my arms and legs with black and white leaf patterns. I let the cloak fall from me and turned around in the light, holding my arms up in it to see the leaf patterns seared onto my skin. The light fell over my rounded belly beneath my shift. I turned slowly in the moonlight, letting the leaves made from shadow and light brand me. I wanted them to leave their mark on me. Why shouldn’t the darkness I felt show on my skin?
Maybe I hoped that Vera, waking and finding me gone, would come to the window and see me standing on the lawn. She would see what I had become: a tree sprung out of moonlight and shadow, carved out of light and dark. She would see what I had done, and what I had become, but she would also see that I loved her and not Nash. She would stop me from going to him and telling him that I was pregnant. Because that was what I had decided to do. I would throw myself on his mercy and ask him to take me with him—not because I loved him but because I no longer deserved to be with Vera.
But then a cloud passed over the moon and the pattern of leaves fell from my skin like leaves falling in autumn. I put my cloak back on and ran down the hill, through the orchard, into the woods behind the lodge, and up the hill through the old trees. A wind stirred the pine needles on the forest floor into little eddies. The air smelled like rain. I went faster, scrambling down the sharp rocks of the clove. No moonlight lit the path that night—the moon had hid her face from me—but I knew the path well enough by then to feel my way in the dark. I almost wished I would fall. I went faster and faster, daring the now rain-slicked rocks of the clove to dash me to the ground, but each time my foot or hand slipped the moss-covered rocks seemed to hold me up, like giants passing me from hand to hand, carrying me to him—and farther away from Vera.
I was soaked from head to toe by the time I reached the barn. I had lost my cloak and my nightgown clung to my skin. He stood in the doorway smoking a cigar, his face, lit in the red glow of its burning tip, etched into a saturnine leer at the sight of me. What did he see? Did he see my swelling breasts and the curved dome of my belly? How could he not? He who always saw me so clearly.
“Finally! I knew you couldn’t stay away from me forever!” He tossed the cigar away, careless of the spark that could set the barn on fire, just as he’d been careless of how he set our lives on fire for his own sport … but no, I told myself, I couldn’t blame it all on him. I’d struck the match and held it to the tinder as well.
“There’s something I have to tell you,” I said, coming closer to him.
“But you’re frozen!” He took off his coat and wrapped it around my shoulders. “Come inside. Let me warm you.” With his hands still grasping the lapels of his coat around me, he pulled me inside into the warmth of the barn. It was full now of hay stacked to the ceiling, all the accumulated heat of a summer’s worth of sun piled up against the coming winter. The coarse wool of his coat rubbed against my damp skin and I felt electricity coursing through my veins. The air was crackling between us. The hair on the back of my arms stood up and leaned toward him. I was surprised to find that there was still passion between us, because I knew now that it wasn’t love that we shared. But I could still tell him I was carrying his child and ask him to take me with him to Rome. I wouldn’t have to tell him that I loved him; he took that much as his due. I wouldn’t have to lie—and even if I did, he wouldn’t know.
“There’s something I have to tell you,” I began again.
“And I have something to tell you! I was surprised to hear Vera say you would stay here this winter—”
“I needn’t—”
“And to tell
you the truth, I was just a little hurt that you’d made your plans without consulting me.”
“But you did, too!” I exclaimed. “You didn’t tell me about the fellowship at the Academy.”
“My dear, I only just had the letter yesterday. You’ve been avoiding me half the summer. Still, I was going to tell you tonight and ask if you would like to come with me. I had already begun to daydream about us drawing together on the Palatine and riding in the Campagna.”
I took a deep breath. “We could still do all that. I could still come with you—”
I saw something change in his face. His eyes narrowed and the muscles around his mouth tightened. “Well, that’s the problem, I don’t think it’s such a good idea anymore. When I heard about your plans, I realized it was best for you to stay here. I’ll have to be free to travel while I’m over there, to meet dealers and collectors. I’m not wealthy like Vera. I’ve got to make my reputation now when I’m young or it will be too late. Perhaps later when I’m more secure we could travel together, but for now I think it really is best if you stay here with Vera.”
He stepped closer and drew his coat tighter around my shoulders. It felt like a winding sheet binding my limbs, but I didn’t push him away. I shivered. He must have thought it was from the cold because he moved closer still, backing me up against the barn wall. But it was really from the coldness I sensed in him. Even as I felt the heat of his desire I knew that his heart was cold. No. I couldn’t go with him, even if I told him now that I was pregnant and begged and screamed and demanded he marry me; being with him would kill me. And yet I didn’t push him away. I felt a coldness in my heart answering the coldness in his. We were the same, he and I. I had deceived the person I loved and I was already planning to deceive her again.
The rough planks still held the warmth of the long day in the sun and the heat of the stacked hay. His body, pressed against mine, held that same heat. A summer’s worth of passion. I let him slide his hands under my gown and lift my legs around his waist. I heard the rain gusting against the barn, like a giant trying to batter down the walls. I wrapped my legs around his back and took him into me just as the lightning flashed through the skylight, lighting us up like torches. I gasped, thinking it would strike us, almost wishing it would—I imagined the shape our bodies made emblazoned on the barn wall, our flesh dissolved to ash—but the light faded harmlessly, leaving us in the dark.
When we were done, he wanted to take me back by the road because he thought crossing the clove in the rain would be too dangerous, but I told him no.
“I’ll be fine,” I told him. What else could happen to me? The lightning didn’t strike me while I was betraying my beloved; why would the fates dash me against the rocks of the clove now?
“I’ll see you next summer,” he said as I left, but I already knew he wouldn’t be coming back.
I ran quickly into the rain. I didn’t tell him that I wouldn’t be spending the winter here either. As I climbed the slick rock path up into the clove, I made my own plans. I would get Mimi to help me. She could get me a job working on the murals at St. Lucy’s. It was perfect. When the baby was born, I could give it to the nuns.
For a second I considered finding a way to bring the baby back with me. I could claim it belonged to one of my sisters. Why shouldn’t Vera and I raise it as our own? Then I remembered what Vera always said: that once a woman had a baby, she lost her chance to be an artist. No, it was better this way for everyone.
As I made my way down the hill toward the Lodge I saw that one of the oldest and tallest trees in the forest had been cleaved in two by lightning. The first rays of the morning sun reached through the new break in the canopy and struck the still-smoking stump. I lay my hand on the seared wood where the lightning had carved its name into the heart of the tree—a great jagged ziggurat that looked exactly like the rend that had split my heart in two.
On the morning of the autumn equinox Dean St. Clare announces that the last period classes will be cancelled in order to allow students to prepare for the equinox ceremony. I decide to use the time to hike up to the ridge to where the students are planning to have their ceremony. I tell myself it’s because I want to have a good look at the terrain to make sure that they’ll be a safe distance from the cliff, but in truth I also find myself drawn to the site after reading Lily’s last journal entry. I keep reliving that night in my mind, imagining Lily entrusting herself to the slippery rocks of the clove—almost as if she’d really wanted to die rather than face the pain of Vera’s disappointment in her. Certainly her desperate coupling with Nash sounded as if she was punishing herself.
It’s a warm, clear day—more late summer than the first day of fall. I change out of my teaching clothes into jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers and, at the last minute, tie a windbreaker around my waist in case it’s colder on top of the ridge. I remember it as windy and cool, but maybe that was because the last time I was there I watched poor Isabel Cheney’s body being carried up out of the clove—a sight that would have chilled anyone.
The hike up to the ridge takes much less time than I expect. Of course, I remind myself, the last time I was pausing every fifteen minutes to call Isabel’s name. It saddens me, when I reach the fallen tree where we found the torn shred of her dress, to realize how close Isabel had been to her friends down in the apple orchard. She needn’t have felt so frightened—so alone. Yet turning around in a circle I see why she felt that way. Deep forest rings the tiny clearing; the trees stand like sentinels blocking the way out. The only sound is the roar of the waterfall. Even if she had screamed or called for help, no one would have heard her.
I sit for a moment on the fallen tree with my eyes closed, letting myself mourn for Isabel. I’ve been afraid, I think, in the weeks since she died, to really allow myself to feel it. The death of a girl Sally’s age is too unbearable to contemplate. But now I realize how cowardly—and selfish—my avoidance is. I let myself relive the brief glimpses I had of Isabel’s blunt, friendly demeanor and her naked ambition, which I’m sure wore on people’s nerves, but which I suspect would have mellowed with age and experience. Who knew how far her drive would have taken her? What a colossal waste for a girl of her talents to die so young.
When I open my eyes, a tear slides down my face. It seems like an insignificant tribute for such a tragedy. As I get up I see that someone before me has left something more tangible. A small bouquet of flowers, which I’d mistaken at first for naturally growing wildflowers, lies in the crevice of the log. It’s too late in the season for lilies of the valley, though, and the bunch is tied with lavender ribbon. I pick them up and see that the crevice they were placed in is a Z-shaped gash. Was this the tree, then, that fell the night Lily said goodbye to Nash? I run my fingers along the mark, recalling that Lily had compared its jagged scar to the gash she felt in her heart. The years—and moss and rain—have softened its edges. I wonder if the years were so kind to the rend in Lily’s heart.
I get up and walk to the top of the ridge. A sign has been crudely hammered onto a tree near the head of the falls: DANGER! STEEP DROP! NO HIKING BEYOND THIS POINT.
It doesn’t look like much of a deterrent. In fact, I can see a fresh path worn through the grass on the path leading down into the clove. I can only hope that it’s not students who are still hiking here. I remind myself to talk to Sally about staying away from here, although a lecture on the subject might well have the opposite effect and spur her to frequent the spot to spite me.
I had thought that the clove would look less menacing in full daylight, but the black, shadowy cleft seems even darker in comparison to the blue sky above. When I look up from the clove I see the old barn in the valley below. From this angle it looks even more decrepit than from the road. The cupola leans crookedly and wide holes gape in the walls like missing teeth. Who knows how much longer it will stand? I imagine some enterprising builder—like Sheriff Reade—will eventually loot it for vintage barn wood. Then no one will watch the sunlight or moonlight
paint patterns on its floors and walls ever again.
I’ve started down the path before even realizing I’ve decided to go. It’s reckless, I know; I don’t have the right shoes or know the trail well enough. I can hear the lecture I’d give Sally about hiking alone in unfamiliar terrain, but I can also hear—as if she’d told me her story aloud and not in writing—Lily’s voice describing the moonlight spilling onto the barn floor like a pool of water.
At first the path doesn’t seem so bad, but then it becomes so steep I have to grab at the tree branches along the side to keep from falling. The steep stone walls on either side of the waterfall block out all but a narrow band of sunlight that struggles to light the long descent. In the narrow chasm, the sound of falling water is deafening, like the roar of a beast crouching at the foot of the falls, hiding behind the huge boulders. It looks like a giant tossed them down the slope to make the descent impassable—or perhaps to make the ascent impassable. It feels like I’m climbing down into a pit. Spray from the waterfall coats the moss-covered boulders. I have to sit down on them to navigate my way. At one point, after a near miss that would have sent me hurtling down to the bottom, I look up—and immediately wish I hadn’t. The steep slopes on either side seem to be closing over my head, like a giant jaw about to snap shut.
By the time I’ve reached the bottom, the damp from the moss and ferns has soaked through my thin canvas sneakers and into my socks, which squelch with every step. Despite my discomfort I can’t help but appreciate the beauty of the place. At the bottom of the clove, the water, glowing silver and black in the alternating light and shadow that falls between the stone walls, pools into a series of stone basins ringed by ferns. A circle of weeping willows rings the lowest pool. The only sound in this perfect round grove is the splash of water on moss-covered rocks and the wind stirring the long willow branches. That recording Fawn was playing in her shop could have been made here. No wonder local legend decreed the place to be sacred; it feels like I’ve wandered into the apse of a cathedral.