I did feel a bit off, physically. There was some kind of bug living inside me—in addition to the bug that Adam had planted, I mean. I felt fluish and chilled. Whatever it was, I was sure I could take care of it myself. I knew how to handle my body. For example, I had recently shaved my head. Mother had shrieked when she looked at my locks, lying on the bathroom floor—they were crawling with lice. Of course I had noticed this earlier, but it scarcely bore mentioning until I came home. Lice had been a fact of life for the last year. Mother wouldn’t touch my hair, even to throw it away. She made me throw it in the yard, and then she poured gasoline on it and set it aflame. Black clouds of greasy smoke erupted, like a signal to the rest of the world that part of my life had just ended in death and disaster…again. I sat and watched my hair burn like I was keeping vigil over a funeral pyre, and when the fire had burnt itself out—in a matter of minutes—I went upstairs and locked myself away.
When I finally gave in to Mother—more to shut her up than anything else—the doctor came to the house and looked me over gravely, making notes on a pad. He took a blood sample and made me pee in a cup. He wanted to slip on a latex glove and stick a couple of fingers inside me, but I refused because I didn’t want anyone to know that I was pregnant yet, and I knew he would be able to tell immediately by feeling my cervix. He was going to find out from the urine sample anyway, but I hoped to have worked up the courage to tell Mother myself by then. Then he had the nerve to ask for a stool sample.
“I really have to have one,” he said. “You might have parasites.”
“If I do,” I said, “I know how to get rid of them. I don’t need your help.”
He smirked, the smug bastard. “And how would you do that?”
Ointment of aloe, applied on the anus, I thought. Tinctures of garlic and wormwood. But I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.
The doctor was a youngish, earnest man with slight flecks of gray at the temples, and he stood in my room with his stethoscope around his neck and his arms folded, a pathetic figure when compared to the greatest healer this part of the world had ever known, and even more so because he seemed to take himself so seriously.
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked. “Crap in a bucket?”
He frowned. “You can leave it in the toilet,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”
“I don’t have to go,” I said.
“I can give you something for that.”
“What? Rhubarb?”
He was amused, I think. I was offended. That was the remedy Grandma would have used, after all.
“No,” he said. “An enema.”
“Jesus,” I said. “I don’t need your medicine. Just leave me alone for a while. Something will happen.”
I went into the bathroom, ignoring Mother in the hall except to mutter, “A little privacy, please.” I can do pretty much anything when I put my mind to it, and when I had produced what I figured was a satisfactory amount I stuck my hand out the door and the good doctor handed me a plastic container. I filled it and handed it back—my offering to modern medical science.
“That will be all,” I said. “Right, Doctor? You’re leaving now.”
I closed the door again and waited for him to be gone. I could hear him talking in low tones with Mother. Then he left. Mother knocked.
“No,” I said.
“No what?”
“Just…no.”
“Haley?”
What, I thought.
“If it means anything to you, I was glad you were out there so long…for your own sake, not mine.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I knew you were learning important things,” she said. “I knew you were going through something you had to go through. I missed you, but I respected it.”
I opened the door.
“If you really want to know,” she said, smiling weakly, “I was kind of jealous. I never would have had the courage to stay out there by myself. That was part of why I left to be with your father. It was scary out there.”
“I know,” I said. “It was.”
Mother had taken the news of Grandma’s disappearance with a great deal more stoicism than I’d expected. I understood why; Grandma wasn’t really her mother, any more than she was really my grandmother. She was whoever she was, and now that she was gone things would certainly be different. I hadn’t bothered to explain to her about the death of Bear because she wouldn’t have understood.
“Would you like some soup?” she asked.
Soup. Cooked on a stove, made from things I hadn’t eaten in a long time. With salt. And pepper. And a piece of bread and a soda, maybe, to go with it.
“That sounds good,” I said.
“You come on downstairs,” she said. “I’ll fix you up something nice to eat.”
The big news, which had been splashed all over the front page of the Mannville Megaphone and the television news programs since my return, was not that a naked forest woman had been discovered living nearby in a feral state but that a small plane had gone down that was engaged in something illicit. The two men I’d found in the cockpit were not family men. They were not going to be mourned by anyone. They were drug smugglers, on their way to Canada. The entire tail section of the plane had been full of cocaine—for a couple of hours, I’d had access to five million dollars’ worth of drugs, and I hadn’t even known it. The authorities had known these guys would come through this way, flying low to avoid radar, which turned out to be their last mistake—they were carrying too much weight, and they had lost control over the treetops and crashed. That was why the rescue helicopter had arrived so fast, and why it had been carrying DEA agents instead of rescue personnel. They’d been waiting for the plane to appear. Now, after months of work on their part, and one lucky break, a notorious drug connection had been extinguished. Everyone in the government was happy.
This was why no one had said anything to the press about having found me. They wanted to protect me, they said, from whoever those guys were working for, because they—some mysterious Colombian drug lords or something—were the vengeful type, and if they thought I’d had something to do with their supply lines being cut they would do me in. Perhaps it wasn’t very likely, but there was no reason to take chances. Of course, I think it was also that the government wanted to take the credit for having found the plane themselves. How would it look to the public if legions of men with millions of dollars’ worth of equipment were outdone by a naked girl with only a knife?
“Imagine,” said Mother, as I ate my soup. “You read about those kinds of people, but you never think you’re going to see them. Drug people, I mean.”
“If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have come home,” I said, in a way that was loaded with double meaning. I had been found out because I was acting out of compassion, but it had all been wasted on those two. I should have let them rot out there. Then Bear would still be alive, and I would still be in my own little paradise. Learning. Talking to the Tree People.
Still, I had to admit, it wasn’t bad being home again. I had forgotten how comfortable simple things were, such as the easy chair in the living room that had once been a favorite of my father’s. Or the sheer pleasure of letting hot water cascade over my body in limitless amounts, soaping myself over and over again, feeling it tingle on my bare scalp. I had been so dirty I’d forgotten what it was like to be clean. During my first shower, the water had run brown for twenty minutes. I was now scrubbed so pink and shiny that I practically squeaked when I walked.
“So,” said Mother, watching me eat my soup—chicken noodle from a can, loaded with preservatives but not tasting too bad, all things considered. “What now?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I kind of need some time to think.”
We hadn’t talked like this in years.
“You take all the time you need,” said Mother. “Things like this take a while to settle. Homecomings. I’m just glad you’re safe and sound.”
“I might go visit Miz Powell, for starters,” I said.
“Oh, dear,” said Mother. “Oh, you don’t know, do you?”
I froze with alarm. “Don’t tell me,” I said.
“No, Miz Powell is fine,” said Mother. “It’s her friend, Letty. Letty Horgan.”
“What about her?”
“She passed away in her sleep, a few weeks back. Peacefully. They said she had a stroke and never woke up.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. It was too bad about Letty, but it would have been too much for me to have lost Miz Powell before I’d had the chance to talk everything over with her. I wasn’t done with her yet. There were lots of things I needed her opinion on. Such as: How was I going to fit into the world now? She was the only person who really seemed to understand me. Even Grandma ran only a close second—Miz Powell and I were birds of a feather, and suddenly, with the news of Letty’s passing, I was seized with a strong desire to see her right away. Immediately. Now.
“Were there many people at the funeral?” I asked.
“Only a handful,” Mother said. “You get to be that age, you don’t have many people left. She’s buried up in Springville, if you want to know.”
So another piece of the circle had been broken.
“Thanks for lunch, Mom,” I said. “I better go.”
I cleaned the dishes at the sink. Then I changed out of my bathrobe into a pair of loose jeans, and a shirt that billowed around me like a sail. By my own and Mother’s calculations, I had lost nearly fifty pounds in the last year. Nothing I owned would ever fit me again. I was going to have to go shopping. Even the maternity clothes I’d be wearing soon would be smaller than what I used to wear. With my head shaved and my cheekbones visible, I looked like a concentration-camp prisoner. Yet I could see my own face in the mirror for a change, unhidden by layers of fat, and I recognized myself as though I’d spotted an old friend passing by a store window. There you are, I thought. I was wondering what happened to you.
After much debate I struggled into a pair of sandals, because it wouldn’t do to show up at Miz Powell’s place barefoot. Barefoot and pregnant! That would be a laugh. The only part of me that had grown were my feet; all that time going around without shoes had caused them to spread. I was going to get some fierce blisters today.
I paused on my way out the door.
“You want to go shopping later, maybe?” I suggested to Mother. “When I get back? I need some new duds.”
Mother had retired to the easy chair, where I knew she’d been spending the better part of her days. Maybe she’d already resigned herself to spending the rest of her life there. I hadn’t told her yet about the baby, because I hadn’t decided if I was keeping it. For a moment I thought maybe I should tell her, just to give her something to look forward to. But at the mention of shopping she brightened. For now, shopping would have to be enough.
“I’d love to,” she said. “We can go to Kaufmann’s, if you want.”
“Kaufmann’s it is,” I said. “See you in a few hours.”
Miz Powell still had the same ramrod back and steely eyes that softened when she wanted them to, and I could tell that this was still a woman who would never be trifled with, even on her deathbed. Her hair was still perfect, her makeup applied lightly but with purpose. She smiled and ushered me into the dark gloom of her house, still as neat as a hospital operating room and smelling of mint and licorice. That, at least, was reassuring. Nothing here had changed. Embracing her was like clutching a bag of twigs to my chest. I released her gently and we sat down. A fresh pot of tea was already steaming on the coffee table.
“I rather suspected you might come today,” she said, lowering herself onto the sofa. Was it my imagination, or was she moving a little more gingerly? “I’d heard you were home, but I thought you might need a few days to recuperate before you ventured out into society.”
“You were right. It’s been quite a summer,” I said. “Quite a year, all in all.”
“Yes, it has,” she said casually. Though the weather was warm, she was wearing a shawl that she drew close over her shoulders, warding off some imaginary chill.
“Do you have another one of those?” I asked, shivering—for in my case the chill was real.
She fetched me a plaid wrap from a closet and put it around my shoulders. “Scottish tartan,” she said, “of the clan Rory. I don’t quite remember how I came to own it. I don’t recall knowing any Rorys. Are you unwell?”
“I have worms,” I said. “Some kind of parasite.”
“Oh, dear,” she said, delicately. “Are you uncomfortable?”
“I felt fine until I came home,” I said. “Now I feel like dog chow.”
“Indeed,” said Miz Powell. “I have never felt like ‘dog chow’ myself, but I can imagine it isn’t pleasant.”
She sat down next to me and the two of us huddled up under our shawls like a couple of old crones. All we needed was a cauldron to make the image complete.
“Things have happened,” I told her. “Strange things. The Mother of the Woods is gone.”
She waved a hand in the air as if brushing away a fly. “This was what was going to happen all along,” she said. “We knew she wouldn’t be around forever. Didn’t we?”
“I guess so,” I said.
“She had her reasons for everything,” Miz Powell said.
“I guess I thought…she would stay until she found a…I don’t know, a replacement or something.”
Miz Powell attempted a laugh. “Replacement? Now, there’s an interesting notion,” she said. “Do you know of anyone who might fit that description?”
I knew what she was getting at, of course. I poured the tea out for both of us and we sipped it quietly.
“Sorry about Letty,” I said. “I know she was your good friend.”
“Yes,” said Miz Powell. “She certainly was.” But there was no sadness in her voice. The older one gets, for some people, the less frightening death becomes. It’s as if the hood of the Grim Reaper gradually slips down with every passing year, and underneath one sees not a grinning skull but the face of an old and trusted friend.
“I suppose,” said Miz Powell, “that you’re wondering what to do with yourself next.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s pretty much it.”
“You haven’t finished your schooling, if I remember correctly,” she said. “Your more conventional schooling, I mean. What do you call it here in the States? High school.”
“No,” I admitted, looking down at the floor. “I skipped this last year, so I still have two years to go. But…”
“I know,” she said. “You can’t see yourself in that situation anymore. Not after all you’ve learned.”
“There are other ways to get an education,” I said. “More important ways.”
“You are correct, my dear,” she said. “The question to ask yourself now is, how might you be of service to the world? You do have a lot to offer, you know. The difference between the Haley I first met and the Haley of today is that today you possess unique abilities. Very few people know the things you know.”
“I guess,” I said.
“Don’t guess unless you’re being asked to guess,” she said, flaring briefly into her old self. “We’re not discussing theories here. We’re discussing fact.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“What worries you most, Haley?”
“I guess I don’t want to be a wife,” I said. “Or a mother.”
Miz Powell spluttered with laughter.
“Well, who says you have to?” she said. “Look at me!”
“It’s not that I don’t want to be married,” I said. “I don’t care, one way or the other. I mean, if it happens, it happens. But I don’t want to be a wife. I want to be a person who’s married to another person. My own person.”
“For heaven’s sake, at this age why are you even worrying about this now? Has someone asked you to marry them? Are you in love? Why?”
&n
bsp; “Because,” I said, blushing. “Something happened.”
“Oho,” she said. “I see.” She reached over and patted me on the hand. “There may be a few generations between us, my dear, but I’m no stranger to what you’re talking about,” she said. “Perfectly natural, and no harm done, provided the proper precautions were taken. Which I hope they were.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Oh, dear,” said Miz Powell. “Well, there’s a different story altogether, then.”
“You can say that again,” I said.
“Haley, you may very well end up having some decisions made for you, then. Carelessness rarely goes unpunished.”
“I know it,” I said. “That’s why I wanted to have this conversation in the first place.” It wasn’t carelessness, I thought. It happened because…it happened.
“Now I see what you were getting at,” said Miz Powell. “You feel you might be preg—”
“I am,” I said.