Wildwood Whispers

by Willa Reece

  Her eyelashes were spiky and there were tearstains on her cheeks. The first trip to the garden was the hardest. After that, I’d found there was comfort in it. I’d decided the tradition wasn’t macabre, as I’d originally thought. It was soothing. All the Ross women resting in the roots of the black locust trees seemed fitting. The garden thrived and died and thrived again. Its cycle was a perpetual memorial.

  “I thought I should visit the garden before Gathering, but I’ll be back for the breaking of the bread. Sarah would want that. She wouldn’t want me to lose that connection especially now that she’s gone,” Lu said.

  “I’ll begin cultivating the wild yeast tomorrow,” I said. “I’ve studied all the instructions and I’m going to start a little early so I can redo the culture if I mess up.” My voice must have betrayed my nervousness because Lu drained her lemonade and stood. She placed her empty glass on the table and then reached to take my hand in both of hers. They were calloused from her work—bumps on the pads of her fingers where she plucked the strings, rough skin on her palms from where she sanded the wood into a high gloss. She didn’t comment about the scars on my fingers. She accepted them as if everyone she knew had been scarred in one way or another. No big deal.

  “Sarah would be so happy you’re here. Taking up the old ways. Continuing on with traditions stolen from her. You were her family. Nobody better to bake the bread. Nobody,” Lu said. She squeezed my hand tight and then she let it go, but the warmth of her confidence in me lingered well after she was gone.

  Sarah’s shoulders and forearms and even her fingers ached from hours of kneading dough. It might be a few more years before she had the same muscular forearms her mother had from years of doing the same, but this year she hadn’t given up. She’d kneaded long into the evening after older, more experienced women had quit. And even after a quick shower at the crack of dawn this morning her skin still smelled yeasty and sweet.

  Or maybe the scent was stuck in her nose.

  It was joined by the scent of baking bread—rich rye dough becoming golden brown with crusts toasted dark. They’d baked all day yesterday and all through the night. There were loaves in the oven of the cabin’s kitchen right now. Even as they wiped the dew off the tables and spread the old scarred wood with bleached white cloths.

  All who could come to the Ross cabin to help had set up long, low tables the night before. Dozens of them covered the backyard in rows, surrounded on three sides by the wildwood and backed by the cabin itself. The setup allowed people to come through the house if needed or from the path that led from the driveway around the end of the cabin. By the end of the day, there would be a hundred vehicles or more parked along the drive and spilling over into the fields by the barn, freshly mowed by Mr. Brown for the occasion.

  Her mother traded the hay from the fields for the labor. In Morgan’s Gap, most people were “doing all right,” but few had extra money. Growing things, making things, raising things… All to make ends meet… while working at whatever jobs they could find even if it meant driving down the mountain to larger towns and cities was a way of life.

  But today was the first Sunday in November.

  Gathering didn’t need balloons or streamers or any decorations. Her mother had explained to her when she was still a little girl that the wildwood provided a blaze of color for Gathering. It provided the yeast and the grain for the bread. It provided the apple blossom honey they gleaned from the hives that sat in a small clearing near the Hall’s orchard. It even provided the fresh churned butter because of the hay Mr. Brown’s cows ate.

  And, of course, Sarah’s favorite blackberry jam.

  Folks carried out platter after platter of toasted brown loaves. It was easy to forget sore muscles when people were laughing and talking and your mouth was watering. Other tired hands patted her shoulders or ruffled her curls. Some even praised her work, noticing that she was no longer one of the young’uns that ran around their legs. There were dozens of kids too young to help. Oh, maybe they would be interrupted now and then to fetch or carry before they were absorbed back into their games of hide-and-seek or tag. They flitted like the fairies she used to pretend to be, in and out of the forest paths and, with them, the occasional flash of an animal.

  “You missing those days?” Lu asked with a grin. Like Sarah, she was just past the point of playing in the woods with the little ones. She carried a crock full of butter that had been chilling in an ice-water bath for several hours. It was covered by a wooden lid that fit snuggly down into its opening to keep the bugs out. The same crock had probably been cooled in a springhouse before refrigeration and ice came to the mountain. There were still some in use, built to last of rock that had become moss covered because of their proximity to cold water bubbling up from deep in the ground.

  “A little. If I move my back just so,” Sarah confessed. She twisted her neck to show where the stiffness from hours of kneading caught between her shoulder blades.

  “Your mom made twice as many as we did. I don’t think I’ll ever be that fast,” Lu said.

  “We can manage if we work together,” Sarah said. The cool morning air made the heat in her cheeks too noticeable, so she turned away from Lu to help arrange the platters of bread and baskets of jam on the table. Jars of honey glowed golden in the warmth of the rising sun.

  She and Lu had been inseparable for a long time. It was only recently she’d noticed a nervous flutter in her stomach whenever Lu touched her hand or cut her eyes a certain way, but it was related to the way her spirit swooped high when Lu sang or laughed or picked out a tune with her nimble fingers on the mandolin.

  There were other wisewomen paired together. Enough that the idea wasn’t unheard of for Sarah. She’d never chased boys the way some of the other girls had done, not on the playground or through town. She’d never once wanted to catch a boy’s eye. It had always been Lu for her. And she was pretty sure it always would be.

  But she wasn’t sure how to figure out if Lu felt the same.

  “Let’s get started,” Sarah’s mother said loudly from the open door of the cabin. She came forward with the stump that had been fashioned into a knife holder. It had been polished by a hundred hands by now so its patina matched the patina of the wood-handled knives that had been sharpened on the whetstone so many times their blades were nearly as thin as paper when they were pulled, one by one, from the slots in the block.

  Each woman who had helped make the bread took a knife. And although there were a few smiles, including the one shared between Sarah and her mother when Sarah pulled out a knife for the first time in her life, all the laughter had died. This part was solemn. A quiet before Gathering truly began.

  The loaf Sarah cut into was one of the last loaves to come out of the oven. Steam rose up from each slice, so thick and fragrant Sarah could taste the flavor of the rye on the back of her tongue. A line of people had formed, but every woman who cut the bread took the first piece for themselves. Soon the scent of melted butter and warmed honey joined the scent of rye in the air.

  But Sarah ate her first slice plain. The whole grain rye was thick and firm between her teeth and heavily rich against her tongue. She chewed and swallowed the first bite slowly, savoring the fresh-baked goodness, but also savoring, as her mother had taught her, the connection to the wildwood. She closed her eyes as she swallowed and she saw a thousand moments from planting to harvest to baking, from seed to plant to table, from dirt to loaf.

  The laughter resumed, calmer and quieter than before, as if the whole Gathering had also appreciated a moment of acknowledgment and gratitude during those first bites.

  Sarah served hundreds of slices. So many that the faces of all the townsfolk blurred in front of her. But Lu was by her side, slicing and serving along with her throughout the morning, and the constant movement actually worked much of the soreness away. It was after nearly everyone had been served and the platters were filled with extra slices for anyone who would care for another, or five more for that matt
er, when Hartwell Morgan made an appearance.

  He came into the backyard as if he owned it and many of the people at Gathering stopped to stare. He swaggered forward without acknowledging the audience, either because he was used to people gawking or because the onlookers were beneath him. It had been a year since he’d refused to allow Sarah and Lu to deliver the blackberry preserves to his aunt. In that time, he seemed to have grown another few inches taller and broader, filling in his formerly gawky teenage frame.

  They’d never refused to serve someone at Gathering.

  When Hartwell walked up to her table and stood directly across from her, waiting, even though there were plenty of slices he could have taken without waiting to be served, Sarah froze. Not like a deer in headlights. She wasn’t afraid. When Lu had pulled her away, she hadn’t been afraid and that had been in town. Here, in the wildwood, she had nothing to fear. This was her place, the Ross family place, a place they had claimed a century ago.

  And a place that had claimed them.

  From the corner of her eye, Sarah saw movement in the trees and among the trees. Children? Animals? The leaves and vines and branches themselves? It didn’t matter which because they were one and the same.

  Isn’t that what Gathering proclaimed?

  “Smells good,” Hartwell said.

  Sarah had been going through the motions of cutting and serving for hours, but suddenly her hands wouldn’t obey. She’d been taught to obey her instincts. To listen to the wildwood whispers that directed her in the way she should go. The movement at the edges of her vision had expanded. Now it seemed that all three sides of the yard surrounded by the wildwood shimmered, and behind Hartwell Morgan’s back a fox had appeared out of the forest shadows to stand with its four feet planted apart on the path and its bristly snout down.

  Hartwell smirked expectantly and looked from her eyes down to the knife in her hand and back again.

  But his smirk disappeared when Sarah raised the knife high and brought it down hard, driving the point into the table.

  “Sarah!” Lu exclaimed. The thin, sharp blade had slid easily into the wood without breaking, but the weight of the wooden handle caused it to sway back and forth long after she’d taken her hand away.

  “You’d better think twice, Hartwell. Might as well eat a handful of twigs. This bread might not agree with you.” A boy Sarah had served earlier had stopped Hartwell’s hand by the wrist. Sarah didn’t know if Hartwell had been reaching for the handle of the knife or simply reaching for a slice of bread. The boy was Jacob Walker. She recognized him from school. He was a grade or two above her and a grade or two beneath Hartwell. He wasn’t as tall as the older boy, but he was more muscular. He easily held Hartwell’s wrist even when he tried to pull his arm away. “I’m telling you. Shits for days. These hippies have iron asses.”

  Hartwell laughed. Jacob met her eyes and his didn’t hold a trace of humor in spite of his crude joke. He’d thanked her for his slice. He’d slathered it with blackberry jam and butter. She’d seen him eat it down to crumbs and then lick those from his fingers.

  “What are you doing here, Walker?” Hartwell asked.

  “My mother made me come. So I came. Now, let’s get out of here,” Jacob said. His face mirrored Hartwell’s sneer. But the expression seemed weird on his face. Unlike the sneer that had already left its mark on Hartwell’s face in soft lines that would probably harden in the years to come.

  Sarah waited for Hartwell to refuse. She braced for uglier. What would she do if he tried to spoil the bread or ruin Gathering? The fox on the path hadn’t moved. Now Sarah noticed her mother stood much like the fox, feet apart, chin down and eyes on Hartwell.

  But Jacob Walker was lightning on his feet and he wore a jacket with the school’s mascot emblazoned on the back identical to the one Hartwell Morgan was wearing. Unlike Hartwell, he’d earned his place on every team.

  “Scrimmage?” Jacob asked. The whole Gathering heard it as the dare it was.

  “Hell yeah,” Hartwell jerked his wrist from Walker’s hand as he turned to leave and this time Jacob let him go.

  He nodded at Sarah and her mother when Morgan’s back was turned. Then he followed the older boy away, looking like the older one himself by a half dozen years.

  Twenty-One

  I wanted to thank Jacob for calling Lu, but I was still wary of him. He was part of the mountain I was growing to love and not part of it at the same time. Granny’s distrust matched my own instinctive surety that there was something about him I didn’t understand. Unfortunately, that surety warred with another from somewhere deeper than head or heart or bone, a whisper that reminded me of fingers on petals and a tree on his wrist, of his care for the bees, and, of his evident care for me.

  Reverend Moon and Hartwell Morgan had featured in my nightmares multiple times. Had one of them been the faceless man in the shadows the day that Sarah had made apple butter for one of the last times? I’d met both of the men in person now and I could well imagine either one frightening the Sect girl who had run away after the bee sting.

  They frightened me too, but hadn’t I learned by now that running away didn’t solve anything?

  It was Saturday and I’d decided to go to the farmers’ market in town. I wanted to see Sadie’s weaving and maybe even buy a new gathering basket of my own. I wasn’t going to seek out Jacob, but if I happened to see him there was no harm in saying thank you.

  I also figured the market would be the best place to ask questions and generally nose around. I’d noticed people were wary of strangers, but my affiliation with Granny was softening that natural distrust. The more they saw of me, the more people were likely to let me in on the “gossips and goings-on” as Granny would say. This mountain community had secrets, which meant there were individuals who might spill them.

  I was becoming a part of the Morgan’s Gap community, but, for all my time and effort, I didn’t feel any closer to understanding why the Sect people watched my comings and goings. I’d grown used to seeing homespun dresses flash around corners or hats disappear around trees whenever I walked around town. The constant creeping wore on me. I encountered enough disapproving glares that I dreaded them even when none were around. But I was too busy to let their vaguely threatening surveillance slow me down.

  Gathering was only a couple of weeks away.

  That morning I had pasteurized the whole meal rye flour Granny had given me from a local mill by placing the bag in a low-temperature oven for forty-five minutes. While the flour was baking, I had scalded the bowl and the screen covering with boiling water and set aside some of the boiled water to cool. Once the flour was pasteurized, I placed it in the bowl and added enough of the sterilized water to make a thick mixture.

  This process created a growth medium in the bowl just as Ross women had been doing for generations. Charm rode on my shoulder when I carried the covered bowl out to its place in the roots under the oak tree near the wildwood garden. I pushed away the image of a disapproving Reverend Moon that haunted the spot and focused instead on my purpose. The bowl fit perfectly in the root stand the tree had seemed to grow for it.

  The mixture would be slightly sheltered there from the elements while still being open to the microbiology of the forest. I’d left it there, but I needed to check on it each day until a stinky brown liquid formed on top. Once that happened, I’d pour the brown liquid away and add fresh rye flour and water to encourage the beneficial microorganisms to flourish. And I’d repeat that process until yeast bubbles began to show, continuing again and again until a frothy, bready scent indicated that my cultivation of wild yeast had been successful.

  Please, please, please.

  The rye bread was more important than the blackberry preserves or the dried herbs. It was much trickier than the pickles or the soaps. I felt like I was prepping for a final exam, only this one would be graded by a crowd of people I had known for only a short while. A crowd who would decide if I was who I had decided to be even before I cou
ld be certain myself.

  Granny had faith in me, but my faith in Granny was a fledgling thing, not nearly as confident as it should be. I had more faith in the Ross Remedy Book mainly because Sarah had believed in it and the strong foundation it represented. The book had become my constant companion. So much so that I spent as much time analyzing the scribbles and sketches and doodles in its margins as I did reading the recipes. And that was something because many of the recipes were written in archaic English and tiny scrawls I could barely understand.

  The entire book was illustrated. Trees, plants, seeds, animals, mushrooms and other fungi—some artwork was beautifully rendered in exquisite detail, some was obviously the work of a moment to scribble in a random thought or a likeness.

  I especially loved the foxes and looked for them like a quirky game of Where’s Waldo. There were dozens throughout the book and each one was sketched with precision that captured every whisker and every strand of fur. I wondered if the fox had been someone’s familiar and after that I took particular notice of all the forest creatures that had been sketched. There were thousands. Squirrels, raccoons, rabbits and turtles. Owls, crows, bullfrogs and weasels.

  Not so whimsical were the anatomically correct hearts that also showed up with startling frequency. Not so strange in a book full of medically helpful natural remedies maybe. But still somehow out of touch with the usual style of doodles and entries. There was also a strange fascination with the moon. Every phase. Every stage. Drawn over and over again by what seemed to be the same hand. I might have been wrong, but I decided the moons and the hearts had been drawn by the same person, their strange obsession threatening to overwhelm the pages.

  I liked the familiars best. So much so that I began to doodle Charm in practice on spare sheets of paper. Granny had given the remedy book to me, but I wouldn’t dare to make a mark in it. Not yet. Besides, I couldn’t be sure Charm belonged. Not when I still wasn’t sure if I belonged.