Wildwood Whispers

by Willa Reece

  We were supposed to enjoy the bread as a gift from the wildwood, so I did. And only after we’d fully appreciated the first slices together did we invite the guests to line up to be served. One by one they slowly came by—people I’d met in town like Becky and Matthew and Grace. Lynn, the Humane Society volunteer, helped her three children choose what to put on their slices—Andy, Randy and Sandy weren’t identical, but this time they didn’t hold still long enough for me to spot the differences that would help me tell the towheaded boys apart. No one seemed to notice or care. We were all a convivial jumble. Friends, families and neighbors—talking and laughing and appreciating the day. They enjoyed crusty rye bread with fresh churned butter, apple blossom honey and blackberry preserves as the townspeople had in my dream, even though there were fewer of them.

  And yet, more came than Granny had expected. We had to retrieve extra loaves from the kitchen time and again. During my deliveries, I had spoken to people about learning from Granny and baking the bread. I could tell by polite welcomes and conversations that some of the people I’d invited hadn’t been to Gathering in a while.

  “I forgot how delicious home-baked bread is when it’s fresh,” Becky exclaimed. “I haven’t had this since I was a teenager.”

  “You’re rejuvenating the cycle,” Joyce said, once Becky walked away. She was no longer grumbling. There was a spark in her eyes I hadn’t seen before. A hint of happiness. “Granny was right.”

  I had to tighten my grip on the knife in my hand because I almost dropped it in surprise. I’d already learned that Joyce wasn’t the kind of person to throw around idle compliments. She’d been reserved with me. And she’d radiated disapproval over my impact on Granny’s health. Making her happy was new. An accomplishment. My confidence grew every day, with every task I completed, but I still worried I might mess up again like I had with the bees.

  But today, Joyce was pleased. All our guests seemed happy and that pleased me. We worked side by side and I glanced at her frequently to soak up her smiles.

  Movement on the forest path startled me from the companionable glow.

  Half a dozen Sect women came out of the trees. They had pulled the kerchiefs from their hair, but their homespun dresses were recognizable. They paused at the edge of the backyard until Granny calmly approached them with a platter of fresh-sliced bread.

  “They risk so much. Anyone here might mention their attendance at the wrong time and place. Moon would be furious,” Sadie said. For all her muscles and competence with her calloused hands, the beekeeper looked completely at a loss. If she could have swept up the Sect women in her arms and carried them to safety, she would have been happier. I could tell. She was a tender, a caretaker, someone who believed in sturdy structure and nurturing above all else. The plight of the Sect women left her feeling helpless.

  “They need the bread more than any of us,” Joyce said. She also looked at a loss. Her shoulders had drooped and her smile was gone. If she’d had a bottle nearby, I was pretty sure she would have gladly taken a restorative swig of her dandelion wine.

  “You’re rejuvenating the cycle.”

  How could any of us restore the connection between the wildwood and the town when there was such a blatant evil in the community?

  Their initial tentative nibbles gave way to enthusiastic chewing as the quiet women enjoyed their bread. There was this at least. We could do this. The bread was a start. Granny came back with an empty platter. She asked Kara to take the Sect women another trayful because they didn’t seem willing to come into the yard where other people were eating.

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you. Sometimes they come through the trees for help. Melody never turned them away. Once they know the Ross cabin is occupied again, they might try to come to you,” Granny said. “They live a harsher life than you can imagine.”

  I hadn’t told Granny about the night Reverend Moon had followed me to her front door. I couldn’t forget his spidery strides or the fury that had contorted his face in the neighbor’s porch light. I hadn’t told her about the other Sect people who had seemed to follow me around. I didn’t want to worry her because of her health. I didn’t want the trio to think I couldn’t take care of myself.

  “Can’t decide if Mel should serve this one or not.”

  I turned away from Granny at the sound of my name only to see Jacob Walker stride into the backyard. Sadie had spoken before he’d appeared around the corner of the cabin like she’d sensed him coming. I wasn’t even surprised. All of the wisewomen prided themselves on being in tune with the wildwood and today it really did seem to be whispering all around us.

  “Well, he’s not here to commune with you or me,” Joyce chuckled. Chuckled. And not a sip of wine in sight. I was more used to scolding from the Sunday school teacher. But today, smiles and actual laughter tumbled from her butter-glossed lips.

  Jacob had a cardboard box in his hands. He walked up to the table where I’d been serving and he placed the box on it firmly enough to make its contents rattle.

  “Lu asked me to help carry the honey,” he explained as Lu came from around the cabin with another box. “She was unloading when I pulled in.”

  “More than you’ll need for this year, but Sadie says the bees have gone crazy this last couple of weeks. Producing more than she’s ever seen,” Lu explained.

  “After ten years of diminishing bee populations, that’s good news,” Jacob said.

  I’d avoided talking with Sadie about the bees since that day at the apiary. A rush of relief filled me to hear that the colony was thriving.

  I sliced two thick slices of rye bread from a loaf that was still warm and held them out on a serving plate for the biologist. He looked me in the eyes as he took the plate from my hands and my cheeks heated.

  Granny told me Gathering was a ritual held every year to commune with the wildwood. To reclaim our ties to it as a home and a life source. Many of the guests were casual nibblers who had come to what they saw as a social occasion or a silly old tradition. Even I wasn’t sure what it meant to treat the wildwood as a sacred, sentient entity.

  But something told me Jacob Walker did.

  Like me, he picked up the first slice and bit into it plain. He closed his eyes and his skin flushed with what I thought was appreciation and pleasure. My mouth went dry. Did he taste the moss and the stream? Were verdant shadows exploding on the back of his tongue? And, oh Lord, why had I thought about his mouth and tongue.

  His eyes opened at that very second and he watched me watch him swallow. No idea why I wanted that bite to have been kneaded and baked by my hands, but I did.

  “Perfect,” he said. And all the women around us looked from him to me and back again as if he’d said more intimate things.

  “I’m not sure you should have any of her blackberry jam in public,” Lu said. She didn’t hesitate herself. She spread a thick slather of butter and preserves on a slice Granny had given her.

  Jacob looked from Lu to me. He’d never come for the jar of preserves I’d saved for him. Now he looked at me as he reached down and dipped a spoon into one of the jars we were serving, and he spread a huge helping of the purple-black jam on his second slice. He picked up the slice and bit into it as if he dared anyone to interrupt, all while keeping his eyes locked to mine.

  More people came and went while he chewed. There was conversation around us. But for the life of me I had no idea what was said. Everything else was a dim blur and the breeze, the beautiful bread-scented breeze seemed to swirl around us, and only the two of us, until I could almost make out the words it was whispering into my ear.

  “What have you two been up to while I was sick?” Granny asked after Jacob had taken the second slice of his bread away. She was doing so much better. Joyce had forced her to slow down, not letting up on her nursing even after I’d moved to the cabin. But Granny didn’t appreciate being continually kept out of the loop.

  “He gave her that purple sphere she has hanging in the kitchen window,”
Sadie said. “I touched it and Red had to fly out the front door to cool his wings.”

  “He didn’t give it to me,” I began.

  “Sadie works more closely with the wildwood than any of us. Day in, day out, holding its branches in her hands. And of course there’s the bees always buzzing in her ears. A lot of time she just knows things. Sometimes better than we know ourselves,” Joyce explained.

  “We traded. The orb for a hiking stick,” I finished.

  “What sort of hiking stick?” Granny stepped toward me as if my answer mattered to her more than it should.

  “One carved from a cherry sapling with a fox handle. He was looking at it and I knew it had to be his. He’d bought the glass sphere from the glassblower at the market after I’d decided to buy it. So, we traded. The fox for the orb,” I explained.

  “So much simpler than that,” Sadie said.

  “And infinitely more complicated for all its simplicity,” Kara interjected. “Didn’t you warn her about gifts from the wildwood?” she asked. The question was directed at Granny.

  “It didn’t occur to me. She’s so prickly I didn’t think I had to worry about it,” she replied. She crossed her arms over her breasts.

  “He warned me. He said it was a bad idea. But it felt right. Sarah would have called it a whisper. I listened.” I crossed my arms across my chest too.

  “He isn’t trustworthy,” Granny said. “His eyes don’t match his words. He was born on the mountain. His mother was one of us. Then, they left. Now, he’s back and I think he’s lying about why he’s here.”

  “Oh, we all know why he’s here,” Joyce said. She no longer chuckled, but there was still laughter in her eyes.

  “Granny’s wrong. And right. I’m not sure what’s going on with him,” Sadie said. “But I think I do know what’s going on with him, Lu and you. I’ve lived with that sort of connection my whole life. It’s too special to ignore. Even for someone used to ignoring connections.”

  “Well, you don’t have to be a wisewoman to see the way he looks at Mel,” Joyce continued.

  “Jacob can’t be a wisewoman,” I protested, shocked at what Sadie had implied. We couldn’t be a trio. Not when one of us was a man.

  “The wildwood doesn’t care about gender, Mel. Only the heart matters. And the blood,” Sadie scolded. “When I was a girl, men like Jacob—and there aren’t many, mind you—were called woodsmen. Special and rare. Like you. Like Lu.”

  While Joyce murmured what could be agreement or only more teasing, guests continued to enjoy the bread. We helped to serve people who came back for more slices even as we muttered about magic and mayhem among ourselves.

  Calling Jacob Walker untrustworthy wasn’t a fair assessment. I was sure of it. But I had also seen secrets in his eyes. Something didn’t add up. And the attraction between us—Joyce was dead on about that—didn’t completely negate my suspicions. As for any mystical connections, I wasn’t ready to admit that yet. Not to them and not to myself.

  It was almost anticlimactic when Violet Morgan slipped in late after most of the guests had already left. We’d sent many away with loaves wrapped in plastic to freeze and enjoy over winter. I was the one who took Violet one of the last slices on a plate and she accepted it without a smile. I was glad the Sect women had already disappeared back into the trees. I didn’t think Hartwell’s wife would give away their secret because she had so many secrets of her own, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “Your song was so beautiful. I thought I would cry,” I whispered as she chewed.

  “Sometimes I think tears are the only thing I have left that’s mine,” Violet said after she’d swallowed. I was surprised by her candor, but I shouldn’t have been. Without Hartwell, and surrounded by wisewomen, Violet was different than she’d been in town, both softer and harder. Real. No longer just a doll. And she obviously liked people who allowed her to be herself.

  Granny interrupted. She came up to us and fished into one of her numerous pockets. But I was shocked by what she drew out of it to hand to Violet Morgan. Rather than a net bag of herbs tied with a thread, Granny handed the mayor’s wife a recognizable packet of pills most women received from their gynecologist with a prescription.

  “Thank you,” Violet said. She palmed the packet and it disappeared so suddenly I couldn’t tell where she had stashed it—pocket or purse, bra or belt.

  “She is a prisoner and doesn’t want to condemn a child to the same fate,” Granny explained.

  Helpless rage made me tremble. But I’d been a prisoner myself in many ways even in the city. For women and girls, all too often, the modern world was no different than the world had ever been. We had only gotten better at pretending we were free.

  In Morgan’s Gap, there were so many secrets, but some of them were imperative ones—women helping women to survive. I’d seen Granny go to the Sect women today. I hadn’t noticed if she’d given them anything besides rye bread. But I thought she probably had.

  I’d always been a survivor, but I was discovering that survival wasn’t enough if you couldn’t help others do the same.

  The trio stayed to help me clean up. Granny watched from the sofa, proving that Gathering had almost been too much for her by staying out of the kitchen. Charm had leapt from my shoulder, disappeared in transit, then popped into existence on Granny’s shoulder not one bit concerned about the fat cat on her lap.

  I wasn’t sure if I would ever get used to animals behaving in strange ways, but Granny didn’t seem to mind the mouse at her ear so I let him be.

  We washed all the loaf pans and platters and all the plates and utensils. Sadie dried the plates and handed them to Joyce, who placed them into a large padded container for the trip back to her house. While they dried and packed, I stored jars of leftover honey in the pantry.

  “It is pretty. I might have to buy one of these for myself,” Sadie said, gently tapping the amethyst-colored orb with one finger to make it spin. “Maybe one that isn’t infused with Jacob Walker’s energy.”

  “That’s the third time you’ve set it to spinning in the last hour. Maybe you need some energy.” Kara cut her eyes at Sadie and winked.

  “It’ll take me a week to recover from today. After that, we can talk,” Sadie said. I hadn’t noticed the flirtation between the two women before. Maybe they hid it in front of strangers, and I was finally considered a friend. Joyce was smiling at them as if she was used to their bantering innuendo.

  “He saw you with it and bought it for you.” Sadie leaned against the sink when she spoke and her eyes flickered furiously behind her lashes as if she was trying to see images that were coming to her too quickly.

  “He didn’t know I was there,” I replied. But I suddenly wasn’t sure. Sadie had known Jacob was coming before he appeared at Gathering. And the rest of the ladies in the room seemed to take her knowledge as certain.

  “He bought the orb for you not for himself,” Sadie insisted. She was back to washing dishes as if visions assailed her so often she wasn’t fazed.

  I went to the sink and reached up to touch the orb. It had stopped spinning. I was easily able to cup it in the palm of my hand. No visions came to me. Only the memory of Jacob Walker holding the globe by its nylon thread and how surprising it had been to see him with it—something I had wanted but hadn’t allowed myself to have.

  The temperature of the room seemed to increase by several degrees. I moved my hand away from the glass sphere. It was dark outside so the purple of the glass seemed darker as well.

  “Granny probably has a love tisane in one of her pockets. If you want us to brew a little something up before we leave,” Joyce said.

  “Absolutely not,” Granny said from the living room.

  “I’ve never known you to resist when the wildwood is intent on a little matchmaking,” Kara said. She had carried the container of dishes out to Joyce’s car, but she’d returned in time to hear Granny protest.

  “Never imagine you know what the wildwood is up to, woman. You
’re old enough to know by now that we can only ever guess and follow where our own hearts lead,” Sadie said.

  Kara came up to her and spun her around to pull her away from the sink into a hug.

  “But Mel is still young. Plenty of adventurous mistakes left to make and that man seems like he’d be worth making a few nights of bad decisions,” Kara said.

  Sadie relaxed into Kara’s hug with an exasperated laugh. Granny huffed up from the sofa, spilling cat and mouse off onto the floor. Charm washed his face like he often did to give himself time to decide what to do. CC stalked over to be let out the door. I had no doubt he’d wind up in Joyce’s sedan, waiting for the ladies to join him.

  “Too many mistakes made by the women on this mountain already. ‘Wise’ they call us. And maybe we are. But never ‘wise’ enough,” Granny said. She was exhausted. Her curly hair hung limply on her sagging shoulders and she moved with a slight limp from a stiff hip she’d been complaining about all day.

  “It’s okay, Helen. The sun will rise tomorrow and you’ll feel much better after a good night’s sleep,” Joyce said. It was the first time I’d heard someone call my mentor anything other than Granny. Joyce must have known her for a long time. Granny didn’t protest when Joyce took her arm to lead her outside.

  “Don’t worry, Granny. I’m not looking for love. That’s not why I’m here.” I meant to reassure her, but she stopped. She turned and suddenly for all her tiredness she was fully alert, as she’d been at the beginning of the day.

  “Of course that’s why you’re here. That’s why we’re all here,” Granny said. My whole body paused between breaths, between steps, maybe between one heartbeat and the next.

  Kara and Sadie both hugged me, one on each side. Tears pricked my eyes as I took a deep breath. I’d always thought I was helping Sarah, but I hadn’t given her this. Such an easygoing camaraderie. Women who shared the same background and beliefs. I hadn’t believed in anything strongly enough to share with anyone. Much less Sarah. A bug-out bag wasn’t a belief. Being ready to run was believing in nothing at all.