by Willa Reece
So long that the connection through him between the wild and the human had almost been lost.
Charm took the fox a few of the sunflower seeds and dropped them in front of his nose. The fox licked them up, then sat in the midst of all the creatures. The garden clearing grew silent, save for the slight sound of creaking from the black locust trees as they swayed in the wind.
Twenty-Seven
Granny was packed and ready to go by the time I returned from deliveries. She sat primly on an antique sofa in the formal front parlor. The velvet upholstery was tufted, the wood frame was scrolled and the proper name for the sofa was probably something like “settee.” I hadn’t been in the room before. The door to it had always been closed.
“I’m going back to the cabin with you,” Granny proclaimed.
Like the room and the sofa, Granny was more formal than I was used to. The dress she wore still had numerous pockets, but it was made from a shiny black jacquard fabric with a raised design that reminded me of patterns I’d seen before. In Sadie’s bean arrangement and in the basket she’d woven for me before she’d even met me.
“I don’t need a babysitter. I can handle Jacob Walker or anyone else who shows up,” I said. But Lorelei’s genuine fear and Violet’s as well made my bravado fall flatter than usual. My pulse was quick and my chest was tight and I wasn’t as opposed to company as I might have been a few days before.
“I didn’t like the look of the dregs this morning and there was a raven on the back fence. Pretty as you please. An egg-born raven not wisewoman made. No good can come from a portent like that before I’ve even had my second cup,” Granny warned. She rose from her perch in a flash of black skirts that echoed the dark portents she claimed to have seen that morning.
I glanced around the room, trying not to stare. The walls were covered in framed photographs. Every inch of wallpaper was covered and standing frames covered the tables and shelves. Much like the ones in the box in the cabin, the photographs depicted people, many of them women and children, but unlike the cabin photographs, some of the photographs in Granny’s private parlor ranged back in time to vintage black and white.
The small old woman surrounded by a room packed full of photographs made my breath catch, then rush out in a startled sigh. I knew what I was seeing: all the people Granny had helped on the mountain. There were hundreds of them. Too many to catalog or count. There were even loose photographs tucked into the edges of frames.
I picked one of these frames up from the nearest shelf and examined the faces more closely. The family resemblance was obvious. I flicked through the loose photographs. They represented generations. Had Granny known and helped them all?
“If you’ll grab my basket from the kitchen, we can be on our way,” Granny said. She picked up a carpetbag that didn’t seem too heavy so I let her carry it out while I placed the frame back on the table. Emotion swelled inside my chest as I took one last look around the room. I was reluctant to close the door on it again. I wanted to leave it wide. To celebrate what one woman’s work had done for this community. Hippy. Kitchen witch. Granny. Some used those terms in a derogatory, dismissive way. Others called her Granny with respect. Wisewoman. I was only beginning to understand what that calling entailed. I closed the door and turned the key in the lock of the ancient door. She kept her memories close. I needed to respect her wishes in spite of my urge to shout her contributions to the world.
I went to fetch her basket.
She’d shared those photographs with me. For inspiration? For revelation and greater understanding? I couldn’t be sure. But I was fairly certain she wanted me to feel the simple gravitas of her life’s work. So much effort. So little recognition. And that was somehow part of the job.
I’d left my own emptied basket in the bed of the truck when I’d returned. Granny’s basket was packed full of unusual supplies—bandages, poultices and ointments, unlabeled bottles with cork toppers filled with viscous dark liquid.
“What is she prepping for?” I asked the empty room before I realized that CC was nowhere to be seen. His usual place on the counter was vacant beside a plate of crumbs.
I looked around for the fat cat as I headed for the door. He was gone. Just as Charm had been that morning.
Granny had put her bag in the back of the truck. I tucked the basket in beside the bag and tied everything, including my empty basket, down with a bungee cord lashed to a rusty chain that had been left over from some kind of cargo decades before.
“I didn’t see CC,” I mentioned as I climbed up behind the wheel.
Granny tsked her tongue against her teeth. Her fingers worried with the seat belt after I fastened it around her, twisting it in her wrinkled hands.
“It was only a bird, don’t fret,” I said.
“If you continue your studies, you’ll learn that noticing is part of our lives. We make a habit of seeing what other people can’t or won’t.”
The only other person I’d met who seemed as observant as Granny was Jacob.
“Did you pack your basket before or after you’d seen the raven?” I asked. The truck started with its usual roar and I popped the clutch in a way that didn’t shame me in front of the neighbors. I didn’t stall out and the truck didn’t leap forward with a jerk.
“After,” Granny said. From the corner of my eye, I saw her lips thin into a tight worried line. I was halfway out of town before I noticed the taste of blood. I’d worried my own lips with the edge of my teeth until I’d made myself bleed.
The sheriff’s office still had both lanes blocked with a checkpoint on the road that led in and out of town. Granny was more subdued than usual, but she spoke to the deputy who stopped us and he barely made us pause because she had helped him with a bum knee he’d gotten from high school football.
“Go Eagles!” Granny said as we pulled away. The deputy laughed, but Granny had only smiled a grim smile that made my chest constrict tighter around my heart.
The sun was setting. The driveway to the cabin was shadowed. When a raven the size of a toddler rose up with a sudden stretch of wing from a fence post near the old barn, I almost ran the Chevy off the driveway. I jerked the wheel and slammed on the brake, but this time I forgot to press the clutch at the same time. The vehicle jerked and its engine stalled. Granny cursed and we both watched as the raven lifted up into a sky that would soon be as black as its feathers.
“Let me guess. Not egg born,” I said.
“I… I don’t know. Can’t be sure from this distance,” Granny said.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure it mattered. A wisewoman-made familiar of that size wouldn’t be a welcome sight right now either. Not when I was still uncertain about my place in all of this. Granny was so spooked it had rubbed off on me. The weight of a wisewoman’s work was greater than I had imagined. We lived precariously between humankind and our wild surroundings, trying to establish peace between the two.
How easy was it to upset the symbiotic relationship that kept us all safe and sound?
Right now, it seemed the balance had been disrupted a step too far. Whether or not it was my imagination or a sixth sense, the world around us seemed tense, expectant, ready and waiting for…
There were no vehicles in the driveway when I parked the truck near the house. I went around to help Granny get out. Sometimes her joints stiffened when she sat too long. The place was silent. Too silent. Not so much as a cricket hummed. The sun had sunk below the mountain and the forest was completely dark against a blue-black sky.
“If she’s out there, she’s hurting. All alone,” I said, trying to penetrate the shadows to see what I could see. A wink of eyes startled me, reflecting starlight and the lamplight that beckoned from inside the house. I’d left the light on in the living room, but it wasn’t strong enough to illuminate the creature that looked at us for only a moment before it was gone.
“Maybe hurting less alone than where she came from, though,” Granny said.
She made it out of the truck and
stretched before following me toward the porch. I paused only to grab the baskets and the carpetbag from the back.
“I tried to get Violet to come with me today. I invited her out to the cabin. To the wildwood. To stay,” I said.
Granny slowly climbed onto the stoop and waited for me to unlock the front door. Even with the lamplight shining from the window, the porch was gloomy. The reflection of eyes in the woods had unsettled me. Between my shoulder blades, a spot like a target tingled. I didn’t whirl around to peer into the darkness. I didn’t want Granny to see me shaken and nervous.
“Of course you did, but Hartwell would never stand for it. He’d burn this place down before he allowed you to take what he considers his,” Granny said.
“Violet is a human being. Not a possession,” I replied.
CC meowed from the kitchen counter as we came in the door. I wasn’t surprised to see him. It was a long way from town, but CC was Granny’s familiar and much more than he seemed.
“That is not your counter, Cat,” Granny chuckled. “You won’t find any cookies there.”
“Sometimes, but not today,” I corrected. Not that I had made Granny’s sunwort cookies. After that first night in Morgan’s Gap, I’d decided I needed to dream. It had seemed as if only Sarah’s memories were revealing anything to me. Now, I felt the blend of knowledge from her memories and my lived experiences since I’d come to Morgan’s Gap. I needed her memories less as I accepted my place on the mountain more.
Before I closed the door, a coyote laughed. Sound carried strangely in the mountains. The animal could have been on the opposite side of the hollow or it could have been around the corner of the house. I’d heard coyotes before, but I still closed the door and slid the bolt home so quickly my fingers fumbled over the usual task.
“They’re restless,” Granny said. Her lips had thinned again. “You might have more company tonight. You should turn the porch lights on, just in case.”
“Lorelei?” I asked. I flicked the switch closest to me and the amber bulb on the porch flickered on. As Granny sat down to take off her shoes, I crossed to the back door. I turned that light on as well. The amber bulb on the back porch barely illuminated the backyard. But even in its meager light I saw a fox sitting at the edge of the yard where the wildwood path began. I’d seen the fox before. Or Sarah had. Sitting exactly in the same way. But before I could call to Granny the fox stood and stretched and trotted up the path that led to the garden.
As if it had been waiting for us to get home.
“They’re restless tonight,” Granny repeated without answering my question. I turned back around to face her. Her mouth was tight with concern and her eyes were dark. I didn’t press her for more information. She was sharing only feelings and hunches. She didn’t know anything for sure.
Charm had appeared on the front window ledge. His little body was backlit by the front porch light. CC meowed again as if to confirm what Granny had said.
“Nothing to do now but wait,” Granny continued. And suddenly the tight feeling in my chest was identified. Anticipation. But not the good kind. Granny’s worry over dregs and portents hadn’t caused the feeling. I’d been feeling it all day. Constricting more and more, minute by minute. It was tangible. Physical. The atmosphere around us had thickened and my clumsy manipulation of the bolt frightened me because I felt like I couldn’t move as fast as I should.
“I’ll put the kettle on,” I offered.
What I really wanted was an excuse to go to the remedy book. I suddenly knew what I had to do. The ritual had appeared for a reason. For me. Jacob had inadvertently begun it with the thorn prick. Had he known what he was setting in motion? He’d said it was an old wives’ tale. But I’d felt the gravity of the moment when he had taken it a step further than he’d intended.
The wildwood gave us the garden. And from the garden we accepted our connection by baking and breaking the bread and consuming the blackberries, herbs and other things that grew.
But, for the connection to be completed in a perfect cycle, we had to give something back to the wildwood as well. I’d willingly allowed Jacob to give the wildwood a drop of my blood, but that drop had been only the beginning. If I was to truly embrace the life of a wisewoman and follow in Granny’s footsteps, I needed to complete the ritual and fully accept the cycle of connection between the garden and my heart.
Granny hadn’t tried to stop me or come with me. She’d taken one look at the Ross Remedy Book I clutched to my chest and she nodded as if she knew what I was about to do. I left her on the sofa with CC warming her lap and I went out into the gloaming.
It took all my nerve to slide back the bolt on the back door. Only moments before, I’d locked out the world. Now, I ventured out into it, armed with only an old book, some ancient scribbles and a few words. I murmured the words I’d heard Sarah mumble in my dream. Or the closest approximation to them I could manage. For her, I thought the page had probably revealed itself in Gaelic or some long-dead language very like it. For me, the tight cursive scrawl was in English. I would use those words in the garden. But on the way up the path I needed Sarah with me.
She had been sent away before she could complete the ritual and become a full-fledged wisewoman. She’d wanted nothing more than to live and work beside the mother she loved and admired. The killer had taken that future away from her when he’d killed Melody. Then, if our car had been intentionally run off the road, he’d taken any future away from her.
Reverend Moon? Hartwell Morgan? Or their acolytes? Hired hands who would even kill for the men that directed them.
I couldn’t resurrect Sarah and give her back the life that had belonged to her. I could only complete the ritual the remedy book had offered to me. In her place? Maybe. Or maybe I’d earned a place of my own.
I was thankful the path was smooth and well traveled. I’d brought along a flashlight, but it was that strange time in between sunset and moonrise when the world was in shadow, but not shadowed enough for a light to do more than create dizziness and glare. The expectant hush we’d experienced in the cabin was even more pronounced here. No more coyotes called. The birds were asleep for the night. Even a distant whip-poor-will cut off in mid-song as if it had broken the silence by mistake.
We were all waiting for something. The whole mountain world. But the wildwood garden was only waiting for me. I sensed its welcome when I came off the path and into the clearing. The gurgle of the stream was louder at night. The quiet amplified the rush and tumble of water over rocks no matter how small. There was no breeze. Nothing stirred. I hadn’t seen any more eyes reflect the glare of my light. At the edges of the garden, the black locust trees had been some of the first to drop all their leaves and on this clear night their silhouettes were dark against the sky.
I wasn’t afraid.
All my worries about Lorelei, Jacob, the Sect and Moon and Hartwell Morgan receded. The remedy book was solid in my hands. The ground was even more solid beneath my feet.
And Charm was in my pocket.
Promises made to cultivate and cherish the land.
Life and growth celebrated and accepted from sacred earth.
I made my way to the blackberry bushes. I traveled the same route Jacob had traveled that day when he’d found me trimming. I didn’t leap over or step around. I took no short cuts. I followed the winding rows and recognized in them the patterns I’d seen. In the beans. In the basket. In the sphere. In Granny’s dress. A spiral. The garden’s rows represented life itself. Forever growing and expanding outward to encompass all. Not only the Ross women. Or people with happy families. All. I had been rootless my whole life without realizing that putting down roots was up to me.
Even without leaves, the blackberry was a massive tangle of twining, twirling vines. My trimming hadn’t made them any less dense. In the deepening darkness, the bush was impenetrable by sight. I suddenly thought about fairy bushes, portals the fairy Sidhe had enchanted to travel from our world to other realms. Sarah had lo
ved to tell stories about the fae. I’d clipped these vines during daylight. I knew they were only blackberry bushes. But, at night, it was easy to imagine them as otherworldly. Influenced by the fae that had been enticed to join with the first Ross woman centuries before.
My hands were cold. By the light of the flashlight, I could see my breath. It fogged from my chilled lips and I tried not to think about poor Lorelei. I needed to focus. By strengthening my connection to the garden, I would be better prepared to help her.
I dropped to my knees in front of the blackberry bushes. I placed the flashlight on the ground so its beam shone on the book I’d placed beside me and, with one flick of my wrist, I opened it to the folded page. Even the folds of the page opened with a touch or two. As if the ritual was already in motion before I knelt down.
I had been carefully following the steps set out in the Ross Remedy Book since I came to Morgan’s Gap. Page by page. I had never been a cook so the recipes had seemed magical to me, a particular kind of kitchen alchemy you had to practice to understand. But with greater understanding came the realization that magic exists in the simplest things.
Root. Vine. Thorn. Blossom. Magic you could see, taste and touch.
This ritual was as simple on the surface as all of that. But its implications ran as deep and complex as the root systems hidden beneath my knees.
With an emissary quickened by garden’s growth.
I reached into my pocket and cupped my hand around Charm. He grasped my fingers with his paws and I lifted him out. I raised him to my nose and breathed in his stored-up, closety scent of lavender and yarn. Simple. And not. But the not didn’t intimidate me anymore. I remembered my fear of growing the yeast. Of ruining the blackberries. I was no longer afraid. I could follow a recipe. I could stand where others had stood before. I placed Charm in the middle of the opened page in a place of honor. He assumed his usual pose on his back haunches.
