The Light Through the Leaves

by Vanderah, Glendy

“I would love that,” her mother said.

  They were both going to cry. They looked out at the Wild Wood. The wind had stopped, and sunlight suddenly slanted through the oak canopies. Rain dripping out of sparkled leaves and drapes of moss looked like glitter in the steamy, straight-edged shafts of light. It was the most magical the earth had ever appeared to Raven.

  “Wow, look at that,” her mother said.

  “Is the storm already over?” she asked.

  “No, we have hours to go,” she said. “The hurricane’s swirling center sends out bands of squalls that make the weather change rapidly.”

  Even as she spoke, racing gray clouds scuttled the sunlight, plunging the Wild Wood into mysterious darkness. With a precipitousness that captured Raven’s breath, the wind returned with unrestrained fury, whipping branches, moss, and leaves into reckless flight.

  “You see?” her mother said. “The tempest has returned.”

  “I think it’s beautiful,” Raven said.

  Her mother laughed and hugged her arm around her. “You’ve got a lot of me in you, girl.”

  She did. She had often felt something, a strength of heart and soul that kept her going when Audrey was too sick to take care of her. When she’d wandered as a lonely half-spirit child in the woods. When she’d vowed she would never let go of Jackie, Huck, and Reece once she’d found them. She used to think that power had come from the raven spirit. Now she knew much of her strength had passed to her from Ellis. From this woman watching the storm with her. This mother who could hold her in her arms. Who could cry with her, talk to her, and understand her.

  She was half-Ellis. Not half-spirit. And she’d never felt stronger.

  10

  ELLIS

  The baby moved beneath her hands. Something hard jutted against her palm. An elbow. Maybe a knee.

  “She likes it,” Raven said.

  Raven always referred to the baby as a girl, though she was only guessing.

  “She can see the sunlight through your skin,” Ellis said. “Maybe that’s why she’s so active.”

  “That must be beautiful.”

  Ellis poured more massage oil onto her belly and gently rubbed her hands over Raven’s taut, sun-warmed skin. Raven relaxed against the pillows.

  Ellis looked out at the muted colors of the field, thought of the new life soon to emerge from the roots of the hibernating grasses and flowers. She wondered where the baby would be when the first flowers bloomed. Raven and Jackie still hadn’t decided whether to keep the baby or give it up for adoption. Or maybe they had decided and hadn’t told anyone. Ellis stayed out of their decision. Raven and Jackie were remarkably mature teenagers. They didn’t need advice, and Ellis wanted them to feel confident about whatever they decided.

  Ellis pulled Keith’s soft flannel shirt down over Raven’s belly. He had offered his shirts when Raven refused to buy maternity clothes. But in recent weeks, she’d grown out of most of Keith’s clothing.

  Ellis took off Raven’s socks and massaged her feet with the oil.

  “That feels great,” Raven said.

  “Your dad used to massage my feet when I was pregnant with the boys.”

  “Not with me?”

  “No. Things weren’t going well with us by that time.”

  “Mom . . . ?”

  Ellis looked up at her. She had tears in her eyes.

  “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Ellis asked.

  “I’m really sorry about that day I said I wasn’t meant to be yours and Dad’s. That was the meanest thing ever to say to a mother. Especially one whose baby was stolen.”

  “You don’t have to apologize. You were indoctrinated into another way of thinking by Audrey from the time you were a baby.”

  “It was still mean. I should have known that.”

  “You only think that because your healing has been so rapid. How far you’ve come since that day is a testament to your incredible strength of spirit.”

  “Sometimes I don’t think I’ve come far. Have you noticed I never ask to go back to Washington anymore?”

  Ellis had noticed but didn’t want to ask about it.

  “Do you know why? I’m afraid Audrey’s spirit lives on that land. I’m scared of how angry she is with me for everything I’ve done. I’m even afraid there are earth spirits there that side with her.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “I love my house and those woods and fields, but I’m too frightened to go there. I don’t think I ever will again.”

  Ellis wrapped Raven in her arms. “I’m not surprised you feel that way after everything that’s happened. Give yourself more time to recover.”

  “I let Sondra and the police do everything she didn’t want. They dug up her body. They did an autopsy on her. I don’t even know where she is right now.”

  Ellis wiped her tears. “That was all out of your control. And I’ll tell you where she is. Her spirit lives in your memories. And those are controlled only by you. Try to let go of the bad and keep the good of her within you.”

  Raven looked astonished. “Do you think she had good in her?”

  “You’re a beautiful person. She must have had good qualities.”

  “I can’t believe you would say that.”

  “It’s not easy. But I understand that she was sick. And I saw right away that you must have been raised with kindness. All those years, I was afraid you were being treated cruelly.”

  “She was cruel sometimes. Just telling me I was the daughter of an earth spirit was a mean thing to do.”

  “It wasn’t intended to be mean if she believed it.”

  “She did believe it. But I think sometimes she realized what she’d done and felt bad about it. It was one of those times that she mentioned the name Bauhammer.”

  “Poor woman. What pain she must have endured. I’m glad she had the comfort of her earth spirits.”

  “But they’re why she took me.”

  “Her sickness is why she took you. And who knows? Maybe the nurturing she saw in the earth helped her take care of you.”

  Raven stared thoughtfully at the distant trees.

  “Do you know what I think about her earth spirits?” Ellis said.

  “What?”

  “I think her deep appreciation of nature was altered, became exaggerated by her illness.”

  “That’s probably true. She told me she and her mother would go to the Montana wilderness to help her feel better when she was sick. She said that was where she learned to speak to the earth spirits.”

  “She was using nature to heal herself. I did that intuitively when I was a little girl, and consciously after your abduction.”

  “What did you do after I was abducted?”

  “I went to the western mountains to recover. That was how I eventually stopped using drugs and alcohol. Nature has incredible healing power. Audrey felt that, but she began to believe she could manipulate that power to act on her behalf.”

  “She did. That’s what she thought she could do.”

  “There is a kind of spirit in mountains, trees, and rivers. I feel that same as Audrey did. But I let the spirits be themselves. To project my being onto theirs could only diminish them.”

  Raven looked at her curiously. “You see earth spirits?”

  Ellis picked a few blades of grass. “This grass is making food for itself from sunlight. And that food feeds many creatures. I believe photosynthesis is a kind of miracle. The poet Walt Whitman called a leaf of grass ‘the journey-work of the stars.’”

  Ellis laid the blades of grass in Raven’s palm. “I don’t need to see actual earth spirits in this field to find a million things that inspire me. When Audrey said you were born of a raven spirit, she turned your birth into a sudden act of magic that wasn’t half as miraculous as the truth. Imagine all the incredible events that had to happen for you to be here. The astrophysical, geological, and evolutionary processes that made you—and all life on earth—are the great wonders of our universe.”

  Ellis kissed her daughter
’s cheek. “You really are a miracle, you know.” She rested her hand on Raven’s baby bump. “And here you are making another.”

  “I think it’s a miracle that we found each other again,” Raven said. “Do you ever think that?”

  “It’s one of the most amazing miracles ever,” Ellis said.

  Raven returned the kiss to Ellis’s cheek. The first kiss her daughter had given her. Ellis looked out at the field to keep from crying.

  Together, they watched three crows flap over the field. When one of the crows called, Raven said, “Fish crow, right?”

  “Yes. I love that sound.”

  “So do I.”

  Raven pushed up her sleeve to look at her watch. “Jackie’s plane landed in Gainesville a half hour ago.”

  “We’d better get up to the house.”

  “I can’t believe this day is finally here,” Raven said. “This week is going to be wild.”

  “Wild” was an understatement. Soon seven people would arrive to spend their December holiday with them. The guesthouse would be packed with River, Jasper, Huck, and Reece in the downstairs room and Jonah and Ryan in the loft bedroom. They would all have to share one bathroom. There’d been lots of jokes about peeing in the woods.

  The main house would be less crowded with five people and two bathrooms: Jackie with Raven, Jackie’s mother in the master bedroom, and Keith and Ellis sleeping on the screened porch. Ellis assumed most of the barn guests would be at the main house during the day or walking the trails. The weather was supposed to be warm.

  Keith walked down the trail to meet them. “I was wondering when you’d come up. They’ll be here soon. Come look at what we did.”

  When they arrived at the house, Ellis understood why Keith had sent them down to the field. He, River, and Max had brought pots of native pines, hollies, and magnolias down from the nursery. They’d put them on the porch and around the house, lacing miniature white lights in their branches. They’d strung the biggest loblolly pine from the nursery with lights and red ribbons and placed it in the living room.

  “This is beautiful,” Ellis said. “Who bought the lights and ribbons?”

  “I did,” Keith said.

  “I should have known. You always wanted a Christmas tree.”

  “And now we’re both happy. The tree is native and didn’t have to die. I’m going to plant that one on our property—as a memory of our first holiday with the kids.”

  With the kids. She kissed him and whispered, “You’re adorably sentimental, you know that?”

  “I don’t mind wearing the adorably sentimental pants in this family.”

  “Speaking of pants, you’d better change,” she said, noting how muddy he was from moving the plants. River and Max were, too. Ellis put her hand on her heart to tell Max how much she loved the decorations. She squeezed River’s hand and said, “Thank you,” and for once he didn’t make a sarcastic joke. He was getting more comfortable with being loved.

  The rental car with Jackie and Huck, their mother, and Reece arrived twenty minutes later. When Reece saw Raven, he said, “She looks like a balloon that’s about to pop. How could you do this to her, Jackie?”

  “Do you want me to draw you a few diagrams?” Jackie said.

  “Please no. Your PDA was always graphic enough.”

  “The baby might have been conceived on your birthday,” Raven told Reece. “Remember the party we had?”

  “I remember,” he said. “But too much information. You’re making me blush in front of all these people I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, right,” Huck said. “It would take a lot more than that to embarrass you.”

  Ellis and Rose greeted each other with a tight hug. Ellis had gotten to know Jackie and his mother during their two visits in autumn. Ellis had felt immediate kinship with Rose. They had a lot in common: divorce, rural living, sons close in age, veganism, reverence for the natural world, and, of course, Raven and their coming grandchild.

  In October, during their first walk alone together, Rose had abruptly begun crying. “I should have known,” she wept. “I saw something wasn’t right with Raven and her mother.”

  “You can’t take any of the blame for what Audrey Lind did,” Ellis said.

  Her tears kept coming. “I should have called the police. There were times I almost did.”

  “What would the police have done when Raven showed no signs of abuse?”

  “I know. That was why I never called. I had no proof of anything bad going on, just a gut feeling. But still . . . I wish I’d done something.”

  “You did do something,” Ellis said. “You gave my daughter love. You helped her feel less isolated. You gave her the courage to ask for school. She’s told me that you, your sons, and Reece changed her life.”

  Rose’s hazel eyes had gleamed. “She said that?”

  “In my most hopeful moments after the abduction, I dreamed of a compassionate person like you helping her. It’s as if those hopes took wing, found her, and steered her to your family. I’ll never be able to express how grateful I am . . .”

  She and Rose had embraced, both crying, and from that moment they’d been as close as friends who’d known each other for many years.

  And during this holiday, Ellis would get to know the other two boys who had changed her daughter’s life. Already, she could tell Huck and Reece would be as easy to like as Jackie.

  After the guests were shown their rooms, Raven and Jackie disappeared into the woods. No one tried to find them when a late lunch was put out. They had a lot to talk about.

  During lunch, Rose asked, “Have you made any progress convincing Raven to go to a hospital for the birth?”

  “She absolutely refuses,” Ellis said. “She wouldn’t agree to a midwife either. She said she and Jackie have studied how to deliver a baby on the internet.”

  “Oh my god! Seriously?” Reece said.

  “This worries me,” Rose said.

  “I know. But what can I do? Drag her? Audrey made her phobic about hospitals.”

  Keith said, “We’re hoping she’ll go into labor while Jonah and Ryan are here. Ryan is a doctor.”

  “What kind?” Rose asked.

  “A surgeon. He doesn’t normally deliver babies, but he knows how.”

  Ellis said, “I told Jonah to warn Ryan that he might have a working vacation.”

  Everyone laughed. Ellis laughed with them, though she dreaded her daughter’s labor. She never would trust fate. It always did what it wanted. Fate didn’t give a damn how good a person was, or how innocent a baby, before it swept them away.

  Shortly after Raven and Jackie returned home, Jonah, Jasper, and Ryan arrived. Ryan was four years older than Jonah, but he had a youthful appearance that made him seem younger. He was tall and fit, had blond hair and blue eyes, and wore glasses with aqua frames. He hugged Ellis and kissed her cheek as if he’d known her all his life.

  He whispered in her ear, “I brushed up on my delivery skills. I’m ready. But that will be our secret.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered back. “She still says Jackie is going to deliver the baby.”

  Ryan grinned. “Brave boy.”

  They put two tables together in the living room for dinner. Keith turned down the lights to better see the Christmas tree. He also lit a fire, though it was still warm outside. For “ambience,” he said.

  Ellis loved how full her house felt. With family, new friends, laughter, healing. She nearly cried during dinner more than once.

  Dinner cleanup went fast with everyone’s help, even Quercus, who licked many plates clean. The group was in a lively mood. Everyone except River. Ellis recognized the fraught look in his eyes.

  She took him by the hand and led him to the front porch. “You want a drink, don’t you?”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “To me it is.”

  “I want one so bad I’m about dying. If I had a driver’s license, I’d probably be gone by now.”

  “I’
m sorry to hear that. You’ve been doing so well.”

  “It’s all of this,” he said, gesturing at the lights on the holly tree. “I haven’t had a sober Christmas since I was maybe Raven’s age. Normally I go through the whole season in one long stupor. And now I’m finally twenty-one and I’m supposed to be sober? How ridiculous is that? Can’t I see what it’s like to order a drink legally, just for once?”

  “You’re making up excuses.”

  “I almost asked Reece or Huck to take me.”

  “Raven would be devastated if you did that.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “Wait here.”

  She went inside, grabbed a bottle from the refrigerator, and popped the cap. She brought it to River.

  He stared at the brown bottle. “Is that a beer?”

  “It’s a little recovery secret I learned from a guy in a campground.”

  Caleb reading “Song of the Open Road” in her tent. She always thought of that night when she bought kombucha. Caleb had recommended it to help her stay sober. Back then, the drink wasn’t as easy to find in stores as it was now.

  She put the bottle in River’s hand.

  He looked at the label. “I’ve never tried kombucha.”

  “The guy I met told me it helps when you’re craving a drink. It’s fermented and fizzy like a beer, and holding a cold brown bottle helps.”

  River tried it. “Pretty good.”

  “It has a little alcohol in it from the fermentation process. Not enough to get you even tipsy, though. I have quite a bit in the refrigerator. Hidden in the back.”

  “Did you buy it for me?”

  “For both of us. I didn’t drink hard for long, but even after all these years, the Christmas season makes me want a drink sometimes.”

  He took another sip. “You’re right. Raven will be a wreck if I get drunk tonight.”

  “You have to do it for yourself.”

  “I know. But she helps. And so do you. That’s why I stayed here. If I’d gone back to Dad’s house, I knew I’d drink again. And my dealer lives up there.”

  “You can do this,” Ellis said. “I know you can.”

  He guzzled more of the kombucha. “Can I say something that’s totally out of character?”