by Rene Denfeld
He hugged her with his one arm. She smelled mint soap.
They walked together up the steps. “You’ve been keeping the home nice,” she said.
He shrugged. “Custodian of nowhere.”
“Now, now,” even though it had been what she was thinking.
Mrs. Cottle was wrapped in a thick cardigan and three layers of crocheted blankets. Her Bible was at hand. She was sleeping, peacefully, her blue-mapped eyelids trembling. Naomi leaned over and kissed her cheek, lovingly.
“She was awake a moment ago, I swear,” Jerome said, laughing.
“I know.”
They ate shepherd’s pie and fresh carrots at the dining room table. Jerome had a glass of cider. She had water.
There was something comfortable about Jerome. It had been that way since she was brought here. A part of her let out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding. Mrs. Cottle used to joke they were like twins, both knapping fires of life.
But they were not twins. They were something different.
“You should have told me,” she said.
“I didn’t want to bother you,” he said, cutting the shepherd’s pie with his one hand. “You have your work.” He took a bite. “It wouldn’t change it, anyhow.”
“You’re good to take care of her.”
“I miss you, Naomi.”
“I miss—” Naomi’s cheeks colored.
His dark eyes looked up under faint brows. When they were younger she thought these were butterfly brows, so gentle and expressive they were.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you,” he said.
“Only a few months,” she said, hopefully.
“More like six,” he answered, softening it with a smile.
“Counting?” she asked lightly.
“We belong together,” he said.
She stared at him, the tender cords of his neck, and the knotted burl of scarred bone at his shoulder where the right arm was missing. After she first came here he would call to her outside, running across sunlit fields. Come see the stones, Naomi, he would say. Come see the—
“I should get back on the road,” she said, longing to stay, afraid of it.
“Stay the night,” he begged.
She thought of Madison Culver. She was probably nothing now, just bones, with drying flesh held together with the barest hide—she had seen such things—or more likely the various parts of her carried away by wild animals.
There were times there was no child at the end of a journey, only a memory. She didn’t want it to be true for the Culvers, but it had been true before. If she could give them nothing else she would give them that solace. Nothing, she knew, was worse than not having an answer.
While there was still a chance, she could not stay. Jerome didn’t understand, she thought. Or maybe, his eyes said, he did. Maybe he understood there would always be a reason for her to leave.
Come see the stones, Naomi, Jerome had called to her in the days after she had arrived, and they ran the ridges above the farmhouse through a sea of grass until they reached a mountain of rock under a blue clap of sky. Running with Jerome, the sweetgrass waving around their waists—
At the top of the ridge, the sky close enough to touch, they stopped: the stones.
It was a magical place that not even the local rock hunters knew about, a cliff where the earth had opened up, showing her true self in all her beauty: a cascade of brilliant jasper and hot agates, prisms and sparkles of quartz, so you might plunge your hand in and come out holding jewels. The natural gemstones may not have been worth anything, but they were special to Naomi and Jerome.
“Inside every stone is a gem,” Jerome explained to her. “Sometimes nature makes a miracle.”
Here they told each other their secrets. Taking turns holding the stones, eyes closed, fists closed, peeking every now and then to see the other: yes, they were listening. Jerome shared how his mother was a Kalapuya native who had died when he was a baby. He had bounced around different foster homes until he had landed, as if in sanctuary, with Mrs. Cottle. He had a picture of his mom that he kept on his dresser. Every night Mrs. Cottle encouraged him to kiss the picture and say a prayer. He said he was proud to be a Kalapuya because they were brave and smart.
Naomi confessed she had tried but couldn’t remember anything about before, except that she had dreams. She felt she needed to look for someone. Who it was she did not know. Only that she felt the compulsion to wander the edge of every field. But whom would she call for if she didn’t know their name?
At this Jerome had held her hand, holding the gem. “I will come and help you,” he had said, eyes wide.
Come see the stones, Jerome had called to her, and they ran, dusting the fields with their laughter, even as they grew up, and hair shadowed his cheek, and her very scalp lengthened. Each time they found themselves in this throne of God, high above all else in the fertile valley, Jerome would tenderly pluck a jewel for her: a piece of opal, quartz, a shiny agate.
More beautiful than the stones, Jerome’s eyes said, and the very sky clapped blue in agreement.
God’s gracious gift.
The words echoed to Naomi as she drove back through the valley, crossing farmlands as the sun kissed the world good-bye. The gentle hills were covered in green velvet, the low fields gnarled with abandoned orchards. Pink clouds unfurled.
At one time people cherished these places. Naomi remembered life in the valley as a constant harvest—strawberries tumbled in flats, green beans piled dusty from the fields, sweet pumpkins for pie. Now most of the small towns were empty. The mom-and-pop farms had been replaced by giant producers, their walking sprinklers crawling across a dirt sky. Nobody lived on those massive farms except the caretakers and the passing workers.
On impulse Naomi turned off the next exit, knowing exactly what had triggered her memory. She entered the empty town of Harlow, past brick buildings, swinging wood signs, and a single child’s red wagon parked at the side of the road. She stopped and peered in: empty except for a button-eyed doll. She could remember a time not long before when these streets were filled with children. Including a little boy named Juan.
She drove to the cemetery at the end of town, marked by old stones. The sun was just setting, and a cool breeze blew across the empty land. She knelt and swept dirt from the grave.
Juan Aguilar was one of her early cases. His mom was an undocumented farm worker who, weighing the risk of going to the police about her missing son against the risk of deportation, chose the police—and was deported. She had told Naomi from her jail cell, where she was shackled and waiting for the deportation bus, that she had named her son Juan because the name meant “God’s gracious gift.”
Naomi was new; she lacked confidence—that was what she told herself later. There was a man she suspected, a farm boss, if for no other reason than the look in his eye. She had begun to track him. She wanted to learn more about him—find any clues about who he was, and why she felt the way she did.
But he had seen her. He knew.
One day she had been following the man as he drove through town in a battered old truck. He had stopped at the post office, carrying a large, suspicious-looking box wrapped in duct tape. After a time he came out.
Curious, she waited a bit and then went into the post office, wondering what he had sent. Perhaps it was evidence. The box was on the counter. It was empty as a shell. The address on the outside said only this: Fuck you.
When she came back out he had disappeared.
The next day Juan was found at the bottom of a well. He had not fallen. He was deposited there: both legs broken, the entire well a shed of blood. When they pulled him out, his slender golden form was covered in these globules, like ruby gems attached to his skin. The man had vanished, and to this day he had never been found. The case was considered unsolved.
Naomi had vowed after that case that she would not be deceived again. She would view every act with suspicion, every witness as questionable
, and every piece of possible evidence along the way as a trap.
She knelt over the grave, until her nose was touching the dirt. “When you are ready to inhabit a new skin,” she said, “we will be waiting for you.”
Life for the thing called B was seen in flashes of light, like vivid color shots on lake water still frozen in the early days of summer. It was seen in the shape of clouds, or in a fir tree against the silver sky.
The day after the girl had slept in his bed for the first time, B had come back from trapping and sat on the edge of the bed. Something was different about him—and yet he did not know what it was. He put his hands over his head; felt his hair, his eyes that could see. Put his fingers in his mouth, wondering why others seemed to have a way of knowing each other when their lips moved. He put his hands over his ears, knowing they were part of the problem. He had seen the way the girl turned her head when he walked close. He had seen how the ears of foxes twitched. His ears did not twitch.
Inside him he could feel noise: the beat of blood, the drum of life. He could feel that life in his fingertips. He could taste food. He could touch the girl. He liked touching the girl. She was soft. The girl had that thing he did not have—what it was he was not sure. It made her head turn. It made her eyes open up wide. It made her smile at him. Him—for whom no one smiled.
A very long time ago, the creature called B had thought he was real. There was a sense of connection he had, like the cord traveling from a mother fox to a newborn kit pulled from the den. You could smell these newly born creatures, wet-blind at birth, marvel at their closed eyes, before putting your firm hand on them and pressing. That connection had been lost long ago, only to be remembered when the girl came.
The girl was magic. She was bringing him to life. Why then did he still feel such rage?
6
Over a year and a half had passed since her creation, and snow girl could not help but grow. It was from drinking the milk of the forest, the red cedar blood. It coursed through her veins, and the elbows that split from her torn sweater. Her toes hurt in her tennis shoes. Her bright yellow underwear was gray and ragged.
Her pants got shorter and her ankles peeked out, until she realized one day this was part of the magic. She would grow tall enough to run above the trees. From up high she could spot the animals in the traps and let Mr. B know.
Mr. B had frowned at her when she showed him the pants that cut into her waist, the grimy old shoes. It made him angry. He dragged her into the root cellar, pushing her down the ladder. Later he brought her food. She ate and fell deeply asleep.
When she woke up he was gone. Her wrists hurt, and her bottom did, too. She tried not to notice that. Sometimes the woods were not nice.
The cellar was cold. It was good she had blankets and piles of rank furs. He had left food: a bag of brown potatoes she ate raw and a jar of peanut butter with a bent metal spoon.
The peanut butter was so good she broke open the jar and carefully licked the insides before burying the shards in the corner, only to dig them back up again when she got hungry, thinking maybe more peanut butter had appeared.
At night she cried herself to sleep.
Later she got down and put her small hands on the dirt floor, feeling the vibrations of the earth. She imagined this was how Mr. B heard her: through vibrations. He would hear how sorry she was and come back.
The trapdoor opened. Light filtered down. He put down the ladder, but stayed upstairs.
After a while, when she was brave enough, the snow girl climbed up.
There was a damp cardboard box on the table. Charity box, it said on the outside.
She stepped forward, feeling woozy. He caught her elbow and made her sit.
He pushed the box towards her, making the sounds he made when he was happy, or anxious, or any other feeling that could so easily turn to anger. Snow girl was glad she had left her own feelings behind.
The clothes in the box smelled damp and musty. She pulled them out: a woman’s nightgown, ten sizes too large; one purple mitten, a doll shoe, boys’ jeans that might fit, and a single rubber sandal. Dust and baby socks.
Mr. B looked at her expectantly.
She suddenly realized: Mr. B couldn’t very well just go find a store and ask for snow girl clothes. It wasn’t like there was such a place in this world. He must have had to travel, and wait patiently for such treasures.
She smiled at him, reassuring. She pulled out a soft pink sweater and gasped: it was pretty! And faded black leggings with glitter unicorns at the hem. It was the most beautiful gift ever. She wanted to give him a big hug, but she stopped and smiled at him instead.
That night he let her sleep in his bed again.
Once upon a time there was a little girl named Madison who hated school.
Madison knew she was supposed to like school. Most kids liked school, her teachers said. But Madison did not like school, and her mommy understood. “Not everyone likes a ceiling,” her mommy said. “Some of us like the sky.”
Madison loved to read, and to write. She just didn’t like school. She liked being home and going outside.
One day Madison’s teacher had held up a globe. “This is the world,” she had said. Madison thought that world looked awfully big and cold. It was surrounded by blue water and was as round and slippery as a ball.
“And this is your land,” the teacher said. This time she held up a map that looked like a mess of lines and color, and this was the United States.
Madison was reassured. If she had to hide, why then it would be easy to do. She would just hide inside the lines.
Later that day the children in the class sang, “This land is your land,” and then they played tetherball outside on a bright sunny day.
It was too bad Madison didn’t like school. If she had, maybe she would have learned more about how to get off the world.
The story finished, the snow girl opened her eyes to see the bent metal spoon on the mud floor, left from eating the peanut butter.
Getting up, she took the spoon into the corner and carefully buried it there.
The Claymore claim was next.
Naomi ate a large breakfast in the diner, where the waitress now no longer called her hon, but nodded indifferently, like she was a local. As usual, no one had asked what she was doing in town. People had a way of appearing and disappearing in one another’s lives nowadays, she had found, so that no one asked, Is it for work? or My God, you look tired or Say, do you have family here? America was an iceberg shattered into a billion fragments, and on each stood a person, rotating like an ice floe in a storm.
This place is getting to me, she thought. Ice and storms.
She scooped up the rest of the soft bacon, finished the last slice of toast with strawberry jelly, and headed out.
On her map there was a tiny faint line that might have been a road where the Claymore claim touched the blacktop, several miles farther up the mountains from where Madison had gone missing.
Naomi drove slowly, snow from the recent storm piled along the road. She found the turnoff, one of the few cut into the forest. It had long since overgrown. The entry was now a wall of packed snow.
She parked her car, grabbed her gear, and took off on foot. Her stride had grown accustomed to the snowshoes, and she enjoyed the pleasant feeling of working her thighs. She pulled her cap closer around her ears, unzipped her parka a bit to allow the heat to escape.
The narrow dirt road had clearly not been used in many years, to look at the small trees that had grown in the path. She wondered at the effort it would have taken to clear this road in such terrain, and probably by hand.
The forest here was higher in elevation, the trees wide and welcoming, but with deep snow wells that promised treachery if you stepped too close—Naomi had heard of hikers who had fallen down those wells and gotten trapped.
The road climbed the side of the jagged mountain, and she climbed with it. It wound higher, until she came out against a sheer wall face that opened to bre
athtaking vistas on the other side, and a disconcerting wall of snow above her. Naomi walked lightly, breathed lightly. Far below her was a vast crumpled river, still frozen over with snow in spring. She wondered if it ever thawed up here, or if the frozen rivers and glaciers simply fed the rivers and lakes below.
On the other side of the canyon came a distant rumble. Naomi stopped.
On one of the rare times she made the mistake of being interviewed about her work, a reporter had asked her why she took such risks. Naomi didn’t know how to answer the question. “We all die sometime,” she had said, feeling the answer was weak. The real answer was that without the work there would be no Naomi.
She preferred to think of what Jerome had said, when she had been visiting him and Mrs. Cottle right after he returned from the war, freshly discharged from the military hospital. He had been standing in the kitchen doorway, his empty shoulder wrapped in fresh bandages, his shorn head fuzzy with hair. “We all need a sense of purpose,” he had said.
She had been getting ready to leave again—“So soon?” Mrs. Cottle was asking. “You just got here.”
Jerome had added, with his gentle gaze on her, “Be careful the purpose doesn’t destroy you.”
You can’t destroy nothing, Naomi had thought.
The rumbling stopped, and she started walking again, taking deep, cleansing breaths. The air was so clean and cold here it was like a drink of health. She felt the power in her legs, the sure purpose in her walk. Her skin tingled with energy.
The road ended in a small clearing cut into the side of the mountain, where she found a large hole framed with supporting logs. Outside an ancient sluicing box had fallen on its side. There were piles of old dirt, cragged over with snow.
Naomi peered at the framed hole from a distance. The mine looked abandoned, but that didn’t mean much. She slowly stepped closer.
