In the Forest of Forgetting

by Theodora Goss

  Miss Gray smiled placidly, mysteriously, like a respectable Mona Lisa. “You wanted to go to school, like Amelia Thwaite, and wear fine clothes, and be rid of your father.”

  “You’re lying,” said Genevieve. “It’s not true,” and “I didn’t mean it.” Then she fell on her knees, in the wet grass. Her head fell forward, until it almost, but not quite, touched Miss Gray’s unwrinkled lap.

  “Hush, my dear,” said Miss Gray, stroking Genevieve’s hair and brushing away the tears that were beginning to fall on her dress. “You will go to school in Paris, and we will go together to Worth’s, to find you an appropriate wardrobe. And we will go to the galleries and the Academy of Art . . .”

  There was sobbing now, and tears soaking through to her knees, but she continued to stroke Genevieve’s hair and said, in the soothing voice of a hospital nurse, “And my dear, although you have suffered a great loss, I hope you will someday come to think of me as your mother.”

  In the north of Albion, rain once again began to fall, which was no surprise, since it was autumn.

  IN THE FOREST OF FORGETTING

  She stood at the edge of the forest. She knew it was the edge because behind her the path disappeared into undergrowth. She could see rhododendrons, covered with flowers like cotton candy. There were bushes without flowers, which she could not name: shrubus leafiana. Ahead of her, the path was shadowed by oaks, poplars, maples with leaves like Canadian flags. In the shadow of the trees, the air was cool and smelled of toothpaste.

  “Welcome,” said the Witch. She was standing beneath an oak tree whose branches were covered with green acorns. The Witch was wearing a white coat. Around her neck was a silver chain, with a silver disk hanging from it. Just what a Witch should look like, she thought. It was comforting when things looked as they should. The forest, for instance.

  “Where am I?” she asked.

  “In the Forest of Forgetting,” said the Witch. “Hence the forgetting. Let me check your heart.”

  “Why am I here?”

  The Witch placed the silver disk on her chest. It felt cold against her bare skin. “Heart normal. You’re here because you have lumps.”

  She looked down at her chest, where the silver disk had been placed. There they were, the only lumps she could see, above the slight bulge of her stomach.

  “What’s wrong with them?” They were small and a bit crooked, but they looked all right.

  The Witch put her hands in her pockets. “Your lumps have metastasized. They must be removed.”

  “Well,” she said. And again, “Well.” Even in the stillness under the trees, which made her feel calm and a bit sleepy, this seemed unnecessarily repetitive. “How—”

  “With this,” said the Witch, pulling a silver wand from one pocket. It looked harmless enough. The Witch muttered something under her breath and waved her wand.

  Before she had time to close her eyes or prepare herself for whatever might happen, two moths rose from her chest, white with flecks of gray on their wings. They fluttered along the path, looping and twisting around one another, as though making invisible macrame.

  She looked down at her chest. The lumps were gone.

  “That went quite well,” said the Witch, replacing the wand in her pocket.

  The moths fluttered upward, spiraling into the treetops until she could no longer see them. The clouds overhead were white and fluffy, like sheep. No, she thought. Like pillows, like unrolled toilet paper left in heaps on the floor. She liked creating unusual similes.

  “Don’t go too far into the forest,” said the Witch. “You’ll have to come back, eventually.” The Witch began walking toward the rhododendrons and nameless bushes.

  “Wait,” she said. Something had been bothering her. She had almost forgotten it, watching the moths rise upward. “What is my name?”

  The Witch turned back for a moment. Her silver disk winked in the shifting light under the trees. “Your name is Patient.”

  She looked down at the path: her feet were bare, and her toenails needed clipping. That didn’t sound right at all. She wasn’t particularly patient, was in fact generally impatient. She looked up, wanting to ask the Witch if she was certain, but the Witch was gone.

  There was nothing to do but go farther into the forest. It was silent, except for the occasional rustle high among the treetops.

  When she heard laughter, she looked up. In the branches of a laurel, spiders had woven their webs, like a giant game of cat’s cradle. They were brown, and about the size of her hand.

  “What sort of web? What web? What web?” The words came down to her in clacking sing-song, as though she were being questioned by a collection of sewing machines. One spider spun itself down from a branch and hung by its thread in front of her. “What web?” It went into paroxysms of laughter, shaking on its thread like a brown yo-yo.

  She looked around her, trying to see what the spiders were laughing about, and saw that the path behind her was littered with brown string. She knelt down, picked up a handful, and suddenly realized what she was holding

  “Not a web,” she said to the spiders. “My hair. See?” She put her hand on her head. It was bare. Her arms and legs were bare. Even the place under her belly was bare. “It’s fallen out. I won’t have to buy shampoo or disposable razors.” She said this to show it was probably for the best. Perhaps they believed her, because their laughter stopped and the dangling spider rose again to his branch. But she sat on the path and cried, wiping her eyes with a handful of hair.

  When she was finished, she blew her nose on an oak leaf and went on. It was no use, she told herself, crying over spilt hair. Perhaps she would grow a winter coat. Perhaps it would come in white, like an arctic hare’s.

  She was so focused on planning for winter, when her coat would come in and she would live on acorns, that she almost tripped over the coffin.

  “Be careful,” said the first Apprentice. He was dressed in a blue coat, and wore a blue showercap on his head. Around his neck was a silver chain, with a silver disk hanging from it.

  “You’ll trip over the Queen,” said the second Apprentice, who was dressed just like him.

  “If you tripped, she would blame us,” said the third Apprentice. Her showercap was pushed back to show her bangs.

  “Who?” she asked. “The Queen?” The Queen looked incapable of blaming anybody.

  “The Witch. We’re her Apprentices,” said the Apprentices together. “Obviously,” muttered the third Apprentice. She wondered if they had practiced beforehand.

  “Let us check your heart,” said the first Apprentice. All three came together and put their silver disks on her chest.

  “Heart normal.”

  “Too slow.”

  “Too fast.”

  They glared at each other and began arguing among themselves.

  She looked down at the Queen. The glass of the coffin was perfectly clear. Through it she could see the Queen’s robe, a deep blue, and her blue turban. Her face was a little blue as well.

  “She died of lumps,” said the Apprentices.

  “They metastasized.”

  “The Witch could not remove them in time.”

  “Magic is much more advanced, nowadays.”

  She put her hands on the coffin and, not knowing what else to do, tapped her fingers on the glass. Her cuticles were ragged. What would the Queen think?

  “She left you gifts,” said the Apprentices.

  “A dress.” It was made of paper, and tied in back. She could not reach the strings, so the first Apprentice tied it for her. She had never liked floral patterns, she thought, looking down at herself. But it would have to do until her winter coat came in.

  “A mirror.” The second Apprentice held it for her. She realized, with surprise, that she had no eyebrows. She should have expected that. It made her look surprised, which seemed appropriate.

  The third Apprentice smiled and said, “You look a little like her, only not so blue.”

  She did,
indeed, look a little like the Queen. “Thank you,” she said. The Queen approved of politeness. “Did she, by any chance, leave me a name?” She did not want to seem ungrateful, but this was, after all, important to her. You needed a name, if someone was going to, for example, ask you to lunch. She had not eaten since breakfast, and she was beginning to feel hungry.

  “Your name is Daughter,” they said. “Now it’s time to turn back.”

  “Why?” Surely she was too old for a name like Daughter.

  They looked at each other, then muttered among themselves. “Because,” they said decisively.

  She frowned, wondering what it looked like without eyebrows, wondering if she should look in the mirror again to find out. Instead, she turned and walked farther along the path, deeper into the forest.

  “Wait!” they shouted behind her.

  “You’re going too far!”

  “Your heart can’t take it!”

  “Do you want to end up like the Queen?”

  Eventually, it was silent again.

  The forest began to grow darker. Maples and poplars were replaced by pines. Needles prickled her feet as she walked on the path. She tried to eat a pinecone, but it left her hands sticky and tasted like gasoline. Not that she had tasted gasoline, but she imagined it would taste exactly like that. If she could wash her hands in the river—

  “No one may cross the river,” said the Knight.

  “I don’t want to cross. I just want to wash my hands and have a drink.”

  “No,” said the Knight. Above the knees, he was dressed in a suit of armor. Below, he wore a pair of galoshes. “Ouyay aymay otnay inkdray oray ashway. Onay Oneway.” He lifted his visor. His mustache looked like it had been cut with nail clippers. It was turning gray.

  “Why?” It was the question she had been asking since she entered the forest.

  The Knight looked puzzled. “I don’t know. I think it’s a rule or something.” He had a nice voice. The Witch and her Apprentices had sounded like subway conductors. And the Queen hadn’t spoken at all. “I think you’re supposed to go back.”

  “That’s just it,” she said. “Who is you? I mean, who is me?” She sounded impatient, and she realized that she must be: hungry, tired, impatient. No one in this forest answered questions directly. Would anyone tell her what she wanted to know?

  “Well,” he said. He tugged at his mustache, although his armored hands were clumsy. “You like blackberry pie. You overwater houseplants, feed stray cats on the back porch, sleep through your alarm clock.” He began counting on his fingers. It must help him remember, she thought. “You write stories for children: A Camembert Moon, Priscilla’s Flying Pig, The Train to Nowhereton. You complain about your knees, and you hate wearing glasses. Once, you went on a diet where you ate nothing but cucumbers for a week. You can’t mend socks, play tennis, or sing. You hate scrubbing toilets.” He reached ten and looked at her, fingers outspread. “How am I doing?”

  “Well,” she said. She did like blackberry pie, although she didn’t need glasses. Her eyesight was perfectly clear. She could see, for instance, that the Knight had wrinkles under his eyes. They made him look rather handsome. “But what is my name?”

  “I think,” said the Knight, looking at his fingers as though trying to remember. “I think your name is Wife.”

  It was a nice name, whispery, like “wish” and “whinny” and “willow.” It was the nicest name she had heard so far. But it wasn’t quite right.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, because the Knight was looking at her with an anxious smile. She stepped into the river.

  “Wait!” said the Knight.

  The river was cold and clear and shallow. Although there were stepping stones, she walked on the muddy bottom, letting the water curl around her ankles, then around her knees. In the middle of the river, she bent down to wash her hands and frightened a brown fish under a rock. Once her hands were no longer sticky, she drank from them and splashed water on her face, scattering drops of water on her paper dress.

  “Won’t you reconsider?” shouted the Knight. He was standing in the water, up to the buckles of his galoshes. She wondered if he would follow her into the river, but he did not. Perhaps, she thought, he was afraid that his armor would rust. Instead, he stood near the riverbank, arms held out like an airplane. He was standing there each time she turned back to look. Finally, the path bent and she could no longer see him.

  Once, a family of squirrels scrambled down from an oak tree and asked for her autograph. The squirrel children had copies of A Camembert Moon. When she told them she had no pen, they brought her berries. She signed each one “With regards, Author.” She wondered where they kept books, whether there were shelves in the oak tree. When she had signed copies for Jumpy, Squirmy, Tailless, Nuthunter, and Squawk, they shared their dinner with her: an acorn mash that would have made a good meal, if she had been a squirrel. She was still hungry, although less hungry than before.

  Finally, the trees grew farther apart. She saw undergrowth, including a bush with berries. They looked like the berries the squirrels had used for ink. She wondered if they were safe to eat, and thought of trying a few. Surely if they were poisonous she would feel sick or throw up. A few would not kill her. But she was too nervous to try.

  The trees ended at the edge of a meadow filled with Queen Anne’s lace, poppies, cornflowers. And beyond the meadow—

  “Are you going to the mountains?” asked the Princess. She wore pajamas with feet and a necklace of paperclips.

  Was she? They were blue with pines, and probably farther away than they appeared.

  “Look at what I have,” said the Princess. She was holding a wicker cage. In it were two moths, white with gray markings on their wings.

  “I wondered where they had gone,” she said. She was sorry, now, to have lost them. They were pretty, like sheets of newspaper turned into kites.

  “I’ll give them water in the teacups my dolls use. Do you know my dolls?”

  “No,” she said. It was an important question: was she going to the mountains?

  “Their names are Octavia, because she only has eight toes, and Puddle. Because you know.” The Princess raised her hand to her mouth, as though speaking through a trumpet. “She’s just a baby.”

  “Do you like making dresses for your dolls?” she asked the Princess.

  “Yes,” said the Princess. “I make them from leaves and toilet paper.”

  “If you help me untie it,” she said, “you can have my dress.” It had been itching for some time, and anyway she would not need it in the mountains. When the strings were untied, she slipped the dress off and handed it to the Princess.

  Someone was moving in the meadow, someone in a blue coat, with a blue shower cap on his head. He was holding an enormous butterfly net. And another someone, and another.

  “We’ll catch her!” shouted the Apprentices, jumping and turning as though chasing enormous butterflies.

  “She shouldn’t have crossed the river!”

  “Her heart can’t take the strain!”

  “But we’ll catch her here, never worry!”

  Had she made her final decision? Was she going to the mountains? The Apprentices began stalking away from each other, like detectives.

  “You’re good at names, aren’t you?” she said to the Princess.

  The Princess nodded. “I once named seventeen caterpillars. They were named one, two, three, four, five, and so on, up to seventeen.”

  “What would you name me?” Every few minutes, one Apprentice would run up to another, shouting “Boo!” and making the other jump. The mountains looked mysterious and inviting.

  The Princess considered. “I think I would name you Mother.”

  “An excellent name.” But not her name, not quite. She would find her name in the mountains. It would be unexpected and inevitable, a name she could never have imagined, like Rumpelstiltskin. In the mountains she would learn about berries. Her winter coat would come in.

>   She leaned down and kissed the Princess, then put one hand on the wicker cage. “Goodbye,” she said. “Take good care of them. I think they once belonged to the Queen.”

  She stepped into the sunlight. It was warm on her body. Bees circled around her, visiting the Queen Anne’s lace. The Apprentices were stalking away from each other, butterfly nets raised and fluttering in the breeze. She hoped they would not notice her.

  She held out her hands so they brushed the tops of the grasses, and started across the meadow.

  SLEEPING WITH BEARS

  I THE INVITATION

  DR. AND MRS. ELWOOD BARLOW

  REQUEST THE HONOR OF YOUR PRESENCE

  AT THE MARRIAGE OF THEIR DAUGHTER ROSALIE

  TO MR. T. C. URSUS

  ON SATURDAY THE THIRTEENTH OF JUNE

  AT ONE O’CLOCK

  IN THE FIRST METHODIST CHURCH

  RECEPTION TO FOLLOW IN THE CHURCH HALL

  II THE BRIDE

  They are wealthy, these bears. Their friends come to the wedding in fur coats.

  Rosie is wearing Mom’s dress, let out at the waist. When Mom married, she was Miss Buckingham County. She shows us the tape measure. “That’s what I was, twenty-two inches around the waist: can you imagine?” My sister, after years of jazzercize and Jane Fonda, is considerably thicker. When, I wonder, were women’s waists replaced by abdominals? When cheerleaders started competing for state championships, I guess. Rosie was a cheerleader. Her senior year, our squad was fourth in state. That year she wore the class ring of the student council president, who was also the captain of the football team. She was in the homecoming court. She was furious when Lisa Callahan was elected queen.

  After she graduated from Sweet Briar and began working as a legal secretary, she met a lawyer who was making sixty thousand a year. They started talking about having children, buying a Mercedes.

  So I don’t understand why she decided to marry a bear.

  III THE GROOM