“Then what’s the point? Why do you have him sit here? What does he think that he’s doing?”
My black-eyed shadow stepped away from Matthew, cocked her head. Her chin jutted out, and she looked at me, eyes searching, in an attempt to understand. Did she not know me? Just as she seemed strange to me, did I to her? Were my true feelings, desires, incomprehensible? I knew more of the world than she possibly could, and I thought that my experience might give me some advantage in setting Matthew free. I could trap her, trick her, beat her at her own game. Perhaps all that I loved was not yet lost.
My shadow sighed, and the expression on her face became not wondering but weary, full of all I knew but could not bring myself to speak. And I knew she had seen to the core of me. She was me. She loved me. I knew what she’d say next before she spoke.
“Life is not some riddle to be solved. The things that matter most cannot be won, cannot be tricked. They won’t be studied, never fully understood. There are no rules to things, you realize.”
“Except they told me . . . Lucy, Alys . . . they explained . . .”
“You think because you name it and you tell it, it becomes? A story is a present, tied with ribbon and a wish. Real things aren’t so easy. Choices not so black and white.”
“You mean to say I cannot stop you?”
“Stop me?” Her black eyes were indecipherable. “Why ever would you want to stop me?”
“Because you hurt them, when you took over the wood. You hurt everything. They told me so, the women at the house.”
“The house is gone.”
“And so the wood will claim the village? The city? The world?” I struggled to make sense of what was happening, unable to fully comprehend the dissolution of the life that I had known. She spoke against my education, my faith in logic, in reason, in order. “You mean to say that we are bound by nothing? Breached by nothing?”
“Perhaps,” said my shadow. I grasped at my last thread of hope.
“And my mother?”
“Gone.” There was to be no reunion, no farewell. My mother was not waiting for me, chastened by belief, in any afterlife.
“My father?” Though the answer was clear, I had to ask the question.
“Gone.”
I felt very tired.
“If you let Matthew go,” I said softly to my shadow, “you can have me.”
I imagined Matthew running, just ahead of the widening forest, ever eluding its grasp by a few steps. Perhaps when he reached the sea he might escape it. Perhaps he never could. Still, whatever happened seemed preferable to capture in this cave of death, his mind gone, fingers bleeding. I’d at least have given him a chance.
“You can have me,” I whispered again. But you cannot give yourself to yourself, not as bargaining chip, not in sacrifice.
My black-eyed shadow smiled. “You’ve been taught,” she said, “not to take what you want. Taught to ask. To be deferent. To bargain.
“Come,” she said, “embrace me.”
I wanted nothing more.
I closed my eyes, I went to her, forgetting Matthew, Peter, my journey, my fear. I put my arms around her, and hers came tight around me, and together we tangled and twined. I dove into her darkness as if she were water, inhaled her scent, felt the pressure of her breasts. I readied myself for oblivion, waited for death.
32
A breeze passed over me. I shivered. When I opened my eyes, I was clutching myself, my own hands crossed around my chest. The light was different, richer, more direct. What had been bones were only trees, and trees I recognized. That oak was carved with villagers’ initials. That poplar had split years ago, its branches struck by lightning. The air was cool as it had been before I’d entered the strange forest. The sun was just cresting the canopy of trees.
I turned to look for Matthew, and found him standing beside me.
“Why, hello,” he said.
I sat down in the clearing and cried.
My tears were thick and heavy, hot and salted. They splashed against my wrist, down onto the grass below, dry grass, littered with crinkling autumn leaves. I rubbed a blade between my fingers. I reached out to touch a thorn. Nothing changed.
What world was this, I wondered, that looked so like the one I’d known as real, yet proved itself so foreign? My tears came faster, wetter. When Matthew came to me, I could not stop my bawling. I reached down and picked up a leaf, papery and yellow. As I held it, it remained stagnant in form.
Matthew understood at once. He smiled, his own eyes bright with tears. He sat down beside me and held out his hand. I grasped it and squeezed.
WE LEFT THE wood, Matthew and I, carefully, together. Where Urizon had been, we found only two broken brick pillars, what had served as the entrance to the Blakely estate. No sign of Lucy, Imogen, or Mary. No naked newborn. Nothing of Alys or Marlowe. Nothing of Peter. The barricades of branches were gone from the main road, and a car rushed past at great speed, clouding us with its exhaust. I coughed, lifting my left arm to block it. My bandage was blood-soaked and dirty, but for a bit of white at my elbow, and I tugged, hoping to match the clean spot to the sorest part of my wound, however pointless it might be.
“Here,” said Matthew, holding out his hands. I gave him my arm, and leaned against a pillar while he undid the bandage, gasping at the feeling of his fingers on my skin. Just a calloused thumb upon my dirty elbow. Such a small physical softness. So simple, so unremarkable. To me, it was everything.
Once the bandage was unraveled, Matthew wiped the dirt and dried blood from my arm. I cried, but not in pain: under the residue, we found my wound healed. In place of the raw muscle was a shining square scar, each side the length and width of two closed fingers.
Matthew raised my arm up tenderly, and kissed it.
When he was done, I looked him in the eyes and kissed his lips.
To Be Whole Again
The world works in circles. Stories repeat. There comes a tightening, a release; a gathering in, an exhalation. A ripening—wheat lengthening, wool thickening, a woman’s body growing heavy—then a reaping.
Without its shadow, the forest feels the profound calm of abundance relieved: shorn fields, quiet skies, all set right and clean as a child’s first breath. The daylilies return to the meadows. An elder tree stands tall, the rings on its bark forming two even eyeglass circles, a knot like a pair of lips ready to speak. Somewhere in the soil lies a shinbone. Somewhere in the forest hides a book.
Passersby wonder at the wildness of the landscape, when the trees will be cleared to make co-ops, the dirt roads turned to highway, the ore claimed from the earth. The locals shake their heads and smile.
And in the village of Coeurs Crossing a woman eases her old bones into a rocking chair: Once there was a curious little girl, born from death with marvelous powers. Children gather around her, listen rapt. Outside, a wood grows wild.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to the many wonderful people who helped bring this book into the world:
Stephanie Delman, agent extraordinaire, whose faith in this novel is unparalleled. Erin Wicks, the hardest worker I know, who poured heart and soul into every aspect of this project. All the folks at Harper and Sanford J. Greenburger Associates, who offered wisdom and support along the way.
Daniel Camponovo, Howard Simmons, Todd Summar, and Ken Gerleve, whose early feedback guided me. Brian Zimmerman, who convinced me that Maisie needed her own novel and then stuck with us. Sophie Brochu, whose late-night texts, editorial eye, and willingness to meet for pancakes at all hours have been vital to my writing process.
Jason Kalajainen, Mitch Kohl, and the rest of the team at the Luminarts Cultural Foundation and the Union League Club of Chicago Library.
My CCC mentors, Audrey Niffenegger, Joe Meno, Sam Park, and Nami Mun, for their wisdom and patience and care with my work.