A History of Wild Places(30)
Yet, Levi still feels the burden of the role he’s been given, a battle with his own self-doubt. And I’ve often wondered if power does this to a man: unravels him slowly over time, doubt itching beneath his flesh until it’s all that’s left.
He reaches forward finally, stroking his cool fingers across my skin, tracing a line from my earlobe to my lips. In the dark of my mind, I see him. I know the curve of his mouth, the lazy shape of his eyes, as if he were always squinting away from the sun. When we were younger, when my eyesight was starting to fade, I tried to memorize his face—brand it into my mind. I would place my lips to his and hold on to those moments for as long as I could. I was terrified I would forget him someday, that he would become only a gray, indefinite outline in my mind.
“You’re the only thing that makes sense,” he whispers. I coil my fingers through his hair and he turns, drawing me to him like an old familiar ritual we know by heart. I peel away his shirt, one button at a time. I let his fingers slide beneath the thin cotton of my dress, finding curves and sharp angles, hips and elbows.
He kisses my neck, and in the heated breath of his exhale, I hear him say, “I love you.”
He pulls apart the threads of my mind that keep me tied together. My bones become heavy like river stones. My eyes flutter closed, and I hear a change in the air, like the ice splintering along the edge of the pond in winter, thin and delicate. I am the ice: sharp, deadly. I will break if Levi isn’t careful. I will slice him open if my edges are exposed.
Our heartbeats rattle against one another. And with his hands braced against me, I wonder if we will tear each other apart someday.
If love like this—deep and painful and reckless—can last.
* * *
The gathering begins.
Calla and Theo are seated near the back of the circle—I can hear their raised heartbeats, Calla’s fidgeting hands in her lap. My sister is easy to find in a crowd, she smells like yellow, like sunlight, and sometimes I imagine there is a chestnut-size glow burning out from inside her, always shimmering, even on winter-dark days.
But I don’t go sit beside them. I stand near the corner of the dining hall, listening as Levi takes the stage and the community falls silent.
I feel Levi’s eyes survey the group as though he’s taking a tally or attendance. “Good evening,” he begins, his voice deep and steady, well beyond his thirty-two years. “I know many of you have seen the trees opening up in recent days, and many of you are afraid, but we need to be cautious right now, and stay clear of our borders. If we respect the forest as we always have, then we have nothing to fear.” He moves across the stage, slow and practiced—he feels comfortable up there; it’s where he belongs—and he stops at the far side, taking a moment before he continues. “We have lived by three rules in Pastoral”—he begins the gathering as he always has, with the three pillars—the basis of everything—“the first rule is privacy. Not just from the outside world, but within this compound. We should each be afforded to live our own lives, singular among the whole of the group.” He breathes, letting this first rule settle in our minds, giving us time to nod our heads. “The second rule is community—we value it more than anything. It’s what keeps us together, keeps us safe. We are stronger as a whole than if we were separate.” There are murmurs among the group, an agreement we have all made in living here together, and even after all these years, it’s still what binds us. “The third rule is trust.” His voice dips lower, reminding me of his breath against my ears, telling me he loves me. “Without trust,” he adds. “We are fractured.”
A sickening wave of betrayal worms its way along my gut—I have lied to Levi. And still, he believes I’m the only person he can trust.
“I know at times we all feel frightened,” Levi continues, taking two more steps to the front of the stage. “But I assure you, if we do not breech the barrier, we will not risk bringing the illness back onto our side.”
The group falls into a long, stale hush. Feet no longer shift in the dirt, bodies do not adjust in their seats. Even I feel the tug of Levi’s words, leaning forward to absorb whatever he will say next, each word like cool water on skin. “We will burn sage along the perimeter again, just as we have before, and push the illness back into the trees.”
Several women near the front of the circle whisper softly, and I can picture their nodding heads, their lips pinched in agreement. Levi’s always been a good storyteller—even when we were teenagers, he’d tell long, meandering tales to the younger kids—and there was something about the way he spoke, the lilt that hung against each word, the magnetic, enchanting gleam of his eyes drawing you in. He’s even better at it now, more skilled. He’s had practice.
But I don’t stay to listen to the rest of Levi’s speech.
I push away from the corner of the building and count my steps back to the edge of the woods, where the path leads away from Pastoral to the farmhouse. I’ve heard all the stories before, the warnings: how several of the first settlers back in the early 1900s became sick, how they fled the woods soon after, abandoning everything they had built here.
And when Cooper bought this settlement fifty years ago, the founders of Pastoral didn’t believe in the old stories—not at first. They didn’t believe there was an illness in our woods. They passed freely through the forest, they visited the outside towns, and new arrivals were welcomed. It was a community with open borders.