A History of Wild Places(68)
When she climbed back up through the old, crumbling well, the book held carefully in her arms, she stood once again aboveground and watched as dawn inched through the alabaster trees. Night becoming day.
But she was not the same.
Eloise was no longer the heroine of this story—she was something else. She was the dark between tree branches, she was the vile thing that is hidden in corners and low places.
She was the shadow.
The monster.
Called by a name that would not be spoken, unless you desired to summon her close. To look death in the face. To be changed into something that was not yourself.
THEO
Candles have been lit along every surface, illumining the center of Pastoral in a soft, phosphorescent glow. It’s a strange sight, the community lit up for a celebration—a wedding—when only days ago we hung two men from the Mabon tree.
The ceremony is a simple exchange of vows: Hand-forged rings are pushed onto fingers and when Levi and Alice kiss, there is a soft applause.
We are numb, weary, and we move through the motions by necessity.
After the ceremony, the group gathers around a long table placed in the tall grass near the crops, framing an open space between the trees. Candles line the table between heaping bowls of summer squash and ripe tomatoes and seasoned snap peas. It’s a feast, a celebration of abundance within the community. Bodi is playing his guitar beneath the swaying lights while Cyrus sings—an old tune from the outside world, about war and changing times. Some sit in the grass with plates of food, others dance slowly, moving with the music.
On a night like this, the mood of the group should be jovial, even raucous—at our wedding, most in the community stayed up late singing wildly to the stars, laughing from deep within their chests, then fell asleep among the crops or curled up on benches inside the gathering circle. We all woke in the morning with the sun burning our faces and wine swimming in our bellies. Calla and I wandered home, still a little drunk, stupidly happy, then slept for the remainder of the day—as husband and wife.
But tonight, a thick, unnamable pallor sticks in the air, to the roofs of our mouths.
Calla and I stand beneath one of the swaying elms. “This feels wrong,” she mutters to me, rubbing her hands up her arms, looking uncomfortable. Neither of us want to be here.
Henry and his wife, Lily Mae, approach from the feast table carrying mugs of apple wine.
“Nice ceremony,” Henry comments, coming to stand beside me, looking out at the somber festivities.
I nod, my voice too tight to speak.
“Haven’t seen Marisol though,” he adds.
Turk’s wife was an obvious absence at the wedding. Surely her grief is still too wide and painful to face anyone yet. Perhaps Levi even asked her to remain in her home, because seeing her would be too stark of a reminder for the rest of us. Just until enough time has passed, I imagine him saying.
Levi appears from the eastern edge of Pastoral, his new bride, Alice Weaver, on his arm. They move to the center of the group, and Alice’s hair, a deep copper color, shimmers in the candlelight. She’s a plain-featured woman, with an abrupt nose and a small row of teeth, but she’s also known to laugh easily—a bright, quick sound.
I wonder if this is why Levi has chosen to marry her instead of Bee: Alice will serve as a docile, soft-spoken wife, a wife who won’t upset the order of things. While it isn’t talked about openly, many in the community knew of Bee and Levi’s furtive relationship, and I had hoped he wouldn’t break her heart—that he would take care of her. But he seems to be unraveling in recent days.
The low chatter of voices around us falls quiet and the music draws to an end, everyone turning their attention to our leader.
The first words from Levi’s mouth slip out in a jumbled, unintelligible slur, and he has to clear his throat before he starts again. “We made a promise—” His voice breaks off, and Alice grins uncomfortably at his side, her posture stiff. She is the only thing keeping him upright. “To honor this… land. And it would… provide for us. It would—” He waves a hand, gesturing to the terrain around us, the trees, the crops to the north of us. “It would give us this food to nourish us, make us strong. Make us…” He sucks in a deep breath, like he’s forcing his lungs to breathe, and it’s clear he’s lost his train of thought. “A toast to our community. Our commitment to one another.”
He says nothing of his marriage, of the reason why we have all gathered, he doesn’t even utter his wife’s name once. Yet Alice’s face maintains its perfectly upturned grin.
Glasses of fermented apple wine are raised in the air and clinked together, and Levi sinks into a chair near a stand of trees, his gaze blurred over as the music resumes along with the chatter. Alice tries to offer him something to eat, but he brushes her away, and she slips off to the Mabon tree where a group of women have gathered for the ribbon binding ceremony.
There is nothing lighthearted about Levi’s mood tonight—he’s drinking to forget, not to celebrate.
“Had a little too much of Agnes’s wine,” Henry comments under his breath, nodding at Levi.
“Easy to do, on your wedding day,” I answer, as if I needed to defend him, certain this abrupt marriage was intended to distract himself, and maybe the rest of us too.
“Any word of Colette’s baby?” Henry asks, looking to Calla. He assumes we might receive daily reports on the infant’s health from Bee. But we haven’t seen Bee in days.