The Light Through the Leaves(132)

Ellis took off Raven’s socks and massaged her feet with the oil.

“That feels great,” Raven said.

“Your dad used to massage my feet when I was pregnant with the boys.”

“Not with me?”

“No. Things weren’t going well with us by that time.”

“Mom . . . ?”

Ellis looked up at her. She had tears in her eyes.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Ellis asked.

“I’m really sorry about that day I said I wasn’t meant to be yours and Dad’s. That was the meanest thing ever to say to a mother. Especially one whose baby was stolen.”

“You don’t have to apologize. You were indoctrinated into another way of thinking by Audrey from the time you were a baby.”

“It was still mean. I should have known that.”

“You only think that because your healing has been so rapid. How far you’ve come since that day is a testament to your incredible strength of spirit.”

“Sometimes I don’t think I’ve come far. Have you noticed I never ask to go back to Washington anymore?”

Ellis had noticed but didn’t want to ask about it.

“Do you know why? I’m afraid Audrey’s spirit lives on that land. I’m scared of how angry she is with me for everything I’ve done. I’m even afraid there are earth spirits there that side with her.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “I love my house and those woods and fields, but I’m too frightened to go there. I don’t think I ever will again.”

Ellis wrapped Raven in her arms. “I’m not surprised you feel that way after everything that’s happened. Give yourself more time to recover.”

“I let Sondra and the police do everything she didn’t want. They dug up her body. They did an autopsy on her. I don’t even know where she is right now.”

Ellis wiped her tears. “That was all out of your control. And I’ll tell you where she is. Her spirit lives in your memories. And those are controlled only by you. Try to let go of the bad and keep the good of her within you.”

Raven looked astonished. “Do you think she had good in her?”

“You’re a beautiful person. She must have had good qualities.”

“I can’t believe you would say that.”

“It’s not easy. But I understand that she was sick. And I saw right away that you must have been raised with kindness. All those years, I was afraid you were being treated cruelly.”

“She was cruel sometimes. Just telling me I was the daughter of an earth spirit was a mean thing to do.”

“It wasn’t intended to be mean if she believed it.”

“She did believe it. But I think sometimes she realized what she’d done and felt bad about it. It was one of those times that she mentioned the name Bauhammer.”

“Poor woman. What pain she must have endured. I’m glad she had the comfort of her earth spirits.”

“But they’re why she took me.”

“Her sickness is why she took you. And who knows? Maybe the nurturing she saw in the earth helped her take care of you.”

Raven stared thoughtfully at the distant trees.

“Do you know what I think about her earth spirits?” Ellis said.

“What?”

“I think her deep appreciation of nature was altered, became exaggerated by her illness.”

“That’s probably true. She told me she and her mother would go to the Montana wilderness to help her feel better when she was sick. She said that was where she learned to speak to the earth spirits.”

“She was using nature to heal herself. I did that intuitively when I was a little girl, and consciously after your abduction.”

“What did you do after I was abducted?”

“I went to the western mountains to recover. That was how I eventually stopped using drugs and alcohol. Nature has incredible healing power. Audrey felt that, but she began to believe she could manipulate that power to act on her behalf.”

“She did. That’s what she thought she could do.”

“There is a kind of spirit in mountains, trees, and rivers. I feel that same as Audrey did. But I let the spirits be themselves. To project my being onto theirs could only diminish them.”

Raven looked at her curiously. “You see earth spirits?”

Ellis picked a few blades of grass. “This grass is making food for itself from sunlight. And that food feeds many creatures. I believe photosynthesis is a kind of miracle. The poet Walt Whitman called a leaf of grass ‘the journey-work of the stars.’”

Ellis laid the blades of grass in Raven’s palm. “I don’t need to see actual earth spirits in this field to find a million things that inspire me. When Audrey said you were born of a raven spirit, she turned your birth into a sudden act of magic that wasn’t half as miraculous as the truth. Imagine all the incredible events that had to happen for you to be here. The astrophysical, geological, and evolutionary processes that made you—and all life on earth—are the great wonders of our universe.”

Ellis kissed her daughter’s cheek. “You really are a miracle, you know.” She rested her hand on Raven’s baby bump. “And here you are making another.”

“I think it’s a miracle that we found each other again,” Raven said. “Do you ever think that?”