Our Lady of the Forest Read online

  The mystery of this lost girl no longer disturbed North Fork, a town beleaguered by newer discontents and by a sense of deep injustice. It had thought of itself until recently as a prosperous timber community, had sawn down its adjoining forests with purposeful enthusiasm, but was at the time of the purported apparitions a place impoverished and psychologically defeated, a casualty, in its view of things, of urban liberals and their representatives in government, who wanted all the trees left standing. As a result, stores were closed on Main Street. The Chamber of Commerce encouraged tourism by opening a History of Logging Museum, but few travelers visited. A prison was built in the vicinity, a baleful presence south of town that hired ex-loggers as guards and clerks, but many in North Fork stayed unemployed.

  There were clear-cuts on the edges of town in the sullen, mangled state of disrepair common to war-torn landscapes. In side lots the tackle of logging operations was already seized by blackberry creepers and rusted in silent heaps. The sawdust and sluff at mills rotted. Mildew stained certain trailer homes. Sheds and buildings sat boarded up, and the mud puddles in the side streets, iridescent with motor oil, were as long as logging trucks. Rain fell from a leaden sky, which cast a permanent pall over North Fork even in the best of times, and these were far from the best of times, these were closer to the worst. No one quite knew what to do now that the era of logging was past, a chapter in history with a museum to commemorate it. A number of families moved away to wherever the hope of employment took them, selling their homes at a loss without exception or turning them over to the banks. A few ex-loggers became fishing guides, working the rivers in drift boats, making sack lunches at 4 a.m. Others living up in the hills or along spur roads in old clear-cuts took to growing marijuana in pits dug under their trailer houses. As a result it was not considered safe anymore to drive back roads inquisitively or to poke around very much. Mushrooming for cash was popular, as was brush foraging, seed-cone gathering, and scavenging the last of the cedar stumps. The taverns still did a viable trade: the woman who thought of the lost girl’s ghost had worked in one until recently, drawing beers, mopping the bar, leaning against the cash register, chain-smoking, and watching football. She was let go because, after separating from her husband, she began to drink unreasonably, and then she lost what was left to her and ended up in the campground.

  On the evening she heard of Ann Holmes’ apparition, she went to the phone booth outside the convenience store and called the lost girl’s mother in North Fork, a woman whose husband still had a job as a custodian at the high school. There’s somebody picking mushrooms out here who saw a ghost in the woods, she said. Maybe it was Lee Ann.

  I don’t think I believe in ghosts. But sometimes, you know what? I feel her nearby. Lately I feel her. Her presence.

  There’s more to the world than what we see.

  I guess so, said the lost girl’s mother. Anyway, it can’t hurt anything if I come out there around ten o’clock, which is the earliest I can come tomorrow. And hey—something else. One more thing. Please don’t tell my husband.

  And so by midmorning they were a party of five: the fervent Catholic, the mother of the lost girl, the onetime bartender with the drinking problem, Carolyn Greer—appalled by her own interest—and finally the visionary, carrying her catechism, her hood drawn tightly around her face.

  They set out in a file through the woods, underneath a light rain. Carolyn and the ex-bartender had brought along their picking buckets but for the others this was an expedition whose purpose was a scrutiny of Ann and not the gathering of mushrooms. In fact as they were crossing Fryingpan Creek the Catholic woman ventured the opinion that gathering mushrooms, for her at least, might indicate a kind of irreverence. If in truth Our Lady was present, who would want to stand in Her light with a bucket of mushrooms at hand? The Catholic woman felt that the loss of income accruing from a missed day of picking was a small sacrifice. But it’s up to the individual, she said. I’m not going to judge you for picking today. Go ahead and pick away. But to me, it just doesn’t feel right.

  I feel judged whatever you say.

  I’m sorry. What’s your name?

  Carolyn.

  I’m sorry, Carolyn.

  I see you don’t mind bringing your camera.

  I always carry it. I take photos as a hobby.

  Well maybe you can sell your Virgin Mary pictures to a tabloid magazine.

  They stopped to rest alongside the elk trail, under the shelter of a blowdown fallen across another blowdown. Ann swallowed her antihistamine with a draft from a water bottle. They sat on the moss in a semicircle and the Catholic woman, apologizing first, asked about the lost girl. She was seven, said her mother, so if she was here she’d be graduating from high school this year.

  Going to the prom.

  All those things.

  How did it happen?

  She was fishing with my husband.

  You weren’t there?

  I was home that afternoon.

  She just walked off?

  No one knows exactly what happened. There wasn’t a trace of her—okay, I apologize. I can’t really talk about it.

  The mother of the lost girl hung her head. The Catholic woman plucked at something that looked like clover festooning the bed of moss. What is this stuff? she asked. I’m sorry.

  It’s oxalis, said the mother of the lost girl. Some people actually plant it.

  They traveled on through the labyrinth of blowdowns and climbed the steep hill northward. Ann seemed to the others aloof, traveling at a slight remove. The rain had penetrated through the trees now, and passing through the Oregon grape and salal they were all soaked to the knees. The ex-bartender pulled a scarf over her head and snugly knotted it under her chin until it made a dimple in the fat there. I look like my grandmother this way, she said. But at least my hair won’t be wet.

  We all look like our grandmothers these days, the mother of the lost girl answered.

  It’s disconcerting.

  I’ll say it is.

  What’s to be done?

  Nothing I don’t think short of botox.

  Well I can’t afford a new face.

  They came into the deeper forest, home to the purported apparitions, before twelve o’clock. I’m going to say the rosary, announced Ann, when they reached the spot she had led them to, a bed of moss beneath fir trees whose tops they couldn’t see. Also a prayer for your missing daughter, if that’s all right with you.

  Yes, of course. I want you to. I’ve said plenty of prayers myself over the years and I’m not even religious isn’t that strange?

  Inside, said the Catholic woman, your heart wants to be.

  She turned to Ann, put a hand on her shoulder. If it’s okay I’ll join you because I brought along my rosary. I checked my calendar last night, too. It’s the feast of Martin of Tours.

  Who’s that? Ann asked.

  The patron saint of horsemen and tailors. He joined the see in animal skins and was a conscientous objector.

  Horsemen and tailors, said Carolyn. What a great combination.

  Ann and the Catholic woman began their devotions. The others sat on a log nearby. The ex-bartender lit a cigarette. The mother of the lost girl produced from her backpack a Tupperware container of oatmeal cookies and a jug of lemonade. All right, she said. Help me, please. You two eat up.

  They look great, said Carolyn. But I’m supposed to be watching my waistline.

  I cut the butter back by half so you can probably get away with these.

  It’s the sugar that gets made into fat. I’m going to pass, thank you. Discipline. Control.

  That only works for so long you know.

  I know it better than anybody.

  I’ve been reading about this thing called the Zone Diet. Thinking I’d better get myself on it before I turn into a cheese blimp.

  Cheese blintz, said Carolyn. But I like cheese blimp better.

  So, said the ex-bartender, taking a cookie. Where are we anyway?

&
nbsp; This is Stinson Timber land. The mother of the lost girl took a cookie too. We went all through this years ago. When my daughter was lost. Stinson Timber. They own every stick of timber here. From here and down to the highway.

  Stinson owns everything.

  Just about.

  It’s hard to believe how much they own.

  They’re ruthless about it. That’s how they do it. Or that’s what my husband says.

  I’ve been meaning to ask, said the ex-bartender. I won’t say a word so you don’t have to worry. But how come you’re keeping this a secret from Jim? Why don’t you want him to know?

  Jim is Jim, he always has been, but somehow our marriage is stable right now. Right now things are on the upswing.

  And? said Carolyn.

  This is supposed to be behind me.

  How can that ever be the case?

  You have to go on, is what he says. And the marriage counselor is on his side. So I’m the bad guy, I guess.

  Quiet, said the ex-bartender, snuffing out her cigarette against the toe of her boot. She’s doing her thing over there.

  My God, said the mother. She is.

  None of them would say later that they saw the illuminated figure of a woman, smiling beatifically and clothed in shimmering vestments, that the visionary claimed was the Virgin Mary come to speak with her again. They heard nothing either, except for an occasional gasp from Ann, who seemed otherwise in the grip of catalepsy and was tilted forward in a kind of arrest that defied gravity. A girl in rapture turned to stone, except that now and then she trembled. The others present could not report that they too beheld a vision or received a Marian communiqué or saw the traveling light in the forest that Ann was adamant about. Yet for the mother of the lost girl and the Catholic woman kneeling at prayer there was a charged and numinous atmosphere and the aura of an otherworldly presence inhering in Ann’s rapt attention. The Tupperware container fell from her lap, the oatmeal cookies spilled into the moss, and the mother of the lost girl took three steps in the direction of the visionary. Is it her? she asked. Lee Ann?

  The ex-bartender held the snuffed-out cigarette as if it was evidence of her culpability in the crime of leading an abject life and considered only her next small move, whether she ought to tuck it in her pocket—and signal further her indigence—or drop it furtively into the moss and hope that this defilement of nature would not be noticed by anyone. Meanwhile the Catholic woman, still kneeling with her rosary, watched Ann with an expression of dazzled pleasure and said Bless and Hail Our Lord, Bless Jesus, Bless Our Lady. Carolyn picked up the oatmeal cookies. She’s maybe on uppers or an epileptic, she said. Or I don’t know. She’s crazy.

  Quiet, said the ex-bartender. Let’s just watch for a while.

  She hadn’t seen anything like this before. The girl was in the fixity of seizure and her face was awash, a-shine. The girl kept her gaze fixed steadily, she didn’t blink or waver. Clearly this Ann was seeing something no one else could see right now, clearly she saw the invisible. And no one could keep from blinking that long or kneel so tilted without falling over unless there was supernatural assistance or something weird going on. The ex-bartender pondered the chances that perhaps, indeed, the Virgin Mary was present. It wasn’t an impossibility, and thinking this, and feeling afraid, she knelt on the forest floor. It’s the safe thing, she told herself.

  The mother of the lost girl knelt as well. Is it Lee Ann? she pleaded. Lee Ann?

  Now all had knelt except Carolyn, who saw the others in a kind of tableau, four women kneeling in forest rain like one of those tacky Christmas crèches, bewitched, felt Carolyn, by a shared fantasy that a ghost or something stood before them, ensorcelled by their own hopes. And she felt more powerfully alienated from people susceptible to these things. She fingered the cord from which her compass hung and clutched absentmindedly at her pepper-spray necklace. She felt alone, and feeling this, she took a large bite from a cookie. What the hell, she told herself. I haven’t eaten today.

  Ann in ecstasy, Carolyn thought, was something like a theatrical performance that even Ann believed in. It was something like playing with a Ouija board. It was like the eyeballs that were really peeled grapes or the intestines that were only noodles in a Halloween haunted house. If you believed then what you believed was real and if you didn’t believe there was pasta. It wasn’t deceit or sham or swindle. The more accurate word was probably delusion, encompassing the appropriate psychological origins and including the notion of collective delusion, which embraced all four of these forest-kneelers clearly prone to believing something otherworldly was present. When in fact whatever was there was only there in the girl’s addled mind, a desperate projection of her inner life with all of its high-pressure turmoil. Ann’s self-arrest was self-imposed, her dialogue with herself. Like the jet of steam from a boiling pot a shade comes into this world. Like the sleepwalker engaged in a conversation with nobody in the room. Like the dreamer who falls from bed at night in lieu of a dream-world death. Carolyn chewed her cookie and watched while Ann’s tortured face constricted and contorted through the myriad expressions of the listener, the histrionic listening face that shows everything, like a mime’s. Mime was not a bad comparison, if the mime could be construed as having studied with Lee Strasberg. A mime hallucinating.

  When Ann was done she collapsed on the moss in the same manner as the day before, then sat up and swabbed her eyes. The mother of the lost girl wept, gasping: grief collected over many years. Our Lady knew you were here, Ann told her. And she says Lee Ann is in heaven.

  What happened to my baby?

  I don’t know what happened.

  Can’t you ask?

  I don’t know if I can. The Blessed Mother came to speak to me, not for me to speak to her.

  The mother of the lost girl clasped her hands. Couldn’t you try, though? Please?

  I guess I could try.

  God bless you.

  She wept more, and the visionary held her lightly in her arms and stroked her wet gray hair. It’s all right. Your daughter is with Jesus. Stop crying. Everything is all right.

  I’m sorry about your daughter, I truly am, cut in Carolyn, and I imagine that your life has been ruined by losing her, that it’s been easily the most difficult thing ever and that the rest of us don’t know a thing about it, can’t relate, don’t understand, have no idea how it affects you really, how it colors everything every day and is absolutely the worst thing that could happen to a person, but anyway I have to say, Ann you sound like a radio talk-show host, a Bible station call-in show to Dr. God or something. I—

  She’s helping me, said the mother of the lost girl. Don’t be critical. Please.

  When she was calmer and had stopped sobbing they all sat under the cover of trees and tried to collect themselves. The ex-bartender, apologizing, lit her cigarette again. A cigarette helps me relax, she said, so don’t lecture me about lung cancer please. But getting to the point here: What did she say? The Virgin Mary? What did she tell you? Aren’t we all interested in that?

  I won’t lecture, Ann said, and took the ex-bartender’s hand. But God wants you to quit smoking. I’m going to pray for you to stop this habit of needing nicotine.

  Whoa, said Carolyn. Come on now.

  And these warts on your fingers, Ann added. God can make them go away. I’ll pray for that at the same time. All of us should include her in our prayers. Prayers of healing and redemption.

  No cigarettes or warts, said Carolyn. Are you David Copperfield?

  But the ex-bartender could not easily shrug off the heightened feelings of the moment. What she felt was a jolt of assurance passing from Ann’s hand to hers. I hope it works, she said earnestly. I’m not against anything successful.

  A pragmatist, said Carolyn. You remind me of Blaise Pascal’s wager, which holds that the skeptic should believe in God, since if there is a God belief’s the right call, and if there isn’t, no harm, excellent. Whereas the nonbeliever might burn in hell. So now that I think
about it, count me in! Count me a believer!

  Hold up, the ex-bartender said. Let’s get back to the subject here. What did the Virgin say, please? Aren’t we all dying to know?

  Besides Lee Ann, the mother said. Yes. There must have been more… revelation. Isn’t that the word?

  In God’s glory, said the Catholic woman.

  The message was this, Ann told them. One: All good followers of Christ were called immediately to renewed service in the name of the Mother of God. Two: Our Lady had come to warn the world and to implore in particular the selfish and greedy to change their ways immediately, lest it be the case soon that she could no longer restrain her Son from wreaking a general destruction. Three: True believers were called upon to spread Mary’s message of dire consequence if sin were not energetically thwarted and also of hope for a better future in which few, if any, were still impoverished. Four: Our Lady would return on four successive days to deliver further messages and to elaborate her themes. Five: A beautiful new church and shrine to Mother Mary should be built at this very place in the forest where they now stood together. Six: Ann was to go to the local priest and tell him everything.

  They ate the cookies, drank the lemonade. They had all gotten wet in the soft, steady rain and had the bedraggled look of lost travelers, except for Ann, who still wore her hood, and the ex-bartender, who wore her scarf. Well, said Carolyn, standing up. I guess this is farewell for me. She tied a bootlace and picked up her mushroom bucket. I have to try to make a living.

  Go in peace, Ann said. But when are you going to admit to yourself that you didn’t come out here to pick today? That you came here looking for the Lord?

  Go in peace? Are you serious? Are you starting to believe in yourself?

  I believe in the Father and the Son.

  And what about the quote Holy Ghost?

  Answer me and I’ll answer you.

  Okay, said Carolyn. Once and for all. It’s a big gamble but here I go: If there’s a God may he strike me dead right now, in front of you all, as evidence and proof! Hello? God? I’m waiting.

  She stood there. Ring him up, she said. Or talk to his wife—get her on board to talk to him about penciling in my death. Come on, Ann. Dial up. Order a bolt of lightning.