Page 25 of The Forest of Lost Souls

have no special requests when it comes to

the menu. I’m sure whatever you prepare

will be as perfect as you are. I ask only

that, of your two dresses, you wear the

white one. Our mutual friend, rest his

soul, once saw you in the black dress

and said you were ravishing, but the

white one is more in harmony with this

happy occasion. Love and kisses.

She had worn the black dress to the cemetery when José Nochelobo was interred. She doubted that Belden Bead—“our mutual friend”—had been at the service.

Using the butane match, she burns the letter and envelope in the sink and washes the ashes down the drain.

She ties shut the plastic bag containing the roses and the egg-custard pie and carries it to the trash can in the back building, for conveyance to the county dump on her weekly visit.

On this eventful Wednesday, perhaps forty minutes of light remains before the white shoals of high clouds will be alchemized into bright coral reefs and then washed into night. Returning to the house, she pauses to watch a golden eagle—identifiable by a seven-foot wingspan, feather patterns, and golden nape—as thebird glides effortlessly above the meadow, a beautiful and graceful presence even as it is a terror to every creature that it hunts.

In the house once more, Vida inserts the two-by-four in the brackets flanking the back door. She replays Mozart’s K. 488.

She opens a bottle of cabernet and pours a glass. Fills a pot with water and puts it on the cooktop to bring it to a boil. Opens a package of fettuccini. Takes a container of homemade Bolognese sauce from the freezer and puts it in the countertop microwave to thaw. She lights two candles in cut-glass cups.

As the water is heating and the Bolognese is growing soft, she sits at the table, sipping her wine and listening to the music and thinking about Nash Deacon.

Tomorrow evening should be interesting.

29

WHAT SHE VALUES LEAST

The shades have been drawn over the windows. Reflected light from the sole candle quivers on the ceiling, as if a trembling spirit hovers above ten-year-old Vida and the robed mystic.

With legs as massive as bedposts and a slab top, the kitchen table has most recently been painted pea-soup green, but a Joseph’s coat of colors is revealed through the many nicks and scratches, testifying to previous incarnations.

Vance Burkhardt rents the run-down house fully furnished. Though many of his tenants are on the dole or engaged in enterprises condemned by the law, as well as being users of addictive substances that don’t come cheap, they never steal the furniture because it has little value and is too heavy to be moved easily. Mr. Burkhardt says he chose each item at various country auctions based on just three requirements: that it be ugly, be badly scarred or poorly repaired, and be too heavy to inspire his indolent tenants to steal it.

Vida assumes that the house is often dirty and smelly, but the current tenant, the nameless woman, appears to have scrubbed into every corner. Nothing is tacky to the touch, and the air is sweet.

With her hood draped behind her and raven-black hair framing her ageless face, the woman opens the opaque plastic bag that Vida gave her. The paperback book slides out onto the table.

“A book is what you value least?” the seer asks.

“Not all books. I love books. But not that one.”

“What is wrong with this one?”

“It’s full of meanness and anger, and it wants me to believe things that aren’t true.”

“You always recognize truths for what they are and lies for what they’re not?”

“Who doesn’t?” Vida asks.

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