Page 3 of The Forest of Lost Souls

By the time Uncle Ogden brings her home, she knows that she is safe and that he will never fail her.

The house in the forest is out of a fairy tale. Many weeks pass before it seems more real than magical. As the years go by, the place holds for her—and always will—a quiet enchantment.

In preparation for Vida’s arrival, her uncle has added a second armchair and lamp to the library. Under the window stands a twin bed with a cream-colored chenille spread, and folded across the foot of it is a beautifully patterned Pendleton blanket in soft blues and grays and rich red. For years to come, on many an evening, they sit in this room while he reads to her. When she is older, each of them settles down with a different book in a shared, comfortable quiet. Through thirteen years of primeval nights, as owls make their queries and wolves celebrate the moon,she sleeps here; sometimes lulled by the rataplan of rain on the roof, sometimes by a soughing wind that ferries snow across the mountains, she sleeps; in quiet weather and in storms, she sleeps encompassed by the amazing people who live within the pages of the books that are shelved on every wall of the room. When she dreams of those storied souls, she feels watched over by the kindest of them, and she does not fear those who are unkind because this is her uncle’s house into which the wicked dare not venture out of their chapters.

If Vida’s first view of her new home charmed her (as very much it had), and if the library-bedroom delighted her (of which there was no doubt), her uncle’s workroom intrigued her no less than might the quarters of a venerable magician and seer. The arcane tools and devices on his workbench—a dop, a lapidary’s magnifying glass, a tumbler-polisher, a variety of grinders, a small lathe with a diamond blade—are mysterious, but the contents of the shallow drawers in his product cabinet are what most inspire wonder.

Some of the drawers are lined with black velvet, others with white, and all are divided into compartments. The gemstones—sorted by variety, size, and color—are displayed against whichever velvet best presents them. Perhaps two-thirds are small, but others are large enough to be cut for centerpiece stones in pendants, brooches, and rings. The sapphires come in several colors—shades of green, yellow, blue, and red. There are gems of other kinds—topaz, garnet, amethyst, and chrysoberyl.

The stones in a natural state are dull compared to those that have been cut and polished, but all of them dazzle young Vida. At first, she thinks her uncle must be rich. She will learn that placer mining of gemstones such as these, including their preparationfor sale to makers of jewelry and decorative items, can reliably provide a middle-class living and allow for the accumulation of savings by a freelance prospector like Ogden, for as long as the deposit lasts; however, his only chance of getting rich is to unearth a few megagems of splendid brilliance and without unfortunate inclusions, which is unlikely to happen. Meanwhile, there is the hard work of panning the placer mine and long hours in the workshop.

The first night that she sleeps in her new home, in spite of the delight she has taken in this place, she weeps for her lost father, who is trapped in her dreams and can never know the joys of this new life of hers. Once, she comes awake to find that a reading lamp is switched on and turned low. Her uncle sits in an armchair, watching her. Maybe heissome kind of magician and seer, for he knows what misery sleep has brought her. He has a soothing voice that rumbles on the low notes when he says, “It’s all right, child. He’s safe now, and he knows that you are, too.” When she slips once more into slumber, her dad is there to say goodbye. He walks away into the faceted light of a gem, which shines brighter with him in it. At least for that night, she weeps no more in her dreams.

6

THE BOX

This is a house where two lives have been lived so well, with such love and in such a spirit of peace, that Vida is never overcome by loneliness here. Her lost uncle exists not merely in her mind but also seems alive in every room, in memories like vivid apparitions.

Even when, as now, she is away at the placer mine, the house feels occupied. If a burglar forced entry under the impression that the residence was deserted, he might halt a step past the threshold, become convinced that he was wrong, and retreat without risking an encounter.

This is not to say that the house is haunted, for it is not. To this point, only Ogden has died within these walls, peacefully in his sleep. As much as he loved this world, he lived in anticipation of another, and he was not of a mind to cling to this place either because of melancholy longing or fear.

Nevertheless, rich years of love, laughter, compassion, and kindness can imbue a home with a strange aura of life all its own, a resonant echo that speaks not to the ear but to the heart. There are special places and objects to which those who have a sensitive spirit might be drawn.

Sealed in bright-yellow giftwrap foil and never opened, the box has been stored on a high shelf in the bedroom closet since shortly before Vida turned twenty-eight, where it has been formany months. Now and then, she takes it down to wonder about its contents. She resists opening the package because a still, small voice tells her that wanting to know isn’t good enough. She must wait till she feels an urgentneedto know, for then the contents will mean more to her. Even when that voice is perplexing, she has learned to heed it.

The box, the closet, the house await her return.

7

THE FIRST GRAVE

In the late afternoon, when Vida returns from the placer mine, the breeze is coming from the east, and on it she can smell a faint trace of marijuana smoke. The sun is balanced on the highest peaks of the western mountains, its light slanting across the meadow at the ideal angle to paint the lenses of the binoculars orange, but she doesn’t bother surveying the eastern tree line for the sentinel.

He will not watch forever. When he’s done watching, he will pay her a visit for whatever purpose. Only then will she disrupt her day to take the time needed to deal with him.

She doesn’t go directly to the house, but first follows the memorial path.

Although she has a riding lawn mower, she never cuts all of this expansive grassland. As needed, she crops it in a radius of thirty feet around the house, shears a pathway to the center of the meadow, and mows an eight-foot-wide clearing around the headstone that bears her uncle’s name.

This is a county that still allows burial on private property under certain circumstances and for a consideration. She had dug the grave with her uncle’s backhoe, which he had used to excavate a new septic tank two years before Vida came to live here and which he had taught her to operate when she was sixteen, so shemight be able to prepare his resting place when the time came. The funeral home transported the casket to the site and lowered it into the grave.

In addition to the name, the only other thing incised in the gray granite is a line of verse that he chose: ISAID TO MY SOUL,BE STILL,AND LET THE DARK COME UPON YOU.

From a pocket of her jacket, she produces a small drawstring bag of the softest cotton, which contains what she panned from the placer mine today. “It was a nice haul, Uncle. When I was done, I raked the dig, filled it in, and smoothed it over so it isn’t a wound in the earth. Just as you taught me. A doe came to visit with her fawn. The little one was all legs and curiosity, but the mother kept it at a distance. I was surprised to see a buck, its growing antlers velvety. I hope it was the father of the fawn. It’s nice to think it might’ve bonded with the doe for the long haul rather than for one season. Anyway, I’ll work the stones to your standards. I haven’t lost a customer in the past ten years. Some of them swear you must still be alive and on the job. Well, in a way, you are.”

On this Monday in May, as the sun slips from sight, the western mountains are crowned with carnelian red. The darkling eastern sky is sapphire blue and diamonded.

8

THE DANGER OF SEEING AND BEING

The second armchair, with footstool, remains in the library, as does the bed on which Vida slept for thirteen years. She reads in the chair and sometimes takes an afternoon nap on the narrow bed, surrounded by the palisades of books.

At night, she sleeps in the bedroom that her uncle occupied. She has made it over to her taste, which is pretty much his taste, but more so. A colorful Pendleton blanket, stretched across a frame, hangs on a wall. A Navajo rug warms her bare feet when the waxed-concrete floor is cold. A paintedtrasterocontains all the jeans and shirts she needs, plus her two dresses.

Before retreating to the bathroom to shower, she steps to the bedroom window and pulls aside the panels of the white, translucent curtain that’s lightly embroidered with butterflies in white thread and has a yellow-ribbon hem. She removes the bug screen and props it against the wall and cranks the casement panes out to their full extension. Although a little evening air will freshen the room, she opens the window because, intuitively, she expects Lupo to visit.

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