Page 4 of The Forest of Lost Souls

The hot shower soothes the muscles she strained at the placer mine. As she rinses the shampoo out of her hair, she is turning one of today’s stones over and over in her mind’s eye, a butterscotch-yellow chrysoberyl twice the size of her thumb. Even in its rough form, she sees what she believes might be anexceptional example of chatoyancy, which is also called “cat’s-eye effect.” If she cuts it properly, maintaining as much weight in carats as possible, it will have considerable value. More important: It will have great beauty.

She recalls a conversation with her uncle two years before he died, when she was sixteen. He was plainspoken, but there were occasions when he sought words that might define—although not explain—something ineffable.

On a Sunday in that late July, having washed and dried and put away the dinner dishes, they sit in rocking chairs on the front porch, enjoying coffee spiked with Baileys. While the sun lays a golden haze across the meadow, butterflies dance weary-winged above the grass, seeking rest from the day, as shadows spill eastward.

“Now I’m almost eighty-four, I no longer mind saying things that might make me seem foolish.”

“You’re the farthest thing from foolish, Uncle.”

“Being human, I’m the nearest thing to it, the very thing itself. I’ve at last made peace with that fact.”

“So then, what foolish thing do you want to tell me?”

“It started when you were ten or eleven. Since then, you turn up more and better gemstones than I do, on every expedition.”

“I’m sure that’s not right.”

“But it is.”

“Whether it is or not, I don’t see why it makes you foolish.”

“That’s only the setup for what you’ll think is silly when I say it. You’re drawn to beauty as surely as hummingbirds are drawn to nectar.”

“Who isn’t drawn to beauty? Everyone is.”

“No. You aren’t drawn like others are. You see beauty where others never can. You see it with something other than your eyes.”

“Now we’re deep in the silly zone. Do I see it with my nose?”

“At the placer deposit, with nothing to see but sediment, you always choose the more rewarding square meter to dig.”

“I still say it isn’t always.”

“It is always, sweetheart. Always, always. Often, when you’ve found remarkable stones within six or eight inches of the surface, you dig no deeper, when anyone else would.”

“I think the word for that is ‘lazy.’”

“No. You move to another square meter and continue to work. During the past year, without telling you, I’ve several times gone the next day and dug deeper where you stopped. I’ve never found a stone. Somehow, you knew there was nothing more to be found.”

“Oh, Uncle Ogden, really, I’m no psychic gemstone diviner.”

“I didn’t say you were psychic. Nothing as pulp fiction as that. You’re something else there’s no word for. At least, no word I know. It’s not just the gemstones. It’s also other things, like the wildflowers.”

“What wildflowers?”

“Any wildflowers. When the meadow’s full of them, you rush about with your clippers, snipping this and that with no apparent calculation—and every bloom in the bouquet is perfect.”

“Really now, that’s Nature’s work, not mine.”

He says, “I’ve gone out to pick a bunch of my own, with great care, but when I compare my bouquet to yours, it’s pathetic. The colors are less rich. Some petals are spotted or missing.”

“Well, see, you’re my honorary papa. So you want to believe I’m special.”

“Have you looked at yourself in the mirror, sweetheart? You’re special whether you think you are or not.”

Emphatically, if not sharply, she says, “Not! I’m not special. I’m just me. All right? So let’s just shut up about it.”

After a silence he says, “Are you okay?”

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