nodded slowly then turned abruptly to Bud. ‘Let’s get going, Deputy.’
‘Wait.’ Vivian touched Nowell’s arm and he flinched. ‘Is she…?’
‘The coroner’s been and gone,’ Bud said.
The men turned again to leave. Vivian turned to look at the trees, to imagine what was beyond them, when all at once, a lone figure emerged from the woods and advanced slowly but steadily, up the incline and through the high grass, the tall trees at his back like a house he’d just left through the front door. ‘Look,’ she said.
The sheriff’s hand went to his holster; Nowell and Katherine took a collective step backwards.
The grass crunched under the feet of the stranger, closer and closer until Vivian could make out a plaid shirt, blue jeans, black and silver hair. Something about his stride was familiar, the loose-jointed smoothness of his gait, like her father’s. This man was much younger, his face more angular, she thought.
Sheriff Townsend called, ‘Evening, Mr Stokes.’
They sighed, leaned back on their heels, and began to stir again.
Flushed slightly from his walk and his eyes shiny with moisture, the man looked around at each one of them. ‘Evening, all,’ he said.
5
The summer Vivian was nine, she and her parents spent a month in the east, in a cabin surrounded by trees. Her mother was participating in a seminar for writers, having been invited to give two workshops on non-fiction. Backed by a well-known writing school, the seminar ran for six weeks and drew fledging writers from all over the country. Her mother directed a general course titled Writing about History and another on Finding the Story within the Story. Vivian remembered these details from the brochure that arrived several weeks before the trip. She had been intrigued by the picture of her mother inside, a grainy, indistinct photograph, black print on brownish paper. Held at a distance, it looked like her mother, but held closer, it was only a pattern of tiny dots, uneven splotches of ink.
A genuine log cabin was their home for the month-and-a-half, gratis for her mother’s efforts with the struggling writers-in-residence. Her mother, Dr Shatlee to her students at the university and simply Margery to the workshop participants, dreaded the time with the amateur writers. But she was excited by the prospects of a real vacation for Vivian.
‘You always teach summer courses,’ she said to Vivian’s father, who was also Dr Shatlee to his students but Drew to his fellow teachers, ‘and the past two summers I was busy with the Tiwi book. It’ll be good for us to get away.’
The Tiwis were a group of pygmies in New Zealand. Her mother had written a book about the construction of a hospital in a remote Tiwi village. She spent over a month in New Zealand interviewing people and sifting through records. Overall, she worked on the book for almost three years. By focusing on a small group of villagers, she made it a personal tale but she wove historical information throughout the narrative. This was the general method for each of her five books. Her most successful one, about the sinking of a cruise ship, came later, when Vivian was thirteen. By far the best-selling of her books (most of which appealed only to specialized groups), Down Goes the Ambassador had a title like an action movie and chronicled the sinking of an Alaskan cruise ship. The Tiwi, with their wide-set facial features and caramel-colored skin, were too strange and distant for a popular audience, but the cruise ship seemed to be peopled with one’s family, neighbors and co-workers. The tragedy was imaginable.
‘It’ll be nice to spend time as a family,’ her mother said. ‘You and your father can explore the woods while I’m suffering through readings, and I’ll be free in the afternoons.’
‘It’s a great opportunity,’ her father agreed. ‘What do you think, Vivie?’
Vivian shrugged. She had been looking forward to swimming at her friend’s house during the warm weather, but now she’d be cloistered away with her parents in the middle of nowhere for half the summer. It wasn’t fair.
Upon their arrival, she immediately liked the log-stacked cabin, which was nestled between fir trees and set a good distance from the cabins on either side. Beginning in the clearing that served as a parking area, a narrow path branched and formed trails between the cabins. Rustic and comfortable, their cabin was equipped with fresh linens, firewood, and all the necessities for cooking. Above the kitchen was a loft where Vivian would sleep.
‘Careful up there. Don’t come near the edge,’ her mother instructed. ‘I don’t know if she should be up there, Drew.’
‘It’s fine,’ he answered. ‘She’s smart enough not to jump. Right, Vivie?’
‘Yes,’ she called down. When her mother went back to the car, Vivian kneeled and peeked over. Her father was putting food away in the kitchen. He turned around, saw her, and pointed his finger in silent warning. She grinned and crouched out of sight.
Her mother was the disciplinarian, while her father was a protector and ally. He had certain limits though, and his disapproval was heavier to bear than her mother’s, which was more easily and often provoked.
In the mornings while her mother was teaching, Vivian and her father cooked strange, inventive breakfasts: pancakes with raisins and brown sugar or omelets with green olives and cheese. For lunch, they packed cold chicken or sandwiches into backpacks and took long walks through the woods. Her father told Vivian things about the plants and the dangerous wildlife they hoped to see. Mostly, they encountered birds and small creatures, squirrels eating with their miniature arms and twice, lean brown rabbits. Her father didn’t know much about nature. His specialty was ancient cultures, Greek mostly, although he did know a fair amount of other things. At least, it seemed so to Vivian, who liked to hear him talk.
In the afternoon, her mother would return, usually tired and cranky. Her patience with her students dwindled as the days went on, and she never wanted to do much in the afternoons but linger about the cabin. Vivian made friends with a small group of kids. They played chasing games or swam at a roped-off, shallow area in the lake.
Her parents seemed closer than they had for some time. At night, they sat outside, laughing and reading aloud to each other from their books. Her mother talked about the workshop classes, lowering her voice if she thought Vivian was still awake. But Vivian knew how she talked about the novice writers, about their unsophisticated methods and childish themes. It was a struggle for her mother, Vivian knew, to circulate in less intelligent crowds.
During the third week of their stay, Vivian got lost in the woods. It was a turning point and in many ways, the end of the vacation. Nothing was the same after that. The day started in the usual way. They had gone for their lunchtime walk, and when they reached a spot Vivian thought she recognized from her trips to the lake with the other children, she suggested they have their picnic there. Busy spreading the blanket on the ground, her father didn’t notice when she slipped away behind the thick trees.
She noticed the spot where they had gathered pinecones, she and the garrulous blonde girl in the cabin four down. Just beyond a shallow ditch and over the spot where they’d found a fallen bird’s nest. After a short time, Vivian realized that she truly had no idea where she was, nest or pinecones or not, and that maybe things had gotten out of her control. She didn’t panic right away. She walked and walked, staring at the sky beyond the green clouds of trees. She called out but heard nothing in return.
The sun began to abandon its position. Vivian sat down on a rock. The two pieces of gum she found in her backpack made her even hungrier. The day
