The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland Read Free Book Online Page A

Church house. Mission Church of the Sacred Heart.”
    â€œHandsome.”
    A single white octagonal spire rose behind two cherry trees flocked in blossoms. It was a simple, plank Gothic, standing foursquare facing the beach, not particularly remarkable in its own right, but mightily impressive here.
    Inside the church, the cooler musty air hung heavy with incense. Soft light from an oil lamp bathed the floor and pews in a golden glow. A chipped clamshell held holy water. Emily examined its carved wooden pedestal, a long-robed saint with almond-shaped eyes. Something about them seemed furtively animal.
    Sophie dipped in her fingers, crossed herself, and turned toward Emily, waiting. Emily resisted. Rituals were for those who needed props in their religion, but Sophie’s steady look signaled expectancy, and she didn’t want to offend Sophie again. She dipped in the tip of one finger.
    She felt calmness settle over Sophie sitting at the edge of a creaking pew. She sat beside her, and Annie Marie squirmed across her knees to be between them. Emily was overcome with longing to touch the dark sheen of Annie Marie’s hair, but she held back.
    She looked above Tommy’s head in front of her and winced. Behind the altar hung a painting of the Sacred Heart, a pulpy mass of cadmium red extra deep shaded with Indian red, misshapen and dark, looking like a human organ entwined with a vine of thorns. It was a miracle of Christianity how that muddy-colored bloated tomato could inspire worship. She glanced sideways. Sophie gazed at it in adoration. How could she, after losing four children?
    In niches on either side of the heart stood small wooden statues of Joseph and the Virgin holding baby Jesus. Candle flames trembled. A devilish thought tickled her. Lizzie was a staunch Episcopalian one week, Presbyterian the next, one religion not enough for her. The next time her sister pressed for a report on her church attendance, she’d say she’d been to an Indian Catholic church. That ought to frost her eyelashes for always being so nosy.
    Once they stepped outside, Sophie took a beaten path through tall grass. “Now I show you my dead babies.”
    Her matter-of-factness was baffling.
    The cemetery sloped up from the beach to the woods behind. Sophie plucked some violet blue camas blossoms and held open the cedar strip gate. There were no coffin trees here. Instead, a tall white cross in the center of the cemetery cast a lean shadow over the graves placed helter-skelter, not in rows. Some graves only had wooden crosses nearly obscured by thickets. A few had headstones and some were surrounded by picket fences. Sophie danced her fingertips across the picket points. “Very Christian,” she whispered.
    She turned toward a granite headstone. “That one for my friend Margaret Dan’s baby. See his cross carved in? Bigger than him. But Margaret Dan only has three babies here.” They passed into the newersection. “Casamin I show first. My first boy.” His grave was marked by a narrow wooden cross, unpainted, with only his name gouged in. Sophie squatted to brush away leaves.
    â€œHow did he die?”
    â€œEvery day I brought him to lie under the old Ancestor. Maybe that made God mad.”
    She’d expected Sophie to name a sickness, not give a theory. “I’m so sorry. How can you bear it?”
    Sophie rose and her chest expanded. “A baby for a while is better than no baby.” She barked out the words as though she were defending a principle.
    Emily followed her to a sagging wire fence tangled with blackberry bushes in some places, broken and leaving gaps in others. “Whooh!” A wooden figure on the other side of the fence surprised her. Minimally carved, not clearly a man or a woman, but definitely human, chin lowered, shoulders square, he brooded over the graves outside the fence. Ten feet of austere sorrow. His surface had weathered to silvery gray, and a