Chapter 27

June 26, 1997 · The Day Of

A MOUNTAIN LIONwould rip open the throat of anyone, anything at all, if it was trying to harm her babies. Gloria breathed in again, shakily, reassuring herself that she was doing right. Got into the car, started the ignition.

She could do this one thing, and even if her daughter didn't understand everything right now, she would come to understand it. The crowd of lion-watchers grew smaller in the rearview mirror. She was ready for her meeting with Ruby. Just one quick stop at Heartwood first, per Una's request. A final favor, Una had called it, before Gloria went to the reporter, because that's what she was up to, wasn't it? Una had her ways of finding things out, she said, and obviously Gloria could do whatever she thought was best for her and her family. Come to Heartwood, Una had said, while everyone is watching the lions. It'll give us a little bit of alone time to bury the hatchet, make our peace.

And, after all this time, yeah, Gloria would give Una a few minutes before everything here changed. The Red Grove had given their family a lot. She wasn't so stupid as to bring the transcribed story of Tamsen Nightingale or the list of kids Una used as false dependents. What was the point? Una had refused to have a conversation whenever Gloria tried over these last few weeks. But she wanted Una to know that she was doing this for everyone's sake, not just Luce's, even if she knew herself that it was mostly for Luce. She'd been practicing how she would explain it to Ruby Wells, so she could feel comfortable being quoted, and also to Una and other Red Grovers so they could fully understand her reasons.

Yes, there is something extraordinary about the Red Grove, she would say. But it's not what most people think. It is not a magic spell cast by the first woman to create the community, not something emanating from these particular redwoods. No, what makes it extraordinary—and here she would speak slowly, to make sure everyone really heard—is that people here choose to protect and care for one another. The belief in safety creates safety. I'll say that again. The belief in safety creates safety. Plus, the action required to back that up. There's no magic. No curse. No protective shield. Violence against women has happened everywhere since the beginning of human time. In the Red Grove, too. But we've chosen to believe we can do better, and so we have. And she'd tell the story of Arthur Nightingale and Ines and the first women.

It would break Luce's heart, but there were too many reasons to tell. To free her, for one.

It would stop the calling man's obsessive belief that this place had caused his father's death.

It would give the women the truth of their power, which was within them, their actions and tenderness, so much stronger than a myth.

When Gloria arrived at Heartwood, she saw Una's car in the parking lot, but no Una. She walked up the stairs to the main building, peeked into Heartwood's office, kitchen, back out across the deck, still rehearsing the speech. "Hello," she shouted, but there was no reply. A crow cawed from somewhere she couldn't see, amazing animals, crows, how they gather around their dead, she thought as she left through Heartwood's back door and called to Una out back. Una was always moving at a hundred miles an hour. Gloria had read debates about what exactly the crows are doing when they gather around the dead; whether they are participating in some kind of mourning ritual, which many intelligent animals are known to do, or whether they are gathering information about the dead, how they died, and how long ago, assessing potential danger.

Gloria called for Una again, no response. She walked off the back deck and down the path that led farther into the redwoods. Of course Una was making this conversation a dramatic exchange among the trees, she would probably have a soundtrack playing back there, something to try to make Gloria too guilty to talk to Ruby. Well screw that, she was ready, she wouldn't be swayed.

And then there was Una.

Una, standing in the small clearing where they'd dug away the bamboo meditation garden, near the gaping hole. A dried fern frond stuck to her white linen pants. She waved, beckoned Gloria closer.

The crow in the nearby trees cawed again, a sign of distress, it sounded like, or calling others to a funeral, and Gloria started to smile up toward it, but something was suddenly covering her face.

Blackness.

Nothing.

A slice of green as she opened her eyes then closed them again, her head pounding. Dark.

She opened her eyes.

Branches above. Needles blurred into clouds. And the taste of dust. Something in her mouth, something pulling. She remembered the crow, blinked, thought to cough, but could not; there was something in her mouth tight and choking. She should call for help, but could make no sound.

"Gloria," a voice said, Una's voice. "Please try to remain calm. I'm so sorry to do it this way, but I didn't feel like there was a choice."

Gloria tried to pull the thing out of her mouth, but her arms were bound, tied behind her back. It was time to clear her head enough to take stock of what the fuck was happening, and she did, she tried, her brain still tired and foggy. She was seated on an old camp chair. In addition to her wrists, her ankles were also tied tight, too tight, with big plastic zip ties. She could not get up. She could not scream.

"I know this seems awful, and I'm so sorry," Una said, crouching down in front of her, "but it is vital that you understand all that could be lost if a lie spreads about the Red Grove. You've forgotten how this place saved you and your sister and your children. You can't forget any longer." This cannot be happening, Gloria thought, pulling at her bound arms, biting at whatever was in her mouth. This is not the kind of thing that happens in real life, or, rather, this is not the kind of thing that women do to one another—yes, Tamsen had, but that was back then, things were different now.

She squinted at the ground. The redwood sorrel, which grows only in the shade, closes its four-petaled leaves if any sun touches it; they sunburn, the leaves, Gloria knows. They protect themselves perfectly.

There was movement in the trees a little farther back. Coming from between two massive trunks was someone else, someone in jeans and a big, dirty black jacket, and, most startlingly, something covering the face. She could not tell who it was. Over the head was a pillowcase, with two holes cut for eyes, and on top of that, a moon mask. She tried again, then, to kick her legs free of the ties, to shake her wrists loose, anything, but she was stuck. Una was still close, watching the person approach.

"You have not been willing to accept the full power of the reenactments in your own life," Una said. "And you need to. You need to understand what the women have been through."

The hooded figure was by her side. She felt them place their hand on her back. Whose hand, how soft, she could not tell. There was movement then in the trees once again, and she turned to look, saw another person approaching. She wanted to call out for help, but still could not. The new person stepped out from behind a massive trunk. Khaki work pants. Black T-shirt. She recognized the costume from previous reenactments. Underneath these clothes was someone she knew, someone she trusted, but here they were. Wearing a pillowcase over their head. Moon mask on top. Two black tunnels where the eyes should be.

She wanted to shout for them to let her go, that she was full of fucking compassion, that this insane little scare tactic would not change her mind about anything, or sure, fine, that it changed her mind about everything, whatever they wanted to hear to let her go. She has known Una to take things too far in the past, but this is so far over the line. Whoever's story they were going to reenact would obviously be one she had seen before, and what would be different now? She kicked against the restraints.

She could not wait, could not fucking wait, to get the materials to Ruby Wells. Up until now she'd felt bad about what a sea change this was going to be for Una, maybe even for some of the women here, but it was for the best. The truth was the only choice, she'd thought to herself again and again, watching Luce, her little palila bird, grow more and more extreme in her allegiance to this place, in how it choked the rest of what she might be able to do in her life in the wider world. She has thought this line again and again: I wish I had a choice, but if I want to save my daughter, I do not. She can think of no other way to break the enchantment this place has on Luce. No other way to give her daughter the gift of choosing her own life, her own destiny. And having Ruby Wells—Luce's own hero—break the story was the kindest, most credible way she could do it. The gentlest. We have got to want the best for our daughters, to give them the best, and finally, she was making a great sacrifice in order to do that.

Gloria stopped struggling, thinking all this. Her justice would be sweet. So let Una finish this ridiculous game.

And then one final person emerged from the woods. Someone smaller. Leaner. Someone who looked like a child. They also had a pillowcase over their face, which they were adjusting with their small white hand—whose hand, whose?—walking carefully over a fallen branch, moon mask on top, walking slowly toward the other hooded figures, and no, it could not be—the child was wearing a small blue dress with a yellow ribbon. A shiver up Gloria's spine.

Una asked the people in costumes if they were ready, and they nodded. She turned to Gloria. "My friend. Here's what happens next. You will be reminded of the horrors that unfold outside the boundary of the Red Grove. And what you'd be ruining by spreading lies to that journalist. How you will ruin your daughter's life, and all the work we've put into making her the next leader here. So you will participate in this reenactment, and understand, and then we'll reach an agreement. Again, I'm sorry, but this seemed to be the only way. Understand?"

The cloth in her mouth muffled her words, but still, as loud as she could, Gloria said, "Fuck. You."

"You'll be persuaded. I'm confident." Una smiled with a gentleness that Gloria had seen a thousand times, all soft grace and light. How could this person be all these things at once? The people in hoods stepped closer.

And then Una turned and began walking up the path, toward Heartwood. Gloria watched her go, calling after her, but she didn't turn. She was gone. So Una would not even be part of this thing she had set in motion. What a coward.

"Please, please, you have to come," the child in the blue dress said. She was holding her hand up to her ear as if on the phone. The reenactment had begun.

The person in the black jacket replied. "I don't think I can tonight, honey." It was a woman's voice. What she was saying raised the hair on the back of Gloria's neck. "We are supposed to leave for a trip tonight, Frank is all packed up," the black jacket said, and Gloria was getting a little seasick, no, this was not what she thought, it couldn't be. "But I'll try to be there. Kiss your mama and baby brother for me."

No fucking way was she doing this.

"I'm tired of your sister taking advantage of you," the third person said. "She abandoned Luce and made you raise her and do all the work."

The little blue dress with the yellow ribbon looked just like Luce's dress from when she was small. The dress she wore for three days straight, those first three days in the hospital with Gem.

Gloria kicked her legs against the chair.

"You don't know Gloria like I do," the black jacket said. "Don't talk about her like that."

"I'll say whatever I want," he said, and took a step closer to her. No. She would not watch this. She knew what was coming. The reenactments always turned to include the victim. The victim becomes an actor. To help take ownership of the story, the idea goes. To take power. To change the outcome. This is not her story, not really, but they will make her play her sister, she knows this. They will make her sit here, tied up, and feel the horror of what her sister went through on the last real day of her life, and no, she will not sit here for that. She thrashed with all her strength and heard one of the chair legs crack and got the cloth halfway out of her mouth and began to scream.

The two hooded adults ran over, and she kicked as hard as she could. She would free herself and get the fuck out of this nightmare she had been running from all these years. She kicked and swung all her bodyweight, and arms came toward her, grabbing at her, pushing at her, the little child screaming, and she was flailing and yelling despite the choker in her mouth and there were limbs all over, one trying to pull her forward, another pushing her back, she was wildly swinging and kicking and punching, and some voice was screaming at her to stop, calm down, but she could not, and she was unmoored from the earth and somehow—how?—tumbling backward. She was still tied to the chair. She was falling backward, and she was in the air.

The smell was wet earth. Worms. As soon as she was free-falling, she knew where she was. She'd helped dig it. The pit where there'd once been bamboo.

The traveling time was short, but something came clearly, perfectly, into Gloria's mind. A scent. The smell of her face pressed up against her infant daughter's neck. The softness of her baby skin on her nose and cheeks. The gurgle and coo, warm milk breath. A sweet smell, honeysuckle, earth.