Chapter 28

June 29, 1997 · And Then

UNA MOVED TOWARD LUCEon her knees, opened her mouth, closed it quickly to swallow. "It was an accident."

Luce's body was weightless.

"A horrible, tragic accident," Una said, her hands meeting in prayer on her chest. There had been time and sense, and now there was none.

"Nobody meant for it to happen," Una said, weak and small. The bones in Luce's legs were gone, the blood, gone. What she needed was for her mother to enter this place and tell her what to do.

Luce reached her arm out toward Una, the bone clenched in the palm of her hand. "What happened?" Luce managed to say.

"She fell into the pit, honey," Una said, and through Luce's body a fire roared. It could not be true, she would not let it be true. Luce raised the bone higher into the air. She could protect this place with blood, too. One charge forward, one swing of the bone and she could crack Una's skull. She could do that. She would. Una, palms on the dirt, went on. "An accident, Luce, I swear to you. She fell. Broke her neck, I think. She didn't suffer."

Luce's shoulders were shaking, how long had they been doing that, where were her legs? "I don't believe you, why should I believe you?"

"I don't know," Una said. She wouldn't stop shaking her head. "You don't have much reason to, but this is the truth. I wasn't there, but this is what was told to me. She fell."

She fell.

Her mother had fallen into the hole.

Luce looked down to her feet, to the earth. The dirt. A tremor started in her chest, but she did not speak. Somehow this knowledge had already been at the edge of her mind. The dirt on her shoes, dirt from near her mother. She would not let herself think about her mother's hands against her cheeks, saying, softly, you're mine.

Her world had been uprooted, Una said, when she learned what happened. She wasn't there for it. Had heard screaming and run. Una started to reach out a hand toward Luce, but Luce ducked away.

"I should have told you right away. I'm so sorry, but I was afraid it would have been harmful to everyone. Because of what your mom had been planning. I don't even know what she was going to give Ruby, but she said that nobody would believe in the Red Grove anymore." A cricket began its high chirp nearby, grinding one leg against the other in a pulsating scream. Luce wasn't sure there was any breath in her body. Una went on. "It doesn't have to be the end. All the other people in our community can still live, can still thrive. What we have here is so much bigger than one person."

The hills contracted. Spun. Her mother was here, right here this whole time, under the earth. She was what was buried.

This dirt, already growing things. The saplings planted before they were ready. Planted a day after Luce had last seen her mother. Someone shoveling dirt over her body, somebody she knew covering her own mother in dirt. Carefully planting the saplings.

Una went on, her voice sounding so far away. She'd had to make a terrible choice once she learned of what happened. One option was to follow outsiders' corrupt legal system and call the cops, forever breaking the community. Because it would break the Red Grove, Una explained. The idea of the protection would be over. And they would have taken Gloria's beautiful body to some sterile, anonymous morgue. Nobody wanted that, Una explained.

And so the other option was to save this place. Give Gloria the ritual and respect she deserved. They purified the site with white sage. Scattered golden marigold petals into the earth. Luce covered her ears with her hands. Una was on her knees, in front of Luce, and though her words kept coming, she was wiping her cheeks with the palms of her hands, keeping the tears, coming fast, from falling to the dirt. Luce gripped the bone in her right hand, knuckles white and taut, shaking.

"Tell me I made the wrong choice," Una said. "Did I? God, I don't know." She gripped her head, pulling her hair. "You're going to face the biggest decision in your life, Luce, and I need you to think about it more carefully than you've ever thought about anything. On one side of the decision is outsiders and jail and the destruction of all the lives—every single one—of the people who live here. On the other side is love. Peace. Refuge for the women here and the women to come."

What Luce wanted was to climb into one of the redwood's wounds, curl around herself, and never be seen again. She struggled against the depths she wanted to fall into. She could not. And the mad, hot flame, buried, was what she needed to tend. She needed the flame to help her figure out what to do. The world had been one way, and now it was another.

"If it was really an accident," Luce said, tending the flame, "it would not have caused anyone to question the Red Grove. Accidents happen. You've said that so many times. It was not an accident."

"Does it really matter? Listen, I wept over her. There were all these flies that kept wanting to land on her, and we did our best to shoo them, we—"

But that was enough. Luce flung out her arm, the bone clenched in her fist, and slashed Una's jaw. The blood came fast. Una held her hands over the wound.

There was noise behind them then, up the path, a big animal crashing through the brush. Luce clenched, readied to flee, but then turned toward the familiar metallic clink. The sound of a tin cup clinking against a belt buckle.

"Luce," Juan yelled, getting close. "Luce, kiddo, you here?"

"I'm here," she said, Juan's appearance righting the world for a brief, beautiful moment before the new truth crashed in, crushing her chest.

"I came as fast as I could," he said, out of breath, wild-eyed. "You were right, on the phone. Boog went to your house, like you asked, to keep an eye on Roo. And so I kept my eye on the road for anyone else driving up, anything to be wary of. I thought you were, you know, overreacting. But Luce—god I'm sorry I didn't stop it—"

"What, who came?"

"Nobody came."

"That's good, Juan, that's—"

"No no, Luce, listen. When Boog drove away, she wasn't alone."

"What?"

"Roo was in the car," Juan said.

She could hardly hear for the thump of her heart in her ears. This was not right.

"I went straightaway to Boog's, as fast as I could, but they weren't there. I thought maybe they'd be here. But they're not. What's happening, Luce?"

Una, on the ground, held her face in her hand. Luce could see darker shadows of blood between her fingers.

"Oh god, Una, what happened?" Juan asked, but Luce shook her head at him. He held still, blinking, trying to put the pieces together.

From beneath her clutched hands, Una spoke. "It's my fault. Oh, god," she said. "I told Boog that you'd called to say your mother was home. She knew your mother had all those documents still at the house. I didn't think she'd do anything about any of it. But oh god."

"Where did Boog take Roo?" Juan asked, squinting at Una. Luce could not imagine explaining it all to him.

Una sat up straight, her hand still on her bleeding face. "Honestly, I don't know what she's doing. She was the one who told me about the accident. She—she was there." Luce sat up then too, the bone falling from her hand as she did.

"Roo's in danger," Luce said, the words blurring out of her mouth. She stood up and looked at Una, felt her rage cut down for a moment into pure pain, this person she loved, this person she thought loved her.

"Wait," Una said. "Katie is Boog's niece. I know Katie's husband is back in jail and she has an apartment not too far, maybe twenty minutes outside the Red Grove. In San Rafael. Maybe Boog went there? That's the only thing I can think of. It's the only place I can imagine Boog might have to go."

Luce stood, came to Una, and towered above her.

"I promise you, that is my best guess," Una said, wiping tears from her eyes.

"You swear on everything that this is not some trick?"

"I swear it. The address is written in the office. Under Katie's name. And Luce," Una said, but the words choked in her throat in a sob. "I'm so, so sorry. I never meant for this to happen."

The only thing Luce could do was keep going, and so she did. "Juan, you stay here with Una. Make sure she doesn't call anyone to warn them, make sure she doesn't try to run, okay?" Luce said.

"Goose, please tell me—" Juan tried, but Luce kept going.

"Give me your car keys," Luce said to Una.

"Let me come with you. I can reason with her, I can—"

But Luce wouldn't hear anymore. "Keys," she said.

"You are not going alone," Juan said, starting to come after Luce, but she spun to him, feeling herself grow taller, feeling suddenly steadied by the earth as if tendrils had reached up from the dirt, supporting her ankles.

"You both will do exactly as I have asked." The trees gusted above them, the worms turned in the earth below. "I know what comes next. I'm listening."

Up above, though it was night, when they were usually tucked away safe in a tree, crows circled between branches, coming in close to where a buzz grew louder and louder. As if they wanted to see what the danger was, how worried to be. Black feathers in the black night. And they stayed a long time, watching.