Chapter 3

June 21, 1997

THE WHOLE OF THE RED GROVEwas on Heartwood's back deck to welcome them. Una stood up on a bench, clapping her hands way up above her head. She caught Luce's eye, and without even meaning to, like squinting her eyes in bright sun, Luce smiled. She saw other people do the same to Una all the time, delight in the intensity with which she looked at them, as if they were the night-blooming cereus flower, unfurling once a year, rare and majestic. All around them, in the low grasses of the clearing and the forest beyond, the crickets joined together in song, and then so did the hands of all the good people of the Red Grove, nearly two hundred of them, clapping and whooping for the women as they emerged from the darkness back into the light.

As the applause thinned, chattering voices quieted and the community turned to Una, her white dress aglow in the candlelight. She slid on her moon mask—white and round, papier-maché, black holes for eyes and a mouth. Everyone followed.

"To those of you who've just found your way through the darkness, my dears: welcome to freedom." Cheers rose up again, Luce clapping and hooting and grinning beneath her mask. Una continued: "We gather each solstice and equinox, days that mark the shifting between darkness and light, to be reminded of the balance that allows for our lives here. Together we will bear witness to the reenactment of horror that led to the creation of our sanctuary."

Luce glanced around, checking to make sure her mom had come, but she couldn't find her. Great. If only Gem could be here, of course she would be. Luce squinted her into ghost form sometimes, imagining for a split second that a tree's blur was Gem at the edge of the crowd, translucent, beaming.

Her eyes landed on a cluster of her friends, leaning close to one another and whispering, Aya touching Tangerine's hair. They were so easy with themselves, with one another, and a little ache made Luce long to be there, between them, but she tamped it out. They hadn't even glanced over at her. She brought her attention back to Una, who was still talking.

"It is from nature that we model our reenactments, the way our animal friends experience trauma from start to finish, allowing them to discharge the fright. To regain a balance of light and dark. We follow their lead so that the darkness may no longer infect or inhabit us." Though it was a solemn moment, Luce knew it was coming: yip-yips and ululation from some of the old-timers among the crowd who would not pass up any moment to celebrate the miracle of their lives here. Una, ever graceful, acknowledged them with a nod, twisting a bead on her necklace, and completed her part. "And so, let us be reminded. Friends, the story of Tamsen Nightingale," she said, stepping aside. Luce steadied her nerves and guided the six children wearing their small moon masks up to the front, a few awwws from the crowd, one woop, and all the little bodies, none taller than Luce's shoulders, faced the community.

Luce stepped up to Una's place on the bench, cleared her throat, and began. "Three sisters once married three brothers and began the journey to California to claim their fortune in gold." The children began marching back and forth in front of her. People knew the story, its cadence, its dramatic rise. They settled in for it, adjusting their masks and shifting their weight to get a good view of the children, and they nodded in the right places, shook their head in disappointment at others. It was a story they knew well, of the perilous journey through the mountains and the wicked winter storm that trapped them all.

"Amidst the blizzard, the brothers made a decision—they would help one another survive no matter what it took, as their lives were more valuable than those of their wives." In tandem, the boys walked around the girls, who had fallen to the ground, and began to bob their moon faces up and down. Luce continued, simply, "The husbands began to eat their wives."

But, the story went on, one of the sisters—Tamsen—escaped. At that, one of the little girls, Rosa, a coiled spring, popped up from the ground and began running wild circles around the brothers, creating larger arcs until she was dodging in and out of the trees. "Tamsen fled, walking for days without knowing where she was going and finally, exhausted, collapsed right here in the Red Grove." The two girls who'd played the eaten sisters stood up tall, reached their arms into the air, and swayed gently. One of the girls looked back at Luce with panic, forgetting whether this was right, but Luce nodded her on. This was a new addition; when Luce had done the performance as a kid, once you were eaten, you were gone.

"Tamsen Nightingale feared that the men would try to finish her off." Rosa crouched between the two other girls, whose tree-branch arms swayed. "But something special was happening in this valley of the Red Grove. And one day, one of the brothers found her." Rosa was seated beneath a tree, pretend-stitching something on her lap, when a boy ran at her, fast and mean. Rosa shielded her face with her hands, but, like a mime in a box, the boy seemed to be hitting the invisible edge of something. "He was unable to do her harm," Luce said. He kicked and hit again and again, but could not reach her. Rosa, playing Tamsen, stood up slowly to face him. He tried and tried, but could not get to her. Finally, standing tall, she waved goodbye to him, and like a seed in a gust of wind, he spun away.

"Here, in the Red Grove, she built a sanctuary for other women, understanding that the hills, the mountain lions, the golden grasses, and the giant red groves would keep them safe." Rosa extended her arms to all the other children, who clasped their hands together, forming a circle. "And they lived peacefully ever after," Luce said. The kids spread out in a line, their moon masks glowing in the flickering light, little stars, tousled hair, and skinned knees. They looked at Luce, who mouthed one, two, three, and then they all took a bow.

Heartwood's railing held small candles in paper bags. Looked nicer than in the sunlight, Luce thought, weaving through the crowd, where you could see the black widows nesting between the beams, dark, wet rings of mold, and layers of dirt in the grooves between boards. Luce liked the grime, though, a reminder of how old and important this space was, a gathering place for the people of the Red Grove for almost a century, she loved to explain as she showed them the newer arms snaking off in all directions—a few bedrooms used as transitional housing before newcomers were oriented and placed elsewhere in the Red Grove, a meditation nook, a community kitchen, a makeshift sauna, a library, and the connected trailers that made up the school. The throbbing heart of the community, she'd say, where you could always find a pot of soup on the stove and a listening ear to walk with through the woods, a pack of diapers, a ziplock bag of mini-toiletries, a set of sheets or rain boots or a frying pan, a case of dented cans of pinto beans, a Tibetan prayer flag, a crucifix, a half-full bottle of lube, one of Gramms's red knitted beanies, of which she made so many that in the winter, from above, a gathering in the Red Grove would look like a bowl of cranberries.

A few people were congratulating Luce as she wove through the crowd—this was only her third time leading the reenactment on her own—when a voice called her from behind. She turned, and there was Boog, breathing heavy, her white-blond hair frizzing out of its bun. "You're getting better every time, Goose," she said, her Alabama upbringing still a twang behind her words. Boog had made the news when she was eleven for punching a shark between the eyes; the shark had flung itself aboard her family's boat—that was the story Luce introduced her with every time, because how could you not? "I think you just about could take over here one day, don't you?"

Luce's face went red. "No. I could never do all that Una does."

"Beg to differ, cupcake."

Without realizing it, Luce straightened her spine. "I dunno," she said, feeling the tingle that would run up her arms and legs when she let herself think about this exact future, all that would come and all that had happened, and she wanted to ask Boog a question about the early days—she'd been here a long time, was an encyclopedia of Red Grove history, as mean as a cornered possum, she liked to tell people, though Luce had never seen that side—but Boog spoke again.

"I think you should know—a young man, not anyone I recognize, knocked on my door yesterday. He was asking about your family. I saw him knocking on other doors, too. He wanted to know where you live."

A shiver ran up the back of Luce's neck. There were no gates around the Red Grove, and they occasionally had an unknowing outsider come to their doors to try to sell them life insurance or Mormonism, but their distance from other towns made it rare. And it wouldn't be a seeker; Gloria always told them what they needed to know to find their house.

"I couldn't find your mom to tell her. So pass the word along. And keep your ear out."

Luce nodded, wandering into the woods, but something was off: first the seeker's heart collapsing, and now another man looking for them—never anything like this before, and then two strange things in a row. Wind shivered the trees. Things could build so easily: weather over the Pacific—eight miles away as the crow flies, but a forty-minute twisty drive—growing until it was right here, on top of them. Or an outsider wanting to know about them, and then what?

She'd often wondered what would happen if someone like the Sunday Slasher came into the Red Grove. Out there, all you had to do was climb into a woman's window at night or take a rock to her head while she was on a jog, and boom, dead meat. The going theory was that each person unknowingly interacted with five serial killers in their lifetime. Five! They were everywhere.

But here? She'd played out so many scenarios. Would he raise his arm to strike a blow and be physically unable? Or was it more like a force field on the women's bodies that acted like armor, repelling his harm like rain sliding off a duck's feathers? How did it work? As a kid, new to the Red Grove, Luce had insisted on the other kids testing it out on her. Hit me, she said, I dare you. They wouldn't, they didn't, it wasn't the thing they did here, the kids said. Punch me, you have to, she said, unwilling to be the bearer of violence but desperate to receive it, to see if she could. Bet you can't make my eye purple, she taunted. Until she finally met a kid who would. Marty Kahn. Chipmunk cheeks and allergies that kept his nose running; he'd do it 'cause he liked her, she knew. So, after school, they slid into a nearby grove, ducking into the open center in a circle of trees where the mother tree had died—fairy ring, it was called, which she loved—as a privacy shield. Do it, Luce said. Marty smiled, licked the snot from his upper lip, but didn't move. Hit me, Luce said, louder. He raised his hands. Come on, quick, Luce said, please. She needed to feel it—either the pain or the impossibility of it. He stood with arms raised, stilled. I can't, he said. Like you can't can't, she'd asked, or like you won't? I don't know, he said, I just can't. If you do it, I'll kiss you, she said, and that had done it, that had been enough—he'd flung one arm out in a kind of loose punch, but it did not, in fact, hit her. He missed. Or it missed. Was forced to miss. Luce was astonished. But there wasn't time to try again, because an adult was stepping into the circle of trees.

I'd wondered what you two were doing, Una said. It's okay, Marty, she said, and Luce could see that he was holding his arms tight around himself, rocking, more upset than she'd ever seen him, and though she knew this could be deep trouble, she did not feel ashamed. Una looked at her. It's a natural curiosity, Luce, she said. And what did you learn? Luce twisted her toe in the dirt. She wasn't sure what she'd learned, she needed more time. Una tried again: Was Marty able to hurt you? Well, no, Luce said, and wanted to say more, but Una carried on. That's right, Una said. He did not hurt you. He cannot hurt you. Marty, you understand how awful and unforgivable that impulse to hit is, don't you? He had tears streaming down his face, still clenching his stomach. Good boy. Go away. She turned all her attention to Luce. I am going on a night walk tonight, Luce, in the darkness—would you come with me? Oh boy, would she. And she'd gone, her first walk through the night, and had begun to learn that invisibility could be power.

How did it work? She'd heard others ask it too—how was it possible? It works, Una had said, in the same way our earth spins slowly on its axis without careening off into space, and a migratory bird flies to the same spot each winter, halfway around the world. With the unknowable forces of Mother Earth.

Luce had once heard one of the newcomers, a science teacher, say that we know why the earth spins on its axis, inertia for one, and—but Una had cut her off. You're right, she'd told the woman, we know some of the pieces to the puzzle, a few. But there is still so much that is unknown, and unknowable. To claim full understanding would be hubris, don't you think?

And so Luce didn't know, exactly, and to probe the question would suggest doubt she did not feel. Instead she imagined a killer entering the Red Grove, sneaking up on a woman slumbering out under the stars, bringing his knife down upon her chest, and just before it hits, the metal blade shattering into ten thousand slivers. She'd recounted this fantasy to her mom one day, overcome with excitement as she imagined the look on his face when he realized he was impotent, and Gloria had snapped at Luce: This is so creepy, you have got to let it go.

It's real-life stuff, Luce had said, and would say to anyone who asked her how she knew so much about the worst of the violence out there. She had an obligation to know the truth, which does not discriminate between easy and difficult facts.

Lives change in an instant. Are completely destroyed. Her mother, of all people, should understand that. Luce wasn't choosing this reality, she was just paying attention.

And it was because she was paying attention that she felt such devotion to the Red Grove, to the way Una had told her its histories. The people of the Red Grove came and went, some seeking refuge only for a short while, months, a few years, while others decided to stay forever. The community had grown by word of mouth, women passing information on to cousins who told them of a friend in need, midwives who were called to deliver Red Grove babies, then mentioning the place to other women when it seemed there was a need. A number of newspapers had written about the Red Grove over the years, including a slanderous article written by an undercover reporter in 1977 who'd posed as a woman seeking asylum and then described them as a lesbian cult, blaming them for America's skyrocketing divorce rates. There was often speculation about whether they were a coven of witches. Because the women themselves wouldn't pose for photographs by outsiders, the stories included pictures of someone's old woven camp chair left outside their trailer, strings and metal bones overrun by wildflowers, and once of a long, smoothed stick lying in the dirt, which the reporter speculated was some kind of wand. MODERN DAY WITCHES, the story said again, and nobody in the Red Grove reached out to correct the record.

There were tenuous connections to women's shelters that were spread around Northern California, but the Red Grove preferred to take in those who would stay. It wasn't temporary respite before people flung themselves back into the fanged world. The Red Grove was a way of life that required communal acceptance and sacrifice. Habitation required participation; as an unincorporated town, they had to maintain many of their own roads, and though there were technically lower taxes, the agreement was that a small tithe was given to the community. Plenty of folks worked jobs in the neighboring cities, a few arrived with money, and so had some to share, though it was always a mystery to Luce how there was enough to cover so much of what was freely given, food and shelter to those who needed it, a small stipend to help new arrivals get on their feet.

When Una moved here, she'd explained to Luce a while back, the community was smaller, run communally by a few women who were already old and looking for fresh energy. They'd cautioned her against the pitfalls of their shared governance—nobody could agree, so nothing could ever really get done—and suggested instead that Una, with her charisma and wisdom, return to the foundational design and keep this sacred space protected through singular leadership, as Tamsen Nightingale had done.

And so Una did. In those days, there were thirty-five or forty women living there, some with children, others without, but there was plenty of space for more. And wasn't that Una's role, her responsibility, to allow as many people to flourish here as possible? She'd been thinking about this the night she met a man, gentle and thoughtful and all for women's liberation, he said, and she knew then what she needed to do. She would allow men—some men, carefully vetted—into the community as well and, in doing so, expand the boundaries of who could reap the bounty of their community. The men weren't protected, but they were harmless here, couldn't hurt a woman even if somehow, Tamsen forbid, they tried.

And men came. They were choosing to live somewhere outside the pervasive chest-pounding company of other men they'd been around most of their lives, and the world created by and for those men. It wasn't a woman's world out there, everyone knew that, but it also wasn't a man's world if you were a certain kind of man, soft or small or maybe didn't think of yourself as a man at all, or one of a million other things that made a man's world not yours. They were vetted; female leadership wasn't for everyone. But there were men who had been harmed themselves or were committed to collaboration or would happily hand over whatever was needed to live among so many women. Peace was most sacred.

This was very unpopular with the older generation. Una knew it would be. Some of the old guard moved out of the community altogether, one tried to stage an intervention, but it became clear pretty quickly that Una's hunch had been right. More people heard about the community, more people moved there, some women with female partners, some male, most without partners at all, and even a few men on their own, and with the new burst of energy and life and, yes, resources in the community, Una'd set out what she'd intended to do: share this gift as wide as the land would allow. And no wider. Their population was restricted by the boundaries of the community and the edict to preserve the groves of redwood forest and open space in which they lived. The population reached 170ish by the late 1980s. Things got to be how Una liked them.

Back on Heartwood's deck, shrieks of laughter punched through the music, people dancing or gathered in clusters or clasping beloveds, a couple Luce couldn't quite identify holding hands as they disappeared into the trees together. If all the world's experiences were lined up from most horrific to the sublime, this would be shoulder to shoulder with the very best things life could invent.

The voices of little kids carried from the creek, past the trees. She followed the sound, as she liked to keep an ear out to know what the kids talked about, an idea from Una she was happy to oblige since yes, she was exceptionally good at remaining unseen in the dark. Also, though she'd never tell him, she kept an ear on Roo from time to time, making sure he wasn't getting picked on because he was so small.

"Did you know Tamsen Nightingale was a witch?" It was Roo, his voice echoing over the banks.

"Duh," another kid said. The littler kids had obstacle courses set up out there, and bike jumps and fairy traps and hiding places in the wounds of redwood trees. She knew from the way their voices carried that they were tucked in under the bank of the creek, where water had hollowed away dirt, and tree branches had kept the surface strong, and she stepped farther into the woods, toward them.

"And that in the beginning there were no boys allowed here at all? So if a boy came here by accident, he would get turned into a girl." Another kid's voice then, hard to tell how many were down there.

"I wish I would get turned into a girl. Then I would wear beautiful dresses." That one was Roo.

"You already do wear beautiful dresses."

"I know. But I'd wear even more."

"I heard that Tamsen Nightingale was an outlaw and collected gold and jewels and bought up all this land before she cast a spell on it." The small voices layered on top of one another. Luce loved hearing what the kids were wondering about, what mythologies they created.

"There's not a spell cast on it, idiot."

"It's the mountain lions. They guard us."

"It's the trees that make it magic."

"Magic isn't real, my mom said."

"Well then, if you're so smart, how does it work?"

"Duh, you don't know?"

"Nobody knows."

Luce had also crouched in this creek with friends and speculated about the Red Grove, about Tamsen Nightingale. It had not been a quick adjustment from the apartment she'd lived in before they came, where she wasn't allowed to be alone at all, never, especially not outside, especially especially not in the dark. But once she was rooted here, it was like opening her eyes underwater for the first time.

"Roo," she heard a kid say, "why did your mom kill a man?"

Luce held her breath.

Roo's tiny voice rose an octave. He said the man wasn't dead, and they should just shut up.

"My dad said that if he dies, we're gonna have a big old problem," another kid said. "Someone came to my house, looking for you, and he was so mad because—"

Another voice chimed in, but Luce lurched out from where she was hiding and called for Roo to come, said she needed his help cleaning up at Heartwood right away. "A little hustle please, let's go." She would not let him be dragged into the muck of worry. She found, as they walked back through the trees, that for the first time since she could remember, she was watching for a stranger.