The Heart of the Thicket

14. The Plans of Gods

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE PLANS OF GODS

When I wake, there are birds chirping beyond the window, which only adds to the feeling that Fallow is not nearby. Perhaps he is sleeping. I do not know whether he can sleep or not. If I called his name, maybe he would appear or make a sound, but it is nice to be alone in this place.

The doll I clutched when I fell asleep is missing. I shake and sift through the bedding, lifting the pillow beneath my head and checking between the mattress and the wall. It is gone like it never existed, and the thought strikes too close to the reality of my situation for me to tolerate.

Standing from the bed to keep from wallowing, I shake my skirt back down to my ankles and smooth my hands over the wrinkles to no avail. I’m certain I look a mess. Out of pure curiosity, I open the doors of the wardrobe and peer inside. The inside smells of earth and soap. Henry’s work boots are slouched at the bottom, the dried mud that had been caked to the soles having flaked off onto the wood beneath them in a way I often fussed at him for.

There is a smaller pair beside them. Much smaller. A pair of shoes for children. These, unlike the man’s boots, are clean of dirt and tucked away, probably by the hands of a mother—my hands—as they are Anne’s shoes that rest beside Henry’s.

Though I do not remember how I know, I am certain they are no longer boots that would fit her. It is strange that my boots are not present. This place only exists by magic, though. The rules of it are murky at best. It could be that my boots cannot be in the wardrobe because they are on my feet.

None of my clothing hangs in the wardrobe, either. There is no clothing within for anyone. Strange that The Thicket and I would remember shoes but not shirts or skirts. Henry’s buckskin jacket hangs on a peg near the wall. Approaching, I pull it down from the hook and wrap myself in it. Relaxing under the fabric, it drives the chill from my bones and hangs heavy on my shoulders in the same way it did when I was home.

Home. It has felt like a distant place for however long I have been here. Three days now, from what Fallow said. Wearing Henry’s coat, it no longer feels so far away. I can imagine where I’m meant to be with greater clarity. In my mind, Henry is there. I wish to find him in this place, but with nowhere to begin, it seems best to hope that I happen upon him by accident. The thought has crossed my mind that if I end up trapped here, forever lost, I would have all the time in the world to hunt him down. He is here. It is made obvious by how I can always remember him even as the rest of my life beyond The Thicket fades into shades of grey like a smeared charcoal drawing.

Turning, I seek the photo we had taken when our child was only a tiny baby. We went into town special and paid money we did not really have to spare to make it happen. There, in the proper spot, the round frame for it hangs on the wall but the photo inside is too blurred to make out. Looking at it, I can imagine Henry standing behind where I sit in the chair holding the child I struggle to recall, wrapped in blankets I knit for her, asleep, peaceful in my lap. To one who did not know the photo, though, it appears as clouds of grey and black. There is nothing to recognize.

It is so fitting to the mental comparison I just made of my memories smudging together that a tear slides down my cheek and I do not swipe it away. Some things are worthy of mourning. The fact that this place was created with only the memory that I had something stings, even if I can not be sure what that something was. It’s like how Fallow can remember he has a family to return to but cannot know whether or not they are dust in the wind.

Opening a drawer, another oddity exists in this place. My ivory comb painted with gold leaf is inside where I last left it. All I know of it, though, is that it is mine. Where I got it, why I have such a fine object, such details are lost to me. Running my fingers over the ivory teeth, I will any memory of it to return to me to no avail.

I blink and when I open my eyes again, the comb is missing a tooth and I know that this is the right version of it in my bones, though I still lack any memory of how it came to be broken. I know even less about why I like it better broken than I did whole.

Running my fingers over the flowers carved into its base, my memory stirs. It is one of the only fine objects that I kept when Henry and I decided to marry and settle his inherited land in Tennessee. I owned many lovely things; diamond earrings, golden bracelets, and the like. We sold almost all of it to make our way. Many more such items, including beautiful silks, were in my dowry, which my mother and father withheld because I was marrying against their wishes and so far beneath what they thought suitable. I have sometimes grieved that loss, but only because it would have been nice to have such fine things to give to…

Dammit! The child. My child . I know I have one. I can almost reach their features, their voice, their name . Thinking of them is like trying to see details through frosted glass. I am a mother, and I am losing ground every moment!

The comb. It is familiar, present, and something I can recall.

Unleashing my dark hair from its untidy braid, I focus on what I can do something about and comb through the tangles until the teeth move through my hair like water. Without a mirror to gaze into, it is easy to imagine myself a younger woman with fewer troubles. I always feel a little guilty for being envious of the version of myself who was needed by no one and had an abundance of time even when she did not know it. It feels like asking for bad luck that I pretend to be her now, unafraid of the future with no one relying on her.

She would comb her hair into a style to show off how her thick, black hair curls when left free. I comb it back into a tight braid and knot the ribbon twice so it will not fall without effort from me.

Approaching the fire, which still burns like its embers are a part of the magic of this place, I find the bag of oats kept beside it. The kettle still holds clean water and I put it on the hook over the embers and portion out oats into one of the bowls in the cupboard. Many of the things that Henry touched each day are present. It would seem that if this place is born of my memories, they were my memories of him more than any other. The oats in a sack beside the table were Henry’s favorite breakfast and he often made it for himself while I slept. His gloves rest on the table where he always left them and his hat hangs on the post of the headboard above where he slept, as it was usually the last thing he took off before closing his eyes and the first thing he donned in the morning.

My chin quivers with barely contained tears. I thought Henry was gone forever for so long. The memory of how I grieved remains fresh like an oozing wound. To know he was here, lost in The Thicket and might still be here somewhere, fills my heart with hope. Hope has never been so frightening.

The birds stop singing beyond the walls of the house and I know I am no longer alone. Scanning the room, I see no one but Fallow here.Realizing how it must look from his perspective, the need to apologize heats my cheeks. Here I am just making myself at home. “I hope you do not mind that I got the day started.”

Beneath the singing kettle, Fallow appears in the fire but says nothing as he watches me go about my tasks. I pour water into the bowl of oats, stir them together with a wooden spoon that lives on the wall by the pots, and leave them to grow soft. Opening a drawer, I discover that whatever built this place forgot utensils. I will not bother with washing the wooden spoon, then.

Fallow’s eyes following me feels like being on a stage and I do my best impression of myself in my own house to pretend the uncomfortable feeling away.

In moments of fear, some would turn to prayer. Henry was always the more devout of the two of us. I have felt a little silly in prayer since I was old enough to give the details of the act any thoughts and attach opinions to it. The Lord must know best, if He exists at all. To Him, perhaps, my prayers are like a child asking a parent for sweets. The answer is no. If it were otherwise, I would always receive what I seek.

Henry, on the other hand, had a prayer for every occasion, but rarely asked for anything. He gave thanks. He said grace over every meal, not just giving thanks to the Lord Almighty, but also to me. He would peer up at me from across the table and tag me onto the end of each prayer. ‘And thank you, Lord, for my wonderful wife who could make a horse’s hoof tasty if she set her hands and mind to it.’

I smile at the memory. When he was lost, I got out of the practice of saying grace in a hurry. He would reprimand me if he knew. I imagine his soft smile and how he would tease me over raising a heathen as I sit down in front of the bowl of oats I have made. They are not so soft or silky as I prefer them, but eating them a little crisp will give me something to do other than fret under Fallow’s watchful stare.

I lift the cooking spoon to eat it with and, from the fire, Fallow cracks and pops the word, “Grace.”

Having forgotten I was not alone in my game of pretend, I start at the sound. Turning, I find Fallow is blinking at me like he did not mean to say anything at all. “Sorry. If you were in the woods, it would matter less, but at a table you should say… never mind.”

“No, you are right. There is something about being at a table that calls for it, isn’t there? I best stay on the right side of right if I am going to get out of here. I could use all the friends in my corner that I can get, right?”

Sounding hesitant and disturbed, Fallow grunts in affirmation.I suppose he keeps attempting to help me by accident because that’s what he would do under any other circumstances.

Dropping the spoon back into the bowl, I clasp my hands and try to sort out how to start. “I probably should have prayed a little more often this whole time. I am struggling to be grateful for much of anything these days. That has been true far longer than I have known of The Thicket.”

Mama, are you alright?

A memory flashes through my mind. Anne, my little girl, living in an endless loop. I drop my face into my hands. To God alone, a being I am not even certain I believe in, I beg, “Please, if you are real and omnipotent, do not allow her to suffer. Please help me get back with Henry in tow. Help me save us all from this place.”

Henry would disapprove of my asking for favors when I’m meant to give thanks. I don’t pray often and must crush a few things together when I do.

I am a child who wants something out of reach and I am begging you, Lord.

“You know all the things I would say already. You know all the things I want. Everything I need is laid bare before you, God, and you have the answers.”

I am pointing to something I desire like a child in a store. I cannot reach or afford it on my own. Please bring it down to me, Lord of everything and all. Help me.

“If you are there, give them to me. Help me reach them. Do not allow Anne and Henry to suffer because I am ignorant. Do not allow them to suffer because I…”

My shoulders quake under the weight of my prayers, though no tears fall. I am beyond them. I am beyond words, too. Giving up on speaking, I fear saying any of this aloud will be the end of my composure. With eyes clenched shut, I plead with the heavens.

Help me be what they need me to be. I could beg you on end forever. Please do not ask it of me for there is so much to do and I lack the time to crawl on my knees before you.

“Odell?” Henry’s voice snaps me from my trance, and it is so much Henry’s voice that I search the room for him. I am still the only physical being here. Disappointment and confusion push my unshed tears from my eyes now. It was only in my head, something created from my floundering memory.

Fallow clears his throat. It is coals and ash. “Your food will go cold.”

Right. I am not alone in my desperation today. “In the Father’s name we pray. Amen.”

Though I no longer feel hungry, or maybe it is that I no longer feel deserving of food, I dig in. Behind me in the hearth, Fallow murmurs, his voice sounding like wind in a chimney flue, “Your god sounds cruel.”

I take another bite and swallow before finding my voice. “Is He not your god, too?” I sound choked, still pondering how I feel a little like a bug smashed on the sole of God’s feet.

“If He is I do not remember him, only that you are meant to thank Him for the food you eat, apparently.”

For Fallow to not know God would mean little to me, but for the same to be true of my devout husband somewhere in these woods, who ushered us all to church every Sunday without prompting, who gave thanks at every meal and harvest, makes my heart ache. He could be here somewhere in these wretched woods no longer knowing how to pray!

Henry would not feel hopeless in the face of a cruel god as I do. In my shoes, I think he would view this all as a test. I might manage the same if the test did not dangle my daughter’s life on the outcome.

“God gave me Anne to protect. He put me on this earth to be her mother. I hope for His sake that He is not responsible for how she hangs in the balance in this trial.”

Fallow’s laugh is low, mirthless, and makes the log I set on the fire this morning crack in two. “Why should a God care how he hurts you?”

“You are the one who keeps speaking of my soul and its power. He should fear me as much as any keeper.” The words taste sour on my tongue. I do not believe them, and it might be a jinx to speak so mighty of myself. “I do not know if the answer is to speak such blasphemy louder and with more fury until I am ready to start building a staircase so I can walk all the way to the pearly gates or if I should stop while I am ahead.”

To still my tongue, I scoop another spoonful of oats into my mouth and wish I had time to better cook them and sugar to sweeten them.

Fallow leaves the hearth and starts collecting oats from the bag. He dips his invisible fingers into the hemp sack, and they climb up his body until he is a man made of grains. He paces, like being fire was too dangerous a game to play in his nerves. “Can your god clip your wings if you grow them? If He is so powerful, why would He allow any harm to befall you in the first place?”

God probably receives more prayers from mothers than any other group on earth. It is mothers who pray over their sleeping babies, be they a day old or fully grown. They pray for their children’s safety, health, and happiness. They pray to be able to provide for them in all the best ways. Those prayers built of love, unrivaled by any other, is why He receives more curses from mothers than any other, too. For when a mother begs on her knees every night for her children’s safekeeping and they are met with disaster, danger, and tragedy, a mother’s wrath is great.

Some would attempt to assure a mother standing beside her baby’s grave that God has a plan and her unmatched grief is a part of it. A mother screaming curses at the Heavens, though, she cares little for the plans of gods .

The image of a child, paused in a walnut tree, living out their final moments over and over until I can save her rushes by my mind’s eye. I no longer know the details, but I do not need them to know my task.

I blink it away and force another heavy glob of oats into my mouth.

Perhaps The Thicket is godless and I should be more careful with my blame. “I do not know. I do not always believe in God.”

“Perhaps it is disbelief that has gotten us into this mess.”

Fallow says us while watching the frame on the wall with the photograph inside, too blurry to be made out.

Us.

Me, him, and everyone who has ever become trapped here. All the women with buttons for eyes, the men who can turn others into shrews, and the shrews he made…

Turning away from the wall, Fallow returns to the bag of oats, holds out his finger, and each one falls back into the sack like water dropping from the end of his hand until he is no more. He returns to the fire, and I scrape my bowl clean and stand. Checking the window, The Thicket grows all around us, waiting for me to step out of this safe and familiar place and back into its grasp. I had hoped to find the fields of home, the coop, and the cottonwoods that line the creek.

Closing my eyes, I can almost place a child in the fuzzy picture my wishful mind has invented. I may not be able to remember the name, gender, or features of the child every shred of my body and soul battles and fails to recall, but at least I know there could be one in that place. When I open my eyes and see only the dense woods of The Thicket, the sun hardly able to filter through the canopy of trees and vines, I cannot imagine a child here at all. Not even one I make up.

“What should I do, Fallow? Is wandering all there is to The Thicket? Is there a way for me to find Henry? Perhaps it is silly, but I feel like he would know what to do.”

“There is a lot to learn in wandering. Do not fool yourself into thinking this is time wasted. The more you know of this place the better chance you will have when you reach The Keeper.”

“You mean when The Keeper believes me lost enough to carry no threat? That won’t happen.”

He chuckles, the fire flickering with the air he breathes out. “Sure.”

Fallow sounds about as convinced of my ability to thwart The Keeper as I feel. In the same way entering The Thicket was the only means forward so far as rescuing… someone. Dammit! Memories slip through my fingers. “Do you know what happens when I get to Him?”

“I only remember His words to me, nothing else. Even His voice is lost to me. I can only assume you belong to The Keeper after this. Your soul strengthens The Thicket. I do not know what either of those things actually mean. This place is full of mothers, though. You’ve seen them. They’re everywhere.”

I have. It would seem a few are chained to each monster I meet.

I shake my head, more to clear my mind of the women I have crossed in this place than to answer him. “I will wander until I learn something of use. Someone here must know something of how to reach The Keeper before I am lost.”

The words fall flat to my ears. It would seem everyone here either cannot help me or would rather not. Those that have wished to, like the shrew woman, spoke in riddles as if straight answers are against the laws of this place. Magic exists here, perhaps it is a spell.

Seeking out water to wash my dish and finding nothing, I am struck with shame over leaving a mess in his house that Fallow cannot clean. I set it back on the table.

“I like the bed unmade. I like the dish. Leave them both.” Fallow has read my thoughts. Perhaps he likes the messes left because it makes him feel less lonesome.

“I appreciate you allowing me to make myself at home.”

“It is nice to see the house used.” Fallow grows silent for a long time, but there is an air about him like he has more to say. “There is one who might help.” It could be a trick meant to uproot my efforts. He has no interest in seeing me succeed, but he has my attention regardless. “It isn’t so magnanimous as you think. She might help us both. Last night I searched the pieces of The Thicket, and I might know where she is. The witch, Roil.”

Helping us both could mean anything from the lips of Fallow. “Royal, like a queen?”

“No. Roil, like a muddy river roils.”

I do not think either option, queen or turbulence, would be pleasant to meet in The Thicket. Fallow’s answer feels like the worse of the two.

“Does Roil know of The Keeper?”

“She knows a lot. Every time I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her, I have learned something. She has met The Keeper and remembers Him.”

I do not bother asking if she is terrifying or not. She is of The Thicket. She will be at least as fearsome as the rest of this place is. If I expect as much, perhaps it won’t be so difficult to face.

With a full stomach and the sun shining through the trees of The Thicket, there is no better time to pester a creature than now. She will grow no less formidable if I dally. Why I must hurry to escape The Thicket doesn’t make sense, but when I think of staying the hair on my arms stands on end. Someone depends on me, the certainty of it drums in my chest.

I have a mother’s soul. The words echo in my mind. I have a child somewhere who needs me. It is for them that I must escape.

Releasing a long breath that holds all my fear with it, I make my choice. “Please take me to Roil, then.”

Fallow, wearing what might be a guilty expression, vanishes from the hearth. When I open the door to the house, it vanishes behind me along with Henry’s Jacket that I had been wearing and the food in my stomach.

Gone.

I imagine the mess I made with breakfast will be righted once more when it all returns. The thought makes me a little sad.

By my feet, a rabbit stomps its foot impatiently and swings its head, beckoning me to follow it.