Chapter 11: Emergence

A Child Returned

Gee picked Karen up and carried her to the sofa in Wayne’s living room.

“What on earth happened?” Jo asked, coming in from the kitchen.

“Gee, let us take care of Karen so you can tend to Nina. She’ll trust you more than me.” Wayne directed. Gee reluctantly gave care of his lover over to Wayne and Jo as he ran outside to see Nina now swinging quietly on the rusty chains. Gee approached her slowly.

“Nina? Are you okay, honey?” She looked up at him with eyes gradually focusing.

“Gee? I had another mommy and daddy once upon a time. I don’t remember them. Isn’t that strange? I just remember the funny number and swinging.” She swung back and forth one more time then hopped up. “My bottom’s cold now! Can I have a swing at home, Daddy?”

“Yes, of course you can,” Gee said. “We might have to wait until spring to get it in the yard, but you can swing all you want. Who is Rocko?”

“I don’t know. Rocko is what you yell when you go swing.”

“We’ll find out. You’ll remember whatever you want to. Let’s go see how Karen is doing.” Gee took Nina’s hand and they walked to the door. She giggled and spun the funny number one more time before they entered. When she saw Karen, Nina rushed to her.

“Did you fall? Are you okay, Mommy?”

“Oh, sweetheart! Is it really you?” Karen cried. She held Nina in a close embrace. “I swore I’d never stop looking for you. I promised I would find you one day. Is it really you?”

“Mommy, it’s me, Nina!”

“Yes, of course it is. I love you, Sweetie.”

“I’m not sure I understand what just happened,” Jo said as she brought water for Karen. Gee pulled her and Wayne aside, giving Karen time to just hold Nina.

“Your house has a history, Wayne,” Gee said. “Fifteen years ago, a child was kidnapped from the swing set out front. She was three or four years old and never heard from again. Karen had been babysitting.”

“Oh, my God!” Jo breathed. “Nina?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. The street number and swing set triggered a memory.”

“Then she must be the little girl,” Wayne concluded.

“Back when Karen was kidnapped and force-fed nuts ... You know her phone was destroyed and lost. I expect it’s one of many secrets we’d find in the quarry if it were drained. I got her a new phone and set it up to have her old number forwarded to it. She’d no more than turned it on when she got a message. It was a picture of your front door and the text, ‘We aren’t through with you yet, little girl.’ We’ve always suspected Karen’s kidnapper was connected with the event fifteen years ago.”

“Karen and Nina could be in danger,” Wayne said. “All of you. We need to be alert all the time.”

“We’ll have the DNA test results back soon. That will confirm things.”

“Why would that help? Do you have DNA from the parents?”

“In a way. The little girl who was kidnapped from here was Collin Meagher’s great niece. The DNA test would show that Nina and Violet Lanahan have a common grandparent or great-grandparent.”

“I don’t care,” Karen said as she sat up straighter and pulled Nina with her. “It doesn’t matter what the DNA says. It doesn’t matter what the history is or if her memories come back. What matters is that I have Nina here and now. She is no different than the sweet girl Gee and I adopted into our home and our lives in the first place. If she is Collin’s great niece, it still doesn’t matter. She is Nina and is our daughter.”

“I agree,” Gee said as he stood beside Karen and wrapped his arms around both women. “We are a family. We came from different directions and adopted each other.” Everyone breathed a sigh of relief as tension drained from the room.

“Well, family,” Jo said. “Why don’t we gather at the table. Dinner is ready.”

The dinner of spaghetti squash with tomato and meat sauce was a delight. Nina wanted to know all about the strange squash and asked if Karen would help her shop for one and cook it at home.

Nina’s use of the word ‘home’ did more to relax Gee and Karen than anything else. She had asked if she could have a swing ‘at home.’ She wanted to cook ‘at home.’ She told Jo about her room ‘at home.’ To Nina, the mansion was home and Gee and Karen were her family.

They had not progressed far into the meal when someone knocked at Wayne’s door. The knocking was persistent and sounded almost desperate. Gee moved to stand opposite Wayne as he answered the door. Events of the evening had been too bizarre to take chances on an unexpected visitor.

An old man stumbled forward when Wayne opened the door. He had a scarf wrapped around his face and a long coat. Wispy gray hair fluttered around his head. His hands were bare and as Gee caught him, stopping a headlong tumble into the house, he noticed the man was dressed in pajamas and wore slippers.

“Here,” Gee said, holding the man up. “Take it easy. We’ve got you.”

“Come in and get warm,” Wayne said. “You aren’t dressed for cold and snow. Who are you?” There was a muffled sound as Gee helped the man unwind his scarf.

“Collin?” Gee said. “Are you well, Mr. Meagher? Should we call an ambulance.”

“No,” rasped the old man. “I had to come here. I haven’t been in this house in fifteen years but I had to come.”

Jo and Karen shuffled dishes at the table and pulled up another chair. Jo set an additional place and poured hot coffee for the man. He was seated in his pajamas and bathrobe and gratefully sipped the hot liquid.

“Your feet must be freezing,” Wayne said. He ran up the stairs and was back a minute later with a pair of wool socks, a towel, and a heating pad. “Let’s get your wet slippers off and dry your feet. When Granda stays over, he often gets cold and has a heating pad in bed with him.”

Collin was still shivering and Karen grabbed the quilt she’d leaned against on the sofa to wrap around Collin’s shoulders. The whole time he was being fussed over, Collin did not cease staring at Nina. He finally heaved a big sigh and focused on the others at the table.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “I had to come here. He didn’t give me time to dress.”

“He?” Gee asked.

“The tree. The nut. I don’t know who talks to me anymore. Maybe I am the nut and I’ve fallen from the tree. I just had to come here and see. My little Renee is home.”

“Eat some dinner with us,” Wayne suggested. “We’re all trying to work things through. Please, relax and get warm and fed. We’ll work out what happened.

Nina looked curious as the old man was settled at the table but showed no sign of recognition. No one had said she should stop eating, so she continued to lift a fork full of the squash and sauce to her mouth. Jo placed a helping on Collin’s plate and he finally took note of it, his quaking hand eventually calming.

“Compulsions,” Collin said. “Heinz always maintained he felt nothing when he ate the nut. But his cousin died. You know. You’ve eaten the nut,” he said pointing at Gee and then Karen. They’d moved into the living room after dinner and Jo prepared hot chocolate for all of them. There was inadequate seating in the sparsely furnished room, so Wayne brought a dining chair to sit on.

“It’s like having hallucinations,” Karen said. “Sometimes I look at something familiar and it is suddenly something entirely different. It takes a while to straighten out which is real.”

“They’re both real,” Collin said. He looked toward Gee.

“I don’t know,” Gee said. “The first time I heard a voice in my head and carried on a long conversation. The second time ... at the Patriarch ... I felt that I’d just made a huge commitment to the woods. The only message I heard, if you will, was ‘I’m bringing my children home.’ We’d already found the children and then Nina showed up.”

“Thank you for your hospitality, Savage,” Collin said to Wayne. “Thank you for preparing the place for her to awaken.”

“Why don’t you spend the night, Mr. Meagher?” Jo suggested. “Wayne has a room fixed for his grandfather’s visits. In the morning—in the daylight—we can get you back home and not worry about you freezing.” Gee smiled at how familiar and at home Jo was in Wayne’s house. All evening, she’d acted like she lived there. Perhaps she did now.

“So kind of you. So kind,” Collin said. “You wouldn’t have a drop of whisky, would you?”

“Can you stand scotch instead of Irish?” Wayne chuckled.

“Nothing wrong with my neighbor’s whisky,” Collin said. “I’ll continue to have Violet as my heir,” he continued after Wayne handed him a glass and he took a sip. “She is prepared for it and she visits me every day. Fine young woman. And it would be unfair to saddle Renee with that after so long isolated from us. Violet will take care of her.”

“We’ll take care of her, Collin,” Karen said.

“Yes, you will. You swore to never stop looking for her. I thought it was just the raving of a distraught twelve-year-old girl, but you never stopped. You fulfilled your promise. Renee could not have a better home.”

“Can Renee come to live with us?” Nina asked. “We have a big house and I would be her friend.”

“Renee is a ... nickname Uncle Collin remembers calling you,” Karen explained. “It was a long time ago and he forgets you are Nina sometimes.”

“Oh, that’s okay. I forget lots of things,” Nina said. “But we do have lots of bedrooms, ya know.”

Talking to the Tree

After the busy weekend, Gee took Monday off and went shopping with Karen and Nina. It was an educational excursion and the three went into every store on Main Street between the river and Jitterz. In addition to clothing, antiques, jewelry, art, and cellphones, Karen took them into the offices of The Elmont Mirror where she was greeted warmly as a former colleague. Seeing her with her family, even Axel seemed less caustic and said they missed her.

After lunch at Jitterz, they continued south to the Rexall Pharmacy and across the river to Grimm’s Market and the Farm Fleet Store. It seemed like a much longer walk going home than it had been going south.

“Gee, I’d like you to take a walk up to the Gem Estates,” David said Tuesday morning. “The seven Families weren’t the only residents of this area who filed claims to land. And not all were interested in the Forest. The original owner of that plot of land didn’t get along with the Families at all. We’re talking ancient history here, back before the Civil War. When the City was platted, that piece of land was included and there was a lot of pressure to include his land in the Forest. Instead of succumbing to the pressure, the bastard went out and cut every tree on his land. Every single one. The trees were hauled out and used for firewood from what I’ve heard. Eventually, the land was acquired by a developer who wanted to build big country estates to rival the homes of the Families.”

“I’ve seen it from across the lake,” Gee said. “It didn’t register that it was even a part of the City.”

“Well, the development was a disaster. They’re big, cheaply-built houses, that are in less than great repair now,” David said. “But as part of the City, there’s quite a bit of public land that was never developed. The developer defaulted on his loans and the City bought out about half the area—all undeveloped. Now that we’ve started talking about transplanting trees and are acquiring the farms next to the Wild Woods, we’re thinking about planting on that undeveloped land. Of course, none of the land along the lake is available or along the creek that borders the south edge. But that leaves about fifty acres up there that we could plant on. There are survey stakes that should be sticking up from the ground high enough to be above the snow.”

“What do you want me to do?” Gee asked. David sighed.

“I try not to get mystical about the Forest,” he said at last. “But the trees grow best where they want to be. Just go out and look it over and tell me if you get any strong feelings one way or the other. We’ve decided you represent the Forest. Not its management, but the trees themselves. Tell me what you think and whether some of the transplanted trees from the Wild Woods would like to make that their home.”

Gee thought it was a strange request, but he grabbed his walking stick and set off to explore.

The development was depressing. The surveyed land was kept mowed in the summer so it wasn’t overgrown like the Wild Woods. It stretched out in front of Gee as a smooth white sheet of snow. The dense wood of the Rose Hickory staff in his hand was comforting and, despite the cold, Gee stripped off his glove so he could feel the wood as he walked. Cut from the wedding tree, the staff had been given to him for his part in the ceremony—falling out of the tree. But it gave him a link to the Forest that he carried with him always. He could feel energy flowing from around him into the staff.

It seemed that even the staff was depressed when he walked across the bare field.

He was impatient to get back into the Forest where the air seemed to change his outlook on life. The Forest was alive and lovingly cared for.

At the south edge of the Forest, he crossed into the Wild Woods and the vibrations from his staff changed again. They were untamed and even a little dangerous. Gee walked all the way to the south edge of the Wild Woods where he could see the offices and piles of sand and gravel at SSG.

He decided to visit the cabins on his return to the foresters’ office. The day had warmed considerably and he was confident no one would be at the cabins. He would just check the supplies he and David had left there a week ago.

The first cabin he came to seemed untouched. He saw no tracks nearby and checked the gauge on the propane tank to verify that it was full. This had been the cabin Darrell had first discovered was out of fuel. There was no sign anyone had been back to it. He continued working his way north through the woods until he reached cabin four, the one they had labeled the lab. Here the situation was different. The propane cylinder registered at half-full. Inside, foodstuffs were missing as was a tarp and poncho. There was no guarantee this was used by children. Any homeless refugee might have made it to the cabin along the new paths that had been cut. Yet Gee could feel the presence of children who had been held there against their will. Over the years there may have been hundreds. And they had rescued only four. He needed to find the others. As many as possible.

Gee looked out along the path that led toward the Patriarch and started walking. In the clearing beneath The Tree, Gee found a hollow of a root and sat down. Looking up, he smiled at the thought of Nina sitting on the lower branch, swinging her feet as she talked to Karen about the upcoming wedding.

Secure in his niche of the tree, Gee lay his staff across his lap and thrust his ungloved hand in his pocket to warm it up. After a few minutes, he took it out again and looked at the oblong white stone he held. It was so much a part of him and he held it so often that he seldom thought of it. He looked at the pattern etched in the stone. A single vertical line, crossed by five lines, not quite perpendicular to the vertical. Or perhaps it was the other way around and was a horizontal line crossed by five vertical lines.

He held the stone against his staff and positioned it in various ways. He wanted to sketch it there but all he had was his pocket knife. With the point of the sharpest blade, he slowly etched the design into the wood of the walking stick. Looking at last at his work, he nodded his head and put away the stone and the knife.

He leaned back against the tree with the staff still across his lap and went to sleep.

An hour later, he woke from a peaceful if chilly nap. He needed to come out here more often, he thought. He needed to just walk in the woods and talk to the trees. He needed to be here when The Tree called his children home.

Tension on the Council

“So, you believe she’s your niece’s daughter?” Jan asked Collin. Eight people sat around the table now. Violet Lanahan, a bit confused over what she was seeing, sat behind her Uncle Collin. Family Roth, Karen Weisman. Family Poltanys, Jan Poltanys. Family Nussbaum, Heinz Nussbaum. Family Cavanaugh, Loren Cavanaugh. Family Lazorack, David Lazorack. Family Savage, Pàl Savage. Family Meagher, Collin Meagher. And Gee Evars of the Wild Woods. It was the first time all the Family heads had been together at the table in many years.

“She is,” Collin said. “As much my niece as Violet is.”

“And your heir?”

“My choice stands. Violet is my heir.”

“And you don’t want any more proof than her response to a house number? We required more than that of Celia and Jo Ransom.”

“The DNA test results should arrive in the next day or two,” Karen said. “They should show the connection between Nina and Violet.”

“Have you ever heard from your niece, Collin? I mean Renee’s mother, Dora Lisle?” Loren asked.

“She went downhill faster than I did when Dirk committed suicide. Always drunk and finally just wandered off. She might still be living or she might be dead,” Collin stated flatly.

“We could request an exhumation of Dirk’s body and get a DNA match from that. It would be the closest,” Heinz said.

“Why do you care?” Collin exploded at the gathered Family heads. “Fifteen years ago, when there was a fresh trail, none of you would help me find her. None of you would use your resources to track her down. You know who took her! You’ve always known. I was the one who stood up and resisted SSG’s move to clear-cut the Wild Woods. I was the one who organized the proxy battle. And I was the one they came back at to get revenge. They took my little Renee and you did nothing!”

“We were under sàmhach,” Heinz said. “You know we were banned from investigating independently.”

“And who imposed sàmhach?” Collin demanded. “You let a misused notion of Family honor prevent us from taking action when we could. Delayed just long enough to lose all trace of her. Who declared sàmhach?”

“Ross Lerner,” Jan replied. “The old police chief. Dad was upset about it. He was already beginning to lose his bearings. He raved about the secrets of the quarry all the time.”

“He told me about that a few days ago,” Gee said. “I don’t know that we’ll ever find out what those secrets were.”

“You talked to August? He hasn’t said a word in five years,” Jan said.

“He called me George. Said we couldn’t go back to the quarry again. Asked me not to eat the nut.”

“George was his cousin. Dad wasn’t going to challenge him for Family leadership. He wanted to be a doctor. George insisted that the only way he’d truly be head of the Family was to eat the nut. He did and died,” Jan said. “Some of the Family accused Dad of goading him on but grandfather made him his heir anyway.”

“It didn’t move him enough to help in the investigation,” Collin said, determined not to let the conversation stray. “None of you. None of your Families would help. Now Renee is back.”

“And nothing else matters,” Karen said vehemently. “Nothing changes from the way it was a few days ago. Nina is Gee’s and my ward. She calls us Mommy and Daddy and I will protect her like my own flesh and blood. It means nothing more to you than to a brood of old hens. Let’s get on with what the meeting is about.” The older men at the table scowled at her but none said anything.

“Well, then,” Loren finally broke the silence. “I move we approve the expansion of the Forest through acquiring the two suggested farms, and others if we can, and transplanting trees from the Wild Woods.”

“Is there any further discussion needed?” David asked. “Gee and Collin, you weren’t here for the previous discussion. Anything to add?”

“I yield the floor to my esteemed colleague, the City Champion,” Collin intoned, reverting to the slightly crazy persona he usually appeared as. Gee raised an eyebrow.

“I spend a lot of time in the Wild Woods. I know it’s too dense but I’m committed to saving every sapling,” Gee said. “Those that can be transplanted with a reasonable expectation of survival should be. If the larger ones near the Patriarch can’t be moved safely, they should be left where they are. They’ve stood in the shadow of the Patriarch for this long and have grown straight and true. They are his children and he has called them home.”

“It’s not good for productivity to have too many of them too close together, Gee,” David said. He’d heard the argument before, so Gee assumed he wanted the other Family heads to hear as well. “You might need to consent to thinning some of them.”

“I’m not concerned about productivity,” Gee responded. “The Wild Woods should stay wild.”

“It’s a danger to have it like it is, Gee,” Loren said. “A wildfire could destroy more than the Wild Woods itself.”

“I understand the concern, Loren. I need to do some maintenance that we’ve already started. Clearing the fencerow has been an important part of the process. Mapping the trees should continue, as well as cutting more trails. Certain invasive species should be removed and controlled, especially the firethorn. But the Wild Woods has a different ecosystem than the Forest. There’s wildlife, for example. Clearing the dogwood, holly, hawthorn, and ferns would upset the natural order of it. It could even have a harmful effect on the water table. It isn’t another nut orchard. It’s wild.”

There were sighs around the table as the heads realized their commitment to the Wild Woods was in Gee’s hands. He was passionate, not only for the trees themselves, but for finding any additional lost children. Since Thanksgiving, nearly all the work in the Wild Woods had been done by Gee and his high school volunteers.

“Agreed,” Pàl said.

“Agreed,” Karen joined. At last all seven Family heads had agreed to Gee’s conditions.

“I’m too old and feeble-minded to sit at this table,” Collin said. “Newspapers are better company. I’m assigning Violet as my permanent proxy. She’ll tell me anything I need to know.”

“There’s precedent for that,” Karen said. “Ben assigned the same role to Leah until he made me his heir.”

“I’d like Jessie involved,” Loren said. “My sons are worthless regarding the Family. Clark’s a competent business manager but he only sees the business. He can’t see the Forest for the trees, as they say. And Troy ... He’s gone. I don’t expect him to ever be back.”

“I won’t push Jonathan into the role,” David said. “But I’ll let him take as much as he wants. If Jessie gets more involved, he will as well.”

“Wayne won’t return to teaching next year,” Pàl said. “He’s agreed to start an orderly transition into the company. I’m sad his heart isn’t in it. I’ll stay active as long as possible.”

“Fine boy,” Collin said. “Gave me a nice bed to sleep in one night. Fine boy.”

“I don’t think the council is ready for Cameron,” Heinz said. “Or that he’s ready for the council. We’ll work together for a while. As long as my health holds.”

“That’s how I’m handling it with Zach,” Jan said. “He’s got a good head and is handling some of our business. He just needs more experience.”

“And Gee is Gee,” Karen laughed at her fiancé. “And on March sixteenth, we’ll go to work trying to make sure there are suitable heirs for the Roths and the Forest.”

“Are you announcing something to us, Karen?” Pàl asked.

“Yes. I hope you will all join us at the Patriarch to witness our wedding vows on Saturday the sixteenth. You are at the top of our guest list.”

“We’ll work on making sure the path is easy to follow, with your permission, Gee,” David affirmed. “I think the Patriarch will become a place of pilgrimage when people learn about it this summer.”

Cutting Losses

Things were easier when the monk was around. He could tell the recluse to do something and it would get done. If he had a dependable lieutenant now, Deacon might have stayed and milked the business for everything he could get out of it. SSG had been profitable enough to give him a steady flow of income but strategically, it had been a good cover for his other interests.