A LIGHT IN THE FOREST

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER FIVE

EVEWhen the door closed behind Heff and Vega, it took the cryingof the baby with it, and the store felt preternaturally quiet to Eve.She tried to keep her movements natural, but the air was chargedin a familiar way. The minute the tough-looking, tattooed blondehad walked into her store, something that had been tightly boundinside Eve unspooled, and she was dragged back to the night shedied and the experience that came to shape and define the rest ofher life.Most people thought having a near-death experience tookaway the fear of dying. But it was dying that had finally takenaway Eve’s fear of living.She’d met others like her in the years since it happened, a littleclub of people with NDEs. It bonded them, but it also set themapart, the experience changing something profound in their DNAand instilling in many of them a peace they struggled to share oradequately describe. Some people divorced; some quit their jobs;and some, like Eve herself, finally lived the way they were meantto since birth, even if it destroyed every relationship they’d everhad.And then there were the few who were marked in not-so-subtleways. Eve had a sense about things now, but it was frustratinglyout of her control. Nothing like the mediums on television showsor the fortune-tellers who read cards. Things just came to her,whether she wanted them to or not, and once she understood themessage or vision or whatever it was, it left her no choice but tosay something. Like Carl. She knew Carl was going to have aheart attack. On the face of it, that wasn’t shocking. With Carl’ssubstantial weight, his red-veined nose, and his love of all meatred or purple, anyone could guess he’d be on a short list. But Eveknew down to the day, the hour, even the second. Not long aftershe’d moved back to Crystal, she was working on the far side ofher property, building a fence line. Carl had pulled up in his oldblue pickup truck; it groaned when he hefted his weight out.He’d stood for a moment, observing, and Eve had gone onworking. It had been decades since she’d last seen Carl, but hehadn’t changed.He cleared his throat and said at last, Heard a gal bought theold Snyder farm. His eyes took in the fence, his thumbs runningunder his yellow suspenders. You gettin’ animals?Eve had smiled and pulled the brim of her hat above herforehead so he could see her face. I inherited it, althoughtechnically, it still belongs to the Shawnee. When she had learnedabout the Native Americans as a kid, ten-year-old Eve had beenconfused and angry, and accused her parents of living on stolenland. Her father had told her it was God’s land. She’d asked whyGod had let something so awful happen. So her father hadgrounded her. Eve had always been too willing to question for histaste. She’d been a disappointment long before she was anabomination.Carl squinted at her and made a sound in his throat. Thatsounds like our E—Eve laughed. That’s because it’s me, Carl. And yes, sir, I’mplanning on getting some ducks, maybe a few alpacas—eventhinking about a couple of pigs to help with the garden. I’ve got bigplans for this land.Confusion had twisted his features, and his mouth opened andclosed. Eve felt bad for him but she was also guarded. It had beena gamble to come back, because either folks didn’t know what todo with her or she stirred an anger so ancient and deep it was likethrowing chum into a school of piranhas. Carl looked at a loss forwords, his eyebrows moving up and down—not angry or affrontedby her, she didn’t think, just confused. He’d kicked at the dirt,mumbling, Uh, think I heard somethin’ ’bout all that from Betty.Eve had breathed in. It wasn’t new; in fact, it was old andtiresome for people to be uncomfortable around her. But she stillwanted to believe that there were some people who had thecapacity to accept change, even if it was painful and slow andthey said all the wrong things along the way. Like Carl.Eve had smiled, thinking about how Carl and Betty had foundher at the hospital after that terrible night. How they gave hermoney and an old car so she could leave Crystal forever. Carl wasworth the wait. Betty still making those buckeye cookies?Carl closed his mouth and seemed to relax the tiniest bit at themention of his wife. Every Saturday. He’d pulled again at hissuspenders, cleared his throat. When you was a young’un, you’dsneak a handful of ’em. Betty never said nothin’. She didn’t mind.Carl met her gaze, and it was firm, no wavering in whatever hewas going to say next. We didn’t think it was right, how your dadtreated you, so you know, even if it was because . . . He held hishands out as though that were explanation enough. Well, youknow.Eve nodded and patted his arm, and that’s when she’d felt it.His heart quiet, the blood stagnant, his body cold and lifeless. Thevision, this knowing, was an electric shock. But she didn’t tell Carl.She waited until Saturday and paid Betty a visit, ate one of herbuckeyes over coffee, and told her that Carl was going to die of aheart attack unless he made some changes. Being the kind ofsuperstitious that had her knocking on wood, sprinkling salt on herdoorstep, and dreaming about pigs, Betty had taken her at herword. I had a dream about a pig in mud last night. Guess Ishoulda seen that coming. Eve had missed the superstition thatran deep in this part of the country. In many ways, with her NDEand her knowings, she fit more in her mountain hometown thanshe ever had.It was easier to find a place where she belonged when she’dlived in cities like Cleveland, Chicago, and New York. But it hadbeen lonely too. Her NDE had been a gift, allowing her tounderstand people in a deeper way. But it didn’t change their hate.Didn’t make it any more bearable to be the object of it either. Plus,she’d missed the clean air and open spaces of her childhood. Themountains were in her blood, and as the years away from homepiled up, Eve felt like she straddled two places, never fullybelonging anywhere.Her move back hadn’t been simple, pockmarked by hate andignorance, so Eve had kept her head down and focused on whatshe wanted: a home, her farm, the store, and the few friends shedid have. She didn’t need much else.Now she stood in her shop with Carl after Vega had left,absorbing the aftershocks of another knowing. This one powerfuland confusing, spreading in her mind like a string ofconstellations.Carl leaned against the bar, and Eve poured him a cup ofcoffee. “That girl seems scared of her own shadow. Don’t she,Eve?”“That she does,” Eve agreed, and tried to focus on somethingelse because the knowing made her hands shake just the tiniestbit. She’d been expecting Vega, she realized, without knowing herface or her name. Her dreams had intensified in the last fewmonths, and Eve had felt something coming, like water pullingaway from shore, building in intensity, growing higher and higher,rushing toward land. When Vega walked through the door, it hadcrashed.Eve’s skin tingled. All she knew was what she felt: anuneasiness that had settled in her stomach, the expectation ofsomething unexpected but not surprising, and the realization thatwhoever she was, Vega would change everything Eve knew.