A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw

Author:Shea Ernshaw
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2021-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

BEE

I sleep outside, among earthworms that make shallow tunnels through the loam beneath me, and under a swarm of dying stars so vast and abstract that sometimes I feel an ache in my solar plexus when I peer at them for too long.

Blades of grass press against the nape of my neck, braiding into my hair, knots that twist and bind. I bury my fingers down into the dirt and press myself flat against the earth. I want to remain here, in the dark, and let the ground absorb the life growing inside me.

I want to disappear.

But instead, I lie awake and listen for the cracking of trees, disease spilling out, infecting the air. The hours pass and the scent of smoke fills my nostrils, remnants of the smoldering sage.

We are insipid, ignorant, foolish in our attempts to protect the community.

I rise up from the ground and my legs carry me through the meadow to the creek, to the edge of the boundary. With bare feet, I cross the creek at a place where the banks widen and the cold mountain water is shallow, but it still numbs my toes, and I move quickly, stumbling over the smooth stones I can’t see. At the other side, I pause on the muddy bank, not wanting to make a sound.

A foot ahead of me are the boundary trees.

I think of Theo, who crossed down the road and returned unharmed, without sickness inside him.

I step forward, reaching out a hand for the nearest tree. I don’t know the boundary as well as other parts of Pastoral. I rarely come this close to the edge—I do not know these trees, their spacing, their broadness, the sound of their leaves against the midnight air.

My fingertips find a smooth trunk, soft like the surface of young skin. It’s an aspen tree, narrow around but tall, its tiny leaves chattering high above me.

I move to the right, touching the next tree, and then the next, running my hand high over my head and then down again, feeling the bark. I’m searching for something.

Something.

On the fifth tree, I find it.

A laceration in the wood.

The soft bark has been peeled away, cleaved down its center. I hurry to the next tree in the line, and each has been split open, flesh bared to the night air, sap bleeding to the surface. It’s sticky and sweet on my fingertips, collecting beneath my nails—as if the trees were crying, bemoaning their wounds.

This is the sickness. This is what we fear.

I drop my hand from the tree and take a step back.

My lungs are suddenly too tight, and my feet stumble back into the creek, slipping over the stones beneath the water, scraping my ankle bone across a rock and feeling the warmth of blood rising to the surface. I scramble up the far bank, away from the border, away from the rot. My hands fan out ahead of me, searching for something familiar. I find a tree: a broad elm, branches sagging low near the edge of the meadow.

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