The God of the Woods

by Liz Moore

Her father once told her casually that she was built like a plum on toothpicks, and the phrase was at once so cruel and so poetic that it clicked into place around her like a harness.

Her voice, it seemed, had been continuously decrescendoing since birth, so that by age twelve, she could scarcely be heard.

Tracy loved them both immediately. She had the weird desire to miniaturize them, to take them out and play with them like dolls.

There was a particular brand of humor employed by twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls, especially when they weren’t in the presence of boys: it was at once disgusting and innocent, bawdy and naive. When it wasn’t being used for ill—when no one was its target—this type of humor delighted Louise. From the wall, she watched them quietly, fondly, recalling what it was like to be in this moment of life that was like a breath before speech, a last sweet pause before some great unveiling.

Bear. Bear. And the name itself became a chant or incantation, assumed all of its many meanings at once. Abide. Endure. Sustain. Accept. Convey. Bring forth. Give birth to.

She often had trouble discerning what sort of knowledge was common, and what facts were considered obscure.

was funny, she thought, how many relationships one could have with the same man, over the course of a lifetime together. • • •