The God of the Woods

by Liz Moore

Nine months later—and one month early—Peter IV was born. Bear, he was called, because his Christian name was in so much use among the Van Laars already, and because he was plump, and because of the down on his head that reminded everyone who touched it of the pelt of some baby animal.

For four generations in a row, there had been only one boy. Only one Peter Van Laar. Sometimes Alice had the feeling that her prompt production of a boy—and such a fine one, at that—was the only thing she had ever done that pleased her husband.

Generally, when Peter gave her any sort of advice, she took it. And, she discovered, he had thoughts about most facets of her appearance and personality.

fine. It was George Barlow, in the end, who changed things.

It was then that a memory sprang forcefully to the front of his mind: something the boy had said once about his grandfather, in passing, that Carl had brushed aside.

But this moment—when all the games were over and everyone did what they wanted, was always Alice’s favorite of the day. It was the only time when she felt herself to be out from under the weight of Peter’s judgment.

“The interesting thing about George,” she said, “was that he woke up to this fact long ago—the idea that one is free to do what one wishes in life, expectations be damned—and yet he never let this rupture his friendship with his old group. The people in there, I mean.” She tilted her head in the direction of the main room. “Since he died,” she said, “I’ve been trying to be more like him in that one regard: to be open to all kinds. Even them.”

The quest, I like to call it. When one’s parents or grandparents have already quested and conquered, what is there for subsequent generations to do?” She paused here, gazing off into some distance, thinking. “This,” she said, “is the expectation I most want to defy.”

Alice almost laughed. The idea of insisting on anything, when it came to Peter, was unimaginable to her. She wasn’t—frightened of him, exactly, though there had been one or two incidents that caused alarm. It was more that she had come to see herself nearly exclusively through his eyes, and therefore being in his good graces was the easiest way to achieve a sense of well-being.

“I know she’s your sister, Alice,” he said. “And I’m sorry to say this. But I’d stay away from Delphine.

She’s always seemed manipulative to me.”

requests a BOLO: all officers in the region will be informed, over their radios, that they should be on the lookout for a blue Trans Am. This is too important to wait for Denny Hayes’s return. If she’s made a wrong assessment, she’ll deal with the consequences later.

he begins lifting each object out in turn, using two gloved fingers to do so. Underwear, shorts, a T-shirt. Small, white, blue. It’s a uniform. Covered, by the looks of it, in blood. Judy looks at McLellan. His head is still lowered. She looks at Denny Hayes, who’s saying something Judy can’t hear. Shit. Shit.

“They’re bad people,” says Mrs. Clute. “How so?” “They let the wrong man take the blame when their son disappeared,” she said. “They let his name be ruined.”

“Stoddard,” says Mrs. Clute. “Same as mine.” Judy’s mind works. It’s a name she knows from the bankers box she went through earlier this morning. “Carl Stoddard was your—” “Father.”

And ask yourself—would you stop searching as early as they did?” Judy looks down, embarrassed suddenly by the depth of emotion in Mrs. Clute’s gaze. “Would you ever?” she says, once more. Both are silent for a pause.

no one in that family likes that little girl. Barbara. Neglect, is what I’d call it.

Barbara paused. “I do bad things sometimes,” she said. “I have that problem. I think—what would be the worst thing I could do in this moment? And then I do it. Almost like I can’t stop myself.”

“But also,” said Barbara, “if he hadn’t disappeared.” She did not finish the sentence. “Then what?” said Tracy. “Then I wouldn’t have been born,” said Barbara. “That would have been better, I think.” They were quiet for a long time.

for the whole summer. Making it probable that the boyfriend Barbara Van Laar was going to see in the observer’s cabin each night was, indeed, McLellan.

“Barbara,” Tracy whispered. “What did you bring back in that bag?” There came a little pause. And then: “What bag?” whispered Barbara, in the dark.

“Mr. Alcott says that the majority of people in Shattuck—the ones who don’t think Sluiter did it, anyway—think that Bear’s grandfather is to blame.”

“It kept happening,” says Christopher. “Even after we got back. I saw Barbara going to T.J.’s cabin every night.”

eyes—“if I had seen the camp director in advance, I might have had second thoughts.” Judy keeps her face very still. “Especially if I had a daughter. Do you understand what I mean?”

Inside Peter’s bed was her own sister. Delphine. Someone she believed Peter reviled. A woman he considered intelligent—which was, according to Peter’s stated system of beliefs, a waste. She’d been wrong about all of it. • • •

the first is that Sluiter is in custody, is uninjured, and is in good health. The second is that he seems willing to talk.

only employee who should, in theory, still be on the grounds is T.J. Hewitt. But when Judy returns to Staff Quarters, to the place she last saw T.J., she finds the door to the room she was in not only closed, but locked with a hasp and padlock. Newly installed, by the looks of the wood shavings on the floor.

The psychologist has told her to show no sign of weakness; this, he says, is what Sluiter gets off on. With a woman, his goal will be to intimidate.

Suddenly, the woman leans forward in her chair. “I know what they’re trying to do to you,” she says.

“And you’ve spent the years since Bear Van Laar’s disappearance searching in the nearby woods?” She nods. “Since my husband’s death, while he was in the custody of the police,” she says. “To be precise. But yes.” Louise waits. Afraid to ask. “Scary Mary,” says Maryanne Stoddard. “You can say it. I’ve heard they call me that.”

On the beach behind Self-Reliance. He was with a girl he called Annabel,” says Lee.

She’ll take what she wants from him, a moment of pleasure in the middle of all this dark, a washing-away of John Paul and the McLellans and the Van Laars and the grand house she was never going to be invited into, ever, no matter what she did. Tomorrow, Lee Towson will leave for Colorado. She won’t follow.

She closes her eyes. Her mind relaxes, bringing her, unexpectedly, back to the Dunwitty Institute. To her sister Delphine, her only visitor the entire time she was there. I’m sorry, she’d said. And then she said more: that she’d been in free fall since George died. That it had not been the first time, with her and Peter; that they’d been intimate, too, when they were young. All the way back when she first introduced Alice to Peter, for her coming-out party.

know where Bear Van Laar is, says Sluiter, on the tape. But I didn’t kill him.

The skeleton was definitively Bear Van Laar’s.

On Lake Joan’s opposite shore—deemed impassable by most due to its steepness and rockiness, by the density of its trees—was a series of natural caverns. The Sluiters had discovered them the first time the land had been logged, and the knowledge had been passed down through the generations; it was a place that Sluiter’s grandfather still took him to, a marvel one had to see to believe.

According to Sluiter, during his time on the run from the authorities in 1961, he sought refuge in these caverns for the length of that summer, when the homes he relied on in winter were occupied by their owners.

Eventually, a man came into view. He was carrying something that Sluiter couldn’t see, at first. Eventually, it became clear: it was a child. A boy. Lifeless in the man’s arms.

“Tall, brown hair, middle-aged.”

looked like a local, as opposed to someone in the family.”

“I did always have the strange sense that they didn’t want to find him. Yes.”

The person actually overseeing the search.” Goldman looks down at the floor, thinking. Then he looks up. “I think it was the former camp director, actually,” he says. “The father of the current one. Vic Hewitt was his name.”

looking at the photo.

Only two people stand off to one side, dressed differently: T.J., a young teenager; and her father Vic. Middle-aged. Bearded. Wearing a fishing hat with a floppy brim, and a plaid shirt rolled at the elbows, and corduroys patched at the knee.

“A local,”

“Ask him if he recognizes anyone in this photograph as the man who buried Bear Van Laar.”

A river makes its way from the upper left-hand corner of the wall to the lower right-hand corner.

BVL + JPM, they spell.

And the rumor in the town was that Peter II never liked the Hewitt boys. His father favored them. Took them on daily walks. Gave them the run of the place. He was kind to Charlie Hewitt—always spoke well of him. But it was Vic he really loved. Treated him like another son. Adopted him, basically, though that was never made official.

“Camp Emerson was Vic’s idea,”